Under the bylaws, a petition signed by 20 members requires the President of the Board of Trustees to schedule such a matter for a Congregational meeting.  The bylaws also allow the President to wait until the Annual meeting until the matter comes before the Congregation if that time frame is “reasonable”.  Other New Jersey Unitarian Universalist Congregations, such as the ones in Princeton andMontclair, have passed such resolutions in previous years.

Preacher: Rev. Emilie Boggis and the Ninth Grade Class of 2012

Instruction will be offered.

If you are a member please register your children by clicking here.

If you are a visitor, please register here.

Classes begin September 16th, 2012.

Teacher Orientation is September 9th, 2012.

Saturday, June 2nd from 4:00 to 6:00 pm.

We will have food, games, and a rock wall (a special provision has been made for us!).

Please bring appetizers, dessert, or drinks (non alcoholic, non-caffeinated) to share.

Open UUA Committee

Journey Toward Wholeness Transformation Committee
Election Campaign Practices Committee

Appointments committee
Investment Committee

Committee on Socially Responsible Investing

Audit Committee

Retirement Plan Committee

Employee Benefit Trust

Board appointments to:

General Assembly Planning Committee

Commission on Social Witness

Presidential Search Committee

In accordance with UUA Board policy, the Appointments Committee is expected to recommend individuals so that the membership of committees and task forces reflects the full diversity of the Association, especially in regard to historically marginalized  communities, but also balancing amongst size of congregation, lay and  ordained, geography, age (including youth and young adults), and gender,  among others.  The committee shall consult with groups and organizations, including those traditionally underrepresented in Unitarian Universalist leadership, to help inform the appointment process.  The committee shall collaborate with the Nominating Committee to develop systems and processes for recruiting, selecting, and training appointees and candidates, and shall assist in providing training, support, and monitoring to further the work of other committees.

The time commitment is significant, with an anticipated six meetings a year, at least two in person.  Work between meetings can be significant.  Persons considering service on this committee must enjoy phone calls and in depth conversations with references and applicants.  The ability to timely respond to phone and email contacts is critical, as is discretion and the ability to manage detailed information.  These positions require evaluation and discernment skills, and a commitment to the transformation of the UUA into an anti-racist, anti-oppressive, multi-cultural faith community.

Deadline for applications is May 18, 2012.  The board expects to make the appointments by the end of June.

Find the online application at
http://www.uua.org/uuagovernance/board/committees/coc/8131.shtml

For questions, contact Nancy Lawrence at nlawrence@uua.org

Nancy Lawrence

Assistant to the Executive Vice Preside
Unitarian Universalist Association
617-948-4303
www.uua.org
www.standingonthesideoflove.org

Polite in his realizations that I would not be his next all-star player, he continued the conversation and asked where I worked.  “I’m one of the ministers at The Unitarian Church in Summit,” I explained.  “Oh so you take the train, too,” he surmised.  I laughed, assuming, of course, that he was joking.  And in the long pause of his confusion and my realizing that he wasn’t in fact being sarcastic, he matter-of-factly punctuated our new friendship with, “I guess it’s not such a green place?”

Okay I admit it – I laughed again thinking he meant I didn’t make a lot of money!  “No ministry doesn’t make a lot of money, but I’ve really secured a place for retirement!”  The Heaven joke fell flat. Tara looked at me and shook her head.

For the last week I have, albeit not consistently, walked or taken the bus and then train from Maplewood to Summit.  The commute tacks on another 10 or 20 minutes, (not to mention a little car sickness if I take the bus), and cuts my gas bill in half.  I have to bring extra shoes with me, make sure the dog is okay for the additional time I won’t be home, ask to borrow someone’s car in the case of a pastoral visit, and carry my bag that feels heavier and clunkier with each additional step.

“Making choices is hard,” I complained to Tara one morning, wondering about the weather and thinking up excuses to take the car.  Tara, always gentle in her retorts, reminded me that I make choices every day; I have just typically opted to make the easier commuting choices.  Hard choices are the ones we tend not to make; the ones that include carrying an extra pair of shoes or a heavy bag for 2 miles or taking a bumpy bus; the choices that uncomfortable, and a hassle.

A few weeks ago I preached a sermon on the creative process of Ethical Eating.  As I said then, conversations about the environment can be overwhelming, and if we are lucky enough, the choices we get to make can make all the difference in one direction or another.

While writing this column a friend sent me a cartoon that I now have posted outside my office door.  On one half of the page a man alone on a desert island jumps enthusiastically at an oncoming boat; the bubble above his head exclaims “Boat!”  On the other half of the page a man alone in a boat sees his first sight of the desert island and exclaims, “Land!”  Beneath the image the cartoon reads, “Perspective.”

If we are lucky enough, we have the capability of making choices; some will challenge us, others we have yet to realize we make every day.  In the spirit of the Interconnected Web and the 42^nd Anniversary of Earth Day, may we recognize the choices we have before us and work towards the beloved community for all creation.

Want to know more about joining the UCS membership? On May 6^th, from 12-2pm, Assistant Minister, Kim, and the Membership Committee offers “Join and Grow.” Join and Grow is a two hour exploration of our personal religious histories, theologies, and who we hope to be as members of the UCS community. (Join and Grow is the 2^nd of the two part path to membership). Join and Grow also covers the benefits and expectations of membership. At its conclusion, you will have the opportunity to sign the Membership Book, if you wish; participation does not imply a commitment. Contact Kim at Kim@UCSummit.org for more information.

Interested in Unitarian Universalism, its history and theology? Join Assistant Minister, Kim, and the Membership Committee for “Fresh and Direct!” This two hour discussion is a quick trip through our past, present and a look at our living tradition still in formation. Fresh and Direct is offered every other month, the next on June 3^rd from 12-2pm. RSVP Kim at Kim@UCSummit.org for more information.

The Board of Trustees met on 4/13-14/12 for a planning retreat, including its own strategic planning exercise based on the model for congregational sessions later in April. The regular meeting of the Board was held on 4/16/12.

FINANCE:

- Chris Grazioso reported that UCS is back on track with pledge collections. The Finance Committee decided to switch back to a cash basis accounting from the accrual basis. The Board will hold a special meeting on May 7^th to review the draft budget developed by the Budget Committee

PROPOSAL FOR DISTRICT RESOLUTION:

- Marty Rothfelder requested support from the Board for two proposed resolutions to make regional and national UU meetings more accessible by considering alternative, lower-cost registration, sites, and childcare arrangements. The Board authorized Marty to present such resolutions to the Unitarian Universalist District of Metropolitan New York, Inc. at its meeting on May 4-5, 2012 in Stamford, Ct.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT:

- Rev. Kim Tomaszewski reported that the UUA and other religious institutions are moving away from Nominating Committees to a Leadership Development Team (“LDT”) approach, to institutionalize leadership as spiritual practice, and to identify and nurture leaders. Gary Nissenbaum and Tom Howard are working with Kim to develop an LDT for UCS.

ANNUAL GIVING CAMPAIGN:

- David Miller reported that UCS is on track to raise $660,000 in pledges, as the Annual Giving team is continuing to reach out to individuals and households that have not yet turned in pledges. Last year members pledged a total of $630,000.

CAPITAL CAMPAIGN AND FINANCING:

- Carol Ulmer reported that members and friends have pledged a total of $2.27 million, from the first 47 households to make formal pledges. Capital Campaign team members are staffing a table at Social Hour to encourage participation and answer any questions.

STRATEGIC PLANNING:

- Susan Kuney reported that there were 40 participants in the April 15^th Strategic Planning breakout sessions to discuss 6 “provocative proposals” for UCS’ future. Two additional sessions were planned for April 22^nd and 29^th, to allow broad participation.

Drumming Circle

The Drumming session is held on the first Tuesday of the month (May 1^st) at 7:30pm in room 210. The Drumming Group is prepared to assist with Shamanic Healing. Please call John Foord at 973-263-2567 to schedule a healing. We deal with physical, mental or spiritual problems particularly when traditional medical solutions have had limited success.

SIP Circles

Spirit in Practice (SIP) Circles is being offered in May on:  Thursday, May 3^rd at 7:30 pm; Sunday, May 6^th at 7:30 pm; Tuesday May 8^th at 7:30pm; Wednesday, May 9^th at 10am

Men’s Group

An opportunity for men to meet as a group for fellowship and exploration of topics. Offered on:  Monday, May 7^th & 21^st in the library at 7pm. Contact: Arthur Perkins, artperk@msn.com, (administrative leadership; no group leader)

World Religions

This month we will meet on Tuesdays, May 8^th & 22^nd from 1-3pm in the library. As we continue our study of ancient religious rituals, we’ll visit the Moche River Valley of Peru to learn about the religious ritual of the “chalices of  blood” practiced by the Moche people and their leaders from about 100 to 800 A.D. From there we’ll go to the Mayan ceremonial center of Palenque in eastern Mexico to learn of the stepped pyramid called the Temple of the Inscriptions, the great ruler Pakal, and of many rituals practiced there between 250 to 799 A.D., including “the ball game.” Next we begin a new theme of “Lost Gods and Fallen Temples,” in which we’ll go back in time to 3800 – 2500 B.C. to the island of Malata, where Neolithic seafarers and farmers created the world’s first gigantic stone temples to a Mother Goddess and worshipped her with animal sacrifices and feasts. Lastly, in the Egyptian desert, we’ll explore the tell of el-Amarna, where the city of Akhenaten was discovered and also, 240 miles south at Thebes, the gigantic temple to Aten. Amenhotep IV took the name of Akhenaten and with his wife Nefertiti converted Egypt to an early monotheistic worship of the sun disk god Aten around 1350 B.C. This faith was destroyed after he died. Come discover and discuss with us much more of these ancient places and beliefs. For more information call Glory Bowen, 973-335-5590.

Alliance

ALLIANCE INVITES ALL OF YOU to participate in the May Clothing Sale

We will also be checking the plans for the Clothing Sale set-up (May 6-9) and Sale (May 10,11,12) to be sure that every detail is covered, especially our external and internal publicity. Check the bulletin board in Fellowship Hall for hours and other details. The May 10^th meeting will be running opening day of the Clothing Sale. June has often seen a pot luck picnic at a members’ house and sometimes there are even summer gatherings.

Great Bios

The Great Biography Reading Group meets at 7:30pm in the Church Library onWednesday, May 16^th.  Our conversation will center on Stanley Ann Dunham whose fame as the mother of Barack Obama tended to overshadow her own remarkable accomplishments. Obama’s extraordinarily interesting mother was a feminist, an independent spirit, a cultural anthropologist, and an international development officer. Stanley Ann Dunham began life with a boy’s name in rural Kansas and never stopped doing things that people said she could not do. Read what you can find about this amazing woman, Stanley Ann Dunham, and let’s talk around the table.  More info?  Pat Thornton 973-313-1895. In June, we study Benezair Bhutto and VOTE for the biographies for next season.

Book Club

The Unitarian Afternoon Book Club meets on the third Thursday, (May 17^th) of the month in the Church Library at 1:00pm. Contact Liz O’Byrne for details, lizobyrne@yahoo.com or 973-809-9749.

½ Day Meditation Retreat with Laura Alper

Half day silent meditation. Saturday, May 19^th from 9am to 12:45pm.

This retreat will be in the tradition of insight or “vipassana” meditation which uses both focused concentration on the breath or the placement of the step, for example, and open sensory awareness.

Green Vespers

Seeking Right Relationship with Earth. A monthly service Centered on respect for the Interdependent Web of all existence will be held on Saturday, May 19^th, at 6:30pm in the sanctuary. (Note time change for May only)

After, we will share a potluck dinner. Our food philosophy: Keep it simple, healthy; eat low on the food chain & as organically & locally as possible.  Then we’ll clean up together.

BYOB (Bring your own beverage.) R.S.V.P to Helen Kaar  (halfmoonhouse@mac.com)  973-377-5757

Tell us you’re coming. We’ll set a place for you.

In May and June, our team will be providing opportunities for you to learn more about our trip and how you can support us. Throughout the month of May, our Religious Education classes will be donating duffle bags and medical supplies so that each delegate can bring a suitcase of much-needed supplies for an AIDS orphanage in Bucharest.

(The list of supplies – generic brands are fine – includes Band-aids, neosporin/triple antibiotic ointments, ibuprofen, Tylenol, immodium, children’s vitamins. Also needed:  Gently used baby and toddler clothing, new baby bottles, teething toys, new stuffed toys. Bring your items in any time from May 6 to May 20.)

On June 3^rd, after second service, our delegation will be hosting a (fundraiser) lunch for the entire congregation followed by an information session on Transylvania and its Unitarian congregations.

The 2030s Group is a group for UCS members and friends who are in their twenties and thirties. It doesn’t matter if you are single, partnered, with children, in school, working, or most/none of the above, you are welcome to join! Join our e-mail list and Facebook group by contacting Emilie Boggis, emilie@ucsummit.org.

Any other nominations for these positions must be provided in writing to an Officer of the Board of Trustees and the Minister at least 6 days prior to the annual meeting. The nominees have provided the following biographies:

Karen Damato joined UCS in 2001. Around that time, she was chair of the Archives Committee and one of the writer/editors of “From Where We Come,” a brochure on the history of UCS. She was an RE teacher and a member of Vanessa’s Ministerial Relations Committee and worked on the mid-2000s redesign of our website. In the 2011-2012 church year, she has been a member of the Strategic Planning Team working on a five-year plan for UCS. Karen is a writer and editor for The Wall Street Journal, overseeing the paper’s monthly sections on mutual-fund investing. She lives in Berkeley Heights with her husband Andy (whose activities include the many treats and adventures he offers at the Services Auction) and daughter Anna (a high-school senior who has enticed her dad to join her on the church trip to Transylvania this summer).
Kris Gordon has been a member of UCS since 2005. She has been active in Church life, including serving on the Board of Trustees since 2008: one year as Secretary and as Vice President for the past two years. Among Kris’ responsibilities have been acting as Board liaison to the Budget and Annual Giving Committees, organizing Board retreats, and offering input to Church human resources issues. Along with others, she participated in the UCS delegation to the UUA Leap of Faith program in 2009-2010, during which the First Unitarian Church of Dallas became our mentor congregation. She managed the Services Auction in 2008 and has remained involved in this fundraiser since then. Kris is the human resources manager for a division of Aon Corporation. She moved to Short Hills in 2005 with her husband David and three daughters, one of whom, Rachel, was a member of the Youth Group.

Tom Howard and his wife, Amy, joined the UCS in 1992. Their son Sam, who graduated from Alfred University last year, attended Religious Education for many years. Tom and Amy have lived in Short Hills since 1984. Tom has served as President of the Board of Trustees for the past two years. He reports that he is standing for re-election because he hopes to provide continuity for the acquisition of the adjacent property and the start of the Capital Campaign and to help with the progression of the Strategic Planning initiative. Tom participated in the planning that led to the sale of the former property up the hill (known as Unitarian House) and the reconstruction/expansion of the Church building we now occupy. He co-chaired the initial Capital Campaign in 1999-2001 for that project as well as the annual pledge drive. Tom also served chaired the Membership Committee, and, in 2002-2004, served as President of the Board of Trustees. He served as the Metro New York District representative on the UUA Annual Program Fund in 2009-2010. Many of you know Tom through his role as master of ceremonies and auctioneer for the annual Services Auction, which he has done for many years. He also has delivered the sermon at summer services on several occasions. In his other life, Tom is a trial lawyer with a five lawyer firm in Hackensack, primarily representing plaintiffs in civil litigation in New Jersey and New York, handling trials, arbitrations and appeals of will contests, medical malpractice, nursing home neglect, and business disputes.
Susan Spencer Cramer joined the church in 2003. A lifelong Unitarian, she was raised in Weston, Massachusetts, and attended the First Parish Church in Weston. Susan has volunteered in many capacities at UCS, including teaching religious education classes, co-chairing the publicity committee, and serving on Rev. Julia Hamilton’s intern committee. Susan lives in Maplewood with her husband, Steve, and daughters Charlotte, 14, and Emilia, 8, both active participants in the RE program. In her professional life she has worked in magazine publishing for 25 years and in January 2012 was named editor-in-chief of Woman’s Day magazine.

Participants say they found the meetings challenging, exciting and stimulating. In May, the Planning team aims to release the results from these discussions, which will provide the basis for our new Mission and Vision statement. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, the congregation’s Board of Trustees has formed a Capital Campaign team to raise funds to expand so we have room to grow into our future vision.  Have you noticed signs using our theme, Making Room for Many Voices?

Please visit the team–and get up-to-date information–after church services at our Making Room for Many Voices table in Fellowship Hall. To learn more about the team’s plans and find out how to support our vision of the future, contact team members:

David Gordon (david.a.gordon.2@gmail.com),

Carol Ulmer (carolulmer@comcast.net) or

Julia Miller (jayceemiller@verizon.net).

A big adventure of this kind is one of those journeys of a thousand steps.  First you ask what you love most about what you have and who you are and carefully draw fences around it because it is too precious to lose. Then you ask what you must let go of to step through the threshold of tomorrow which will require you and I to be different from who we are today (it always is). And you keep your eye on how you want to journey – with integrity, with compassion, toward meaning and impact, joyfully (because life’s best work should have joy in it too).

I suppose too you try to pull everyone along.  The truth is you will need one another to get where you are going. Big accomplishments are always group efforts and there is something in the universe that almost always brings heroic efforts who they need, when they need them. So, you practice the art of throwing open your arms for the person who comes bearing their own gifts and they come. They come in a steady stream — arms-full-of-gifts after arms-full-of-gifts.

People come to Discovery Meetings and Shape Our Vision sessions bearing arms full of gifts. People join a Strategic Planning Team or Project Team or Capital Campaign Team, often having no idea of what it will require of them, but eager to figure it out and offer themselves to the cause. People show up to create logos and make sure we are communicating well with one another through this process. They come offering to plan celebratory events. They come offering to raise their pledge (or hold steady even though things are tight for them) knowing we need to stay solvent. They cash out retirement plans early so they can help with closing costs.

They step forward to say they happen to know property tax law or enjoy dealing with neighborhood relations or could coordinate details about just about anything, or bring cookies to keep blood sugar levels high at big meetings of the congregation. People step forward to play their part and the big dreams, the high hopes, get one more piece of concrete foundation laid underneath the dreamers’ feet.

Thanks to everyone who has stepped forward in ways small and large and to everyone who will do so when the moment arrives and the voice inside tells them now is time for them to take their place.

It is an extraordinary chapter in the life of The Unitarian Church in Summit. An opportunity that maybe comes once in a hundred years. We are figuring out where we want to go and laying the foundations for our own and the generations to come. And we will need everyone’s offerings of time, talent and treasure to get there.

In faith, Vanessa R. Southern

of New Jersey

YUUR Voice in Trenton

 Unitarian Universalists from all over New Jersey attended the Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry’s Annual Meeting on Saturday, April 14^th, 2012.  Numerous UCS members were there and we were thrilled to see our old friends May Daniels, Art Hausker and Beverley Hausker!  Ingrid Reed, Policy Analyst and New Jersey Project Director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University, spoke on the fairness of New Jersey elections.  Ingrid Reed organized the study of “Clean Elections: Public Financing in Six States including New Jersey’s Pilot Projects” and a report on  “Television Coverage of the 2005 New Jersey Election”.  Most recently, Reed prepared the report, “The New Jersey Local Government Ethics Law and an Assessment of Its Effectiveness.”

Task Force Annual Report Highlights 

Economic Justice

As an outgrowth of our Unitarian Universalist principles, we recognize the obligations for society to ensure that all people are able to obtain food, shelter, education and safety.  Our priorities for the 2011-2012 fiscal year have been: Affordable Housing, Occupy Wall Street, and Preparing for the election; “The Citizens United decision and the Election Process” video.

Environmental Justice

The Environmental Justice Task Force monitors environmental issues within and around the state.  This year we worked overriding the State’s decision to withdraw from the Regional Green House Initiative and educated New Jersey residents on the dangers of Fracking.

Immigration

The Immigration Task Force is working to strengthen the current wage-theft law.  Wage theft is a serious problem for many low-wage, on-the-edge workers.  Another area for the task force has been the implementation of the federal Secure Communities program, or S-Comm.  Under S-Comm, local law enforcements of all kinds would be required to submit fingerprints to Immigration and Customs Enforcement to see if an individual they are detaining is wanted for deportation.

 Health Care

The new Health Insurance Exchanges and New Jersey’s Medicaid Waiver application have been the focus of our task force this past year.  The next step in the Affordable Care Act, the Health Insurance Exchanges will give New Jersey’s 1,271,900 non-elderly uninsured a chance at affordable health insurance.  (2009-2010 census data.)  The Medicaid Waiver, if approved, will affect our most vulnerable population; the poor, the disabled, the elderly poor and those who rely on mental health programs.  We will also be working on Reproductive Justice this year.

New Task Forces on Marriage Equality and Education Equality!

Visit www.uulmnj.org to learn more and to get involved in a task force! 

a 30 minute shift ahead!

Summer services continue to be a single service at 10:00 am, beginning on June 10th, with our Flower Communion Single Service followed by the Annual Meeting of the Congregation.

Participants say they found the meetings challenging, exciting and stimulating. In May, the Planning team aims to release the results from these discussions, which will provide the basis for our new Mission and Vision statement. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, the congregation’s Board of Trustees has formed a Capital Campaign team to raise funds to expand so we have room to grow into our future vision.  Have you noticed signs using our theme, Making Room for Many Voices?

Please visit the team–and get up-to-date information–after church services at our Making Room for Many Voices table in Fellowship Hall. To learn more about the team’s plans and find out how to support our vision of the future, contact team members:

David Gordon (david.a.gordon.2@gmail.com),

Carol Ulmer (carolulmer@comcast.net) or

Julia Miller (jayceemiller@verizon.net).

June 20 – 24

This year’s GA is a very special one, focusing on social justice and immigration issues. UUs will gather in Phoenix, Arizona to engage in justice work. There will be opportunities for all ages. Joining with the people of Arizona, UUs will worship, witness, learn, and work together.

The GA 2012 focus was voted by the 2010 GA in response to passage of Arizona SB 1070. Although SB 1070 has been challenged and is working its way through the court system, the precedent it sets is troubling and opens many possibilities for abuse.

Please join us for this unique opportunity to bring our church’s voice to the discussion and to live our UU values.

If you would like to attend or find out more, please contact Raine Franz (uuraine@gmail.com or look for Raine during coffee hour) or Vanessa Southern (Vanessa@ucsummit.org).

We will also be sponsoring a short information session about General Assembly for those who might be considering attending on Sunday, May 6^th at noon in rm 209. Join us!

Getting a U.S. tourist visa is not always easy, because American diplomatic officials want to make sure that travelers will return home. So Alpar and Laszlo were a bit nervous as they drove from Barot to Romania’s capital Bucharest for their visa appointments with the American Consul General.

With his fluent English, Alpar had little trouble explaining his trip to Summit and the reason he was also visiting Roanoke, the home of his daughter Abigel and her family. He emerged from the consulate office successful.

But he quickly found that Laszlo was still trying to explain himself to the official in charge of his application. “Laszlo does not speak much English or Romanian, and the embassy official did not speak much Romanian or Hungarian,” Alpar explained in a phone call via Skype, “so at first, there was a lot of confusion.”

In an effort to find out whether Laszlo owned his own home, the official asked in Romanian, “Are you a house?”  Neither Laszlo nor the official understood each other, so Alpar stepped in to translate.

After several more unintentional crossed wires, the second visa was approved and all three men were chuckling at their linguistic mix-ups.

Alpar and Laszlo will arrive in Summit on Tuesday, September 11^th and will stay in the homes of Summit members. During the next few days, they will meet with our ministers and members and enjoy a bit of sightseeing.

They will join us for Green Vespers and a special potluck dinner on Saturday, September 15^th, and Alpar will preach at the 20th anniversary service on September 16^th. They will return to Romania on September 18^th.

When I was a girl growing up in India, I was taught to sew buttons, the basics of a loom, spool knitting, and to generally love and appreciate tapestries, silks, embroidery, upholstery and weaves of all kinds. My mother, a lover of textures and fabrics, educated me about the variety of  textiles across India, the different dyes and techniques used in dazzling color combinations for the 6 yard fabric length of a sari, instilling a life-long love.

Maheshwari Sari Photo (C) Gautam Patel

I approached any new project with a great deal of enthusiasm but either never felt satisfaction when it was done, or else was frustrated along the way. It was not for lack of trying. I was dutiful in finishing the crocheted pillow kit a friend brought back from a visit to America. But I did manage to chain stitch a muslin handkerchief to my nightdress as I tightly gripped the hoop to keep my needle stable. I pierced myself repeatedly squinting  to get a thread through the tiniest of needles. All I felt then and can recall readily is frustration, anger, and impatience with myself after the initial rush of excitement at touching new threads, fingering the glittering supplies, and the illuminating joy of figuring out how it all worked. Little wonder that the business of life got in the way of picking up any instruments and trying my hand at weaving anything once again. It was, and continues to be, so much easier to examine closely and admire someone else’s handiwork. And yet, the colors are calling, the shiny instruments beckoning.

Silk being woven into a sari; photo (C) by Gautam Patel

Warp and Weft, Photo (C) by Gautam Patel

Today, an entire cabinet is filled with needles and yarn, all untouched for at least 2 years. As my meditation practice has taken root, other practices, such as taking a bag of knitting to my professional meetings have receded. But I dusted off my needles on April 19th, as we inaugurated the Thursday knitting group inspired by Jane Murphy and in keeping with our Spirit in Practice theme for the month of April of Creativity; but I also did it in consideration of our theme for next month – life practices, in particular, an examination of the values I bring to my time of knitting. Can I be patient? Can I love what I create as much as I admire other’s creations? Why am I angry or disappointed? And most importantly for me, why did I not continue with a practice that would have been so celebrated in my family when I was growing up? Perhaps this practice is not for me, since I seem to have spent so many years not engaging in it?

Silk Awaiting the Loom; Photo (C) by Gautam Patel

Karen Jackson and Lorene Connolly are recruiting UCS members from each town to make sure our flyers go up in all major public places—from the grocery store and drugstore to the library, gym, day care center and train station.  Don’t forget your neighborhood liquor store, beauty salon and barber shop.

            We’re also looking for people to work at the sale on May 10, 11 and 12, either as salespeople or cashiers.   Sign up in Fellowship Hall, or when someone telephones you.  Let us know what 3-hour shift fits your schedule best.  If someone comes up to you at Social Hour, have your calendars ready so you can reserve your preferred work time.

The more people who volunteer, the more fun it will be and the smaller the burden on any individual.  We need at least 30 more workers, and we give quick, on-the-job training.

For more information or to sign up, contact Susan Nanney at  snanney@verizon.net.

Her dog was immediately on the chase. What followed in the next few minutes was a moment of chasing dog, sprinting ninth graders, flying flamingos, and laughing seven-year-olds. Luckily, it soon calmed down, and everyone (minus flamingos) was invited inside for cake.

“I was just thankful that we mowed the lawn yesterday and that my husband bought a cake,” Vanessa commented.

Said her husband, “Watch out because we already know who we’re sending the flock to. We tried to move them on their way tonight, but I was informed that they like to live with you for the week.”

If you’d like to help the flock of flamingos move to a different location in northern New Jersey OR if you’d like to make sure that they never land on your lawn, this is what you need to know:

• For $20, the flamingos will move to the lawn of your choice with love notes!
• For $20, if you have a flock of flamingos on your lawn, we will remove them!
• For $10 you can purchase flamingo “insurance” to prevent any further flamingos from landing on your lawn.
• For $10 we will disclose the name of your sender!

To participate, you must email coaflock@gmail.com. Include your name, address and which of the options you choose (of course, you may choose them all if you want!). Checks should be made payable to UCS with COA on the memo line.

The project is the mastermind of the Coming of Age class (9th graders) who are raising money to pay for their heritage trip to Boston. We encourage our youth to think and organize their own initiatives. You can rest assured that this was their idea!

Each week, on our website, you can see where the flamingos have landed (though people’s residences will remain undisclosed). Make sure to tune in!

From 9 am – 1 pm, the 9th graders used our alcove on Waldron Avenue to vacuum and wash over 50 cars! It was a much-anticipated event in the life of the church and larger community.

“I spent all day Saturday cleaning out my car in preparation for today’s car wash,” said one member. “Oh, the treasures I found!”

One Summit resident said, “I woke up this morning to a layer of pollen on my brand new black jeep. My mother always said that black shows the dirt. I wish I had listened to her when I bought my car. Anyway, I was on my way to breakfast, passed by the fun festivities here, and pulled a U-ie so I could take advantage. They did a great job.”

One of our parent valets said, “I have been in the market to buy a car for the last month. This morning I got to test drive and parallel park  several different makes. It definitely helped my process!”

Obviously a car wash is more of a ministry than one might think.

The Coming of Age class has a goal to raise $1,000 to pay for their heritage trip to Boston. All of their fundraisers are ideas that the youth brainstorm, vote on, lead, and execute.

Special thanks to our COA teachers, Eric & Laura, and COA parents, who helped valet the cars through our car wash and donated all of our supplies.

One flock remained in Maplewood but moved to the yard of Cathy Bataille and Kimi Nakata. They were much larger flamingos and didn’t have the energy to fly after eating all of the grass (and shrimp!?) in our Assistant Minister’s neighbor’s yard.

The second flock of much smaller flamingos flew from our congregation to Karen and Steve Jackson’s house in Chatham. Several diners at La Pasteria witnessed the flock amble down Springfield Avenue and then, suddenly spread their wings and fly. “I was amazed at how silent they were,” said one diner. “Yes,” says Karen Jackson, “They were very quiet until they landed in our yard. I never knew what sound a flamingo made. Now, I do.”

No flamingo has been harmed. Yet.

If you’d like to help the flock of flamingos move to a different location in northern New Jersey OR if you’d like to make sure that they never land on your lawn, this is what you need to know:

• For $20, the flamingos will move to the lawn of your choice with love notes!
• For $20, if you have a flock of flamingos on your lawn, we will remove them!
• For $10 you can purchase flamingo “insurance” to prevent any further flamingos from landing on your lawn.
• For $10 we will disclose the name of your sender!

To participate, you must email coaflock@gmail.com. Include your name, address and which of the options you choose (of course, you may choose them all if you want!). Checks should be made payable to UCS with COA on the memo line.

The project is the mastermind of the Coming of Age class (9th graders) who are raising money to pay for their heritage trip to Boston. We encourage our youth to think and organize their own initiatives. You can rest assured that this was their idea!

Each week, on our website, you can see where the flamingos have landed (though people’s residences will remain undisclosed). Make sure to tune in!

In February I bought a new dresser (my husband is soldiering on). It’s from Ikea. I still remember how the bottom of the drawers would fall out of my Ikea dresser from high school so I bought top of the line Ikea. (My logic is amusing.)

I assembled the dresser over the course of two weeks because I never had a long enough time period to get it done in one go. It meant that our room was in a perpetual state of chaos, and pressure was on to get it done. It was all going well. No major problems. I finally reached the last page of the instructions which illustrated installing the drawers. I looked at two pictures: one with drawers in straight lines and another with drawers askew. I hesitated. What if I put them in and found that everything was askew? I gently placed each drawer neatly on the carpet next to the dresser and decided that it would have to happen another day. When I had more courage.

Have you ever found yourself on the cusp of achieving a goal, even a minor one like assembling a dresser, yet not able to take the final step? For our youth, the end of the school year is in sight. For some, graduation is around the corner. It feels like it should be a time of joy. Yet it’s filled with different, sometimes conflicting emotions. When the end finally arrives, what will we see? Will we see a life lived well or a life out of kilter?

I didn’t have the courage to put those drawers into place until I named my fear that my new dresser would turn out cockeyed, that I would have to take it all apart, that I might have to return to the screeching dresser. I didn’t realize how it had weighed on me until I was sharing my dresser adventures in a staff meeting. When I told them that I couldn’t bring myself to put the drawers in, everyone laughed in understanding. Only then was I able to laugh at myself. Something within shifted. It no longer mattered if my dresser – or my life – would go out of kilter. I could deal. But I needed a community to get me there.

In April and May, our church will be offering its first Senior Seminar, a chance for our graduating high school seniors to come together, to think about and to name where they are. How does life look from where they stand? I’ve wanted to offer it for a long time. I am hoping that they will find a community that gives them courage for the road ahead.

UU Seder, Matzoh, Haggadah and our Flaming Chalice

Normally the streets in my town are like child-rivulets first thing in the morning, flowing to the local schools.  This week, with schools, out it was eerily quiet.  It helped for me to imagine folks dreamily sleeping in or off to visit friends and relatives for the week off. 

Now, with Friday marking the first night of Passover and Easter breaking on Sunday, my images of what folks are up to is changing.  Now I imagine my neighbors cleaning out their kitchen cabinets of chametz (leaven foods) and preparing brisket or boiling eggs and baking hot cross buns.  Now begins the preparation for two of the world’s most sacred celebrations and observances.  Ancient stories with perpetual wisdom are being retold.  Rituals that tie us back to family long before us and carry us forward to family members we may never meet are being re-enacted one more time.  Religion is working its magic.

This Sunday we will gather in worship – children and adults – to honor both Passover and Easter.  As a community with members who draw deeply from both Judaism and Christianity, sometimes within the same nuclear family, it is important to us to find time to honor the richness of both observances.  It is important to tell the stories, to sing the songs of that tell of those events, to reach out for the wisdom they held out that people thought was important for living life with a little more dignity, courage, love.

If you are one of the people still running in the rivulets of your town this week, we hope you will join us on Sunday morning.  If you are away, we send you our joy and blessings this holiday season.

In faith, Vanessa Southern

Over the next two months, flamingos will be migrating from house to house throughout northern New Jersey. They might even land on your lawn one morning!

Each week, on our website, you can see where the flamingos have landed (though people’s residences will remain undisclosed). Make sure to tune in!

Want to know how it works?

• For $20 we move the flamingos to the lawn of your choice with love notes!
• For $20, if you have a flock of flamingos on your lawn, we will remove them!
• For $10 you can purchase flamingo “insurance” to prevent any further flamingos from landing on your lawn.
• For $10 we will disclose the name of your sender!

To participate, you must email coaflock@gmail.com. Include your name, address and which of the options you choose (of course, you may choose them all if you want!). Checks should be made payable to UCS with COA on the memo line.

The project is the mastermind of the Coming of Age class (9th graders) who are raising money to pay for their heritage trip to Boston. We encourage our youth to think and organize their own initiatives. You can rest assured that this was their idea!

More helpers for the Clothing Sale mean less work. Sign-up sheets are on the bulletin board in Fellowship Hall.

Alliance is holding an expanded Clothing sale on May 9^th, 10^th, and 11^th. It is designed as an all church activity with most of the proceeds going to the church as special income.

We hope to expand the better clothing area because better clothes bring more money and we are working on display plans to tempt the buyer. With more space this year, we hope to double the income.

A voice for justice, equality and compassion in New Jersey

Annual Meeting 2012

Saturday, April 14, 9:00am – 3:00pm

Hosted by the UU Congregation of Monmouth County

1475 West Front Street, Lincroft NJ

(see www.uucmc.org for directions)

Featuring a keynote address by Ingrid Reed:

“How Does New Jersey Measure Up: Citizens United and the Fairness of Our Elections”

 Ingrid Reed recently retired as a Policy Analyst and the Director of the New Jersey Project at the Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers, and is a member of the UU Princeton congregation.  The New Jersey Project is an initiative designed to reinforce and expand the contributions of Rutgers’ Eagleton Institute of Politics to the governance and politics of New Jersey. Among its initiatives are research and programs on campaign and election activity, ethics administration, and governance issues.  Reed’s work focused on campaigns and elections from the point of view of the citizen.

Please join us at the 2012 UULMNJ annual meeting:

UUs from all over New Jersey will be gathering to discuss past and future actions on key issues.

• Delegates from Affiliated Congregations will be voting on the new budget and members of the Board of Trustees.
• A great opportunity to meet in person with justice leaders from other congregations.

Check-in starts at 8:30am with coffee and bagels; the meeting will begin promptly at 9:00am.

There will be a working lunch provided.  We rely on your donations to cover the cost of food and materials for this event.

Register online at https://www.formdesk.com/uuforms/UULMNJ

or

Contact us at 609-672-7331 or workshop@uulmnj.org

For updates and more information about UULMNJ, please visit  www.uulmnj.org .

Video Presentation and Discussion

Monday, April 23^rd at 7:30pm in the Sanctuary

The impact of the January 2010 Supreme Court decision, frequently called, “Citizens United”, has had an unprecedented impact on the election process.  This video produced and distributed by the UULMNJ Economic Justice Task Force helps its viewers to understand the impact of the decision and what we can do on the local level

 The 1^st speaker is Greg Nagy, retired Director of the NJ Election Law Enforcement Commission, and practicing attorney in the area of campaign finance, lobbying regulation and ethics; gives a brief history of election financing legislation, including the Citizens United and describes the impact of each with simplicity and even humor.

The second speaker is Heather Taylor, Communications Director for Citizens Campaign and coordinator of the NJ Online News Resource Group; describes NJ Legislation initiated by the Citizens Campaign and approved in 2005.  This law is intended to prevent Pay-to-Play at the State level.   Heather also describes ways we can influence our Town County governments to adopt policies to prevent Pay-to-Play at the local level.

Reverend Craig Hirshberg Executive Director of UULMNJ moderates a panel of speakers and then takes questions from the audience.

Ted Brewer and Lorraine Wearley will present the video and facilitate a discussion afterward.

]]> http://www.ucsummit.org/wordpress/video-presentation-and-discussion-monday-april-23rd-at-730pm/feed/ 0 http://www.ucsummit.org/wordpress/april-1-the-creative-acts-spirit-in-practice-theme/ http://www.ucsummit.org/wordpress/april-1-the-creative-acts-spirit-in-practice-theme/#comments Sun, 01 Apr 2012 16:00:54 +0000 Tuli Patel http://www.ucsummit.org/wordpress/?p=5750 Read More]]> Service Times: 9:00 and 10:45 am

Preacher: Rev. Kim Tomasweski

Rev. Kim Tomaszewski on 04/01/12

Kim's Blooming Garden

For the last few weeks Tara and I have introduced a new routine into our mornings:  Coffee in hand, I open the shades to the living room, gasp, ooh and ahh, and then beg her to come look.  Tara knows what’s coming.  It’s the same as yesterday, and the day before.  She’s kind to pretend it might be something unexpected and she follows over to the window putting on a good show of expectation.  I point.  She looks.  “They didn’t look like this yesterday morning!” I explain.   The flowers are blooming.

 Discovering what the previous owners planted has been one of my true joys this spring.  Why would they have put some flowers here but not there?  What will these thick stout grasses bloom into?  Do you think these are done blooming or maybe that they are even weeds?   I don’t have a natural green thumb that I wish I did.  I envy my parents who have transformed their lawn into beds of flowers and my brothers who eat from their own backyard.  For me, spring and summer pull from me a deep theism; an appreciation of all that has been born, and all that awakens from the darkest and coldest places as if it was its first birth.  I wish I could be a part of this process; to plant the seeds of birth and resurrection.

 I admit I love the Jewish and Christian stories that come with this time of year:  Passover’s remembering of the Exodus that raises a glass to the next year; still hopeful and remembering what was once possible, is again.  And Easter’s resurrection of Jesus; how many of us bring our loved ones to life again in the telling of their memories, recalling their voice and their teachings, in embodying their hopes for the world?   It is as if all that was once planted – in seed or thought, in action or story – blooms with possibility and promise.  

 This month the Membership Committee is offering Supper Circle sign ups.  Supper Circles are small groups of congregants who gather for a meal in one person’s home or in a restaurant once a month.  It’s a way to create new relationships or build on some that have already begun.  It seems to only be fitting that we’d ask you to think about such an invitation during this time of year.  There are some relationships that just seem to click, that are instant and lasting.  But those are few and uniquely special.  Others, we tend to differently:   We find the ground that might be most fertile; we make room by clearing out the weeds or hard earth that makes us hesitate; we plant seeds of hope and offering; we water and wait, and then water and wait. 

 Think about the relationships you hold dear.  Haven’t you wanted to pull someone to it, oohing and ahhing at all that it is?  All that it has bloomed into, so different than it was the day or year before?  Haven’t you been surprised by what was once dormant seemed to thrive at another time?

Service Times:  9:00am and 10:45am

Preacher: Rev.  Kim Tomaszweski

Please don’t delay completing and turning in your pledge card if you still have it!  Support for the church is always welcome, but it is does more good if we know far enough ahead of time so we can arrange for the most effective use of our funds.  The sooner we know what you pledge, the better the life of this religious community next year.

Please respond if you have been getting messages from one of our pledge captains. They are volunteering their time and energy to help your liberal religious community gather the pledges needed to thrive throughout the coming year.

If you need a replacement pledge card or need to a question answered, please call the church office or any of the Annual Giving Campaign team’s co-chairs: Joe Parsons, Wally Pereira, and Kim Tomaszewski.

- – The UCiS 2012 Annual Giving Campaign Team

Meeting dates are shifted this month due to Easter.

What’s an ‘SOV’ Session?

A Shape Our Vision Session! They are a series of 3 congregation-wide meetings where you have the opportunity to hear about where we are in the strategic planning process and to give your feedback on the ‘provocative proposals’ the planning team has developed. This is your final opportunity to get your voice heard and your opinions reflected in UCS’ five-year strategic plan.

 What is Appreciative Inquiry (AI)?

AI is the basis of our strategic planning process. The AI approach explores what is working in organizations and builds on strengths and assets, rather than focusing on problems. It builds on the holistic history of positive stories and successes, and engages people to link the positives of the past with the organization’s current capabilities to consciously construct a better future.

What is a Provocative Proposal?

A provocative proposition is a statement that bridges the best of “what is” with our community’s own intuition of “what might be”.  It is provocative to the extent to which it stretches the realm of the status quo, challenges common assumptions or routines, and helps suggest real possibilities for the organization and its people.¹ Provocative proposals are stated in the affirmative; as if they are already happening.

What are our Provocative Proposals?

Our six proposals are:

1. Strengthening our Intergenerational Community
2. Stepping into Leadership
3. Supporting a Family Friendly Congregation
4. Embracing Technology
5. Growing into our Future
6. Expanding Diversity

How did you come up with these?

We listened to the over 150 people who participated in our Discovery Meetings in the Fall, and we worked as a team to translate the facets of UCS life that members value or wish to foster into achievable aspirations. These proposals are meant to stretch or challenge us. They illustrate the real possibility we have, over the next five years, to go deeper together as a community while influencing the larger world. Each proposal should transverse almost every aspect of church life from worship and spiritual education to programming and administration. We want to hear what excites you, members of the congregation, about these proposals. Please feel welcomed to offer your own proposals and ideas as well.

What are the dates and times?

Our first Vision Session kicks off Sunday, April 15th at 12pm with a delicious lunch catered by long-time member and chef extraordinaire, Adrienne Cymbala. The meeting lasts until 2:30pm. Childcare is available.   The second opportunity will be Sunday, April 22nd from 12pm-2:30pm. This Session will also feature lunch by Adrienne, but it will have the added attraction of enhanced childcare for those who require it. The last opportunity to make your voice heard will be Sunday, April 29th from 6:30pm-8:30pm. We will have light refreshments on hand and there will be no childcare.

At each meeting, you choose two proposals for which to give feedback. If you want to contribute to more proposals, please feel free to attend more than one Session. 1. http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/practice/toolsPropositionsDetail.cfm?coid=1170

Preacher: Rev.  Vanessa Southern

Rev. Vanessa Rush Southern on 03/25/12

I’d like to introduce you to our congregation’s delegation to Transylvania. Our team of five youth and six adults will be traveling to Transylvania June 28 – July 8, 2012 to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of our partnership with the Unitarian Church in Barot. We will be staying with families from our partner church and spending the week speaking broken Hungarian, learning more about our partners, serving in the community, and enjoying the beautiful scenery.

In preparation for our trip, our team had its first meeting last Sunday. We learned about Transylvanian history, culture, and language, as well as a little Unitarian history. We can now ask you where the bathroom is in Hungarian. Soon we’ll even have mastered “Spirit of Life” in Hungarian too!

While you may not be physically traveling to Barot yourself, we’d like for you to travel with us.

• Can you locate Transylvania on a map?
• Why does our partner church speak Hungarian if they are located in Romania?
• Who was the only Unitarian King?
• What recent movie was filmed in Transylvania because the Carpathian Mountains today look like the Appalachian Mountains in the 19th century?

Ways for you to get involved or support our Transylvania Team:

1. Donate Miles: Two members of our delegation need airline miles to help offset the cost of their airfare (currently $1,500). If you have miles that you would like to donate, please contact Emilie Boggis, emilie@ucsummit.org.
2. Learn More About Transylvania: Once a month our delegation is getting together to learn about Transylvania history, culture, and language. Our meetings are open to everyone! We meet the third Sunday of every month, April – June, 4-6 pm. Please RSVP to Emilie and bring a pot-luck dish!
3. Join our Delegation: There are still a few open spots for UCS members if you are interested in joining our Transylvania team. The cost of the trip is $825, which does not include airline transportation.

The Sessions on April 15th and 22nd will offer childcare and a delicious lunch catered by long-time UCS member, Adrienne Cymbala (see below). The Shape Our Vision Session on April 22nd will feature enhanced childcare programming, so parents of younger children – this date is particularly for you! There will be no childcare on April 29^th.

The team has been working hard putting together a series of thought provoking proposals for UCS’s future based on what you told us in the Discovery Meetings in the fall.  Now it’s time for you, the larger congregation, to help us refine the proposals and possibly make a few proposals of your own.

Some of the questions we’ll be exploring:  

• What would it mean to become even more intergenerational and family-friendly?
• How could we harness the power of new technologies to connect our members and broaden our reach?
• When we say we cherish the diversity among us and want to see more of it, where might that lead us and what might we need to do to get there?
• Where and how do we want to make our particular mark in the world?
• How does all of our programming serve and reinforce the values and dreams we have for who we are when we are together, the qualities and formation we wish to foster in our own spiritual lives, and the good we seek to do in the world around us?

Join us for one of these three gatherings! This is the last opportunity to participate in group discussion before the planning team begins drafting the Strategic Plan. You’ll want to get your ideas heard. See you there.  If you think you will join us on 4/22 and need childcare please let us know, if you can, in advance the ages of your children.  You can email Susan Webster at Susan@ucsummit.org.  Thank you!

============================================================

The Menu for Lunch!

April 15 and 22^nd, Adrienne Cymbala of Marvelous Mouthfuls (www.marvmouthfuls.com) will provide lunch. $5/person optional donation requested. :

 Audacious Apricot Lentil Soup and Bold East African Butternut squash soup

Spinach Salad with roasted red and yellow peppers, kalamata olives, chickpeas, goat cheese and balsamic vinaigrette (both will be served on the side) 

Assortment of breads

Sliced Oranges and dried figs drizzled with a warm cinnamon sauce

Bread pudding with pumpkin or bananas

Brownies

Soups and salad are gluten, peanut and tree nut free

Rev. Vanessa Rush Southern on 03/18/12

Preacher: Rev. Vanessa R. Southern

If you are willing to drive fellow UCS members to and from, (or to or from), UCS on Sundays, please contact Assistant Minister, Kim Tomaszewski for more information.  Kim@UCSummit.org or 908.273.3245 x129.  You can also find sign ups throughout the church.

Rev. Vanessa Rush Southern on 03/11/12

Preacher: Rev. Vanessa R. Southern

Last weekend, our Youth Group hosted a district-wide youth conference or con. Almost 110 Unitarian Universalist teenagers, ages 14-18 years old, from across the Metropolitan New York area and their adult advisors lived in our congregation from Friday night through Sunday morning. While the Con is managed by our district’s Youth Adult Committee, it is led by our youth in Summit. Forty-two of the 106 youth were from our congregation!

300 apples, 140 bagels, 3 bags of M&Ms, 2 containers each of pretzels, cheese balls, nutella, fluff, and jam

When planning a con, the host brainstorms a theme based on inserting the word “con” into a well-known idea. This year our theme was Dia-Con Alley after Harry Potter’s Diagon Alley, the magical street where wizards and witches purchase supplies.

10 lbs of mozzarella cheese, 10 jars of spaghetti sauce, 6 dozen eggs, 9 lbs of lasagna noodles

Youth spent their weekend meeting other UUs and connecting in small groups which were named after stores on Diagon Alley (Leaky Cauldron & Wallaby’s Quality Quidditch Supplies). The groups shared their favorite and most annoying characters, reflected with one another about what they see in The Mirror of Erised and competed to find all of the horcruxes. Yes, there was actually a quidditch tournament in our Fellowship Hall. Luckily, no exit signs were hurt in the game.

2 containers each of skim milk, 2% milk and soy milk, 3 containers each of lemonade, ice tea and Koolaid

They also participated in workshops entitled “Does Dark Magic Exist?” or “Casting Luminems”.  Each evening they gathered for youth-led worship in our candle-filled sanctuary and were invited to share their own magical moments.

100 sausage links, 50 veggie patties, 8 containers of salad, 3 boxes of butter

At the end of the weekend, in spite of their utter exhaustion, the youth leaders of the con stayed through both services to lead an energy break for the congregation. “There was a moose, on the loose, covered in juice….” It was great to see children and youth, young adults and parents, grandparents and elders dancing around the sanctuary to a moose song. But I still don’t know what it had to do with Harry Potter. Sometimes you need to move outside of your theme.

5 veggie trays, 2 containers of hummus, 700 slices of American cheese

What is most astounding is the amount of food that was consumed in less than 48 hours (not to mention, how ridiculously cluttered our space got)! We also had to accommodate different food needs: omnivores, vegetarians, vegans, lactose intolerant and gluten free. We had three different meals for Saturday’s dinner (meat lasagna, veggie lasagna and vegan, gluten-free pumpkin chili). Parents did a majority of the cooking (youth did a majority of the cleaning), and at each meal, they would say, “This has to be enough!” And we still needed more!

150 drinking cups, 8 aluminum containers, 8 boxes of cereal (with 25 bowls)

It takes a lot to make a con or youth conference happen, but as we know from the memories of several generations, the experience is one that is remembered for a lifetime.

By Eboo Patel, founder of the Interfaith Youth Core

When the pictures of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were published, I remember staring for a long time at the photographs of the terrorists, searching their faces for signs of dementia or marks of evil. But for the most part, they looked unsettlingly normal, perhaps even a little naive, more like the faces in a high school yearbook than on a Wanted poster. And then it occurred to me: the reason the pictures resembled those in a high school yearbook was that some of these murderers were barely out of their teens.

I remembered Yigal Amir, the extremist Jew who assassinated Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. I thought back to 1997, when a member of the Christian Identity movement named Benjamin Smith went on a shooting rampage across the Midwest, targeting Jews, Asians, and African Americans. Twenty-six and twenty-one years old, respectively. I thought about the news reports I heard consistently about religious violence in India, Sri Lanka, the Middle East, Northern Ireland, West Africa, wherever. The ages of the people doing most of the fighting, killing, and dying were generally between fifteen and thirty. The world had recently woken up to the increasing link between religion and violence. But there was something else going on that most people seemed to be missing: the shock troops of religious extremism were young people.

I was starting the Interfaith Youth Core—an international youth movement that applies the core value of all faiths, service to others, and uses it as a bridge—because I thought young people could be a major force in building religious cooperation. But I was having a hard time getting anybody to pay attention. Even people within the small interfaith movement generally treated young people’s involvement as a sideshow. But religious extremists didn’t view young people as an afterthought. Religious extremists saw a fire in young people that others were missing. They were stoking that fire and turning it into targeted assassinations and mass murder. In my mind, I was picturing a movement of young people working for religious understanding through cooperative service. In my newspapers, I kept reading about teenagers and twenty-somethings killing other people in the name of God. Their movement was strong and growing. I began to investigate why.

Religious totalitarians have put enormous effort into two institutions where young people spend a great deal of time: schools and websites. The Christian Identity movement is particularly adept on the web. Their sites feature electronic coloring books with white supremacist symbols, crossword puzzles with racist clues, and twenty-four-hour webcasts.

In India in the mid-1990s, about 6,000 schools, employing 40,000 teachers and educating more than one million students, were associated with the Hindu nationalist political party Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Textbooks used by many of these schools contain a map of India that includes Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Tibet, and parts of Burma. The alphabet is taught using Hindu symbols—A is for Arjuna, B is for the Bhagavad Gita, and so on. Letters that do not correspond to any Hindu symbol do not get taught.

Institutions require money, and religious extremists make the most serious investments. A financial network committed to an aggressive version of Salafi Islam has dramatically changed the Muslim world over the past quarter century. Salafis actively seek to destroy any diversity within the ummah and consider relations between Muslims and other communities anathema. How has this interpretation become dominant? Private foundations and wealthy individuals in the Persian Gulf have funded educational institutions that create textbooks, produce videos, and train Muslim preachers. Muslim communities around the world receive money to build lavish mosques, and Salafi imams are sent to staff them and make sure their educational materials are widely available at low cost. One expert calls this process the single most effective use of philanthropic money in the past two decades: “They [the Salafis] have managed to shift the meaning of Islam in the global marketplace of ideas because there is no meaningful competition of any kind.”

I recently read an Indian journalist’s account of the RSS. Toward the end, he confessed that he had been a member during the 1940s, when he was a teenager. It was the twilight of the colonial era, and he wanted to be part of something larger than himself. He joined the RSS because it seemed like the only option for a teenager with a growing political consciousness. He ended the article with a final detail: the more moderate Congress Party did not have an active youth wing in his area.

This same dynamic defines our world today. The totalitarians have put their resources into building youth programs. The pluralists haven’t.

I remember a conversation with a well-meaning Protestant in a wealthy suburb just north of Chicago. He approached me after a talk I gave on the importance of youth programs in religious communities and made a sheepish confession: “My wife and I really enjoy the church we go to, but my daughter, she hates it. She thinks the services are boring, and she complains that there’s no real youth program. The pastor keeps talking about starting one, but I guess he has other priorities.” He kind of shrugged as if to say, “At least we’re thinking about it.” Then he asked me offhandedly, “What do you suggest we do?”

I didn’t hesitate. “Change churches,” I said.

He looked a bit taken aback. “Either that or make sure that the church starts a youth program that interests your daughter,” I continued. In my mind, it was a question of priorities: was he more interested in his daughter liking church or himself liking it?

Most people choose themselves over their kids. It is an entirely understandable choice, but we should not be blind to the consequences. It means that we will continue to fail our religious youth. I cannot help but think of the number of teenagers I know who say that they are bored in their congregations, that their church or synagogue or mosque or temple has little going on for them. The youth minister they liked was let go because of budget cuts. The Habitat for Humanity trip they were planning got canceled because the adult supervisor couldn’t make it at the last minute. The pastor or imam or rabbi can never remember their names.

Too many adults secretly consider the absence of young people in mainstream religious communities the natural course of events, viewing the kids as too self-absorbed, materialistic, and anti-authoritarian to be interested in religion. The result is that adults pay lip service to the importance of involving youths in faith communities but let themselves off the hook when it comes to actually building strong, long-lasting youth programs. Youth activities are typically the top item in a congregation’s newsletter but the last line in the budget. Youth programs are the most likely to be funded by short-term grants, and youth ministers are the first to be fired when a religious community has financial problems.

Were Yigal Amir, Hasib Hussain, and Benjamin Smith meant to be murderers? How about Osama bin Laden? They, too, were born with the breath of God within them. They, too, were made to be servants and representatives of God on earth, to steward his creation with a sense of compassion and mercy. What happened?

Every time we read about a young person who kills in the name of God, we should recognize that an institution painstakingly recruited and trained that young person. And that institution is doing the same for thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of others like him. In other words, those religious extremists have invested in their youth programs.

If we pluralists had invested in our youth programs, could we have gotten to those young people first?

Adapted with permission from Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation, ©2007 by Eboo Patel (Beacon Press). The Unitarian Universalist Association has selected Acts of Faith as its 2011–2012 Common Read and has prepared a discussion guide for use in congregations.

Many of the teenagers from our congregation are participants in their high schools’ plays and musicals from actors to stage production and direction. Please consider supporting them by attending their performances.

March 10, 11, 17, 18: Westside Story at Columbia HS in Maplewood

March 14 – 17: Oklahoma at Summit HS

March 15-17: The Drowsy Chaperone at Morris Knolls HS

March 22-24: Footloose at Berkeley Heights HS

March 28-31: The Wizard of Oz at Madison HS

In addition, one member of our 2030s group is producing Grapes of Wrath at the Chatham Community Players on March 10, 11 and 16, 17.

Fierce Generosity.

All life is a gift which we are called to use to build the common good and make our own days glad.

 UU Hymn,  ”For All That is Our Life”

We all want to make a difference in our home and the world! In order to make a difference, we need your commitment, time and financial support. We need you to be fiercely generous!

The Call for Our Community to Show Fierce Generosity

 At our best, Unitarian Universalists are a fiercely generous people. This is no time for timidity!

Let’s continue the conversation . . . what is generosity? We ask that our members and friends devote at least 2½% to 5% of income to support our shared religious home. Do your neighbors do this? In recent years, over 60 households, both families and individuals, have reported that they donate at least 2½% of their annual income to sustain the services and programs of this congregation. Others do this without reporting it, and some contribute even more generously. We ask that all members pledge in this range now, or develop a plan to achieve this level of giving in the near future.

Your gift is tremendously important to the life of our religious home. Annual commitments from our members and friends provide approximately 85% of our income.

You will receive a pledge card in the mail, from a canvass captain, or pick one up in the lobby. Please return it to the pledge box in the lobby by March 11, 2012.

“I now believe that the need to be known – seen and heard – may in fact be universal. And I’ve found that UCS is a place where I have been seen and heard and been given the privilege to hear, see and know others. This is a basic tenet of spirituality for me and I am grateful. This is why I pledge.”

                                                                                    Lois Pereira, Jan. 29, 2012.

March 15^th at 2:30 pm at UU Congregation of Princeton

UU Legislative Ministry Program

How has the Citizens United Supreme Court decision and laws on financing elections influenced the electoral process? Are there other options for financing elections? What are related NJ developments, specifically Pay to Play reform? How can you influence the process?  

Speakers: Greg Nagy, retired Legal Director of the NJ Election Law Enforcement Commission and long-time UUCP member and Heather Taylor, Communication Director of The Citizen’s Campaign.

Time and Place: Thursday, March 15^th at 2:30 pm in the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton. Sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry of NJ. A video will be made of the program for use in NJ UU congregations to support understating these issues.

Program: Join us to talk about the impact of Supreme Court decisions and legislation governing elections financing on the electoral process.

• What has been the impact of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision which allowed unlimited corporate and union spending for political advertising?
• What has evolved in the post Watergate reforms such as disclosure, contribution limits, expenditure limits and public financing?
• What has been the impact of public financing and super PACs?
• Is there a way to pay for election campaigns which is not biased in favor of the wealthy?
• What is happening in NJ now? And how can each person become involved?

Speakers:

Greg Nagy is a recognized expert in electoral financing, published author, lecturer and longtime Unitarian Universalist. Greg Nagy retired in 2001 after almost 25 years as the Legal Director of the NJ Election Law Enforcement Commission, where he received its lifetime achievement award. He currently practices law in the area of campaign finance, lobbying regulation and ethics.

Heather Taylor is the Citizens Campaign Communication Director, serving as spokesperson and lobbyist. Heather serves as coordinator of the NJ Online News Resource Group, providing resources and assistance to reporters and citizen journalists to improve local government media coverage.

SAVE THE DATES!

The Unitarian congregations of Summit, New Jersey, and Barot, Transylvania (Romania), will celebrate the 20^th anniversary of their Partner Church relationship on the weekend of September 15 and 16, 2012, with a dinner and services in Summit.

Rev. Alpár Kiss, minister of the Barot church, and László Fazakas, lay president of the Barot congregation, plan to visit Summit for the occasion. They will attend an all-congregation dinner coordinated with Green Vespers on Saturday, September 15^th, in Fellowship Hall. Rev. Kiss will preach at services on Sunday, September 16^th, and Mr. Fazakas will bring greetings from the Barot congregation.

Rev. Kiss will also meet with Summit’s ministers and other church groups. He may also speak to the state association of UU ministers. Summit’s Partner Church Committee will host the visitors and take them on some visits to New York City and other tourist areas.

The Barot church will celebrate the 20th anniversary this summer, when a group of Summit youth and adults visit Transylvania from June 28 through July 8. Summit’s Youth Minister Rev. Emilie Boggis is leading the trip and will be preaching at Sunday services in Barot on July 1^st.

The UU congregation in Summit and the Unitarians of Barot became church partners in 1992. Visits like the ones planned for this year have been key to the partnership. Rev. Kiss and several Barot youth have visited Summit, and ministers and lay people from Summit have visited Barot, most recently on a choir trip in 2008.

In addition, our church sends funds each year from our budget to help with church office expenses and to supplement salaries of the minister and music director. We also provide university scholarships for Barot young people (this year we are helping four students with scholarships of $500 each). In addition, we help Barot hold an after-worship coffee hour and we fund a jobs program in church maintenance for unemployed Barot members.

We look forward to celebrating the partnership’s 20th anniversary in September, and invite the whole congregation to participate.

Preacher: Rev. Vanessa R. Southern

Finance:  Pledge collections were at an all-time high in December, though they dropped significantly in January.  Web payment has been set up but is still being fine-tuned.  (Watch for an e-mail announcement when this is available!)

Capital Campaign:  The Capital Campaign team includes David Gordon, Carol Ulmer, Julia Currie Miller, ministers Vanessa Southern and Emilie Boggis, Lessie Culmer-Nier, Jean Crichton, and Jason Shaw.  The Capital Campaign will be sending a letter to all UCS members and friends requesting their contributions, but all are invited contact David, Carol, or Julia to have personal discussions of their contributions.

The Board authorized the hiring of a consultant to assist the team.

Other notes:

• The UU District of Metro NY Annual Conference will be held May 4-5 in Stamford, Ct. All members are encouraged to register and attend.            Visit: http://www.uumetrony.org/am12/
• UU General Assembly will be held June 20-24 in Phoenix, AZ, as a Justice Assembly, focused on immigration.  http://uua.org/ga/
• The Board retreat has been rescheduled to April 13-14.

The next Board meeting is scheduled for March 19^th.

What do you want to do with the rest of your life?  How can you channel your hard-earned wisdom in helpful ways for yourself and others—and what is that wisdom? As you enter into the next phase, whether that be retirement or the ‘empty nest’ how can you continue ‘growing up’ into the kind of person you want to be?

This informative, interactive workshop will draw on the wisdom of Rabbi Shalman Shachter-Shaolomi’s pioneering ‘From Aging to Saging’ work to help all who look forward to the next productive and useful phase of our lives.

Ms. Sandra Pruzansky with Rabbi Amy Joy Small and The Rev. Robert Corin Morris
Sunday, March 11, 2012
1-4 p.m.
Location: Congregation Beth Hatikvah
36 Chatham Rd. in Summit NJ $10 per person

Cosponsored by Interweave Center for Wholistic Living
REGISTRATION: Interweave (908-277-2120) or Beth Hatikvah (908-277-0200)

While at Union Seminary I often joined others after our daily worship for lunch in the cafeteria.  Sitting with my usual group of friends and classmates, each day I found myself repeatedly envious, and truthfully a bit self-conscious, as I watched a select few pause, lower their head and say a quiet prayer before diving into their meal — like I had.  Each day I thought, tomorrow I will begin that practice of saying thank you, of pausing and being intentional.

The end of February and the month of March brings, for many Christians, the practice of Lent.  Lent is the forty days preceding Easter, similar to Advent that precedes Christmas.  It is a time within a religious tradition that focuses on preparation and intention; Muslims do this during the month of Ramadan and Jews with Rosh Hashana.  These are all times of discipline, sacrifice and an opportunity to reflect on how such practices inform one’s understanding of his/her own self or of  his/her place in the world.

Unlike many, I don’t give something up for Lent.  I do, however, become more intentionally disciplined.  It has been just over a year since Tara and I decided that, as a Lenten practice, we’d say Grace before our evening meals.  Grace, meaning a gift, perhaps one unexpected or undeserved, offers me an opportunity to practice my Faith in simple ways that have unfolded new aspects of my spirituality, my appreciation of the interdependent web and my role, privilege and responsibility within it, that I hadn’t imagined.  Last year we began this practice with forty days in mind.  I can’t imagine a meal without it now.

This is our daily prayer: We give thanks for the lives that gave us this food, for the energy it took to prepare it, for the company with whom we share it, and we remember all those who are hungry.

With these few words and with this short pause I smell and taste my food differently; I acknowledge the lives of the countless people who made it possible for it to be there.  In part due to this mealtime practice, I no longer eat meat! I express gratitude for the energy that prepared the meal, and I cannot take for granted the company in front of me.  The television is shut off; conversation is had. I remember those who are hungry and cannot deny the gift of even a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, let alone a plate of beautiful winter vegetables.

I wonder how your faith might unfold with a new simple practice, with an intentional pause, with an addition to your daily life, even just for forty days.

The Community Garden of Homefirst

They need our help in growing the produce!

This Sunday, March 4th, come adopt seeds and grow them in the accompanying kits. We will travel off-site to the community gardens in May to plant our seedlings.

Tomatoes, basil, peas, lettuce, jicama, okra, and collard greens are some of the things that are grown.

This is a great outreach opportunity for all ages and also a part of our kids social action program, Principles Power.

Come and adopt seeds, starting this Sunday, March 4th until March 11th.

Preacher: Rev.  Jackie Lahey

The Rev. Jacqueline Lahey is a chaplain at Compassionate Care Hospice in Fair Lawn, NJ. She is an Community Minister affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Montclair. Reverend Lahey found part of the answer to the question of how to let things go through her work as a hospice chaplain.

Rev. Jacqueline Lahey on 02/26/12

UCS volunteer tutors gather during Mount Vernon Ave School's Feb 1 Reading Event. Left to right: Keith Nier, Frank Schmidt, Jess Morse, Mia Morse, Colleen Grazioso, Norm Miller, Jessica Park, Lessie Culmer-Nier, and Brian Halpin.

Social Action

Over 20 members of our congregation recently participated in reading and math “Family Nights” at Chancellor Avenue and Mount Vernon Avenue schools in Irvington this January and February.  Now in its sixth year, the “adopt-a-school” tutoring initiative began after Vanessa preached a sermon about the inequity among public school districts in New Jersey and the economic hardships many students, families and teachers face who live or work in poorer neighborhoods.

As in years past, Chancellor Avenue School held three Wednesday 90-minute evening sessions in the school “cafetorium.”  The Social Action Committee funded pizza dinners for students and parents.  Mia Morse graciously provided low sugar fruit juices.  And over 70 students and parents attended the event, which paired our volunteer tutors with K-1^st graders at the first session, 2-3^rd graders the second session, and 4-5^th graders on session three.  We provided the curricula, which consisted of age-appropriate language and math worksheets, story problems and skill builders.  This material was supplemented with other tools for learning – flash cards, crayons, decks of playing cards, and books.

Our main focus as “instant mentors” was to make a connection with young learners, using whatever tools are most effective.  For example, Carol Ulmer used her French language ability and a library book to help a young student, recently emigrated from Haiti, who struggles with English-based reading assignments.  It was also evident that many Irvington parents care deeply about helping their children improve their reading and math skills, based on the high turnout and their active participation during Family Nights.  Our presence and warm welcome from the two schools also demonstrated that: a) learning can be fun; b) we care about our neighbors in Irvington; and c) they appreciate the partnership we’ve developed.

On Feb 1, Mount Vernon Avenue School invited our tutors to a Pajama Party-themed heavily attended event for pre-K through 2^nd graders and parents.  We contributed books, co-led group reading sessions with young students, organized the library for their book swap, and – the big draw – set up cafeteria tables where kids made edible dessert projects based on one of the four children’s stories we read them earlier.  Colleen Grazioso deserves special praise for her surprise appearance as The Cat in the Hat, which caused much joy, laughter and spontaneous hugs of affection.

For anyone interested in additional tutor opportunities, Dean Nielsen leads a weekly Saturday morning tutoring session at Chancellor Avenue School, which helps at-risk students prepare for the standardized NJ-ASK exam.  This program will continue until May.

Charles Huschle (center), Senior Associate for Foundations and Corporations of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, presents the UUSC Collective Giving Award to our church. Receiving the award are Rev. Kim Tomaszewski, Assistant Minister for Congregational Life, and Gary Nissenbaum, chair of the Social Action Committee.

Our denomination’s social action arm, the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, recently presented The Unitarian Church in Summit with its Collective Giving Award “in honor of exceptionally generous support” of UUSC development projects in the developing world.

Charles Huschle, the UUSC senior associate for Foundations and Corporations, visited Summit on February 5 to deliver the 2010-2011 award and discuss current projects.  Receiving the award were Gary Nissenbaum, chair of our Social Action Committee, and Rev. Kim Tomaszewski, Assistant Minister for Congregational Life.

 UCS is one of only 17 UU congregations nationally to receive the Collective Giving Award, Huschle said.  There are about 1,000 UU churches and fellowships in the United States.

The UUSC is a nonsectarian organization that advances human rights and social justice in the United States and around the world through advocacy, education and partnerships with grassroots aid groups.

For the past several years, our congregation has dedicated its offering plates for four weeks in January and February to worthy UUSC projects.  Each time, social action leaders choose specific projects so the congregation knows just where the money goes.

Three years ago, the money we raised helped build a women’s shelter in a refugee camp in Darfur.  Two years ago, we bought oxen for farmers in war-torn Uganda.  Last year, we built a girls’ boarding school in Haiti.

This year, the Social Action Committee set an unprecedented goal of $10,000 to fund two projects simultaneously, one in the forested Kakemega district of Kenya and the other aimed at helping ethnic minorities in the Shan border area of Myanmar, formerly Burma.

In Kenya, the program aims to preserve the forests and water supply by helping plant trees, provide seeds for nutritious food crops and offer skills training in marketable crafts that can be made from non-tree materials.  The $5,000 would fund about half the project’s total cost.

In Myanmar, the Self-Sufficiency program provides revolving loans to farmers of ethnic minorities to cover their expenses until harvest time.  Otherwise, to survive, these farmers have to sell their crops at the time of planting at far lower than market price.  Our goal of $5,000 will provide loan funds to 10-11 communities with a total population of more than 3,000 people

In the four Sunday-plate collections completed February 12, the congregation actually exceeded the $10,000 goal.  In all $10,782.62 was raised.  This is the fourth year in a row that The Unitarian Church in Summit has exceeded its goal to fund a UUSC international project.

Our December plate collection (which included part of the monies collected during the Christmas weekend) raised approximately $8,100.00.  Accordingly, we will be remitting the full $7500.00 committed to HomeFirst. We will also be remitting the balance of $600.00 (plus an additional $10000 from the Social Action Committee’s budget) to Habitat for Humanity. This aggregate $1600.00 donation to Habitat will complete the $20,000.00 commitment our congregation promised to Habitat for 2011.

At a time of diminishing expectations and retrenchment, this is a striking example of our congregation living its Unitarian Universalist values. It is a testament to our collective commitment to put those values into action.

Rev. Kim Tomaszewski on 02/05/12

That’s right, his Thundershirt.  We’ve all seen dogs of all breeds and ages quiver at the sound of booming thunder; Owen’s anxiety is triggered by thunder, strangers walking by, flies and other bugs, squirrels and anything else that might move into his space.  The Thundershirt is supposed to calm these anxieties.  The e-collar is when all else fails and the poor animal won’t stop licking or biting at his paws with obsessive anxiety.  The e-collar and the Thundershirt are blessings in their own right, but deserve a blessing of their own!

When I first discovered the odd obsessions of poor Owen he was licking his quick relentlessly.  I called the vet and the woman on the other end of the phone said quickly, “You have to bring him in.  He’ll worry that into a bad situation!”

Worry something into a bad situation?  Tell me I’m not the only one who can appreciate this concern!  Owen became obsessed with licking and biting at his nail and quick; he seemed possessed.  He didn’t care about food or his toy gorilla that he likes to chase.  He didn’t care about all the great petting or new expensive treats I offered.  He just worried and worried away.  What was once just a little pink quick became red and inflamed. Soon enough came socks and bandages, and finally the e-collar cone that prevented him from making it all worse.

As people of faith, it can be our spiritual practices that prevent us from worrying something into a bad situation. I appreciate but have never fully gotten the Buddhist practice of letting go.  Owen and I are far more alike than I’d like to admit. Like Owen’s e-collar, spiritual practices create space between the obsessive worrying and us.  I have had to learn and practice, and relearn and practice much more, what it is that helps me let something heal rather than worrying it into something worse.

For me, it is the safety and comfort of our religious Principles, (namely the 1^st and 7^th), and the love and care of our faith community that works as my own personal e-collar.  I am reminded of our interconnectedness and of the goodness of all.  I am reminded of our intention and our willingness to be human.  Most days, this is enough to get my head up from my paw and up into the wider world.

How do you stop worrying something into a bad situation? I’ve yet to find a Thundershirt for my size.  Until then, it is prayer, running, reading, community and much more for me.

“I am evangelical Christian who no longer attends church,” said the 28-year-old interfaith leader who spoke at the Thanksgiving Service. I was sitting with him and other faith leaders at dinner.

“Well, not church with a building and such,” he explained. “Most of my religious journey is online. Think about it. I can hear the best religious speakers of our time whenever it works for my schedule. I can chat and even plan meet-ups with other Evangelicals or my interfaith friends. It’s expanding the very nature of congregational life!”

He went on to share a story about a minister who has started a “bar ministry” in New York. Every week the minister gathers with 10-12 people in a bar for Bible reflection and conversation. “Ten people doesn’t sound like a lot,” our speaker said, “until you realize that 50,000 people watch his online sermon weekly.” Afterwards they click on Bible passages and reflection questions. They read others’ comments and journeys. Then, they gather in their own bars (or coffee shops or homes) in their own cities with their own friends to discuss the message and share their lives through their faith journey.

I wasn’t surprised by his story. I have already seen how the Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF) is changing. It has always been a “church without walls,” in that it was a “congregation” for Unitarian Universalists who didn’t have a physical community close-by. Now, CLF is transforming into an online sanctuary and spiritual community not unlike the bar ministry. It is a site where people – some with UU congregations in their backyards and others who have never heard of Unitarian Universalism – attend services online, find spiritual partners and join a prison or military ministry. As you explore their website, “Talk to a Minister” even pops up on your screen.

In a recent report to our Board of Trustees, our web gurus showed how our website – with its sermon podcasts, latest reflections, and opportunities for spiritual practice – is being explored by people who will never enter our sanctuary. Yet, our community is helping them grow their soul.

Yesterday I opened a letter from Peter Morales, the President of the Unitarian Universalist Association. He is challenging Unitarian Universalists to begin thinking of ourselves as bigger than our congregations. While congregations would remain our association’s base, says Morales, we are invited and encouraged to recognize all of the invisible people sitting at their desks or traveling on a train or taking their daily walk all while listening to Vanessa’s message.

Imagine one day traveling to Australia or Kansas or Chile or Zimbabwe (you fill in the place) and striking up a conversation with a local. You share that you are from New Jersey. They smile, “That’s where my congregation is based.” Conversely, if you who are reading this blog are from somewhere else, imagine being visited by someone in our congregation!

It feels like a paradigm shift. Some of you might be shaking your heads and saying, “This is beyond me.” Others will be ready to seize the opportunity. Regardless, I look forward to seeing you – whether it’s ten of you at a bar, 300 on Sunday morning in the sanctuary, or 50,000 through our website!

Rev. Vanessa Southern Blessing Therapy Cats

It is always a surprise to see who and what shows up on this particular Sunday.  Hugo Pfaltz didn’t bring his stunning blue and yellow Macaw this year.  He said Ali had been blessed enough, so instead he brought his bearded dragon.  Some other lizards came too, out into the cold, in boxes filled with “hand warmers” and blankets.  There were no snakes or creepy spiders, thank goodness.

Included in the crowd, however, were the standard dogs howling enthusiastically along with the hymns — a mainstay of animal blessings — and so too was there an appearance by Lorene Connolly’s award-winning Borzoi, Mikhailya, who walked through the raucous crowd to get her blessing with unparalleled dignity and beauty.  There were rabbits in baskets and Bill Edwards and Margaret Bennett’s cats on leashes, including two that are due to be inducted to the New Jersey Animal Hall of Fame next month for their work as therapy cats.  Did you even know there was a New Jersey Animal Hall of Fame?!

There was a tiny mouse lifted up in a cupped hand.  I’m pretty sure I heard the family say “Escape Artist” was his name.  I guess the little guy sneaks away often and can be hard to find.  He was, however, very sweet to bless.

Finally, there were all the stuffed animals.  In fact, the last blessing of the day went to one of our stuffed animal friends.  The little boy who lifted this one up to me asked as he did so if we could bless the animal by his full name.

“Of course,” I said.  “What is his full name?”

“Peter Rabbit,” the boy replied.  Up came a sweet, well–loved stuffed rabbit and an earnest human face watching what would follow closely and seriously.

“Bless Peter Rabbit,” I began, “who teaches us the miracles of life and of love as he companions us through our days.”   A little water on the fur and Peter Rabbit was blessed, even as he has no doubt often blessed that boy who took him back.   With that, the day’s work was done.

It was a good day.  No cats pounced on any bunnies or lizards.  No escape artists went missing.  No dogs got into fights.  There was only one strange puddle on the sanctuary floor and, in the end, all the creatures we love or have loved were blessed and sent home again.

It is funny who or what finds the secret doors to our hearts.  And funny too what they open up in us from the inside.  For all our worldly sophistication, all most of us really want or need is someone or something to love that, if we are lucky, loves us back.  In the case of the lizard, we are even pretty forgiving about what loving us back looks like.  It is really a pretty generous stance of the heart and the secret ingredient present every year when we bless our animals that makes the day so sweet.

Happy Valentine’s Day!    Love, Vanessa

Rev. Emilie Boggis on 01/29/12

Preacher: Rev. Emilie Boggis

Religious Education: Social Action Outreach off site. Children in grades K-5 will travel off-site to St. Joseph’s in Maplewood to work in a food pantry.

Also,  Spring Teacher Orientation 12.30 in Fellowship Hall.

Video

Meeting dates are:

You won’t want to miss it! Lunch and childcare will be offered. Cake, too!

Preacher: Rev. Kim Tomasweski

Religious Education: Social Action Outreach continues.  Children in grades K-5 will sort, organize and bag food donations to bring to hungry children.

Rev. Kim Tomasweski on 01/15/12

The Strategic Planning Team

Children at UCS Waiting to Sign Adults Up for a Food Drive

Thank you to those of you who signed up to bring shelf stable meals to children on the National School Lunch program. If you did not sign up, we still welcome your generous donations of food.

Please remember to bring in your items THIS upcoming Sunday, January 15th. We will take all donations, but are looking for at least all of the following in your individual donation:

• 8 meals (Mac N Cheese, Chef Boyardee etc)
• 4 cereal boxes (in individual serving sized boxes)
• 4 juices
• 4 milks (Parmalat or Horizon; shelf-stable please)
• 4 fruit cups/apple sauce
• And any snacks of your choice.

The chef of the restaurant commented, “I have no idea why kids that young would pick on somebody. I have no idea why they would have done it.” These words seemed to echo through the community of Summit. Why? Why would teenagers beat an innocent man?

After leading the initial service for the family and the City residents, the Summit Interfaith Council came together to reflect on the event and our response to it. At that moment, I was reading Eboo Patel’s book, entitled Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, in the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation. In the opening chapters of his book, Patel tells the story of Eric Rudolph, a radical Christian who bombed the 1996 Olympics, and Hasib Hussain, one of the Muslim suicide bombers in London in 2005. They are two people who chose religious extremism and terrorism in their teenage years. Patel asks, “How does a teenager come to hold such a view?” He looks at the ages of most of the terrorists and suicide bombers around the world. Most of them are between 17 – 30 years old.

Throughout Acts of Faith, Eboo Patel unpacks what is happening through the lens of his own life. He shares his story of understanding and reconciling his differing identities (Muslim yet not grounded in Islam, American but seen as an immigrant, dark-skinned in a white world).  Patel writes, “Looking back, I see flashes of the ingredients that prepared the ground for Hasib Hussain’s suicide mission in my own life: A gut-wrenching feeling of being excluded from mainstream society, in the form of a constant barrage of racist bullying. A vague sense of being Muslim from my mother without any real grounding in how that was relevant or useful to my life. A growing consciousness, through my father, that people with whom I shared an identity were being horribly treated elsewhere, often by people who looked like the ones who were bullying me here.”

Patel shares his story so that we as Americans can understand just how ordinary these young people are and how their life path might be changed. ”How does one ordinary young person’s commitment to a religion turn into a suicide mission and another ordinary young person’s commitment to that same faith become an organization devoted to pluralism? The answer, I believe,” writes Patel, “lies in the influences young people have, the programs and people who shape their religious identities.”

Consequently, Patel has created an interfaith organization for young people, ages 17 – 30, after seeing how poorly the larger interfaith community reached out to young people to teach a different way of being religious in our world. He wants to be one of many influences that show young people how people of different creeds and communities can live together.

We on the Summit Interfaith Council are taking Patel’s lead.

On MLK Day, teenagers of differing religious backgrounds from the surrounding community will gather together in Summit for the first Interfaith Youth Training. Our goal is to understand pluralism. Pluralism, as Patel defines it, “is an intentional commitment that is imprinted through action. It requires deliberate engagement with different, outspoken loyalty to others, and proactive protection in the breach. You have to choose to step off the faith line onto the side of pluralism, and then you have to make your voice heard.” They will begin this work by sharing and listening to the values of welcoming and hospitality in all religious traditions. Then, they will identify how they can play a leading role in fostering mutual respect, where strangers within our communities can become neighbors.

I am reminded of our speakers, Josh Stanton and Frank Fredericks, a Jew and an Evangelical Christian, at the Interfaith Thanksgiving Service who met in college through Patel’s organization. Now, in their mid-twenties, their interfaith actions in NYC have defined the term “outspoken loyalty to others.” They shared with us that night how they publicly stood up for their Muslim friends, Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf and Daisy Khan, in the firestorm over their Islamic Community Center near Ground Zero when few other faith leaders would. It was clear that Eboo Patel’s influence had greatly changed these young men’s lives.

I encourage you to read Acts of Faith in preparation for the January 29th services which will focus on Patel’s book and on the outcome of our training. After that service, we hope you will sign up to share your thoughts at our book discussion groups.

Religious Education: Social Action Outreach. Children in grades K-5 will be coordinating efforts to bring food to hungry children in our towns. Sign up with the children to commit to feed 2 children for a weekend.

Membership: Talk and Tour after the second service ( a lay-led tour around our building and grounds, offering a sweeping overview of our church and what it offers. Talk and Tours are offered twice a month on the first Sunday of the month, after the first service, and again on the second Sunday of the month, directly after the second service.)

Rev. Vanessa Rush Southern on 01/08/12

Preacher: Rev. Kim Tomasweski

Preacher: Rev.Vanessa Southern

Preacher: Rev. Kim Tomasweski

Learn About the Transylvania Trip

To celebrate the 20^th Anniversary of our partnership with the Unitarian Church in Barot, Transylvania, we are sending a delegation from our congregation to Barot next summer (June 28-July 8, 2012). We are encouraging families, youth and young adults to attend. A majority of our time will be spent building relationships with the Barot congregation and their village. However, youth will also spend time at a local retreat center with youth from the Barot congregation. Rev. Emilie Boggis is leading this trip. Click here for more information.

If you are interested in the trip, join us for an information session at 8 pm on Sunday, January 8^th OR 7:30 pm on Tuesday, January 10^th.

Author, Mike Yankoski, in his piece, “Looking Both Ways,” writes,

 “I have a vivid memory of a crisp autumn morning when my mother grasped my hand at the side of the road and warned me firmly that I must “always look both ways before crossing the street. … Advent is all about looking both ways, because during these four weeks, we take time to slow down and look behind us to Jesus’ first coming and ahead of us to the Second Coming.  The important thing Advent helps us remember is that we are located between these two arrivals, seemingly stuck somewhere after the “already” but still within the “not yet”.”

Though many Unitarian Universalists were not waiting or preparing for Jesus’ second nativity during this holiday season, I can’t help but pause on Yankoski’s Advent practice of looking both ways as we enter a new calendar year; of wondering where, or rather when, I am in the somewhere after the “already” but still within the “not yet”.

The already and the not yet are, of course, different for each of us.  Perhaps your already and not yet is marked by a birth, death, move, job, or countless other possibilities; countless other pivotal moments in our histories, and our only imaginable futures, that will change the course of our present in-between.

This is where we each live isn’t it?  In some small or large capacity, we all live somewhere in the in-between, somewhere anticipatory or waiting, somewhere in a season (no matter if that is a holiday season or personal season) of longing.

Yankoski later concludes his article writing, “Again and again in the New Testament, Jesus gives us parables that suggest that waiting must be active. This waiting is less like watching a sunset and more like preparing for winter:  The wood must be chopped and stacked, the harvest brought into the barn, the leaky roof mended. … The intentional practices of Advent frame our responsibilities and help us take a good, thoughtful look at our lives during the in-between times.

When are you?  And what kind of preparation might encompass your season of longing?

What is before you and what has already come?

Advent, despite what you might remember, is not only about the sweets found behind each door.  It is about the active waiting, and the reflection that acknowledges what came before, what is still to come, and where, or when, we are in the in-between.  If this is not a New Year’s ritual, I don’t know what is.

Blessings on your New Year ahead.  May you look both ways, and also know the joys of where you are.

“Trevor, why are you missing tomorrow’s practice?”

Trevor answered (maybe a bit meekly), “I am visiting my family for the New Year’s holiday.”

The coach then turned to Charlotte: “Why are you missing tomorrow’s practice?”

“I am feeding the poor in Newark,” Charlotte replied.

How could the coach argue with that?

Charlotte is a member of our Youth Group, and she did indeed give up fencing practice to feed the poor. For the last few years, our Youth Group has spent their New Year’s Eve delivering brown-bag lunches to people living on the streets. It involves raising $1,000 for supplies, making 300 bagged lunches, and traveling to sections of Newark and New York City in order to hand them to people in need. While they are handing out the lunches, hot cocoa and soup, and much-needed supplies like toiletry kits and winter-wear, our teenagers also get a chance to talk with people. Sometimes it is just a smile and a hello. Other times we learn their names, share stories, and discuss basketball.

The Youth Group works in partnership with Bridges Outreach. Bridges is a Summit organization whose mission is to “bring the housed and the homeless together in community.”