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A Courageous Voice

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

The CLF seeks to be a courageous voice for justice, for growth, for community amongst people who would probably never meet with-out our web that connects lives around the world. In a time of growing division, simply bringing people together is a courageous act. Please support the CLF in this important work by sending a check in the enclosed envelope, or by giving online here.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211110105539/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/20_02/02.mp3

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A Heads-up for UU Leaders: The CLF Needs You

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

The beloved Senior Minister of the Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF), Rev. Meg Riley, has announced her retirement, effective August 2020. The CLF’s approaches to worship, pastoral care, providing spiritual resources and otherwise interacting with its congregation have been a blessing to members without easy access to a brick and mortar congregation.

An important component of the CLF mission is ministry to and with people on the margins–a deep and active commitment to anti-racism, anti-oppression, and multicultural community and learning.

In addition, a robust and rapidly growing prison ministry presents both a challenge and an extraordinary opportunity to the CLF. In a world of isolation, the CLF is a place where people can know that they are not alone.

Belonging is at the heart of CLF’s ministry. 

Technical innovations and societal changes require that the CLF adapt its ministries to meet the requirements of younger generations and emerging new communities of congregants. The CLF provides a uniquely open space for entrepreneurial ministerial endeavors. Rather than conduct a traditional search process for both a senior minister and a prison ministry director, the CLF Board of Trustees is taking an open-ended, creative approach towards determining the future leadership structure for Unitarian Universalism’s “Church without Walls.” We are asking you–UU leaders–for your ideas. The CLF will be circulating a detailed request for proposals in the very near future. Applications from both individuals and teams will be welcome. The board, with assistance from appropriate experts, will then evaluate each proposal in detail and select the one most likely to ensure that the CLF and its members continue to flourish in the decades to come.

Put your thinking caps on and watch this space! Please reach out to search(at)clfuu.org with any questions. 

Yours in faith,

The CLF Search Committee

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Crossing The Threshold

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

Perhaps you are familiar with the concept of The Hero’s Journey, made famous by Joseph Campbell. A Hero’s Journey is a story that is told in all mythologies and times and places, an archetype that reflects our own journey and draws humanity together. The Hero’s Journey story begins when the hero leaves the mundane world and ventures out of their comfort zone. On their way they are likely to be given supernatural aid in one form or another, given instruction from mentors, and as they travel they gather allies. But eventually it comes time to cross the threshold; it’s time for the biggest part of the journey to begin. This is when the hero leaves behind everything familiar and moves into a realm filled with mystery.

A great example of this happens early in Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring. Frodo has been given the ring, instruction from Gandalf, a magical sword and chain mail, and has set off with his closest friend, Samwise Gamgee. After they have traveled a while, there comes a point where Samwise stops, and he says, “This is it. If I take one more step, this will be the farthest away from home I’ve ever been.” There’s great trepidation within Sam. He hesitates, and marks the moment when he crosses the threshold into what is truly unknown. Sam understands that it’s the point of no return, and if he takes even one step further, he will be committed to the adventure, and there will be no avoiding what’s to come.

Frodo tells him, “Remember what Bilbo used to say, ‘It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step out onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.’” And Bilbo was right…anything can happen, and there’s no way out but through.

Gateways have power. When we pass through from one phase of life into another, it marks a time of great change, an unfolding into something new. We know what it means to come to a gateway, face the inevitable trials, and, finally, pass through…it happens in all sorts of ways. The most common gateways are the greatest rites of passage, which happen to all of us: birth and death. This is where we pass through from the unknown and then back into the unknown. This is where most philosophies and religions are able to really spread their wings and fly around in endless speculation. These are powerful gateways and they can invoke genuine awe in those who witness them, all religion and philosophy aside.

There are other gateways we go through of our own accord—those gateways we work and plan toward, like graduations, marriages and starting a family. These are thresholds we build ourselves that are of great importance, and will stick in the mind because the results are truly life-changing. One moment you’re single, then you arrive at a church, make your vows, get a ring, and BAM! You’re married! Yesterday you were a student, tomorrow, you’re officially a teacher, or a chemist, or an economist. One minute you’ve got a giant belly and you’re screaming in pain, the next, you’re a mother, holding your new baby, and crying with joy at finally seeing that face you’ve been wondering about. The gateway is crossed in a moment, but the work to get there was probably done over years.

Then there are the all the small transitions that take place over the course of a life; thousands of tiny, great moments that change us, bit by bit. Maybe it’s realizing we have a skill, encouraging words from a teacher, a terrific new job, a special day with a parent or child, making a wonderful new friend, or finally getting to kiss that person you’ve had a crush on. These might be small events, but they go far in shaping who we are, creating a patchwork of experiences.

But every year, each of us crosses two thresholds that can be the impetus for change. One is our birthday, the way we each mark the turning of our own years. Maybe we dread it, maybe we celebrate it, maybe we do a little bit of each. One way or another, if we’re lucky, another birthday comes around. The other threshold is the turning of a New Year. Both birthdays and New Years are times when we stand at the start of something new, an opportunity to turn a page, make a resolution to improve ourselves in large or small ways.

What is it about a new year, our own or everyone’s, which makes it so ripe for change? Maybe it’s because those times of turning tend to be points when we look behind and take stock of what we’ve done over the past year, and at the same time, look ahead at what’s to come, wonder at where the journey might take us. Sort of like we’re standing on a fulcrum, caught like Samwise Gamgee with one foot in the air, knowing that the next step we take will be the start of something new. One step in any direction will be a path that opens before us and anything can happen. I think we feel the power of that potential loud and clear when we stand at the threshold of a new year, and it makes it easier to make resolutions. It’s the challenges and trials to come that will test our resolve.

And we know that’s where the gateway leads, right? No matter which direction you put your foot down on, no matter what path you take, there will be challenges and rewards ahead. There are no avoiding the pitfalls, though, and the pitfalls are what test those resolutions we make. Old habits die especially hard and comfort zones are not easily broken out of. So, maybe the key to keeping a resolution is to find a way to renew it. Find a way to make each day the beginning of something. The old chestnut to “live every day like it’s your last,” I would think, would not help us keep resolutions like eating healthier or quitting smoking. It would be more like, “smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, hand me anther beer, and cut me a big slice of that cake, please!”

No, I think the power that gateways contain, the potential for growth, comes from appreciating that every day is a new beginning, a new chance to change. Perhaps if we breathe deeply and manage to stay upright as we get swept away with every awakening, we may just be able to keep to our resolutions. It’s so hard, isn’t it, though, to find a way to make every day count, the start of a new year that begins again every day? We are easily distracted and distractible people. But here’s a blessing: if we fail, we try again tomorrow. We are ever-renewed, and the journey begins over and over.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211110095758/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/20_01/01.mp3

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Threshold

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

Threshold is an interesting word. As a maintenance clerk I immediately thought of the thing at the bottom of a doorway. Being there requires a willingness to go beyond. And then there is the literary use, which one might find in a novel: “We stand at the threshold of a momentous occasion in a brave new world….” But how do we cross the threshold?

For me it has been by accident and trial and error—mostly error. I’ve reached my error threshold because the pain of being locked up begs for relief. Prison life definitely pushes the pain number up to about a seven or so. Prison is a crucible which brings about a state of desperation which leads to actively seeking the doorway to something better.

Oftentimes in here the doorways open into fundamental beliefs which are not inviting or healing for a liberal believer. I will forever be grateful to the Divine Universe for showing me the threshold belonging to Unitarian Universalism many years ago. The kind, welcoming people who have answered my knock from inside these walls have indeed allowed me to stand at the threshold of a momentous time in a loving community.

I’ve been back on a violation for four years, and much of the initial pain, sadness and loss have subsided. I feel excitement about the day in the future when I can step foot over the thing on the door that leads to the community that supports me while I am here. I definitely have the willingness to step over into the fellowship which supports a free and responsible search for meaning.

As I stand near the threshold, waiting for the parole answer in the near future, I want to close by saying thank you for being on the other side of the threshold.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211110095716/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/20_01/03.mp3

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Thanks and Praise

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

Thanks and Praise is is exactly what we have for all of our wonderful CLF members and supporters who contribute so that CLF can be there for religious liberals around the world. I hope you hear a chorus of thanks coming up from prisons and jails, from dorm rooms and rest homes, from houses and apartments and libraries or wherever people find us in print and/or online. Thank you! You’re the best! If you’d like to join in making all we do possible, we’d be ever so thankful for your contribution, either in the form of a check mailed in the enclosed envelope or a gift online at clfuu.org/give.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211110074814/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/19_11/04.mp3

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Earth’s Crammed With Heaven

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

And truly, I reiterate, . .
nothing’s small!
No lily-muffled hum of a
summer-bee,
But finds some coupling with the spinning stars;
No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere;
No chaffinch, but implies the      cherubim:
And, — glancing on my own thin, veined wrist, —
In such a little tremour of the blood
The whole strong clamour of a     vehement soul
Doth utter itself distinct.
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes…

Excerpted from “Aurora Leigh” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211110030719/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/19_08/02.mp3

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Turn Toward The Wondrous

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

What opens you to wonder?

We hope that Quest and the many other resources from the CLF help to turn toward the wondrous. If you value the wonder that the CLF brings to your life, and to many others around the world, it would be wonderful if you could support the CLF by sending a check in the enclosed envelope
or by giving online.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211110030616/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/19_08/04.mp3

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Do you hunger for meaning?

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

For connection? Are you looking for ways to feed your mind and heart and soul? The CLF is available 24/7 to address these hungers and nourish the spirits of all who come looking. Please do what you can to enable the CLF to continue to feed a spiritually hungry world by sending a check in the enclosed envelope or by giving online at clfuu.org/give.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211110004642/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/19_05/05.mp3

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Notice of Annual Meeting

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

To all members of the Church of the Larger Fellowship, Unitarian Universalist

Per Article VII, Sections 1 and 2 of the Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF) Bylaws, the 46th Annual Meeting will be held via video/telephone conference call and screen sharing on Tuesday, June 11, 2019 at 8:00PM EDT. The video call link is here.

We will post all the necessary documents and contact information to the CLF website by June 4, 2019. You can download materials and print them. Or call the CLF office at 617-948-6150 and request a paper copy.

The purpose of the meeting is to, from the slate of candidates recommended by the nominating committee,

  • Elect two members to 3-year terms on the board of directors,
  • Elect one member to a 3-year term on the nominating committee,
  • Elect a clerk and treasurer

We will elect a moderator from among members present to preside at the meeting.

Danielle Di Bona, Clerk

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211109232933/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/19_04/02.mp3

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245: An African American and Latinx History of the US

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

This week we chatted with author and scholar Paul Ortiz about his new book “An African American and Latinx History of the U.S. Come join the conversation, streaming live on our Facebook page. http://facebook.com/clfuu


The VUU is hosted by Meg Riley, Michael Tino, Aisha Hauser and Christina Rivera, with production support provided by Jessica Star Rockers. The VUU streams live on Thursdays at 11 am ET.

Note: This audio has been slightly edited for a better listening experience. View the live original recording on Facebook.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211109164405/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/vuu/latest/vuu245.mp3

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244: Shutting it Down

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

This week we tackled two topics in our show. How is the government shutdown affecting government workers? Park ranger Keith Stegall came to offer us some insight. And then we chatted with Dottie Mathews and Rabbi Bruce Elder who worked to successfully shut down the Tornillo Detention Center. We are keeping it current on the VUU this week. Come join the conversation every Thursday at 11am ET, streaming live on our Facebook page. http://facebook.com/clfuu


The VUU is CLF’s live talkshow specifically for Unitarian Universalists. Join the conversation each Thursday at 11 am Eastern (USA).

Our podcast is the best way to enjoy The VUU if you can’t make it to the live show. Subscribe on iTunes, Android, Stitcher or your favorite app and never miss an episode. Learn more and listen to previous broadcasts at https://questformeaning.org/vuu/.

The VUU is hosted by Meg Riley, Michael Tino, Aisha Hauser, and Christina Rivera with production support from Jessica Star Rockers.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211109162706/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/vuu/latest/vuu244.mp3

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243: World Refugee Crisis with Latifa Woodhouse

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

This week we chatted live on The VUU about the world refugee crisis with Latifa Woodhouse, President of Shared Humanity. Shared Humanity is a nonprofit founded to provide urgent and sustained humanitarian aid to refugees seeking safe haven from war, violence, and oppression.

More info can be found at www.sharedhumanityusa.org.

The VUU is hosted by Meg Riley, Michael Tino, Aisha Hauser and Christina Rivera, with production support provided by Jessica Star Rockers. The VUU streams live on Thursdays at 11 am ET.

Note: This audio has been slightly edited for a better listening experience. View the live original recording on Facebook.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211109154823/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/vuu/latest/vuu243.mp3

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242: US Border Refugee Crisis with Alex Dixon

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

This week we chatted live on The VUU about the US Border Refugee Crisis with Alex Dixon.

Links from the show:

https://annunciationhouse.org/
https://www.borderlandrainbow.org/

The VUU is hosted by Meg Riley, Michael Tino, Aisha Hauser and Christina Rivera, with production support provided by Jessica Star Rockers. The VUU streams live on Thursdays at 11 am ET.

Note: This audio has been slightly edited for a better listening experience. View the live original recording on Facebook.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211109073703/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/vuu/latest/vuu242.mp3

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235: Supporting Our Trans Community

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

This week we chatted live on The VUU with Alex Kapitan from TRUUsT and Kris McElroy about ways to support our trans community in these dangerous times. Guest hosting this week was Jaelynn Scott and Dawn Fortune, alongside our regulars Meg and Michael.

Here’s the link to the TRUUsT website: http://truust.wordpress.com.

The VUU is hosted by Meg Riley, Michael Tino, Aisha Hauser and Christina Rivera, with production support provided by Jessica Star Rockers. The VUU streams live on Thursdays at 11 am ET.

Note: This audio has been slightly edited for a better listening experience. View the live original recording on Facebook.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211109042113/https://media.blubrry.com/clfvuu_latest/www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/vuu/latest/vuu235.mp3

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A Way Out of No Way

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s last speech is now called “The  Mountaintop Speech.” In it he seems to predict his own death:

Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life; longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will.

And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I’m happy,  tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Dr. King was murdered the next day.

“I may not get there with you. But …we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.” He knew he wouldn’t get there with us. We are still not there. I won’t get there either; the arc of the moral universe is long. With this knowledge, I am here to lay myself down as one more stepping stone on the road to the Promised Land.

We are all stepping stones. We don’t just stand on the shoulders of giants. Giants aren’t very common, after all. What is much more common are the people whose names and faces and lives most of us will never know. We know they existed, because we exist, but that’s it. What Tim Rice writes in the musical Aida is true, at least for most Black people: “The past is now another land, far beyond my reach / Invaded by insidious foreign bodies, foreign speech.”

I see slave women in photos, and it is painful for me because one of those women could be my kin. The woman with a nursing baby and toddler bears more than a passing resemblance to my own mother. She could be my great-great-great grandmother and I would never know it. She’s a photo on the internet. No name, no date, no place. According to history, she is no body.

Most Black women are No Body to history. They were just hands and feet and breasts and wombs. Their hands tilled the soil, planted and harvested crops, kneaded dough and made good food they weren’t allowed to eat, sewed clothing they weren’t allowed to wear. Their cracked and tired feet walked for miles in all kinds of weather to work as maids and nurses and laundresses. Their breasts fed white babies as theirs went hungry. Their milk wasn’t their own. Their breasts weren’t their own. Their wombs were not their own. The bodies of slave women were for the master’s pleasure and the master’s financial gain.

Many Black people walk around as visual reminders of the hundreds of years of bodily violations our women endured. My grandmother and my great-grandmother are both light-skinned. My grandmother’s natural pre-white hair color is red; a light-skinned, red-headed Black girl whose family migrated out of Kentucky—an “Upper South” border slave state that did not secede from the Union during the Civil War. Kentucky remained officially neutral with a population that was 25% enslaved Blacks. We know why my family looks the way it does.

Delores Williams, womanist theologian, says that for Black women our biblical heroine is Hagar. She is our ancestor. Hagar was the Black Egyptian slave of Abraham and Sarah. When Sarah could not conceive—the greatest shame a woman could endure in the ancient Near East—she “gave” her “servant” to Abraham to have a child with. You might be thinking, Wait, how did this fix the problem of her not being able to conceive? Well, by law Sarah owned every part of Hagar. The child that Abraham then fathered (Ishmael) was legally Sarah’s child. And not in a property way, as it was in the American south, but rather her child, as in her son.

Hagar was a forced surrogate. It was common practice in those days. When Sarah eventually had her own child, Isaac, she told Abraham to leave Hagar and Ishmael, who was legally her son, in the desert. Abraham, knowing this meant certain death for them both in the harsh desert, did as she asked, even though he loved Ishmael.

In the desert, Hagar walked away from Ishmael because she could not stand to see her own child die of thirst or hunger. God heard Hagar’s cries and felt her pain. God knew what Abraham and Sarah did was wrong. God provided them with water and told Hagar that they would survive. God gave her a way out of no way.

Hagar was disenfranchised, powerless, used and abused, living in a foreign land. She was disposable and subject to the whims of her oppressors. Hagar was also resilient, strong, brave, and audacious. She lived and survived to give her child a chance. Ishmael is the biblical ancestor of the Muslim people.

Now, this is a complicated, difficult to understand story. Back when Hagar was pregnant she ran away from Sarah’s mistreatment into the desert. An angel of God appeared to her and told her to go back and submit to Sarah’s rule. An angel of God told her to go back into captivity. Horrible, right? Was God supporting slavery? No. What God did was to make sure Hagar and her baby both survived.

To a slave woman, to Black women, the point here is clear. Freedom is not always attainable. Often times it’s something we fight for with hope that those who come after will get to see it. It’s always a goal, but you must survive first. For yourself, and for your children. God gives Hagar the strength to endure. He toughens her up for the long hard road ahead.

As Alice Walker puts it: “And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see—or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read.”

In the book Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South, Albert J. Raboteau notes the failure of the white slave system to make Blacks docile by stripping us of our culture. “In the New World, slave control was based on the eradication of all forms of African culture because of their power to unify the slaves and thus enable them to resist or rebel. Nevertheless, African beliefs and customs persisted and were transmitted by slaves to their descendants.” One of the easiest ways to link African past and American present was religion.

The slaves brought over were from different villages and areas of their continent. They spoke different languages and had different customs, but most worshiped nature and the indigenous gods of Africa. That was a shared language. The way they worshipped was common to them and that was beyond language. For example, drumming—a staple of African worship—was incorporated into Christianity. Drumming, singing, and dancing were used to spread coded messages to slaves and keep alive the memory of who they were and where they came from. These elements can still be seen in African American culture and religion today.

Christianity colonized Black lives. Now, I could walk away from it all—Jesus, the Bible, the Christian community, God. But I don’t want to, and I think there is courage in the determination not to walk away. In Genesis, Jacob literally wrestled with God all night in the desert. At daybreak God asked Jacob to let him go. But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

The man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he answered.

Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

Jacob wrestled with his faith and did not come out unscathed. He limped away with a broken hip. Still, he walked away triumphant. Faith is hard. Belief is a struggle. Religion both hurts and heals. We are all here as stepping stones for one another as we move from past to future.

Black people and Black women especially have been martyred over and over. Some, like Dr. King, are given sainthood, but most are forgotten. We must remember them. Just as we remember our present day martyrs—the Rekia Boyds, Trayvon Martins, and Sandra Blands. #SayHerName. #BlackLivesMatter. We will make it to the Promised Land one day.

All the people we have lost—but who will make it, too, because we carry them with us—got us here with their determination, strength, and hope. Black women taught us, and continue to teach us, how to survive and how to thrive. #BlackGirlMagic is real. Go live your life in such a way that it honors theirs. Do what they could not do. Be who they could not be. Fight the battles they did not win.

The life blood of the ancestors who came before us runs through our veins. Our bodies come from their bodies. We live because they lived.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211109042002/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/18_11/01.mp3

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Nominating Committee Seeks Leaders

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

The CLF’s Nominating Committee seeks members to run for positions beginning June 2019:

  • Board of Directors—three for 3-year terms
  • Nominating Committee—one for a 3-year term
  • Treasurer—for a 1-year term
  • Clerk—for a 1-year term

Board members set CLF policy and approve the budget. The Board meets in Boston or other US cities twice annually and periodically by conference calls. Nominating Committee members put forth nominations for the Board.

For more information about the Board and Nominating Committee, click here. You may nominate yourself or another CLF member for any of these positions.

Please contact the CLF office at nominating@clfuu.org or 617-948-6150 by January 15, 2019.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211109041906/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/18_11/03.mp3

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Always

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

On the morning my grandmother died, I squeezed the juice out of citrus fruits and strained out the seeds with a fork so I wouldn’t drink them. My grandmother told me when I was three or four that if you swallowed seeds they would grow inside your stomach. But that is not why I didn’t want to drink them.

I know my digestion will obliterate the seeds into their primal molecular components if ingested—that all the great potential contained in those seeds would nourish me, become part of me. Although I swallowed dozens of seeds when I was young, not one watermelon ever grew in my stomach, somewhat to my disappointment.

My grandmother knew seeds were better in the ground than taking the long journey through my digestive system, so she let me spit watermelon seeds into her garden. When I was small she had an amazing garden, lush and verdant and full of smells, colors, and textures. Later, when she moved into a little one-bedroom apartment on the second floor of Oakland’s busy Park Street by Lake Merritt, she grew trees in pots from the seeds she saved from squeezing lemons. I have never been able to grow a lemon tree from a seed, but she knew how to coax them to grow, flourish and bear fruit.

On the way to work I was thinking about my family’s legacy in California, and how it was more than names in a logbook or dates on a document. People change the land they live in, but also the land changes them. The thin, wiry peasant stock my family came from undoubtedly changed into the robust, well-built bodies of native Californians in a few generations.

My grandmother came from that third generation of American Chinese. The land, the sea, the clean, abundant water and the bounty of food made that generation of my family strong, athletic and tireless. They had the energy to build communities, families, opportunities. They were the establishing generation. In the succession of growth in an ecosystem, the land is first settled by pioneers, is made stable by secondary growth, and becomes dominant in the third stage of succession. My grandparents were the ones who sunk deep roots into the land. They were the trees that gave the forest its name. They were Chinese-Americans.

And my grandmother sunk the deepest root of all. At 106 years old, she outlived her four sisters and three brothers. She held her great-great-granddaughter in her arms a month before she died. I was imagining the root of her sinking into the bedrock of this country, firmly anchoring her family to this place…when my mother called on the car speakerphone to say that my grandmother passed away early that morning.

I felt like a great tree had fallen, toppling like a bridge, cutting off our access to the rest of the family that came before us. We will not know who they were, or what they were like, or what happened to them, because the last one who knew them is gone, too.

But though the tree has been cut down, my grandmother’s roots were profoundly deep. She anchored us with her presence, with her still being alive and healthy and spunky as a spark plug. Keep going. Do your best. Don’t give up. All those old lady admonitions I tired of when young and impatient, but desperately needed to hear when I grew older and times grew tougher. Her favorite song was “Always.” I’ll be loving you, always. With a love that’s true, always.

I sang it as I was squeezing lemons and putting aside the seeds. I’ll remember you always, Nan.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211109041756/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/18_11/04.mp3

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And When Ancestors Are Dishonorable?

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

Many people think of their ancestors as dead and gone, and therefore to be thought about only occasionally and with no real attachment, as if they have no claim on us who live. But how can we embrace our heritage while turning our backs on the ancestors who carried that heritage forward and gave it to us?

My African-American friends insist on the necessity of honoring our ancestors. To honor the ancestors is to embrace our heritage and carry it forward in our turn. I believe this, and it is one of the things that led me into genealogy. But understanding my genealogy has presented me with a serious problem.

It is easy to honor ancestors when those ancestors were honorable, but what does one do when one’s forbears were dishonorable?

My parents were good and gentle, kind and compassionate people. When I look back through the generations of my ancestors, though, I find an unbroken string of slaveholding, giving way to the neo-slavery of Jim Crow and on into the racism of the 20th century. My family’s dishonorable history begins at least in the mid-1600s and quite possibly earlier.

For just one example, my ancestor, Lockey Collier, was murdered in 1778 by the people he enslaved, presumably because of the harsh way he treated them. How is it possible to honor such a man and others like him? Are we just to ignore these dishonorable ancestors? Do we say, “OK. I’ll honor these ancestors but not those. I’ll honor only the ones I can approve of.”

That won’t do. These dreadful people are also part of our heritage, and we cannot embrace our heritage while ignoring the hard parts, pretending that our heritage is all fine and dandy and has no stains upon it. It is dishonest; it is a kind of lie.

So I wrestled with this problem and for years, I had no answer. Then I watched the film Amistad and found a solution that makes sense to me. In the film, as John Quincy Adams is preparing to argue the case of the captured Africans before the Supreme Court, he has a conversation with the Africans’ leader, Cinque. Cinque speaks eloquently of his ancestors. He says that the line of his ancestors will stand with him and help, because he is the culmination of their line. They act in history through him, and they are honored by his honorable actions and life.

And that is my answer. My ancestors’ crimes against humanity (and what else are slavery and racism but crimes against humanity?) cry out for redress, for atonement. Neither my ancestors nor the people they enslaved are still living. So how can these crimes be atoned for? And by whom?

By me. The ancestors act through us. We honor our dishonorable ancestors by acting honorably for them.

My ancestors call out from beyond the grave for me to atone for their crimes, and I honor them by confessing my family’s sins and working to repair the damage they inflicted on so many people. How can I forgive my grandmother for the racism she worked to plant in my heart? I forgive her by working to erase the very racism she embraced. I do not take their guilt on. I work to heal the wounds they inflicted.

I work to create the heritage that I want my life to carry forward.

From Collier’s 2018 book
The Great Wound: Confessions of a Slaveholding Family

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211109041736/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/18_11/05.mp3

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234: F-Bombs to Pipe Bombs: The Consequences of Political Contempt with Nate Walker

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

As the nation grapples with the terrorist attempts of President Trump’s political adversaries, we will reflect on how the totalitarian rhetoric and behavior in the political discourse in the United States correlates with a startling rise in social hostilities and violence.

Rev. Dr. Nathan C. Walker is the community minister for religion and public life at the Church of the Larger Fellowship and can be reached via his website www.NateWalker.com.

The VUU is hosted by Meg Riley, Michael Tino, Aisha Hauser and Christina Rivera, with production support provided by Jessica Star Rockers. The VUU streams live on Thursdays at 11 am ET.

Note: This audio has been slightly edited for a better listening experience. View the live original recording on Facebook.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211109035728/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/vuu/latest/vuu234.mp3

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233: Collaborative Leadership with Deanna Vandiver

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

We chatted live on The VUU about Collaborative Leadership with Rev. De Vandiver.

Link to Rev De’s article “Hate in the Offering Plate”:
View story at Medium.com

The VUU is hosted by Meg Riley, Michael Tino, Aisha Hauser and Christina Rivera, with production support provided by Jessica Star Rockers. The VUU streams live on Thursdays at 11 am ET.

Note: This audio has been slightly edited for a better listening experience. View the live original recording on Facebook.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211109033222/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/vuu/latest/vuu233.mp3

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231: Stop Kavanaugh: The Protest in DC

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

We chatted live on The VUU with Revs Wendy von Courter and Katie Romano Griffin about the Stop Kavanaugh protest in DC.

The VUU streams live on Facebook every Thursday at 11 am ET. We talk social justice, Unitarian Universalism, religion, spirituality, and whatever else is topical and interesting!

Hosts: Meg Riley, Michael Tino, Aisha Hauser, and Christina Rivera; production support provided by Jessica Star Rockers.

The VUU is brought to you by the Church of the Larger Fellowship.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211109022504/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/vuu/latest/vuu231.mp3

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Offering Comfort and Support

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

Across the decades, through changes in technology and staff, through world crises and institutional crises, the CLF has been there, offering people around the world comfort and challenge in the form of our liberal faith. You can help the CLF continue to persist by offering your generous support, by sending a check in the enclosed envelope or by donating here.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211109022308/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/18_10/03.mp3

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Cinders as Far as the Eye Can See

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

While I explored central Idaho’s Snake River Plain, I camped at Craters of the Moon National Monument. I had a weather satellite photo, on which the Snake River Plain forms a curving band of tan and green, fading to gray where the volcanic track of the Yellowstone Hotspot comes in. Against those muted colors, the black lava fields in Craters of the Moon stick down from the north like a sore thumb.

The eruptions that formed these fields began through a 75-mile crack in the earth’s crust, back in the days of the Columbian mammoth. Lava spewed for thousands of years, finally ceasing while the first Caesars ruled Rome. The cinders have long cooled. Now they stretch as far as the eye can see,
a thousand square miles of blasted desert.

I stood one morning on the highway pullout above Craters of the Moon, gazing at the black horizon of this volcanic sideshow. My eye strayed back from the horizon and lit on a nearby tuft of vegetation growing from a crack between volcanic boulders. At first it seemed incongruous that a wildflower could struggle up from such barrenness. A couple thousand years of dust must have settled into the bottom of that crack to support it. And a seed blew in. A sprinkle of rain now and then, and seeds have no choice but to try to grow wherever they land.

Lava fields are incredibly rugged terrain. Traveling off designated walkways is prohibited, but even if a person tried, basalt edges sharp as broken glass would quickly cut even the stoutest shoes to ribbons. Yet everywhere I wandered, grasses and wildflowers sprouted from fissures and low places. It might take thousands more years, but they are going to show the harsh stone who’s boss. There, it seems to me, is a lesson in persistence.

It struck me like a flash: T. S. Eliot was wrong, April is not the cruelest month, breeding flowers from the
dead land. Flowers breeding from the dead land is an act of heroism which merits deep human reverence. Ever and always, amid Extinction Events or these lava fields or whatever the backside of human technology may do to us, life will ever venture forth upon the blasted land.

If we want the meaning of life, as far as I’m concerned, there it is. Human greatness, I say, is a delusion. Achievement is just a spark against the relentless winds and limitless tides of time and change. But a seed drills into new soil, a hand is offered to a new stranger. As long as our species endures, that will be the meaning and achievement that matters.

Excerpted from Dennis McCarty’s book Reflections: On Time, Culture, and Spirits in America.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211109022218/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/18_10/05.mp3

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227: CLF Worthy Now Prison Ministry w/ Mandy Goheen

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

The VUU is back from our summer hiatus! This week we chatted live with CLF Director of Prison Ministry Mandy Goheen about what’s new with Worthy Now and what’s next.

The VUU is hosted by Meg Riley, Michael Tino, Aisha Hauser and Christina Rivera, with production support provided by Jessica Star Rockers. The VUU streams live on Thursdays at 11 am ET.

Note: This audio has been slightly edited for a better listening experience. View the live original recording on Facebook.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211109014509/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/vuu/latest/vuu227.mp3

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The Covenants We Keep

By: Quest for Meaning β€”
My seminary classmate was 30 years older than me. I sat in his small apartment, hoping for the kind of wisdom and guidance I had already come to know he might provide. My seminary classmate was 30 years older than me. I sat in his small apartment, hoping for the kind of wisdom and guidance I had already come to know he might provide.
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171: Black Lives of UU

By: Quest for Meaning β€”
Kenny Wiley and Lena K. Gardner join us from the Black Lives of UU organizing collective. What a full and deep conversation about immigration, the threats to penalize protestors and how that will change organizing tactics, the need to move from reactionary to visionary, the life-giving form of creativity around resistance. Plus, Kenny, Lena and host Aisha Hauser made a passionate and compassionate call for white UUs to step up both their internal and external work around anti-racism and anti-oppression.


Kenny Wiley and Lena K. Gardner join us from the Black Lives of UU organizing collective. What a full and deep conversation about immigration, the threats to penalize protestors and how that will change organizing tactics, the need to move from reactionary to visionary, the life-giving form of creativity around resistance. Plus, Kenny, Lena and host Aisha Hauser made a passionate and compassionate call for white UUs to step up both their internal and external work around anti-racism and anti-oppression.

BLUU Convening:
March 9-12, 2017 in New Orleans
BLUU is gearing up to host this inaugural event that will bring together Black Unitarian Universalists from across generations. Learn more and register.

The VUU is hosted by Meg Riley, Joanna Fontaine Crawford, Aisha Hauser, Hank Peirce, Michael Tino and Alicia Forde, with production support provided by Terri Burnor. The VUU streams live on Thursdays at 11 am ET. This episode aired on February 16, 2017.

Note: This audio has been slightly edited for a better listening experience. View the live original recording on YouTube.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211108073426/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/vuu/latest/vuu171.mp3

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Your Body is Your Body

By: Quest for Meaning β€”
A reminder that you are in charge of your own body. A reminder that you are in charge of your own body.
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All Bodies Need Care

By: Quest for Meaning β€”
A Universalist teacher learns to care for bodies as well as minds and souls. A Universalist teacher learns to care for bodies as well as minds and souls.
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169: UU Talks with Peter Bowden and Twinkle Manning

By: Quest for Meaning β€”
Peter Bowden and "Twinkle" Marie Manning join The VUU to introduce us to the new UU Talks. This initiative helps congregations and other organizations share their own UU values and ideas with the world through Ted Talk-like live events. UU Talks provides coaching and mentoring for all the pieces that go into producing, promoting and distributing an event. It is an ideal tool for both small and large organizations to enhance their fundraising incomes, community outreach, and publicity. Learn more at http://uutalks.org.

Peter Bowden and “Twinkle” Marie Manning join The VUU to introduce us to the new UU Talks. This initiative helps congregations and other organizations share their own UU values and ideas with the world through Ted Talk-like live events. The videos that are produced can then be distributed both online and on television.

UU Talks provides coaching and mentoring for all the pieces that go into producing, promoting and distributing an event. It is an ideal tool for both small and large organizations to enhance their fundraising incomes, community outreach, and publicity.

UU Talks is hosting their first model event on April 28 with the theme, “Collaboration.” It will be used as an example for how others can host their own UU Talks at their own location.

Learn more at UUTalks.org or on their Facebook page.

The VUU is hosted by Meg Riley, Joanna Fontaine Crawford, Aisha Hauser, Hank Peirce, Michael Tino and Alicia Forde, with production support provided by Terri Burnor. The VUU streams live on Thursdays at 11 am ET. This episode aired on February 2, 2017.


Note: The audio above has been slightly edited for a better listening experience. View the original recording here:

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211108073321/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/vuu/latest/vuu169.mp3

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Reflected Glory

By: Quest for Meaning β€”
Even an ordinary office building can become a jewel if it reflects the glory of the evening sky. How have you added to your own life by amplifying the work of others? The Daily Compass offers words an Even an ordinary office building can become a jewel if it reflects the glory of the evening sky. How have you added to your own life by amplifying the work of others? The Daily Compass offers words an
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Waking Up With the World: A Brief Zen Reflection on the Four Noble Truths

By: Quest for Meaning β€”
I gather there is some confusion about how what we call the Four Noble Truths became the central exposition of Buddhist teachings. They are found in two versions in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, th I gather there is some confusion about how what we call the Four Noble Truths became the central exposition of Buddhist teachings. They are found in two versions in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, th
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168: Prophetic Faith Development with Judith Frediani

By: Quest for Meaning β€”
We talk with Judith Frediani about religious educators as community organizers and how they apply an intersectional lens in curricula that benefits all parts of congregational life. We also go deep into rankism and the many ways people assert their superiority. In our UU faith movement, this manifests itself around credentialing for religious educators and potential fragility of ministers. Judith has long been a staunch advocate for religious educators and the importance of their leadership in UUism. At the 2016 UUA General Assembly, she was recognized for her outstanding contributions to religious education. Visit http://bit.ly/thevuu168 for resources mentioned in this episode.

We talk with Judith Frediani about religious educators as community organizers and how they apply an intersectional lens in curricula that benefits all parts of congregational life. We also go deep into rankism and the many ways people assert their superiority. In our UU faith movement, this manifests itself around credentialing for religious educators and potential fragility of ministers.

Judith has long been a staunch advocate for religious educators and the importance of their leadership in UUism. At the 2016 UUA General Assembly, she was recognized for her outstanding contributions to religious education.

Show notes:

The VUU is hosted by Meg Riley, Joanna Fontaine Crawford, Aisha Hauser, Hank Peirce, Michael Tino and Alicia Forde, with production support provided by Terri Burnor. Tom Shade joined the hosting crew this week. The VUU streams live on Thursdays at 11 am ET. This episode aired on January 26, 2017.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211108073028/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/vuu/latest/vuu168.mp3

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167: Black Lives of UU

By: Quest for Meaning β€”
Leslie Mac and Lena K. Gardner join The VUU from the Black Lives of UU organizing collective. We talk about assumptions around authority, decentering whiteness, humility and the need for liberal white folks to first do the work within and not expect kudos for not voting for Trump.

Leslie Mac and Lena K. Gardner join The VUU from the Black Lives of UU organizing collective. We talk about assumptions around authority, decentering whiteness, humility and the need for liberal white folks to first do the work within and not expect kudos for not voting for Trump.

Show notes:

The VUU is hosted by Meg Riley, Joanna Fontaine Crawford, Aisha Hauser, Hank Peirce, Michael Tino and Alicia Forde, with production support provided by Terri Burnor. Tom Shade joined the hosting crew this week. The VUU streams live on Thursdays at 11 am ET. This episode aired on January 19, 2017.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211108073006/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/vuu/latest/vuu167.mp3

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166: The Religious Right with Peter Montgomery

By: Quest for Meaning β€”
The VUU talks with Peter Montgomery about religion and politics, the global impact of the religious right, the religiosity behind fascism, and the countering power of the arts and beauty. Peter is a writer who has studied religious conservatives for close to two decades. In this past presidential campaign, he attended the GOP Convention and a number of Trump rallies. Visit https://youtu.be/5DRn2XN2BH4 for resources mentioned in this episode.

The VUU talks with Peter Montgomery about religion and politics, the global impact of the religious right, the religiosity behind fascism, and the countering power of the arts and beauty. Peter is a writer who has studied religious conservatives for close to two decades. In this past presidential campaign, he attended the GOP Convention and a number of Trump rallies.

Peter is a well-regarded writer/thinker and a source for national media. Follow his work:

Peter finds inspiration and hope in this quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (referenced at the end of the show):

A [person] should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of [their] life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.

The VUU is hosted by Meg Riley, Joanna Fontaine Crawford, Aisha Hauser, Hank Peirce, Michael Tino and Alicia Forde, with production support provided by Terri Burnor. Tom Shade joined the hosting crew this week. The VUU streams live on Thursdays at 11 am ET. This episode aired on January 12, 2017.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211108072940/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/vuu/latest/vuu166.mp3

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165: Immigration and the New Sanctuary Movement with Katia Hansen

By: Quest for Meaning β€”
Our guest is Katia Hansen, President/CEO of UURISE. We talk about congregational support for immigration justice including providing sanctuary, the importance of becoming a coalition partner, immigration services her organization provides, and general concerns going into the new Trump administration. Visit https://youtu.be/uYOHvya4gdE for resources mentioned in this episode.

Our guest is Katia Hansen, President/CEO of UURISE. We talk about congregational support for immigration justice including providing sanctuary, the importance of becoming a coalition partner, immigration services her organization provides, and general concerns going into the new Trump administration.

Resources mentioned in today’s episode:

Upcoming webinars:

  • UUSC’s Sanctuary and Solidarity webinar (for clergy only) on Tuesday, January 17, 3:00-4:15 PM (ET) – Register
  • UUSC’s Sanctuary and Solidarity webinar (open to all) on Sunday, January 22, 3:30-4:45pm (ET) – Contact Paul Langston-Daley
  • UUCSJ/UURISE: Faithful Discernment: Is Your Congregation Called to Offer Sanctuary? on Monday, January 30, 7:00-9:00 pm (ET)
  • UUCSJ/UURISE: The Path Toward Sanctuary: A Practical Guide on Monday, February 27 7:00-9:00 pm (ET)

The VUU is hosted by Meg Riley, Joanna Fontaine Crawford, Aisha Hauser, Hank Peirce, Michael Tino and Alicia Forde, with production support provided by Terri Burnor. Tom Shade joined the hosting crew this week. The VUU streams live on Thursdays at 11 am ET. This episode aired on January 5, 2017.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211108072917/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/vuu/latest/vuu165.mp3

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Get the Life You Want

By: Quest for Meaning β€”
Sometimes we must change to get the life we want to have.

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Daily Compass

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

The Daily Compass is a ministry of the Church of the Larger Fellowship crafted by Rev. Michael Tino of the Lead Ministry Team.It offers words and images to inspire spiritual reflection and encourage the creation of a more loving, inclusive and just world. Short reflections and prompts related to monthly themes are posted every day at dailycompass.org. The following is a selection Daily Compass offerings from recent months.

BALANCE

KeystoneVital to the balance of a stone arch is the keystone, the wedge-shaped stone against which the two sides of the arch push in equal measure. In architecture, this is a vital and important role; in life, this is not a healthy situation in which to find ourselves.

When have you experienced balance brought about by things pushing you in opposite directions? How did you interrupt this?

SPIRIT

Spirit of LifeCarolyn McDade described the night she wrote the hymn Spirit of Life to Kimberly French of UU World: β€œWhen I got to Pat’s house, I told her, β€˜I feel like a piece of dried cardboard that has lain in the attic for years. Just open wide the door, and I’ll be dust.’ I was tired, not with my community but with the world. She just sat with me, and I loved her for sitting with me.” Writing the song was the prayer that refilled her spirit.

What words or prayers refill your spirit when you feel like you’re about to fall apart?

COVENANT

ConsentThe power of covenant derives in part from the fact that all parties to it must agree, and that agreement must be renewed and renegotiated constantly. Healthy relationships require mutual consent; that includes spiritual relationships as well as intimate ones.

How do you seek consent from others in meaningful ways?

GRACE

PersistenceSometimes grace comes through sheer will, through persisting despite the odds against us. Sometimes grace comes from hanging on, from inching ourselves forward until we are somewhere better.

What do you need the strength to persist through today?

UNION

NegotiationThe union of two people or two entities requires negotiation. The best negotiations don’t get mired in positions, but instead focus on needs and values. Each party must be able to articulate their values and state their needs; each party must be able to say how they will help meet the needs of the other. Sometimes, sacrifices are made. Sometimes, synergy is developed.

How can you make your needs and values known to others today in generative ways?

EMBODIMENT

DNAYou share 55% of the DNA in your genes with a banana tree, 80% with a cow,Β  98.5% with a chimpanzee, and 99.99% with every other human being on the planet. One ten-thousandth of the DNA in our genes is responsible for all of the differences we see in humanity. For the hundreds of rainbow shades that skin, eyes and hair come in. For the differences that make it so hard to find organs to transplant. For every shape and size that humans come in.

Notice your connection to other living beings today. Feel your relation to them. They are your kin.

CREATIVITY

PersistenceWhere will you pause to touch the Earth? Where will you marvel at the hints that lie scattered around you in the grass? Where will you discard what you previously thought was true, and try on a new belief for size? Where will you stop for directions, for advice, for a conversation with another, for a relationship, for a moment of grace brought to you by the mind of a child?

What does it mean to you to persist through difficult times on your journey?

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Praying With Our Everything

By: Rev. Erin Walter Β·Β Quest for Meaning β€”

I love the phrase β€œpraying with our feet.” It often comes to mind for me in protests at the Texas Capitol, when I wait in line to vote, and perhaps most especially every Friday, when I lead my Zumba class, where we pray with our arms, our hips, our everything.

β€œWhat is your intention for this hour?” I ask folks Zooming in from around the world. β€œWhat are you dancing for today?”

On a recent morning, the answers included, β€œmy 18-year wedding anniversary!” β€œanother job interview,” and β€œseeing my grandkids again for the first time in COVID.” A woman in College Station, Texas, showed us her wrapped wrist and asked for healing prayers after surgery. A dancer in Canada requested the song β€œBest Friend” by Saweetie and shared sadness about a friend in hospice care.

We took deep breaths and held each other across the miles. Then we danced β€” for joy, hope, and grief. For the chance to move together as one, even in a time of isolation.

Happiness ain’t something you sit back and you wait for
Feels so good to dance again”
β€”Selena Gomez, β€œDance Again

Since finding dance nine years ago, it has become my joy practice and a form of embodied prayer. I choose music and choreography to reflect Unitarian Universalist principles like interconnectedness, equity, and acceptance. Moving to the music of Lizzo, Kesha, and Gente de Zona, I am praying to the Spirit of Life β€” to summon the energy for another day of pandemic parenting, to feel in my hips and heart that I am enough. We are all enough.

Uruguayan journalist and novelist Eduardo Galeano wrote, β€œThe church says: The body is a sin. Science says: The body is a machine. Advertising says: The body is a business. The body says: I am a fiesta.”

As UUs, I hope we can bring church and science into the body’s celebration (and do our best to ignore advertising altogether).

Lately, my own body and spirit have been telling me to slow down. I am feeling the impact of pandemic trauma, plus the natural effects of aging (and a decade of jumping up and down to Pitbull songs).

Thankfully, Zumba can be medium-impact or low, on your feet or in a chair or swimming pool. Sometimes just listening to the playlist is enough. When I forego a high-impact jump in favor of a grounded shimmy to protect my back, I am not failing my class β€” whose members range in age from elementary school to their 80s β€” but honoring the sacredness of all bodies.

Zumba

PHOTO BY DYLAN NOLTE ON UNSPLASH

Similarly, when my brain is tired and I forget a move, I try not to apologize (as I have been conditioned to do for the most human of mistakes). Even though I feel embarrassed on the inside, I throw my head back and laugh, improvising through the moments Richard Simmons used to call β€œaccidental solos.” I remember that we are called to let go of perfectionism β€” a piece of dismantling white supremacy culture in ourselves and our institutions. I remind myself that we need these moments, to dance through discomfort and even embrace mistakes, having faith we will learn from them.

I remember the wise words of Cynthia Winton-Henry in her book, Dance – The Sacred Art: β€œAs much as you might want a β€˜perfect’ spot in which to dance, it is really the other way around: You make the space around you holy when you dance.”

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Prayer

By: Quest for Meaning β€”

What does prayer look/feel/sound like to you?

ROBERT
CLF Member, incarcerated in MA

Little things, big things, anything; people pray for them. From the mundane, like to perhaps hit the lottery, to the serious, like for someone’s life. (Though perhaps, for some, winning the lottery isn’t mundane at all, but a serious need.)

It all cycles around to prayer. A want, a need, a desire, leading to hoping, wishing, possibly even begging, some greater power to hear you, to help you.

Do I pray? Probably not enough. I attend services, I meditate, I take part in my faith, and take it seriously. But praying? In here, it can be hard to do.

Holding hands

PHOTO BY PEDRO LIMA ON UNSPLASH

There’s a mentality that pervades all here: avoid weakness, lest you be preyed upon. To pray, is, in a way, a surrendering yourself to another, to ask for help to do something.

Is that weakness? No, but in here, it can be viewed as such. So that energy hangs in the air, sapping you, putting you on edge.

But when I pray, it, in its way, helps and hurts. That surrendering lifts a weight off of you, it can be an emotional release, a reset of one’s self, an acknowledgment that you can’t do it all on your own, and that everything will, in its time, be okay.

So pray. Not for me (though admittedly I wouldn’t mind), but for you. For your world, big, little, whatever size it is. May it help you.

That is my prayer.

KEVIN
CLF member, incarcerated in VA

We all should know that though the look of prayer could be one on their knees with hands held upright, fingers straight up, palms together, prayer can look many different ways. For me it is often sitting down anywhere β€” on the ground, in a chair, at a desk or table, with my hands held together. Of course it might be alone, or it could be with someone who needs a prayer more than me, as I say a prayer for them. I pray anywhere, anytime, needed or not, as a way to think about what the situation needs.

If I see a death happened in the news,Β  I say a prayer for the family for strength, a prayer for the deceased. A flood β€” I say a prayer for support, goods, rescue. A fire β€” the same and more, to have shelter along with healing. A nice day with no huge troubles β€” a prayer of thanks and gratitude, with a prayer for more of these days.

The sound of prayer: it could be noisy, mildly busy with the hum of every day life all around, or it could be complete silence, a prayer said or thought.

The feel: if nervous, anxious, or feeling the weight of the world on one’s shoulders, then a prayer feels like relief. A great feeling of no burdens.

I’ll end with a prayer of thanks and acknowledgment, for the gift of all that prayer is for me.

❌