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February 2006
Services 12 “An Evolutionary Spirituality: The Next Step?” - Join us as Arline explores a way of looking to evolution to frame our contemporary spiritual challenges. 26 “Bring, O Past, Your Honor” - How does the history of the Unitarian Society of Hartford continue to shape us? How can we more adequately honor the past as well as find and loosen ties that bind as we move into the future? President’s Message: Up, Up and Away The first auction that I ever organized was a Bid for Bachelors for The March of Dimes. It was a great success and raised thousands of dollars. It also happened to be how I met my first husband. (No, I did not pay for him!) Since then, I’ve run or been a part of more auctions than I care to recount. It comes with the turf of being a professional fundraiser and frequent volunteer. The dollars raised have helped to fund programs that prevent child abuse, support education, provide legal assistance to those who can not pay and, yes, to further our Unitarian Universalist faith and USH community. Auctions work – they are fun, they raise money and they give people opportunities to get to know each other and experience goods and services that they might not otherwise have had. The last auction that we had at USH was held two years ago. The theme was “Kidding and Bidding.” It was lots of laughs and a great time for everyone. It also raised close to $12,000 to benefit our Society. I still remember my favorite UU joke about the little girl asking her mother why UUs have bird baths holding a candle in the center of their alters. Plans for this year’s auction are already underway. The theme is “Up, Up and Away,” and it is scheduled for Saturday evening June 3. It is being organized by the Board, and we need your help! Our goals are to have fun, to look forward to the future, to get to know each other better and to raise at least $12,000 while we’re at it. How can you help?
For more information contact me, any member of the Board or call Brian in the Meeting House office. Looking forward to seeing you there!! Rebecca Judd Musical Notes for the Month of February February 5. Ushering in Black History month, the Choir sings jazz pianist Dave Brubeck’s setting of a text by Langston Hughes, "Hold Fast to Dreams." February 12. A famous quote by Chief Seattle reminds us that we are a connected part of the whole. Ron Jeffers has created a magical choral setting of this text. Stay at Home and Join the Group at the Same Time Here’s an invitation we hope you can’t refuse: become an active knitter in the Society’s Comfort Shawl Ministry without ever having to attend a meeting. The 15 members of the three-year old group have knit and distributed 98 (!) shawls to USH members and friends in need of a soft, warm purple shawl. That’s a lot of shawls and a lot of comfort. Head knitter Vicki Carey, concerned about over-working her loyal crew, has issued an invitation to any other women or men in the Society who like to knit but do not like to come to meetings—become a stay-at-homemember of the group. Contact her at 726-1898 or vickidon@aol.com. Board BusinessA brief summary of the January Board meeting follows. Complete minutes can be read on the USH web (reference home page Administration, Temporary Documents), or in the USH office. The December 2005 letter asking for a “generous special holiday contribution” brought in $10,220, compared to the $6000 anticipated and budgeted. The Finance Sub Council has developed a list of ideas to reduce expenses and increase revenues. This includes trying to collect $13,000 in uncollected pledges. The Board discussed a motion by the Council on the Community Within on charges for revenue-generating events. Council Chair Margaret Leicach volunteered to work on a formula for calculating actual overhead costs. The Board approved the hours for two services (see page 6), approved the new organist’s contract (see music, this page) and made plans for its fund raising auction (see page 2). Time to Think SpringThe Women’s Alliance invites you to forget it’s mid-winter and February, get out your calendars and mark down Thursday May 18 to join the group for a tour of the Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington. Alliance members have already visited seven of the 13 museum sites in Connecticut featuring information on women of the past. Hill-Stead will mark the eighth site on the Heritage Trail. Karl Peters: Born Again Means an Open Heart “Developing an open heart is what it means to be born again,” USH member and guest speaker Karl Peters said during his Metaphors of Spiritual Transformation sermon at the January 8 Sunday service. Karl used four metaphors to describe how we can become more caring persons: being born again/anew; passages; opening the heart; and thin places. Being born again, he said, is an historic metaphor indicating a dramatic conversion, a change in ourselves as we move through the human life cycle. Passages are signals for transformation, marked by rituals and filled with new possibilities. They can be sacred, risky, scary. Examples from his own life included proposing to his wife and retiring. Each created an “Oh, my God, what have I done?” sensation. Opening the heart allows us to be alive to wonder in the present moment. Karl targeted our “evolved biological nature,” where self-protection causes us to isolate ourselves from others and the rest of the world, as being responsible for closed hearts. An open heart leads to gratitude, compassion and passion for justice in response to the world’s pain. Thin places allow us to come into contact with the sacred. Karl says many things at the Meeting House—the design, music, worship, flow of words from readings and reflections, art, people—allow his heart to open to a wider reality. “When our hearts open up, we are born again and are open more fully to one another in love.” A prolific teacher, researcher and writer, Karl has used his book “Dancing with the Sacred: Evolution, Ecology, and God” in adult programs at the Meeting House. Kayla Costenoble
Jack, be nimble; Jill, be quick. With rave notices coming in about the fall Small Group Ministry program, we are poised for a new beginning with new topics. Spring SGM still has some spaces in all groups, but several are close to the maximum registration. Call the Meeting House office to register, or stop by the adult program table in Fellowship Hall after Sunday services to fill out a registration form. Afternoons you can join a group in Glastonbury (Mondays) or Bloomfield (Wednesdays). Evenings you can join a group in Simsbury (Thursdays) or Bloomfield (Wednesdays) or Hartford (Mondays) at the Meeting House. Monday evenings there will be a special lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender-intersex group for those who prefer an affinity group. The first session will be at the Meeting House. Those with questions can speak with Lisa Gabrielle, the facilitator, or with Rosie Rindfleish at the USH office. We urge you to join us again if you are a former participant. We urge you to try us for the first time if you have never done so. Small Group Ministry consists of eight two-hour sessions, each focused on a special topic with targeted questions to spark discussion. We begin with contributed readings and a check-in period of personal sharing. Everyone—member, friend, newcomer—is welcome to attend. There is no charge. To Make You Smile a Little The cardiologist’s diet: Anonymous REflections You’re Never Too Young Our Welcome Team just got younger! And starting with the two services on March 5, it will look more like our entire congregation. For the first time, the permanent Welcome Team will include volunteers as young as 12, which will give the team an age range from under 15 to over 65. The two of us and Joy Barrnett, assistant Welcome Team leader, recently visited the middle school RE class and the Youth Group (as they made soup in the kitchen) to invite the students to join the permanent Welcome Team. We gave them sign-up sheets to think about, asked them to consult with their parents and return the signed sheets if they decide they’d like to become members of the team. Understandably, while all of them won’t want to join, we know some will and they will be a welcome addition. This month we begin the “pre-candidating” phase of our search. We will invite our short list of prospects for a weekend to visit our Meeting House, interview with us in person and preach a sermon at a local congregation’s “neutral pulpit.” It will be a very intense and exciting time for all involved. How did we get to this point? We had interest from 31 prospects. The list was almost evenly mixed between men and women, including three co-ministry couples. The prospects, ranging in age from 30 to 58, included gay and straight. A few were of non-European descent. Some chose ministry as a first calling, others came to it after careers in medicine, teaching and even the performance arts. Currently, some are serving as interim ministers; others are in settled ministries looking for new or greater challenges. At least two applicants were fresh out of divinity school. Their experiences and accomplishments are quite impressive. While we itch to tell you more, we simply can’t. As with any job search, there is a need for confidentiality. We aren’t just filling a position; we are choosing a partner to come into our midst and open themselves to us on a very personal level. In their documents, packets and interviews, these ministers shared many personal stories. In addition, some come from congregations that don’t know they are looking. Their willingness to make themselves vulnerable helps us to know them more deeply in a very short period of time. We must respect their candor with our confidentiality about who they are and what they are like. Remember that ours is a small denomination. Word travels fast. If you happen on us during one of our pre-candidating weekends, we ask for your silence regarding what you saw. We don’t want to jinx our chances for a great match! Carol Sexton Two Sunday Services Begin on March 5, 2006 Beginning on Sunday March 5, 2006, the Unitarian Society of Hartford will hold services at 9 am and 11 am. HOW IT WILL PROBABLY WORK We say “probably” as sub councils are still finalizing plans. Watch the Sunday Order of Service and the Thursday Enews for updates. Highlights of sub council plans follow. The following are the SAME AT BOTH SERVICES Order of Service These will be DIFFERENT AT 9 AND 11 AM SERVICES Organ or instrumental music (occasionally different) OTHER CHANGES Sunday meetings will generally occur between services from 10 to 11, during the first coffee hour, but not during either worship service. People going to either service could attend such meetings. However, it will be busy and noisy at USH. Choirs will be rehearsing with organ and piano. Administrator Brian Mullen will help groups schedule meeting places. Groups that can meet at other times may prefer to do so. The Middle School and Youth Group may begin at 10:30 with their own Worship Service and then split into their respective groups for class and/or activities. This plan seeks to maintain the cohesiveness of the respective groups, attempts to address some scheduling issues and allows for eventual transition of the Middle School group to the Youth Group. Before March 5 all parents will receive final details from the RE Sub Council about the Sunday school program. Beginning May 21 we will return briefly to one service. In the fall we will resume two services. The Two Services Task Force thanks all those who have responded to surveys, attended feedback sessions, called, emailed or just stopped to talk. We also thank the sub councils for their amazingly creative ideas and plans for making two services a success. Martha Page and Marye Gail Harrison, Ministerial Musings - Reverend Arline C. Sutherland The Worship Associates, six men and women, have been meeting to explore the meanings of worship and the art of leading it. In coming weeks you will see and hear them in services as they read selections and guide us in prayer. Last month they were asked to write a prayer. Do I need to tell you that there was a flurry of conversation? What is prayer? Why use such a word? Doesn’t it imply that there is a being or power to whom we are praying? Why can’t we just meditate? I gave the assignment to write a prayer for many reasons. I knew that it would push the participants to look at their beliefs. It’s also one of the more challenging aspects of worship to lead. It’s one thing to do whatever one means by prayer in private; it’s quite another to do it out loud in front of people you know and to ask them to join you. Much of our particular UU reaction to words used in the Jewish and Christian traditions comes from the fact that many of us “came out” of those traditions and rejected the concepts we were taught. As a child I knelt every night at my bedside to pray. This consisted of a few rote prayers rattled off, followed by the “God blesses” (I always tried to stretch that one out to postpone going to bed) and then concluded with, ”And dear God, please make me a good girl.” My mother would add a hearty “Amen!” As an adult I have rarely knelt at bedside to pray out loud. But once, when our marriage was going through a hard time, our marriage counselor asked Jeff and me to kneel at the foot of our bed every night and to pray out loud for each other. That was HARD. In time it did help us to shift our attitudes from anger and blame to wishing one another well. It is often said that prayer rarely if ever affects the one being prayed for, but it almost always changes the one who is praying. The biggest issue UUs raise about prayer is that the traditional forms posit a being, a deity to whom one is addressing prayer and who, one trusts, has the power to effect change. Few of our concepts of the Holy or God include those attributes. Nor does meaningful prayer need them. Within the Jewish and the Christian traditions are many forms of prayer, including meditation. Over the centuries Unitarians and Universalists have evolved many ways of prayer and spiritual practice. I choose to use the words “God” and “prayer” because they speak to my heart and because I find the practice of constantly seeking new definitions and meanings for them a spiritual and intellectual challenge. For me, the concept of God does not include a persona with a human face. I know that there are those who find that way of conceiving God deeply significant. I don’t, at least not now. I trust that all of our concepts of the Holy and of spiritual practice will continue to unfold and emerge. Mostly, I hope that we will feel free and safe about sharing these dearly-held concepts without feeling the need to defend our own or to try to persuade others to our point of view. Let us hold these precious things with great care. Please let us know what you think and feel and experience as the weeks pass and various forms of prayer are raised in a variety of voices. Blessings, Arline This is an insert included with the original mailing of the Meetinghouse Messenger Faith Development for Youth and Adults Winter and Spring 2006
Copies of the full catalog are available at the Meeting House, Register on Sunday or call the office for info. Come to the Fair February 5!! New ProgramsSoul Work, Mike Winterfield 4 Mondays, March 6 - 27, 7:00 - 8:30 PM The class will address attitudinal, cultural and other barriers to successful social justice work and anti-racism. Also a connection will be drawn between our underlying spirituality and our moral values. A Spring-Time Soulful Sundown, Andrew Millard Saturday, April 1, 7:00 – 9:00 PM This music and worship experience reaches out to people of all ages and walks of life. It combines live music, inspirational readings and audience participation to create a moving and transforming experience that connects people to each other and to the world. Featuring the music of “Blended Groove” and followed by time for fellowship over food and refreshments. Friday Night Supper and Game Night, for adults and families; Edith Savage Fridays, January 27, February 17, March 24, April 28, & May 19, 5:45 - 8:30 PM Meals will have varying themes: crock pot meals, favorite casseroles, pasta with different sauces, hearty soups, salads, and breads, etc. Board games, cards, charades, and other contributed games will follow meals. Returning ProgramsSmall Group Ministry, various days and locations. Beginning in February and March. Tai Chi, Advanced, Monika Forstner 8 Wednesdays, 6:30-8:00 PM, begins March 1. Great Decisions, Flo Grieb 8 Sundays, February 19, 26, 9:00–10:15 AM; March 5-April 9, 10:00–11:00 AMFriday Dinner and Movie, Nita Hansen 2nd Fridays, February 10-June 9, 5:30-10:30 PM First Sunday ProgramsCoffee with the Minister, every first Sunday, following the service.
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