Embrace Summer!
June 2013
So now we get ready to embrace summer! It’s a time we can comfortably be outside and enjoy nature and the wonders of the earth.
Summer is a time when we’re encouraged to refresh ourselves – to find time to relax and appreciate. It’s a time for us to be with friends and family, time to notice the beauty around us, and time to give thanks for our many, many blessings.
May you find inspiration and joy throughout the summer ahead.
Thank you for the privilege of sharing the ministry of UUCNC with you, and thank you for all you have so generously given this past year for the well being of our beloved spiritual home. Here’s looking forward to storing up summer sunshine and happiness to pour out in the fall when we gather again.
With every good wish and blessing to you all,
Terry
© 2013 Rev. Theresa Kime
Learning from UU Connections
May 2013
This month the Board, Threshold Team, and I will be meeting with our mentor throughout the Threshold program, Rev. Renee Rutchozke. Renee is Regional Consultant for Leadership Development with UU CERG. She is responsible for providing consultation, programming and training material (including webinars and videos) on various aspects of congregational leadership, and serves on many district committees and CERG projects.
CERG is a cooperative of four districts of the Unitarian Universalist Association who share resources and staff to better serve our congregations. CERG Districts are: St. Lawrence (ours, most of New York), Ohio-Meadville (next door to the west of us, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia), Joseph Priestly (southeast of us, including New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Northern Virginia, and the District of Columbia) and Metro New York (NY City and environs). Check out their website to learn more about their purpose and services offered: www.cerg.uua.org.
Interested in learning about children’s religious education, running a meeting, congregational polity, spiritual practices for lay leaders, leadership development, safety policies? Check out the “on demand” tab at the top of the CERG website for a wide variety of webinars (instructional videos) you can watch immediately on your computer. A great resource for members, leaders and committees to draw on.
Many of you had the opportunity to attend District Assembly and hear our UUA President Peter Morales speak, connect with UUs from around our area, and learn from one of the many workshops offered. I hope this experience energizes us for more engagement with our District and especially participation in next year’s “DA!”
It is good to remember the interdependent web of UU connections that UUCNC is a part of. It is good to support that web of connections, strengthen it, grow with it. There is much we can learn from other congregations and from our District and CERG and our UU Association.
May we continue to participate, share, and enjoy, rooted in the history of our faith tradition and carrying on its values.
Blessings,
Terry
© 2013 Rev. Theresa Kime
Looking Back, Looking Ahead
April 2013
What a wonderful celebration we had for UUCNC’s 30th anniversary/birthday! It was great to hear stories of the “early days,” and to remember the many things accomplished and ways the congregation has grown. Heartfelt thanks to all who planned the celebration. Your love of this congregation shone in the amazing artifact displays, worship service, and delicious luncheon and program that all went so smoothly, indicating thoughtful and caring planning.
Looking back also encourages us to look ahead, as we now consider a strategic plan that will guide us over the next three years, and as we consider as well our call to hospitality and welcoming others into our beloved spiritual home.
Please plan to invite a guest to our service on April 14, which we have designated a “Welcoming Sunday,” meaning we hope that most members and friends will bring someone with them to this service. It’s a way for us to hone our inviting and welcoming skills as we reach out to others and include them, knowing the privilege it is for us to have guests and be hosts.
Another exciting event is UUCNC’s acceptance into the CERG (UU Central Eastern Regional Group) Threshold program. This three-year program focuses on growth in all areas of congregational life and provides planning and professional support from regional UU staff to help us achieve our dreams and goals. What a boost this can be for us as we plan and engage our future.
And don’t forget our District Assembly this month in Niagara Falls (April 26 & 27). It will be a historic gathering of two districts, our own (St. Lawrence) and our neighboring district to the west (Ohio-Meadville), and our keynote speaker will be the President of our UU Association, Peter Morales. It will be an opportunity to connect with UUs across the region and to participate in afternoon workshops on a variety of subjects. Plan to attend. Maybe we can car pool!
April. Spring. It feels like Spring at UUCNC already, with lots of potential seeds we may nurture into blossoms.
Blessings to all,
Terry
© 2013 Rev. Theresa Kime
Celebrating 30 Years
March 2013
What a wonderful month this will be for us as we have the privilege and opportunity to celebrate UUCNC’s 30th birthday! How fortunate we are for the founders of this UU congregation who gave so generously of their time and energy and resources to establish this spiritual home we now enjoy. Our gratitude for their efforts is heartfelt.
Celebrating these 30 years reminds us that we draw on gifts from those we do not know and will never meet. Others, no longer with UUCNC, made possible our being able to walk into the Grange on a Sunday morning and find an established UU congregation with infrastructure that supports the institution, a space that has been transformed into a sanctuary, a saving message being delivered with music that inspires, a religious exploration program for our children, social time to enjoy afterwards, outreach to the larger community, and social issues being discussed and actions offered. What a legacy we have been given!
The foundation laid by those who started this congregation, including those who remain active, has been built upon over the years and is currently supported by all of us who now attend and also offer our gifts to sustain and grow our congregation. And we do this, not only for our own enjoyment and spiritual growth, but also for the desire that this congregation – UUCNC – will continue to serve spiritual seekers, make a difference in our larger community, and provide a progressive spiritual presence in this area for our children and grandchildren and beyond. We do it for folks we will never meet and who will never know us, trusting in the goodness we have received here, through this congregation and this faith tradition, and wishing to sustain it for others.
As our stewardship campaign begins this month for our congregational year 2013-14, may we each be inspired to gratefully and joyously offer our financial support – having thoughtfully considered it and with a happy heart for whatever amount it may be – for this congregation we love so dearly.
Blessings,
© 2013 Rev. Theresa Kime
Standing on the Side of Love
February 2013
I hope you’ve all had a chance to visit www.standingonthesideoflove.org and take the Thirty Days of Love pledge. Our Social Action Committee has given us encouragement to take part, and it’s exciting to join with UUs around the country to implement this. “Standing on the Side of Love is a community of people compelled to speak out against oppression, united in the common belief that love is the ultimate guiding force of our world. The Thirty Days of Love is a period for intentional action, service, education, and reflection running from January 19 to February 17, 2013,” the website notes. Even if you haven’t had a chance to do so earlier, it’s not too late to take part. Feel free to extend the pledge!
As progressive religious folks, we aim to always be “standing on the side of love,” fostering that which is best within us individually and as a society. For me, standing on the side of love asks one to be humble, peaceful, present, listening carefully and respectfully, open to new ideas. It’s not a license to harshly judge other people or feel superior, but rather to consider thoughtfully those actions and behaviors, laws and attitudes that diminish us all and to work together, with the most kindness we can muster, to change those into ones that support, encourage, and bless.
It’s bold to say we are “standing on the side of love.” May we be worthy.
With every good wish,
Terry
© 2013 Rev. Theresa Kime
A Whole New Year
January 2013
Welcome to 2013! If you’re reading this, the prediction about the end of the world coming Dec. 21, 2012, didn’t happen. Hooray! We have our ourselves, our loved ones, and our beloved world still with us.
Having ourselves, others, and our world means there is much left to us to appreciate, wonder at, and bring healing to. It means we have the opportunity to keep developing those qualities we think of value to our own wellbeing and that of our world: kindness, compassion, generosity, inclusion, hospitality, being some of them. A whole new year stretches out before us in which we may take steps to make these qualities more real in our lives and in our world.
What will you do to engage cultivation of these? Is there a particular quality you’d like to focus on for yourself – one that may be most healing or energizing for you? Is there a way you can bring that quality into your relationships and into aiding our world? What do you need to learn? What spiritual practice might be helpful? Who might you join with to strengthen work already being done in that area in our community?
Fresh start. That’s what the new year can offer us. Fresh start to change unskillful habits of mind and action. Fresh start to commit ourselves to growing in ways that bring harmony and peace. Fresh start for acknowledging and using our gifts.
May we each find joy in learning and in practicing healthy ways of caring and relating in this new year, as we continue to do our best to make this world a place of blessing for all.
Happy New Year!
Terry
© 2013 Rev. Theresa Kime
Big Sky Mind
December 2012
December is the month of the return of the light, as we reach the winter solstice and the longest night of the year, after which our days increase in length until June and the summer solstice, with the longest day of the year. It’s wonderful to be in tune with the heavens. To be opened to that big perspective of the earth and the universe.
As we consider this shift to more light, perhaps we might look at our lives and ask, where are the bright spots in my life right now? What gives me joy and energy? Am I noticing these places in my life regularly and appreciating them? And, am I growing these places, increasing their presence (or my noticing of them) in my life?
We also might consider the perspective we normally tune into. Is everyday focused on “me,” what I need, feel, want? Or is it broader to include those with whom I live – partners, children, pets – or my neighbors, my community? How often do I cultivate “big sky mind” as the Buddhists say, having a view of spaciousness, openness, like looking up at the sky? When things close in on me from time to time, or seem too stressful, can I stop and imagine standing on the shores of Lake Erie and that vast perspective? Might that enable me to clear my heart and mind and return to the situation at hand a bit more relaxed and centered?
As Unitarian Universalists, we encourage one another to keep growing, to keep learning and connecting. One way we can do that is by tuning into the holy times and change of seasons. We use the themes of these as times as places where we might reflect on our own lives, to become more self-aware, so that we might keep turning our hearts and minds to friendliness, kindness, connection.
May the deep darkness, which encourages stillness and introspection, and the return of the light, which encourages learning and growth, enable us all to affirm the gift of the life we have been given, and its possibilities.
With every good wish,
Terry
© 2012 Rev. Theresa Kime
Appreciation and Connection
November 2012
Thanksgiving is cited by many as their favorite holiday. Remembering all the things we are grateful for, sharing good food and the company of ones we care about, carrying on family traditions – all these things make it a heartwarming event for many. Taking time to center our thoughts on appreciation and experiencing it remind us that all is precious gift.
In celebration of Thanksgiving and the openness it encourages, this month I’d like to invite us all to engage in a spiritual practice that would expand our appreciation and connection. It centers on those persons who don’t naturally elicit your appreciation. Perhaps someone you’re feeling frustrated with, sad about, distant from, disappointed with, maybe even peeved at.
The spiritual practice is to choose a such a person (but don’t start with someone you feel overwhelmingly negative about. You need to build up to that.). Start by taking a few moments in silence, perhaps centering yourself through closing your eyes or lowering your gaze and focusing your attention on following your breath. You may wish to focus for a few moments on your heart area, the center of your chest, and imagine your breath coming in and out of this area, warming you, calming you, creating some space for you.
Then allow a sense of the person you’ve chosen to come to mind. Notice whatever feelings come up when you do this, gently noting them to yourself: sadness, regret, disappointment, anger, whatever it is. And once you’ve acknowledged these, remind yourself that this person, like you, is not the sum of one act and unlikely wholly “bad.” They make mistakes sometimes, just like you do. See if you can allow your heart to soften a bit as you think this.
Next do your best to think of this person in a larger way, considering ways they behave or actions they have done, that are what you would call good, kind, or helpful.
And then gently see if you can allow them in your heart, if only for a few seconds, breathing easily into your heartspace while you do so.
Then let the sense of their presence fade, return to focus on your breath. You may wish to end with a part of the lovingkindness (metta) prayer: May we all be filled with lovingkindess. May we all be peaceful and at ease. May we all be free from mental and physical suffering. May we all be happy.
It’s wonderful to stop (hopefully more often than once a year!) and give thanks for our many blessings and the many loving connections we have in our life. And it’s also good to keep expanding our hearts to include more, to take a broader perspective of who we and others are.
May your thanksgiving be filled with much joy and may all of our hearts expand in goodwill so there may be blessing for all.
Terry
© 2012 Rev. Theresa Kime
Promise and Challenge
September 2012
What a busy summer we’ve had! While usually getting few “formal” opportunities to see one another during the summer, this one was an exception, with several discussion meetings culminating in a vote on the purchase of property for a UUCNC home. It was a historic moment in the life of this congregation to have made an offer on a building that held the potential for becoming a home for our congregation. It was an exciting and challenging time, with much learned about “due diligence” (making sure to have inspections and follow up to concerns), building financing, and contracts. The Building Acquisition Committee, Building Financial Advisors, and Board were amazing in their dedication, savvy and perseverance. I admire and respect their fortitude, enthusiasm, knowledge and skills in guiding us through this process. While the vote was not to proceed with the contract on the Rte. 5 property at this time, we can be proud of the way folks interacted with one another during the decision-making process as well as the thoughtfulness and seriousness folks put into discerning next steps.
One next step will be for everyone to participate, on Sat. Sept. 15, in a purpose and visioning exploration led by the Rev. Chris Neilson, our new St. Lawrence District Congregational Life Consultant, at the Fredonia Presbyterian Church social hall. Please sign up to attend and offer your ideas and passions as we set direction for UUCNC through our interactions on this day.
The board will also be communicating with Barry Finkelstein, the UUA Stewardship Consultant who did an assessment visit with us last spring, about the best next steps to enable UUCNC to fulfill the dream of a spiritual home available 24/7, with accessible space and dedicated nursery and children’s religious education rooms, meeting rooms, working kitchen and social space, and comfortable, welcoming worship space, and possibly even a minister’s office!
We’re off to an exciting year, a year of much promise and a year to challenge us to dream big, expand our generosity, stay in right relationship through unsettling times, and a year to celebrate the 30th anniversary of this special and wonderful congregation known as “UUCNC.” How fortunate we are for one another, for the spiritual home we share, for this faith that draws us together, and for the many possibilities that lie before us.
With hope and joy,
Terry
© 2012 Rev. Theresa Kime
Minister Messages from 2011 - 2012