Avoiding Decline and slippery hills.

I'll admit to being a ginormous fan of the Rev. Christine Robinson. Once when I was working at the greeter table greeting people at my little church on the hill, some folks mentioned that they were visiting from First Unitarian in Albuquerque and I think I actually scared them with my gushing praise for their senior minister. Brilliant writing, fabulous, warm, insightful and a wonderful web presence, too.

The Rev. Robinson's article in the winter edition of the UU World, "Risk Blessing" had me nodding at my computer this morning. Yep, yep. Uh huh. Oh yeah.

I hear the call "avoiding decline"--it's not even really about growth, just avoiding decline! In the little church on the hill that I serve, more than once our RE team has waved a white flag and called "UNCLE" because we've grown so fast. Last year we had to add not one but two age group classes. We grew something like 30 kids in just a few months. This was nothing new--really, yes, we're competing with the given day for birthday parties (why, Sunday morning of course) soccer games, swim meets, Girl Scouts and yes.... a quiet family morning just hanging out in jammies---but our RE Program has been on super charged vitamin fueled chalice water for six years.

Until this year. We had braced for more big growth, we had a plan in our back pocket of a class for active kids that would actually go down to the wooded park near by every Sunday when these current classes busted out, because unless we pitch a tent in the parking lot, there is no more space for us to hold classes (and yes, when we rented space we DID have preschool class in a tent, it's kinda fun). We trained our teacher teams about how to deal with crowds. We prepped our congregation that two services were inevitable, and soon.

But--no go. Last years "new folks" are not coming back. Yes, we're getting the regular influx of visitors who fall in love and join three committees and the choir. We've got the same kids who were born to us and we've known since they were just a wish, or maybe a little older. But that old-new group is not coming back.

People who work with church kids know this group, they visit in the fall, in the Pacific Northwest, maybe you lose them for ski season, and then they are pretty regular for spring, fall off for summer and come back in the autumn with a gleam in their eye of "we're gonna do this church thing for real now...."

So, here we are, our little church on the hill, with a half decade long history of about 15 new kids every year, with-- a flat growth line. But you know, we really are on a big hill. There are signs that go out on icy days "Road Closed", because you will slide for a good half mile before you get to about sea level and stop. And that's what has me worried. Is there something slick out there that I'm missing? Why are people not sticking? What happened?

I'm not sure exactly how church goes every Sunday, I'm usually running the weekly RE half marathon up and down the three levels of our building, checking on classes, making frowny faces at kids who are throwing sculpy at each other, running for missing supplies. But I think we do the things Rev. Robinson thinks we should to stop declining. There is a deep spiritual energy and when I lead our services I sure feel it like a huge wave of loving spirit from the congregation--these folks are going deep. We have a happy population of folks like me who grew up UU and feel that hunger for ritual and spirit, and they seem to be getting fed.

But something is up. And maybe there's reason to look closely. Is it the classes? Curriculum? Or is it just that push-pull of the weekly rush of family life and the creep of the schedule into what used to be a Sabbath? What? I don't think these folks are afraid of change any more than any human, maybe weary after so much change.

Maybe I'll go out and see if someone has put signs up that say "Church Closed"....not real signs, but those secret signals that you can't see anymore after you've been a part of a group for a while, I guess they are real, but not in a wood and paint kind of way. "go away, you don't fit in here, go back to the Sunday morning paper and a nice, spiritual-but-not-religious life."

For now, we'll just enjoy manageable classes with great kids and a nice, long holiday break from the RE half marathon. Except, who was it that thought that three multi-gen services in a one month span was a good idea? Please!

Um, yeah. That was me.

Happy December!

Not shutting down, well, yet anyway

I am relieved. I didn't want a million people to be furloughed, I didn't want vacation plans to be disrupted and passport applications and tax returns to be delayed. I am happy our National Parks will stay open.

But really, I'm happy my husband will continue to be paid.

In 1995 the government was shut down for 21 days. Three weeks with no pay would have deeply affected my family. And I'm relieved.

But I'm also incredibly angry with our government.

I'm angry with the people who claimed on national news that they are "for life" and that they can't support the money that the government gives to Planned Parenthood. What? WHY! You don't want people to get tested for STIs and to get free condoms?

I'm angry with the people who were in power in February of 2010 when this budget was proposed and would not pass the budget because there was a freakin' election coming up and they were too stupid to stand for something that was right and good.

I'm angry with the whole entire system of governance. This is not governance, this is simply the absolute worst of human nature thrown against the worst of human nature and smeared all over tv and internet in a 24 second news cycle.

I know it's not over, this budget issue, but I have been damaged. I used to appreciate our leaders, I used to be proud of my country. Now I'm ashamed. Driving home tonight my skin was crawling with disgust as I passed the strip malls and the darkened houses. These people who live near me believe the things they are told. They buy into the rhetoric and the hate. They do not have the strength to think for themselves, much less actually study an issue to understand it.

How is it possible to be a person of faith, a person that believes that each among us is worthy? How is it possible to raise children amidst this hate and the slinging of blame and deceit? When is it time to throw out the entire system and to begin anew? Is it now?

I wonder.

Let us try to find a square centimeter of common ground on which to build and let us try to come together as a people. And let us reconsider the way we govern ourselves in this land. There is so much potential for good, but this thing we have now--this way of governing ourselves is absolutely not it.

UU Salon--Universalism

I think I've converted. I used to always just use shorthand... "Hi, oh... who me? Yeah, I'm a Unitarian"

Now I always say both words all the way. No UU, No "Unitarian" I say them both. I am a Unitarian Universalist. But as I learn more and study more and think more and live more, well...I'm becoming a Universalist.

It's Thandeka's fault. She wrote this rocking curriculum called "What Moves Us" and I cannot get the image out of my mind of Hosea Balllou being ordained by having a bible pressed to his heart and taking on the call to ministry. MFC? Phhhbbblt. This is God's work here, what business is it of man to have any say?

And it's also my friend Jan's fault. She's a lifer like me and a recent convert, too. The more she talks the more I nod my head and say "Oh yeah.....all people are equal, absolutely equal, the new PhD, and the girl who just learned to ride a bike." No one is more important, not one bit of difference. We are all equal and worthy and no one can be one bit better than any one else. I just wish she lived a few thousand miles closer so we could go plot our overthrow of the whole UUA over burritos......oh OK, not really, but it would make for a fabulous lunch conversation.

If I have to choose only one "U" it's the Universalist one. As much as I absolutely adore our friend Boston Unitarian and his orderly folk I am flippin' wild for our Universalist brother and sisterhood. There is no elitism, there is only love and good and holy peace.

I am a little scared to poke my head in at this next General Assembly. I am not sure that there is going to be a whole lot of "Universal" love going on there, if the email lists I've been trying to avoid are any indication, we're in for a rockin' ride.

Me? I'll just be hanging out at the booth 634, dragging my friend Jan out for lunch and sneaking off to the gluten free bakery with some of our shady, blogging-sisterhood friends. That's what faith is all about for me. Universal love and peace and worth and dignity and gluten free food, because that's what some of us need to feel OK. (and did you notice? Gluten free options at the LREDA luncheon and annual meeting.....how cool is that?)

So Universalist? Yeah, I can relate. We're at 50 years "as one" next year, but of course much longer for the youth and religious educators. It's all good, all a process, all the way things go. All just how life is. Yep.

Amen. All y'all. Amen.

Calling ministers, Pamela Anderson and Anderson Cooper

I watched "Dancing With the Stars" tonight. Yes, it was an accident and no I couldn't help it. We had to fold the laundry, and well......I can't fold the laundry without being so distracted that I don't notice what I'm doing.

It was awful! And so fun. My youngest son is taking a ballroom dancing class, so he even knew what they were doing "Classic! Oh, New Yorker." What?

Anyway.

In this crazy show professional ballroom dancers pair with celebrities of one kind or anther and compete. This season it goes from Buzz Aldrin to Kate Gosselin and more. One of my kids asked how old Pamela Anderson, is. "She looks really old" And she did, I agreed. She danced really well, but she looked, well, I guess worn is how she looked.

Of course this is how these things turn out: she's a few months younger than I am. That would explain the new and even stronger bifocals I bought today. Old. And while I was Wikipedia surfing from Anderson to Anderson I saw again, yes, Anderson Cooper is a few months younger than I am, but older than Pam! Ha.

This aging thing is not for weak willed folks. I love understanding life better and being sure of things. I love knowing how to do hard stuff and who I am. But I don't love knees that ache after a half hour on the cross trainer or needing glasses to read the vitamin package at the store. Geez, reminds me, I should read the label of the bottle I bought at the store without my glasses. I think it said it was fortified with bee pollen, but who knows?

And on the other part of my bouncing brain: the "hot stove" list out of ministers matched with congregations. Bill Sinkford at Portland First? Amazing! And the kind and funny Eric Kaminetzky at Edmonds, that's a great match. I wish them all long and happy service together.

Maybe churches should have a fundraiser called: "Dancing With the Minister"! Now that would be a good reason to leave all that laundry at home for a night on the town....er, um, I mean a night at the Fellowship Hall! Hoo boy, good thing I'm off for a week and will not share that little treasure with the minister I serve with! Although, knowing her? She'd love it, and everyone would pay big bucks to go for a spin around the dance floor!

Happy Week off to me! Maybe that bouncing brain will slow down just a little

Dear Rev. Morales,

Now I know that Rev. Dr. Peter Morales is a good guy. Not only does he understand deeply the position our faith is in right now to either grow or fade away, but he's actually a warm, kind friendly man. He really is a good guy.

But one little tiny thing he said to us when he was with my congregation a few weeks ago just rankled me. I'm not going to remember the exact wording but it was something about how as a movement our religious education programs had made the mistake of focusing on teaching children about being Unitarian Universalists and not giving them the experience of faith.

I wake up in the middle of the night and that little exchange sticks in my mind. What? Really? Would we say that across the movement all of our worship committees are focusing too much on spiritual development of Buddhism or the sermon topics are all too humanist?

Rev. Morales did say that in the church he served before he became the president of the UUA they had tried to have multi generational worship services, but that in tracking attendance and listening to feedback, they could see that these services were unpopular and not well attended by families with children.

So, in an effort to let go of this little sticking point, I am writing a little letter to Rev. Morales. It's something more a kin to a family discussion that happens over coffee after dinner. And maybe there's even pie for dessert. I'm not angry, I just want Peter to understand that the little things he says get picked up by lots of people and they show that little thing to each other and say "well see what the UUA president said?" "Hmmmmm, I DO see that" Be careful, Peter! And remember that whatever you see as our future as a movement, it's already happening out there in churches across the continent.

Dear Rev. Morales,

Just wanted to drop you a note on the topic we chatted about at WSUU a few weeks ago: faith development in our RE programs. I don't think this is true for my church. And here's why:

This week at Westside we're having our regular monthly Chalice Chapel and Service Sunday. This month's focus is on UUSC.

Our children begin worship in the sanctuary with the adults each week, and on the second Sunday they all come straight downstairs to a children's worship that we call "Chalice Chapel". This week we'll enter a darkened space with an altar and a chalice. When we're all sitting in a big circle we'll begin our chant "Gathered here in the mystery of the hour, gathered here in one strong body, gathered here in the struggle and the power, spirit draw near". We all know the words, we all know the hand motions. We know how to sing it, how to whisper it and how to beat the floor hard with a heartbeat rhythm and to yell it loud. Then we'll invite the children into prayer "we breathe in peace, we breathe out love" The children know body prayers, chants, hymns and how to listen to their quiet inner voice.

We will talk a little during our Chalice Chapel about how we are called, as Unitarian Universalists of faith, to work for peace in the world, and that really--peace comes from justice. But then we'll close by singing Rev. Meg Barnhouse's "All Will Be Well". The whole service will take about 7 minutes. Then we will move to our stations of work, the "Service is our prayer" work.

This week we'll make a huge heart with one of our favorite elders and during coffee hour we'll invite the adults to add sticky notes that tell how they are "Standing on the Side of Love". There will be a station for some kids to assemble the boxes for the Guest at Your Table kick off. We'll have a station to make a physical "guest at your table" so we can all visualize the person we're imagining hosting for the next month. We'll have a game to show how hard it is to move water from one spot to the next without spilling it. And we'll have a station showing the videos on youtube that UUSC has posted about human rights. The best thing about these stations is that at each an adult engages with the children who are ages 4-14. There's no formal lesson, but we all learn together.

So, it's not perfect. No. Sometimes kids run around a little. Sometimes people talk about their week instead of water rights. But it's a good thing. Our children all learn how we worship, they learn about what we believe and they get to put those beliefs into action. It makes our faith formation dynamic and real. I have fun. They have fun. We all laugh together. There have been Chalice Chapels, like the pet blessing last October that let us all cry together. We are a community.

Now, during the five services a year when we're all together; all the baby boomers and the millennials and the silent generation and the gen x-ers and the toddlers and the teens and tweens and the elders and the preschoolers, during those services we are finding that we like worshiping together. We're still learning, we've learned that a plastic cup full of legos might be fun, but it's too loud for worship. We've learned that we have to be careful about meeting everyone's needs. But we've learned that part of meeting everyone's needs is to sometimes sit quietly while another group is the focus for a few minutes. And what meets our needs is not always what you'd expect.

So, Rev. Morales, remember that when we talk about Unitarian Universalists we can almost never say "All". All Religious Education programs are not focusing on education alone. Just like you could never say "All ministers are preaching about...." or "All music leaders are forgetting to...." We who work with the children and youth and families are doing so much more than just cranking through lessons. It's happening all over the movement, this dynamic faith formation. And it's really working.

So hey, thanks for stepping up and being our president. I know you get all kinds of passionate people just like me who take issue with one little thing you say. I know one of the people who I eat dinner with every night is not happy with your thoughts about youth and the "hanging out" article. But we appreciate your passion for this faith and we hope that you appreciate ours, too. Together we can be the faith we are meant to be. Thanks. Really, thanks.

Blessings!

Kari

Mr. Keillor and Silent Night

Oh, I am swearing off Peter Bowden's "UU Growth Blog" until after Christmas. It keeps sending me on these long tangents of excellent and thought provoking information. But come on! I've got a LREDA board conference call today! And a soup lunch at school! Not to mention a ton of presents to wrap and a trip to the post office to make and the little dog needs to be walked and I need to finish writing a piece of the pledge drive kick off!

Too much time!

Today he calls on Unitarian Universalists with formal credentials (he says ministers, but I'm sure he meant to say credentialed religious educators and credentialed music leaders, too) to comment on an article in Salon written by Garrison Keillor.

Yes, Mr. Keillor is again slamming Unitarians. I wonder if he's remembering Unitarians from his childhood 60 years ago back before the consolidation of Unitarian and Universalists? I don't think there's a congregation in Anoka, MN where he grew up, but who knows? I wish he'd at least do enough research to call us by our real name when he rants against us.

He writes "It's a Christian holiday, dammit, and it's plain wrong to rewrite "Silent Night." Unitarians, I'm talking to you!..... If you don't believe Jesus was God, OK, go write your own damn "Silent Night" and leave ours alone."

That's a very Christian sentiment. I can totally imagine Jesus saying that.

Or not.

I think what Mr. Keillor is feeling is that the way things were when HE grew up is the way things have always been and the way that they should stay and no changes should ever be made. But it's just not how Christmas works.

Whether you believe that Jesus is the savior and the true son of God, or you call Jesus the great teacher and try your very, very best every single day to live his teachings, or you think that when Jesus taught that he was the son of God what he was saying was that we are all children of God and we're all holy--whatever, you cannot deny that Christmas has evolved over the past 2,000 years.

If we Unitarian Universalists wish to celebrate the birth of a man some of us believe to be the son of God, some of us believe to be the great teacher and some of us are still not sure about, who's business is it? Why does the wording of a hymn in Singing the Living Tradition matter to him?

I have always loved "A Prairie Home Companion". I went to a live show for the first time when I was 16. I count my Saturday afternoons by the opening lines...."hear that old piano, from down the avenue..." but I'm done. He can have his pompous attitude and go find himself some snobbish Jesus who cares about the words in a hymn. I think if Jesus were here on earth today he would be way too busy working with homeless teens and teaching children about hope and love to be bothered. A lowercase "c" christian--the religion of Jesus, not about Jesus.

OK, no more UU Growth Blog, I'm sticking with the lovely and inspirational writings of Boston Unitarian and B.U's new blog A Wonderful Epoch until AFTER Christmas. And right this minute I'm going to go sing "Silent Night" and make up all new words. Ha.

Coming up short.....everywhere

Ever have one of those days you just wish you could erase? Like Dumbledore plucks memories out of his brain and stores them in the pensive, but today I'd smash the pensive as soon as the memory was out.

Crash!

OK, it wasn't quite that bad. I had a lovely daytime meeting with my colleagues. Complete with a baby blessing-way and a "white elephant" exchange with a "yankee swap". But no one stole anything...except the cookies someone WANTED stolen, totally doesn' t count. I came home with a lovely Scandaniavian themed box that someone didn't want but I love. And my colleagues hugged me. And they told me what I was being crazy about and what I wasn't being crazy about. Don't you wish we had panels we could go to for all parts of our lives where we could say "OK, am I out of line here or is this for real?" and people you love and respect would TELL you? Oh yeah. I'd love that. "Thumbs up? Or thumbs down." I wish. But for today, this was good.

But I let down my child. Big time. He's been asking me for a couple of weeks if we could make some Norwegian themed thing for his International Club meeting. It gets him extra credit and class room "cred" as being a good cook. I love this! He's usually all about his Korean heritage.I was so excited that he wanted to do something from my side! It was originally on the calendar for last Friday. We knew that date wasn't right, but I had the new date wrong. I thought that tomorrow, THURSDAY was the baking day. That we'd make homemade lasagne (a request from the youngest) and mess around with the krumkake all night while we listened to Christmas carols and drank hot chocolate with marshmallows.

Nope. International Club is tomorrow. Thursday. We had to bake today. But, today I had the fudge to prepare at 6AM for the musical theater bake sale at the little homeschool school. And there was the White Elephant gift to wrap at 7AM, and three lunches to make before 7:30AM, and an hour and a half drive because of the traffic to get to my meeting. And then there was the Advanced Drama mandatory parent meeting right after my meeting. And a meeting with the minister who is my boss of course, and a board meeting for the church I work for. When was there time to make this cookie of our great grandmothers and have this wonderful, cultural bonding time?

Yep. In the two seven minute windows of time we had. During the first seven minutes we found the frame for the krumkake iron. But...no iron. No insert. Nope. Where the heck did the iron go? Oh well, doesn't matter. Wasn't happening.

Spritz? How about that. We could find almost enough parts to assemble that cookie contraption. We made half a pan during the second seven minute stretch and flew out the door to bring boys to Tae Kwon Do practice and then I had to drive like a mad woman up I-5, trying to make my meeting on time. This, in particular, would not have been a good time to bail on these meetings for a variety or reasons. Not now. No way.

I texted home at 7:30 "how r spritz going?" and heard nothing back. "OK, must be going all right".

On the way home at 9:15, not 9:00--I left before my meeting was over, really I did, I called home. Not going all right. All homework was delayed, cookies were a mess. No one was happy. Things were falling apart fast.

Damn.

This is when I hate that my job is weird hours and "must make" evenings. I hate that sometimes I have to put work before family. Hate it. I hate that my weekends and holidays are dominated by work. And they hate it, my family, they hate it. I came home to ugliness.

I love my work, but I really wish that there were two of me. In hindsight? Yeah, I should have skipped my daytime meeting. I should have stayed up late after feeding homeless teens last night and done the prep for today. I should not have gotten a sinus infection that makes me not sleep for days and days. I should have taken a job at IKEA where they are closed on Christmas Eve. But I didn't. I chose this. And I love what I do. But there are days. Man, there are days when I wish it didn't take such commitment to do this good work.

I wish.

Giving Thanks

Tomorrow we'll have more than toast and popcorn for our feast. But our feeling of belonging and home will be just the same as if we'd gathered around a ping pong table.

This fall has been a hard one for me. I have to keep reminding myself that life is not a dismal dark thing. Life is full of hope and light and love. But sometimes.....well, sometimes we all forget, I guess.

Being grateful is at the core of remembering:

I am grateful for parents who taught me loving kindness and gave me a fierce sense of justice.

I am grateful for life long friends who love me even when I am a pitiful heap of jello. Green jello--like in a church supper in the basement of a small mid western church. With walnuts.

I am grateful for my sons who defy all reputation of teenage boys and offer compassion and sometimes even do the dishes and the laundry without being asked. Once is sometimes, right?

I am grateful for my little dog who loves to snuggle and for the life of my old dog who has been gone almost a year now--but lives a full and romping life in my heart, still.

I am grateful for a gathered community of brilliant, giving people who guide my children, both at church and school.

I am grateful for my partner who works tirelessly for our family, and thankful for his commitment to stepping into his identity and showing our sons how to do the same.

I am thankful for good work to do and families who keep having babies just so I get to hold them. Nice!

I am grateful for the hard times that remind me of balance, of the good times.

We sit in darkness so that we may appreciate the light. The deep kernel of life within a seed requires rest in the dark earth. True for people, too. We're often scared by the dark times. We try to medicate, exorcise, eradicate the darkness. We run from the darkness.

I think this time I'll just sit with it. And remember to be grateful for the dark times, too.

Endings

I learned a great phrase from Steve Caldwell recently: "Kill it before it dies". Steve was referring to "icebreaker" games or "energy break" games. It means stop while it's still full of energy and fun.

It's good advice.

Happy Blogiversary to me!

It's my blogiversary. One year. The paper anniversary, which is pretty ironic for this electronic critter.

I have blogged personally for a while--first on myspace back when that wasn't a pit of despair of a social networking site. Then at livejournal and blogger. In spring of 2008 I wanted a way to touch base with families in my church, so I activated a blog that I had started a few years before and promptly dropped because I was overwhelmed. I wanted to give parents information for a church wide "Scavenger Hunt" and the blog was just perfect.

So while I was at the 2008 Fort Lauderdale GA I thought I'd continue with that little blog and share with my congregation what was happening. I loved it, people read it--50 people a day read it, and it helped me organize my own brain about the whole experience.

When I got home, I decided I'd wrap that GA coverage into a new blog that was religion focused, but not congregation centered. I stomped around the house for a couple of days, annoying everyone by trying out different blog names until finally on July 3rd, I just went ahead and launched this little blog.

I still love it. And people seem to read it and sometimes are kind enough to join in the conversation as well. The help organizing my brain has been a huge bonus. I think blogging has even become a kind of spiritual practice. I've made real friends in my real life from initial contact here in blog land. And for about two seconds at the LREDA Fall Conference I felt like a rock star when people actually recognized me from my blog-- OK, maybe I felt more like a folk star, but it was fun. I've written a little book for parents that is a lot like a series of blog posts about raising good kids and while I still can't get anyone to publish it, I take heart in what the 2009 Fahs lecturer, Rabbi Sandy Sasso said about having "God's Paintbrush" turned down by eight publishers. I am thankful that with this little blog all I have to do to be published is to click "Publish Post".

So, thanks for reading whether you're a regular or a visitor, I appreciate it. I look forward to another good year of sharing the smiles and the tears of this one wild life.

Rockin' on Furious

My dear husband doesn't mail things very often, so he was surprised that his envelope full of bricks came back needing more postage. "No problem", I told him. "I'll run it in to the post office."

Was that a mistake. This is what I was met with at my local little post office:

I went inside with my little bundle of a bricks to mail, and I said "What's with the protesters outside?"

"Oh, they're always there, they just stand there."

This has been my post office for almost six years. I drive by this spot twice a day. I have never noticed anyone sitting outside protesting. And I've surely never seen such offensive posters, never. But the postal staff just brushed it off. No big deal.

I was furious. Burning. Infuriated. I marched myself out the door and right up to the young man staffing the table. "I am deeply offended that you are standing on this land that I pay for with such offensive posters of my president"

"It's my first amendment right, I have the right to be here."

"I support your right to protest as you will, but I believe it's wrong for me to be forced to look at this when I walk into a government establishment." I was seething, trying to be calm, knowing that this man is young and may never have lived anywhere but out little town, may just be influenced by hate-talk radio and the things he's absorbed in his few years. But my compassion meter was on about 2 and my infuriated meter was on about 55 million.

I went back to my house and got my camera, just so you could be infuriated, too. My middle son--yes the one who is a champion martial artist, insisted on coming with me just in case the guy jumped me. When I went back up and tried to take his materials, he stopped me. Some public service there, hunh?

And then I guess maybe he did start to feel ashamed or something, because he turned around and wouldn't let me take his picture any longer.

I checked in with my friend who knows about these things, and I was disappointed. He does have a right. The law is clear. The postal service is a semi private something that is administered by the government. He can be there unless there is a clear hazard to public safety.

The hazard to the public safety isn't in his table or his shiny dvds or books. It's in the culture of hate he's promoting, the culture of hate he's living. That is where the danger lies. And it is a clear and very real danger.

LREDA and General Assembly

When I began working as a Religious Educator I was very excited to dig in and take this on. I just knew I could create a dynamic, outreaching program for children and youth and families. And then I looked at the files and the unplanned summer and the lack of curriculum for fall and the big hole of volunteers to teach that curriculum in the fall. I swear I would have sat myself right down and cried big crocodile tears of surrender if not for my first General Assembly.

Just days after I started the job, I hopped on a flight to Dallas Fort Worth and attended my first LREDA Professional days straight away. Oh thank the God and goddess and all the sprites and the spirit of life and spirit of love. I had help, I had people, I had a posse. I had found some answers to the questions I didn't even quite have formed. That year I missed the LREDA Annual meeting and luncheon. In fact it took me a couple of years to figure out that you had to register for that separately. I'll admit sheepisly that last year I didn't do my research well and eventually gave up on even finding the luncheon. Fort Lauderdale was so freakishly hot. This year I know all about the LREDA Annual meeting because I've accepted a positon on the LREDA board. Oh my, I'd better figure out where it is right now! And next year those lunch choices will be managed by me since GA is my portfolio. Oh, even more embarrassing about missing it last year. Oh my. And I'm already having anxiety about what to pick for next year. Mexican? Deli? Lutefisk and Lefse?

But that first year it was amazing to be with UUs. With Religous Professionals of all kinds. To hear the Fahs Lecture. To sit down next to Religious Educator after Religous Educator and open my plan for the year and ask for help. I got such great advice from so many people. What a gift. What a charge for the future. What a launch. And yes, 150% growth that first year, it did work.

If you know a Religious Educator who is thinking about adding LREDA events to their GA plan or if that someone is you, tell them to do it. No it doesn't matter if you can't afford glue sticks for the year--flour and water work just fine. The deadlines have not passed. This is the one thing that connects us to our larger faith. This makes us professionals in a way that other things just can't quite match. Invaluable. It is absolutely imperative that LREDA GA experience happen for all Religous Educators at least every few years. If not this year, then next year. Oh yeah, because that one will be the one I get to help plan. No don't let that stop you, I promise to make it good, really! Come on. It'll be great! No lutefisk, I promise.

So if I don't see you in Salt Lake City, well then I hope to see you next year in Minneapolis, my home town and "my" GA.

GA 2008 is the place where I launched this little blog. It's almost our Blog-i-versary. I'll have to find a cake and make people sing with me. It'll be fun. Really, it will. Oh whatever. I'll live blog it as much as I can so if you want to unsubscribe for a while so you can miss that, I arrive in Salt Lake City on June 21st, you can't say I didn't warn you.

GA just DAYS away. Hooray.

Wild Fantasies

Bacon. Maybe it's all the talk about Swine Flu. Or all the bad, and I mean really bad Piglet jokes going around on facebook and email. Maybe it's being busier than I even knew a person could be.

I want bacon.

I've been a vegetarian for about six, no seven years. I really don't miss meat. Sometimes, like a few months back when I ordered clam chowder at Spud, I accidentally eat bacon bits or something, it's fine. I'm not tyrannical about not eating meat. I just don't want to, mostly.

Except for now.

I think it's a microwave splatter that keeps getting warmed and wafts it's fatty pigness all over my house at the very worst times. A few months ago I started "circular" shopping. Hitting all the really good deals in town, finding them in the circulars. (btw, they come on Sunday, Tuesday and Saturday here in Seattle) I sometimes make a meal out of what's on sale. If I can get two pounds of bacon for five bucks, well then I'm making a breakfast-dinner. The last bacon I bought was maple brown-sugar bacon. Let me tell you, it's evil. We cooked it all up, and despite my warnings about super nitrates, I think someone (no one who actually lives here of course or at least not that they will admit) warmed some up in the micorwave. I think it might have splattered. And with my husband working out of town and my work and school and kid schedule maybe housework is something that other people get to do and all. So it smells like maple-y bacon every time someone uses the microwave.

Not good.

I have a friend who was a vegetarian for years. When she was studying to be a physician, the more she learned, the less she wanted to eat meat. Years went by. She worked through pregnancy and birth and years of breastfeeding as a veggie. She was committed. Until the morning that her mother-in-law made bacon. Now at her house you can have a hamburger that her husband made for the kids and they didn't want. It's free range, it's hormone free. But it's cow. They're omnivores again. All because of.....

bacon.

Maybe I need a month with a commune that has no meat and no facebook. Maybe I need to slow things down (HOW EXACTLY!?) maybe I need my husband to find a job that isn't this one or at least isn't out of town this much. What I really do not need though, is of course....

bacon.

Crispy, sizzling, hot and maple-y bacon. Not at all. Please! No bacon.

Pig at the trough

I was having a little calendering party with my husband tonight. I gotta admit, it's not quite as much fun when he's in Atlanta and I'm in Washington State--it's really hard to share the beer. But it is oh so much more important, now. At one point in our conversation we had him flying out after the talent show on May 7th and back for a play performance by the evening of May 8th. Thank God I'd forgotten that we had decided at our little school that this was crazy for the parents who lived FULL TIME here, much less the ones with business that has to get done on the morning of May 8th thousands of miles away. The play is on the 15th, silly me. But hey, that's what a red eye flight is for, right?

Anyway, it's ugly. And growing new hairy warts every day.

But as we calendar-ed he asked when GA is. Oh GA! GA is coming up. SOON! This crazy meeting of every kind of UU from every corner of our world feeds me like a pig at a trough. I cannot wait. I took my job as a Religious Educator on June 15th, 2005 and pretty much went straight to Fort Worth for professional days. I think it's an absolutely fantastic way to start-out this work.

This year, after attending my first LREDA Fall Con, I thought "well, with budgets and splitting my professional expenses with my colleague DRE (well, well, well worth it, bless the ground you walk on Shannon) maybe I should just go to Fall Con and skip GA". But then, I was honored to be asked to join the LREDA Board.....holding the GA PORTFOLIO! Ha. That means I can't skip it. I have to follow Cindy Leitner in her GA work this year so I know what to do next year. OK, HAVE to is maybe an over-exaggeration. I would probably have decided that I HAD to go to GA for some other reason......maybe the fact that my son is the FUNTIMES Senior Manager or something like that. But yeay. GA is coming up. And I get to go. And I cannot wait.

I hope I get to lay eyes on some of the blogger folks I've come to care about. I hope someone else from blogland is going, too. We can meet for a beer and a chat and then, you know, blog about it. I can't think of a finer evening that that one. Nope.

GA Countdown begins now! OK, later when I have the energy to figure out how many days left until the big fun starts.

Oink!

Trouble...

For some reason this little blog is not playing nicely with the UUpdates site. It's not been playing nicely for about five posts, so if you are someone who wants to read this, and sometimes looks at UUpdates, then you'll have to go either directly to the site or use Discover UU or just you know, wait until I get it all sorted out. Right now I have this much idea what's going on.



(( ))

Yep, none!


Thanks for reading. You rock my world.

:-)

Hide-and-Seek

Everyone I went to high school with is suddenly on Facebook. They all joined last Wednesday at 12:51 PM. OK, not really, but it sure seems that way. Suddenly I am back in touch with almost all of the people from World Studies class junior year.



It's not bad, not really. I mean everyone seems to be kind, warm, good folks. It's been a long time, we've all been humbled and tossed around by life some, I guess. If you sit with a person long enough you'll find that everyone has a story that will break your heart. And most of us have had our hearts broken a time or two. It makes more room, having survived a it, you watch better, listen better--it makes you pat each other on the arm and say "there-there".

But I am finding that lost girl is still there inside me. The girl that wasn't quite smart enough for the gifted program, wasn't pretty enough to be of interest to the boys (or girls either), wasn't a good musician or artist or athlete. I was a chubby girl with bad hair and stupid clothes. And that lost girl had no idea how much she was just like almost everyone else--in one way or another, anyway.

Hearing about what all these people have done in the 24 years since we knew each other is letting that lost girl back up to the surface. Seems that all the people I knew are doctors and lawyers, or should I say physicians and attorneys. They live overseas. They have good lives that are well examined and they've probably even taught themselves to make homemade organic yogurt from the milk they get from their pygmy goats in their green urban back yards. And they play the mandolin.

OK, maybe that's a little too far.

The lost girl feels a little bit better though. This is one amazing life she wound up with. It's filled with dear, wonderful friends and a family she treasures. It has good work and good play. She lost some weight and found a good hairstylist. The love of her life shares her bed at night, and he washes the dishes almost as often as she does. It is good. Maybe she's almost found.

This could be what it will take for her to finally get found all the way. Not just the feet peeking out from behind the curtains in the big "hide-and-seek" game that is life. But all the way "gotcha" found. And then the lost girl can take her place here in the good life, where there is no more gifted program and life is real and whole. And good.

And I swear, if all those high school folks tag me in every meme that comes along, I'm gonna un-friend their 80s-loving-big-haired selves right off my profile. Yeah.

(any likness to high school friends, real or imagined, is completely unintentional)

The Perfect Solution

I have been so down inside myself. I miss my dog, it's dreary and I'm just clumping around here in my own pity party. With big ol' wooden clogs!

Listening to some fine David Wilcox always helps:

The years march by

Sophia Lyon Fahs writes in the introduction to her book "From Long Ago and Many Lands" "...the marching line of yesterdays reaches back and back into centuries and millenniums."

So, we add another yesterday to the line.

And we add another year to the yesterdays.

What did we learn from the year? What can we take forward to the tomorrows?

1. Families are so pulled by the demands of busy family life, church almost never makes top priority.

This isn't a bad thing, but it is a good thing to learn as a Religious Educator. For years I felt that if I could just help families understand how important it is to the life long development of their child to just simply show-up at church most weeks, that they would show-up. But for our families, church feels like an elective in the demanding line up of required family activities. I know what those soccer commitments are like, those swim team demands, those busy weeks that scream for a quiet morning. I've been there. I hold no judgment for the choices made. During the next calendar year I will try to craft a whole program that lends itself to the hit-and-miss nature of family attendance.

2. Shared Leadership is the sacred white light that shines from the heavens and makes all well and good in the world.

The Religious Education Council that I serve emerged from our REC retreat supercharged to lead as a group. And have they! They also made a miracle happen in working hard to create a Associate DRE position and even fund it. I will keep passing out the duties, even the ones I love, to other folks called to take them on.

3. Youth involvement is special, and requires advanced hatha yoga.

Or, you must be flexible. Our youth group started off with a bang and more teens than ever before, then crashed to the smallest it's ever been, and now has decided to attend a local big church for youth group meetings, while maintaining the service work and one dinner-worship a month with their tiny group. And while my heart is in pieces on the floor to think we have farmed out our youth group, it is what they need and want and what is the best for them. I will follow their lead, and serve them in the way that is needed.

4. Boundaries are good, but they can't be a barbed wire fence.

A Religious Educator who loves their work will love their congregation. And the people of the congregation. I learned this during our memorial services this fall. It didn't matter that my job is focused on the children and youth, I needed to be there to work and help during our trauma because I love these folks. Of course I do. Boundaries are good, necessary, required, but love pays no attention and goes on wrapping your heart around these people you serve. I will work to hold boundaries, but let go of holding myself back.

5. You must don your oxygen mask before assisting others.

It is very easy to see this important work of being a Religious Educator as so vital that all else must wait. But if you can't think about one more bin of sculpey or case of glue sticks without screaming you will not be able to continue this good work. I have learned to work my hours, and pretty much only my hours. I must let some good ideas fall on the floor untended. I can go pick them up from under the dusty couch later. There is a feast and famine to this work. Some weeks we work double or even (gulp) triple our hours if we are very part time. And then some weeks we don't work as much at all. It evens up, most of the time anyhow. I will continue to seek balance in this work so that I can keep doing what I love.

What else?

I love to play my guitar and sing with the children and the congregation.

People care very deeply and are happy to be asked to help.

The right person often shows up at just the right moment.

I am the luckiest person in the world to know these children and youth, and to have their trust.

As the years march on, I hope most of them have lessons as good as these.

Holiday Party Obesessing

Oh dear, the office party is next week. Not my office, that would be a handful of sweet women who are my dear friends all playing Yahtzee and eating fondue. THAT would be fun.

No, this is a fancy deal, with valet parking, big ticket gifts and of course the invitation says "business casual"

Yeah, right.

Business casual means you have to squint and judge from a far what everyone else is going to wear and I know it's not going to be totally low key.

I am a big time drama queen, and don't mind dressing up more than most of the guests.....at an event where I'm already comfortable! But here, I'll be the only spouse who isn't a power lawyer or a physician or a something fancy. I'm happy with what I do (and hey, I can say "author" as long as I change the subject FAST!). But this time, I'd like to just be a part of the crowd.

I read Peacebang's BTFM, even though of course I'm not ordained clergy, it always has good advice.

I read the blurb about office parties on the Oprah website and iVillage. This is what I get: no cleavage, knee length for skirts, maybe a suit with a dressy shell and good earrings. Dress at a level they'll expect (impossible!!).

So, here's what I'm thinking.

The sweater I have is from the local consignment store, Ann Taylor Loft from last year, black sequins trim the v-neck which is much lower cut (and needs a silvery shell or something with a little something to it).


The slacks are pretty much these. Or I have black.

Add dressy dangly earrings, pearl choker, sparkly hair bling.




Or a dress....OK, mine's cut longer. I think. Maybe. Yes it is. It's just below the knee. But again, lower cut.

Whine.

Any and all advice would be appreciated.

And back to some serious theological issues and great inspiration for creating dynamic family minstry soon, promise.

Nanowrimo Writing Retreat

Have you ever been to a wine tasting? I went with a batch of friends. It was our "re-entry" event following the nanowrimo writing retreat. This was amazing. Wine, pouring. Wine; over and over again. Oh my gosh.


My friend Debra knows her wine and she knows what she likes. And she knows what I'm going to like.


I think maybe we've found a new favorite.

Just sayin'.




And when the writing got tough, well the writers went out for a beer with friends. Cheers!