Are rituals only seemingly senseless acts, or are they an important way to give our life more meaning? Or both? And what makes a ritual either this or that? Is there a difference between ritual and tradition? Sorry, but Rev. Gabi will not have a comprehensive, all-inclusive answer for those questions. However, she will try to explore what it is about rituals that make them either weird or very important. Come ready to participate.

The Reverend Dr. Gabriele Parks came to the United States from Germany in 1991, with her husband Roger and her then six-year-old twins. She felt the call to UU ministry and went to Lancaster Theological Seminary in 2001 where she received her Master of Divinity degree. Since then, she has served five congregations as an intentional interim minister; now called transition minister. In 2015, she went back to seminary where she graduated with the Doctor of Ministry in the field of Narrative Theology. She served her congregation in York, Pennsylvania, until her retirement in February of 2019.