50 Bloomfield Avenue, Hartford, CT 06105 Tel: (860) 233-9897 / FAX 233-1333 Email: firstunitarian@ushartford.com Reverend Barbara Jamestone, PhD

Home Page- Link Central Questions and Comments	USH-Enews For June 19, 2008 Jump to: Calendar; What's happening; A matter of opinion; External events; Further Down the Road; Did You Know? Text only Printer Friendly Format
	A Blue Sky Day, a day when the air is clear, the earth's surface receives all the light possible and the solar collectors of the green earth folks make heat and electricity while emitting little or no pollutants. Witch Hole Pond, Acadia National Park. The USH-Enews is a weekly email newsletter produced for members and friends of the Unitarian Society of Hartford. The USH web address is:  http://www.ushartford.com/ Check at the end of this USH-Enews for information on submissions, subscriptions and escape from the mailing list. And, to read the monthly Meetinghouse Messenger (newsletter) on the web or to find past issues of the weekly USH-Enews click here. Office hours: Rev. Jamestone: Phone: 860 233-9897; Email: RevBJ@USHartford.com - Rev. BJ office hours by appointment.
	Photo by Carol Cooper Worshipping Together Since 1830 Summer Services at 10 AM Sunday - 22nd Midrash, Meaning, and Mercy - How does one deal with evangelists while remaining humble? Is there a middle ground between scripture as literal truth and as historical artifact? How do we communicate about what we actually believe when it's so darn complicated? Poetry can help. Poet Miriam Axel-Lute explores various different ways to use poetry to examine religious questions and scripture, especially topics it may be difficult to discuss in standard conversation.   About the speaker: Miriam Axel-Lute (www.mjoy.org/poetry) is a freelance journalist, editor, and performance-oriented poet from Albany, NY. She loves giving people who didn't like poetry in high school a chance to experience it in a new light. Miriam's work has been published in various journals and anthologies, and she was a finalist in the 2000 Allen Ginsburg Awards. Miriam has given featured readings at venues from (UU) pulpits to bookstores to living rooms all over the Northeast, and has two chapbooks, Souls Like Mockingbirds and Packing to Stay. Music - Vocal music starts with poetry. The rhythms, the melodies, even the harmonies of an anthem originate from the way the poem resonates in the composer's mind. But then what does the composer do to transform the poem, combining two art forms into a deeper experience to be perceived, not on the page but aloud, in real time? REflections on Children's Programming What Else is Happening  & Announcements The June-August Meetinghouse Messenger is available. UU Singles group is going to the fireworks - We will start with a dinner at the Prospect Cafe. Then to Trinity College for a patriotic carillon concert, ending with the fireworks. We also avoid the downtown crowds there. Saturday July 5, starting at 6:00 PM. (Rain date July 6) RSVP to Larry Lunden, bigcheese636 (at) yahoo (dot) com, 232-2416, before July 2 to get in on the fun. All singles are invited. Teaching Connection at Noah Webster - Our Nonviolent Communication community at USH will be serving the Staff and Teachers at Noah Webster School in the coming year, by providing training and practice in "compassionate communication" skills.  We are creating the plan this summer and need to count resources.  If you have had the NVC Training and would like to be a part of this gift to the children, either by helping organize the program and training, or by participating with staff/teachers in occasional practice groups, please contact the church office!  Education and NVC go hand in hand in a life transforming way, for children, and for all of us who are learning NVC consciousness. Contact Gail Syring, Paul Quin, or Jan Bennett if you’d like to hear more. USH donations to the Food Pantry have been paltry.  More Caring Network - If you want happiness for an hour -- take a nap. If you want happiness for a day -- go fishing. If you want happiness for a month -- get married. If you want happiness for a year -- inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime -- help someone else. - by Chinese proverb - If you know of any member experiencing some difficulty, please contact Diana Heymann, Chair of the Caring Network(heydiana(at symbol)comcast.net) 860.461.0908 or call the office so we can provide some assistance. A wide range of community services is also available to those in need by calling InfoLine at 211. Please contact Diana if you are able to volunteer your services. Calling All Movie Fans! - Nominations for 2008-9 Dinner and Movie Series Why don’t they ever show any movies I like at the Dinner and Movie Series?   Here’s your chance: nominate titles you would like to see next year! Classic?  Recent?  Independent?  Foreign?  Documentaries?  Star vehicles?  What movies do you want to see and discuss?   Email titles to Nita (pickmovies(at symbol)ushartford.com) or contact Nita by phone before June 30. Be sure to include your name and email/address so you can participate in the summer voting.  Films in the series are the result of this voting! Further Down The Road (About 30 Days) Painters Needed - In August a team of painters, not necessarily the artistic type, will enhance the appearance of another classroom. More Alerting ALL Women-Folk at USH - Save the Date: October 24-26. Escape the pre-election frenzy by joining other USH women at a Women’s R & R Retreat Weekend (Friday evening through Sunday AM). Put this date on your calendar and plan to come for a weekend retreat of rest, relaxation, and marvelous food at Senexet House, a comfortable Victorian era conference center, located in the woods in Woodstock CT. Long a favorite retreat location for UUs, it is now handicapped accessible and therefore appropriate for our USH activities. Kit Northup, renown for her delicious cooking, will prepare our meals. Plans are just beginning, but activities will include time for walks in the woods, talk, our traditional book sharing, games, and just plain camaraderie and sisterhood. Sponsored by the Women’s Alliance, it will be listed in the USH Program brochure coming out at the end of the summer. But meantime, pencil in the date. Limit is 35, so register early, when the brochure comes out.  Two nights, with meals will be $160. ($12 less if you don’t come for Friday dinner); one night will be $85. It will be a wonderful opportunity to renew old friendships and make new ones. - Anne Bailey External Events and Educational Notes World Refugee Day will be at the Hartford Public Library, 500 Main St  www.hplct.org on Saturday, June 21 from noon until 4 PM. Hartford Sister Cities International, Hartford's Refugee Community and numerous other cultural organizations invite you and your family to commemorate World Refugee Day. Free events include exhibits, information, booths and dances from around the world.695-6334 or ask Brian Smith. - The Kembles A Matter of Opinion: (space for comment on USH issues from members and friends) - Editor retains the right to make minor changes – letters should be issue oriented   Did You Know? - the online community at Freecycle.org connects donors with recipients to reduce landfill waste and strengthen communities. To get on your local listserve go to Freecycle.org and share your unwanted items with others.	From the Editor: This Week’s Feature Articles The Covenant of Fatherhood Members discuss New Sunday Schedule Neighborhood Networks! The Covenant of Fatherhood - “Sharing of love is the only necessary condition for fatherhood,” said Rev. BJ during last Sunday’s Father’s Day service.  In her service and in her adaptation of a poem by Wendell Berry, Rev. BJ said that in looking back at our choices in life, we listen for and are true to the choices of the heart. We use the word “covenant” primarily in religious and marriage vows.  Rev. BJ defined the word as a “consensual bond beyond differences.”  Covenants allow us to trust, enjoy and benefit from the connections we make.  They offer a “playing field” that allows us to change and to invigorate our moral responsibilities. Fatherhood, she said, is our first exposure to and experience of a covenant, and can give us staying power in our relationships.  The bond of fatherhood can help us walk together in the face of change.  Rev. BJ listed words and phrases to describe the father connection (as different from one’s connection to the mother); they included social, learned, intention to engage, make us emotionally strong (rather than safe), instruct, send forth. In her “Time for All Ages,” RE Director Gail Syring retold the Noah’s ark story and defined the word covenant as the “biggest promise you can make.”  She stressed the importance of love by reminding her children and adult listeners that in the Great Covenant we say together each Sunday, the word love is used twice. In his testimonial, Worship Associate Paul Quin told of becoming a father at 27 and how his golden-haired daughter Erica “changed my life in many ways.”  His own father, Paul remembered, showed his love by his actions—such as driving Paul to concerts and plays—even though he, Paul, was not exactly the son his father wanted (Paul’s father loved baseball and politics).  Paul remembers his father as a “good and ethical man.” The chancel display was created by Kathryn Ferguson using symbols to “make a connection to people…and hope it was meaningful to some fathers.”   The stone sculpture represented the bond between parent and child; the lantern was to light the way; fish symbolized the sharing of nature; the two different size candles were human figures; and the words on the box were LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE. - Kayla Costenoble Members Discuss New Sunday Schedule - “Why are we doing this at all?” was perhaps the most important question during a small (nine persons) open meeting Saturday afternoon at the Meeting House to discuss the new Sunday hours and programming.  And Rev. BJ’s answer was equally important:  “So we can have two equal, viable and robust services.” Several attendees stressed the need for evaluating the new service hours (9:45 AM and 11:15 AM with all meetings only before the first or after the second service). Rev. BJ said we’ll know it’s working if visitors keep coming back and people feel relaxed and comfortable with what’s going on.  A more “formal” evaluation is also planned, probably next May, after the congregation has experienced the new hours. Asked to share their feelings about the upcoming changes and change in general, attendees said they were sympathetic, curious, apprehensive, empathetic, skeptical. Important aspects of the change have been worked out—a chancel and children’s choir schedule and an RE and youth programming schedule.  The youth group will be on a rotating Sunday schedule, to include discussion groups, soup making and off-site visits.  The Sunday school part of the RE program will take place during the earlier service, but some children’s activities will be offered during the second service. There are still some additional areas of concern.  They include “business meeting” scheduling, parking, the possibility of breakfast before services and/or lunch after on some business meeting Sundays.  Rev. BJ reminded the group that this is a “work in progress.”  In her email message inviting the congregation to Saturday’s meeting, she wrote, “Thanks to a great staff and leadership team, the 70-80 of you who helped make this happen, and especially thanks to those of you who have made great compromises.” - Kayla Costenoble A Word from Rev BJ - Neighborhood Networks! - We often take note that we are a regional church, which translates loosely that we "gather from the four winds hither" as the hymn says. Our entire church community has been broken down geographically into what we are calling 'neighborhood networks', and soon, you'll be receiving a copy of those groupings. This listing will help us as we continue to grow in Southern New England hospitality!   *Our pastoral care system will be calling on you by 'network' when someone in your region needs our caring attention, like a ride or a casserole delivered. *Our RE program will be finding ways to help your children become better acquainted with families who live near you. *Our membership sub-council will be calling on you in 'networks' to help with greeter/usher functions. *You might find someone to car pool with. *New members might be paired with mentor members in their neighborhood.   Some of you recall with fondness a program USH had years ago where members were grouped together intergenerationally in 'families' and we hope to provide some of those benefits again--in time you may decide to have potlucks or circle suppers or small group ministry by regions/networks, for example.   The sky is the limit!   I'll need your help....of course!  You'll discover some church program you'd  like to represent as  the 'go to' person  in your region. You'd gather phone numbers/emails, and serve as the connection person for various service, support, socialization, or spirituality foci at the Meeting House. Can't wait to tell you more about it! - BJ On the Calendar Thursday, June 19 7:00 pm  BTWWDA, Fellowship Hall Saturday, June 21 8:30 am  (organ) Rental, Sanctuary 5:00 pm  Tierra Mezista Concert, Sanctuary Sunday, June 22 9:00 am  Council on Social Justice, Library 10:00 am  WORSHIP SERVICE, SANCTUARY 11:00 pm  Coffee Hour, Fellowship Hall 3:00 pm  Rental, Chapel   Tuesday, June 24 8:00 pm  AA, Fellowship Hall Wednesday, June 25 6:00 pm  Dharma Gathering, Emerson 6:30 pm  Tai Chi, Fellowship Hall 7:00 pm  ICEJ Education Task Force, Library 7:30 pm  NVC practice group, Emerson     Friday, June 27 1:00 pm  Transitional Group, Library Sunday, June 29 10:00 am  WORSHIP SERVICE, SANCTUARY 11:00 am  Coffee Hour, Fellowship Hall 3:00 pm  Rental, Chapel Italicized entries are non-USH events. Please notify Brian Mullen of all additions or changes to the calendar. Follow this Link to all our scheduled events!
	Nuts and Bolts: The member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association covenant to affirm and promote: the inherent worth and dignity of every person; justice, equity, and compassion in human relations; acceptance of one another and encouragement of spiritual growth in our congregations; a free and responsible search for truth and meaning; the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process, within our congregations and in society at large; the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all; respect for the interdependent web of all existence, of which we are a part. Generally, USH-Enews will be posted on Thursday.  Send email related to the USH-Enews to dcnewton at ushartford.com  If you have announcements or articles you wish to be published, send them along  with the subject line USH-Enews by 4:30 PM Wednesday evening. Comments are always welcome. If you wish to have your name removed from the distribution list or have learned of the electronic publication and wish to have your email address added, just ask. © Unitarian Society of Hartford
	Let us know of any comments, errors and corrections - thanks (revised 06/18/08 6:30 PM)