December 2004 Messenger Newsletter Content

December Services

December 5, 2004 “The Undivided Life” - Service Leader: the Rev. Dr. Terasa G. Coole - Terasa will be exploring the new work of one of her favorite authors who writes about the spiritual life: Parker Palmer in his book, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life. Palmer talks about how we are acculturated to hide parts of ourselves (our needs, our callings, our sense of good) from the world and even from ourselves. How can we feel whole in the world?

December 12, 2004 “Do We Have to be #1?” - Service Leader: the Rev. Dr. Terasa G. Cooley - There is so much pressure to be competitive in so many aspects of life. Terasa will look at ways in which we can resist this competitive drive and find a greater sense of acceptance of ourselves and others.

December 19, 2004 - “Amahl and the Night Visitors” - Special Music Sunday - Don’t miss this special musical presentation of the deeper spirit of the season featuring our Meeting House Choir and our own Todd Slater.

December 24, 2004 - Christmas Eve Services - 6pm Family Service - A special “tableau” of the Christmas story featuring many children from the Religious Education Program.

10pm Candlelight Service - A quiet, meditative reflection on what the message of the season might be for Unitarian Universalists.

December 26, 2004 - Question Box Service - Service Leader: the Rev. Dr. Terasa G. Cooley - Come share in this informal service where you’ll have an opportunity to ask Terasa your questions about Unitarian Universalist history or tradition, or any other question about how to live the spiritual life.

President’s Message:

Last month, I wrote about my decision to run a race (a half marathon) and some of the lessons that I learned about the process of growth and change. One comment about that column really stuck with me, “You told us how you ran the race, now tell us why.”

Why did I run the race? Let me share first personally and then in the larger context. My decision to run the race came from a deep place within myself. I knew that I had to do it. I knew that I could choose not to, but to do that would be a choice to remain stagnant and stuck in self-limiting beliefs about myself. I ran for many reasons: to get out of my own way, to find my power, to connect with others at a deeper level and to bring to my awareness a closer connection with my true self.

When one brings the same question to the growth of our society, I would say that our growth will push us to let go of self-limiting beliefs. It will push us to reach new hearts and new heights. It will push us to form new views about who we are and where we are going. There is a time and a place for self-examination and internal processes, and there is a time and a place for going beyond that, to reach out and let others in.

At our last board meeting I asked the members to share the reasons why they voted for growth. I have included a few of the responses below. You can read all of the responses in their entirety on our website at www.ushartford.com.

I envision our congregation as doing and being a number of things--supporting members through life stages with worship, education, fun; supporting those who encounter us briefly; reaching out to the broader community's issues and needs; being a strong voice for liberal religion; being a strong UU presence locally and within the denomination. Bill Young

What we have at USH is soooo amazing that it is selfish to keep it to ourselves! Working toward growth is a celebration of our delight in what we are and can be. Margaret Leicach

I voted to support growth because we, as UU's, have so much to offer our community by way of traditions, our values and principles, and as a place of openness and tolerance. It is a message we should share. Shai Cassell

No organization is so precise in its planning as to be able to remain at a fixed size. Three things happen as organizations attempting to grow compete in the world for members. They grow, they remain the same or they become smaller and disappear. Those that do not try to grow are no longer with us. David Newton

Through vigorous membership growth, we can reach out to the thousands of Greater Hartford residents who are thirsting for the moral and spiritual values and sense of community that U offers. Mike Winterfield

Growth is important to the USH in order to help us remain a vibrant, dynamic congregation. New members add to our energy, diversity in thought, and commitment to the community. As we grow, we improve. Kelly Lyman The Board Talks About Growth - If we wait until we are ready, we will never grow. The opposite is more likely to happen. Taking on growth is but the first step in taking our living tradition and spreading it in the world around us, unabashedly, unapologetically. If we are to bring meaning to the lives of our members, then it must be in how we support their efforts to better the world outside our walls. Charles Huntington

I hope this encourages each of you to think about why we should grow as a Society and what that means to you. There will be opportunities in the near future to share your thoughts, and I look forward to hearing them.

Wishing you peace in this holiday season, Rebecca Judd

Small Group Ministry: Where We Are Today and Where We’re Heading

Six groups are meeting regularly, with more than 60 members and friends participating. The most active night is Monday, with two full groups meeting then (one at the Meeting House and one at a nearby Hartford location).

New groups will start in February and March, and we are currently seeking hosts and facilitators.

If you want to be a host, contact Bruce Robbins. If you want to be trained as a facilitator, contact Reverend Cooley.

Reverend Cooley will be conducting a training session for experienced and new facilitators, focusing on diversity in SGM groups.

If you have never participated in a Small Group Ministry, we hope you will join us this spring. Bev Spence

Ten USH Members Work At Habitat for Humanity

Under the auspices of CUREJ (Congregations United for Racial Equality), ten members of the Society spent a fall day doing “finish work” on two new houses Habitat for Humanity is building on Risley Street in the Upper Albany section of Hartford.

Working on a wide variety of tasks were Ann Bailey, Gwen Childs, Kate Ciccarillo, Barbara Fraher, Kent Jamison, Joan Kemble, Betty Palmer, Terry Pelham, Carol Shoemaker and Wilda Wyse.

Work included painting, woodwork, walls, ceilings, laying tile and carpentry. Habitat is working on four new houses at this site. They have also purchased an old gold-plating factory on which land they plan to construct 44 units.

CUREJ is planning another Habitat workday in the spring. Be there.

Earl Costenoble Wins Award for Volunteer Work in Hartford Schools

Five volunteers were honored last month by the Southside Institutions Neighborhood Alliance (SINA) for their contributions to Hartford. USH member Earl Costenoble was among them. A retired math teacher who taught in Hartford’s public schools for 27 years, he has volunteered at Rawson, Noah Webster, Mark Twain and McDonough schools for the past six years.

Known as the “math guru,” Earl has developed a Connecticut Mastery Test-driven curriculum that has raised test scores in every school he has worked in. McDonough Principal Patricia Phelan, who presented the award during the ceremony at Trinity College, said Earl’s work “has made a tremendous difference” for her students. K.C.

Holiday Time is Food and Fun Time for Alliance and Friends

Annual Party. Members and friends of the USH Women’s Alliance will meet for their annual Christmas party on Wednesday, December 8 at the Meeting House at noon. A sign-up sheet for this pot-luck gathering is on the bulletin board outside Fellowship Hall. Party-goers are reminded to bring a gift for the infants and young children living at Interval House

Annual Bake Sale. Home-baked goodies, including the “famous” Alliance fruit cakes, will be offered to the buying public on Sunday, December 12 in Fellowship Hall. These make great items for eating and gifting.

Two-year calendars are now on sale! - Reasonable, attractive, convenient.

Sunday Offering Given to My Sister’s Place Shelter

Sunday offerings are, at times, specifically earmarked for deserving groups outside the Meeting House. My Sister’s Place, a local shelter for battered women and their children, was the recipient of a recent Sunday offering; a check was sent to them for $1,348.

Other groups which have benefited from USH members’ generosity in the past include the Children’s Food Pantry, ICEJ (Interfaith Coalition for Equity and Justice), CUREJ (Congregations United for Racial Equality and Justice), and South Park Inn (through the Men’s Luncheon Group).

Art in the Ambulatory Features USH Members

Black and white sketches, oil paintings and water colors by long-time USH member Roy Cook are currently on display on the ambulatory walls in the Meeting House.

They include sketches and water colors of Star Island, the summer Unitarian vacation spot 10 miles off the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Roy, a retired architect, vacationed there for many years. He also served many years as chair of the USH committee which chose and hung art in the USH.

Last month, drawings, sketches and paintings by long-time USH member Dorothy Fowler graced the Society’s ambulatory walls. Included were paintings on glass, life drawings, and still lifes in charcoal, water color and oil.

Dorothy majored in art in college, served as a photographer in the Army Air Force, and studied archeological drawing at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Musings . . . Reverend Arline C. Sutherland

There’s something both daunting and exciting about realizing that the holiday season has arrived. Every year I commit myself to making this season authentically meaningful – one that will touch our souls. And every year it seems more difficult. Seeing Christmas decorations go up the day after Halloween took me aback. “Wait a minute! What about Thanksgiving?!” I wanted to scream. The rampant commercialism of the season can edge us away from our instinctive knowledge that this is the season for reflection.

Many of us get frantically busy. We build expectations of the “perfect” dinner, finding gifts that will bring tears of amazing joy, and creating memories that our children will cherish all their lives. We all know that it doesn’t work, that there is no such thing as a perfect Christmas. But that knowledge has never stopped us from running ourselves ragged trying. Amazing the things we will do to avoid reflection.

Holidays can be painful reminders of loss. My maternal grandfather died at Thanksgiving. The loss so grieved my mother that the holiday became fraught with tension and painful dinners for the more than 25 years before she, too, died at Thanksgiving. After her death, my siblings and I never sat down to a Thanksgiving dinner again until the year our brother Mike died. That November we came from California and D.C. and Boston. We were awkward together. We didn’t know how to do this. We lit a candle for Mike that night and wept. The turkey was dry and the rolls burned, but some of those tears and hugs were of hope and new possibilities.

As you call to mind those who are not sitting at your table this year, I pray that your holidays are salty and sweet. Salty with freely flowing tears, sweet with warm memories and new ways to celebrate. And remember, you are not alone.

At the Meeting House, we have been planning and preparing, we have been making our lists and checking them twice. We have been planning services that will hopefully assist us all on our journey through this season in which we ignite so many lights--Hanukkah menorahs, Advent candles, and Yule fires. On the longest days, there cannot be too many lights.

We will start lighting the Advent candles on December 5. On the 12th we will light a menorah and say the blessings. On the 19th we will listen to Amahl and The NightVisitors. Our children acting out the Christmas Story and singing carols will be the early service on the 24th. The later candlelight service will be lessons and carols in a more reflective tone.

May these opportunities help us find the deeper meanings our souls yearn for as well as make our days merry and our spirits bright. Blessings, Arline

Annual Pledge Drive Meets and Exceeds Its Goal

Members and friends of the Unitarian Society of Hartford have pledged a total of $319,656 for the work of the Society. This includes $288,212 (119 pledges) from the original drive in the spring of 2004 and $31,444 from the extended October Challenge, to which 105 persons responded with new or increased pledges. Add to this the $30,000 matching funds promised by the Trust if the challenge was met, and the total available for the year is $349,656.

In a message to church members, Stewardship Committee member Susan Kinney writes, “Thank you for this offering to our community, for all that it means to us today and all that it can become in the future.”

Music for December

December 5. “I Wonder As I Wander” is a simple carol from the Appalachian area. Arranger John Rutter pairs a gentle soprano solo with unusual harmonies from the choir.

December 12. “O Magnum Mysterium” is an ancient poem celebrating the mystery of the holy birth amid lowly animals and shepherds. Among the most recent of the many composers inspired by this text is the popular American master, Morten Lauridsen, who calls his music “a quiet song of profound inner joy.”

December 19. “Amahl and the Night Visitors” returns! This marvelous short piece of musical theater, originally conceived for television, tells the story of an imaginative young shepherd boy and his mother. One magical night they welcome three kings into their home. Our own fifth grader Todd Slater plays Amahl, with the choir filling the other roles. This will be a not-to-be-missed musical moment at the Meeting House.

December 26. TBA. Mattie Banzhaf

Two Adult Programs

Listed for December

Two programs remain in the Faith Development fall term. Register during coffee hour on Sunday or call the office at 233-9897. Watch for the date for the winter-spring fair that will be held during coffee hour on a Sunday in January.

Friday Dinner and Movie, December 10, 5:30-10:30 pm. The featured moviewill be "Mystic River.” "Vibrant and coldly compelling, Mystic River succeeds in spinning a profoundly American tale on the level of grand tragedy." So come and enjoy a catered candlelight dinner, the movie and the optional discussion afterwards.

Articulating Our Faith, Sunday, December 12, 12-2 pm. This is one of the sessions in the Unitarian Universalist Core Curriculum. Have you ever been at a loss for words when asked to explain "What do Unitarian Universalists actually believe?" Come and join in the discussion of our faith, your faith, and how to articulate it. A light lunch will be provided. Childcare can be arranged by reservation. Nancy Reed

UU Singles Meet December 5

The regular monthly potluck dinner and meeting of the UU Singles will take place on Sunday December 5 at 5:30 pm at the Universalist Church on Fern Street in West Hartford. Plans for future activities will be discussed.

Religious Ed Corner

Jesus and The Kingdom of Equals is this year’s fifth grade class curriculum.

What better way to learn about Jesus and the radical nature of his teachings than to create a replica of a typical village in Jesus’ lifetime? The class has designed and built a village with a variety of materials including papier mache mountains, cornmeal for sand, and shells to border the sea. They made houses and buildings out of small milk containers, and will add people and animals.

There was a great deal of enthusiasm around this work in progress, and it has generated many questions and thoughts by the students. During my visit to the class, the students shared their thoughts about what a child their age might do. Their comments included, “Girls stayed home and helped with the younger children and with cooking and housework. Boys were expected to help with the animals and farming,” “Children would be expected to carry buckets to the well and to bring back water for the family.”

The village is a great way to learn about a culture different from our own. It will be on display at coffee hour during December for all to enjoy. If you have any questions, ask a fifth grader! Kat Becker-St.Germain

Need Pageant Participants

Mary, Joseph, a band of angels, shepherds, kings, costumers and set designers are needed for the December 24 Christmas Pageant. Please consider having your children take part and think about how you can help. Join us in the sanctuary following the December 5 service. Contact Reverend Sutherland. Asutherland@USHartford.com.

Holiday Happenings

The Festival of the Season gets the month of December off to a great start on Saturday December 4. This inclusive, intergenerational event is an expansion of the former annual Festival of Lights.

Events scheduled include crafts and activities, entertainment and a special intergenerational worship service—all free of charge.

There will be a charge for dinner ($20 for adults, $15 for those between 12 and 18 or over 65, and free for children under 12). These charges are intended to pay for a catered meal and offset the cost for families and elders on a fixed income. The logistical demands of asking participants to contribute to a pot luck dinner plus the labor involved led to the dinner charges. The Festival is NOT a fundraiser.

In addition, the Festival of the Season is sponsoring a Covenant to Care project to ensure that 50 Hartford area foster children get their gift wishes for the holidays. Those who wish to participate may sign up for the name of a child either at the Festival or at the December 5 Sunday service. Contact Nina Elgo with questions: ninaelgo@earthlink.net.

Fun Events Contribute to Financial Health of USH

Events sponsored by the USH Fun-Raisers have added $4942 to the Society coffers, and scores of members have had fun making it happen.

Hosts and participants in the fall’s Welcome Meals enjoyed each others’ company and added more than $3000 to the treasury. The successful Festival of Frights, the first intergenerational Halloween party, added another $1500+.

Beuhrens Tells Why We Must “Take Back the Bible”

More than 100 Unitarian Universalists from around the region came to the Meeting House in October to learn what the Reverend John Beuhrens, former President of the Unitarian Universalist Association, means when he says that we need to “Take Back the Bible.” Signaling the apparent timeliness of this topic, both those who had bought advanced tickets and those who paid at the door had to fight their way through heavy wind and rain on Friday evening to hear his lecture, buy his book (Understanding the Bible: An Introduction for Skeptics, Seekers, and Religious Liberals), and attend the book-signing and reception. About half of these returned early on a still-gray Saturday morning for the workshop. Among the attendees was Reverend Beuhrens’ wife who, it turns out, is doing an internship in Hartford in pastoral counseling.

Reverend Buehrens acknowledged in his lecture our collective reaction against the oppressive interpretations of the Bible that have done great harm throughout world history, and often our own personal histories, and that threaten our society today. He reminded us, however, that “our intellectual heritage is full of its words and phrases, ideas and formulas” and that “ignorance of it constitutes a hopeless handicap in the endeavor to understand any great Western literature.” Perhaps his strongest argument is that if we “throw the Bible out” because the fundamentalists have usurped and interpreted it to support their own agenda, “it ends up only in the hands and on the lips of others–often reactionary others–where it can and will be used against you.”

During Saturday’s workshop, Reverend Beuhrens introduced us to a bit of the history and evolution of the Bible to guide us in beginning our own interpretations. Starting with examples of Bible stories with which we are all familiar, he contrasted possible fundamentalist interpretations with those that derive from liberal religious perspectives, science and recent archeological findings. Participants in the workshop submitted requests for interpretations of Bible passages that they find particularly troubling, and Reverend Buehrens helped them see them in the larger historical context. Margaret Leicach

Center for Youth Names New Volunteer Coordinator

Jairo Acevedo has been named the new director of volunteers at the Center for Youth at Betances School in Hartford. The Society’s bond with this group goes back many years.

USH members and friends who wish to volunteer for the Readers’ Club at Betances should contact him at 549-8551, ext.2204 or by email at jacevedo@cchartford.org.

USH member John Stowe represents the Society and is our liaison with the Center for Youth.

Want to Tie a Knot?

Want to become involved in helping others and learn to knit or knot? Join the Comfort Shawl Ministry at its monthly meeting, starting at 9 am Sunday December 12 in the Meeting House library. The group knits purple shawls to comfort those who need comfort. Fringe on each end completes a shawl; if you can’t knit, you can help by tying fringe. It’s easy; come try it!

CONNECTIONS - Reverend Dr. Terasa G. Cooley

Presidential elections in this country are understandably important to us, as much as we value democracy. I’ve been struck this year with how divisive the elections have been to many of us, and how much the outcome seems to affect our spirits. I know that we do not have consensus within our congregation about politics, but I also cannot help but be aware of how many of us seem to be grieving the outcome of the elections.

Marye Gail Harrison sent me something by a woman named Cheryl Richardson that I personally found helpful, and I thought I would share an excerpt with you:

Many years ago I heard an interview with Marva Collins, the acclaimed African American teacher who developed a methodology that turned children labeled "unteachable" into remarkable students whose test scores often doubled or tripled under the guidance of her program. During the interview Marva was asked why she felt she had been so successful. Her reply was simple, "I hold my students to the greatness I see in them and when I do, they always rise."

This week, as I listen to the myriad of reactions about the election results, I find comfort in her words. It reminds me to hold tight to my belief in the inherent greatness of humanity, trusting that as we move through this difficult time, we too shall rise. As we deal with the aftermath of the elections, I'd like to offer a few suggestions for how to maintain greatness.

1. Allow yourself to grieve. If the election results didn't turn out the way you hoped, give yourself as much time as you need to grieve your loss. We are so quick to encourage people to "get over" their feelings in our emotionally phobic culture. This suggestion is an insult to caring, sensitive human beings. Allowing yourself time to feel your anger, sadness, frustration, or fear is an important part of the healing process.

2. Regardless of your political position, don't get pulled in to the derisive conversations that only serve to pit people against each other. Hold yourself to a higher standard when speaking with others.

3. Stay in the game. Don't become apathetic because you won, and don't walk away because you lost. Huge numbers of people took interest in this campaign -- that's great news. Make sure your voice continues to be heard. Keep the name, phone number, website, and email address of your political representatives near your computer so you can stay active and informed.

4. Don't try to convince others of your position. As a wise friend once

told me, "truth is different at different levels of consciousness." Each human being is doing the best he or she can based on their level of consciousness. With this universal truth in mind, it becomes clear that the greatest contribution we make to each other (and the world) is a commitment to raise our level of consciousness by investing in our own personal development. When we do, we never have to convince anyone of anything. Instead we inspire others to rise up simply by our own example.

And, I would add, we can offer an example to the world of how to bring diversity into dialogue with itself, with our own Unitarian Universalist principles – a very important purpose in such a polarized world.

May we remember the eternal gifts of the spirit in this season. Terasa

Current Calendar of Events

Let us know of any comments, errors and corrections - thanks (revised 2/21/05)