Church in the Balcony

Yesterday I sat down in church. Yes, I did tell the story for all ages, and I helped with the sorting of children after they left the sanctuary, helped calm a three-year-old and distract him with playdoh and building train bridges until he forgot he missed his pop-pop. I counted noses before the 6th-7th grade group headed down to the park for Earth Day. Then I grabbed a secret cup of coffee and headed to the balcony where there is no carpeting to ruin if coffee spills and I disturb fewer people with my coming and going.

Then I sat. Only one other person was with me in the balcony, but he was tolerant of my leaving to check on classes. The day was so beautiful many of our families were not at church, small classes often mean fewer issues and less need for the "mean lady" to take kids from class for a while for a little break.

So, I got to hear most of the service. Most of the music. I even got to have a little of the fellowship of experiencing a moving service next to a kind person. I can't remember the last time I listened to a sermon in the pleasant company of a fellow congregant. It magnifies the meaning and deepens the emotion.

Then I ran off to set up tables advertising a fund raiser, peeked in for the singing of the final hymn and then zipped back down to the fellowship hall to welcome the hot and sweaty middle schoolers back from the park, reminded young ones not to eat a whole cake and poured more coffee.

When I leave my work as a religious educator after these seven years, I will leave church for a full year. For a year I will hike or have brunch or visit friends or just sleep on Sunday mornings. Then, I hope, I'll come back to church and sit through services and experience a moving sermon in the warm embrace of loving fellowship. I don't think I had any idea how much I missed it.

Amen.

Spiritual and Religious

I was driving home in the pouring rain last night, listening to my friend National Public Radio when the hour turned and a new program came on, I think it had been the BBC which often just sounds like people chatting in the seat next to me, I pay so little attention. This was a speakers' forum and the speaker was religion scholar and author Diana Butler Bass, and her topic? The whole spiritual but not religious controversy. (Link here)

Oh my, this is the thing to say here in Washington state. "Oh, we don't really do the church thing, I'm spiritual and everything, but not, you know... religious." 

I hear this from families and emptynesters. It's what all the cool kids are saying. 

But why on earth would you want the magical dance of spirituality without the fabulous gift that is church life? I know, it's not perfect. my friend Barbara Cornell says that everyone has baggage, but people come to church and unpack. And it's true. There is hubris and elitism and snobbery and discrimination and gossip at church. People treat each other poorly sometimes and we don't always remember the very core of our faith--whichever faith that may be. 

That's just the thing. We come to church with our whole broken, messy, screwed-up selves and still, we are loved. We are reminded again and again that we are whole and holy and good, and not just by the person who is ordained. No, in fact I think we are more often reminded by the person who reaches for our hand when we are moved to tears, by the crew of teens who help us move heavy things without being asked, by the small child who shares with us a cupcake because they are "so good you HAVE to have one" and by the people who forgive us again and again and again for our messed-up, screwed-up, completely imperfect selves. 

Church takes some of the muddy crud of our human selves and washes it away, or plants good seeds in it, or just sits with us while we wallow in it for a while. Or, really, the people of church do that. 

Even more, they bring soup when we're sick and sit with us when we're at the hospital waiting with scary news on the other side of the door, they email and ask how we are after a bad spell and they will drive our children to and from preschool so we can make it through another week of battling a horrible disease. 

Yes, I do I love the spiritual kick of hiking to a vista of beauty, or seeing whales in the ocean. I love the way that prayer can sometimes work like a short order cook, serving up exactly the right plate of steaming soul nourishment at exactly the right time. But I also like church. 

Nope, I love church. I really do. 

People sometimes scoff and say that modern church is just a social club, just a place for people to gather. What? What on earth could be more important than that? A place where people smile and welcome you, where you are to come in just as you are and sit a while. A place where even though you are broken and battered, people just know that inside all your bluster and blunder that you are whole and holy and good. 

And it always smells like coffee and there is always something good that needs to be done. 

Amen. 

Grateful for a Bad Day

Yesterday I was working while going to church, which unfortunately you can do when you go to online church. I'm looking forward to sitting in a pew and just going to church when I leave my job working in religion. I literally cannot remember the last time I did that. Maybe General Assembly last June--but that's not the same kind of church. It's like Big-Top-Tent church, good and exciting, but it doesn't smell like coffee and you can't hear the fussy babies so it's not regular church.

I love the Church of the Larger Fellowship's online worship, it's really fabulous. And the Japanese Bowl sermon last week by the intern minister Joanna Crawford is still sitting on my heart. But it's easy to sit at the computer and do stuff while going to online church. Yesterday I decided I should clean out some of the thousands of emails in the inbox of the email account that I'll turn over in just under three months. It's 1998 technology, so not easy to manage. I can delete about 12 emails at a time, and that still takes almost a full minute.

I was back on emails from September 2010--deleting away 12 at a time. I saw the opening of the church building go by--October 2010--preparing for the dedication of the building. Frantic panic about 30 more kids than we'd expected. Funny to see little snippets go by just from reading subjects.

And then I saw an email with the subject, "Bad News."

Bad news. I could hear the blood pound in my ears and reached for the sweater on the chair next to me--suddenly I was freezing cold.

I opened the email. It told about a new development in the cancer, about a painful biopsy. It was rye with dry humor and still held hope. There was a string of supportive emails that followed, the women of the church sending love and light and hope and offering casseroles and child care. I read them, and tears fell to see the love and care and hope.

About one year later, the hope was over. A couple of months ago, we held the memorial service. She had to leave her sweet children behind which I am certain broke her heart and pissed her off, but the end was so fast that we never got to talk about it.

A simple little task. Emptying a long neglected inbox. But you fall in the chasm of this thing, this human condition. So hard, but really it is nothing at all. Really. Nothing at all.

I am grateful to be having a bad day, because I am blessed to be here and aware and crabby and unjustly accused  and unappreciated and thank God, it's a day.

Grateful for the sun and so much more

I was in our RE office on Monday trying and trying to get excited about making more animal costumes for the Christmas Eve tableau. I was so uninspired I thought my skin was going to peel off. I am not a crafty person and after six years of trying to do crafty things, and having already planning two multi-gen services in the last four weeks, I just wanted to throw the stupid oxen template out the third story window. And run. Bah!

But I made some little lamb masks from paper plates. And figured I'd have to trek to the craft store and throw myself at the mercy of the crafty folks who work there for ideas.

And I realized that I'm actually grateful that we needed to make 15 more animal costumes. It means we have many, many more children than the last time we did "Christmas in the Barn". And for that, I am grateful.

Yes, we have more work to do, more classes to run, more teachers to recruit. But it also means we have more people to love, more people to help do the work, more people who will bring soup and do child care when there's an emergency for one of us. And yes, when there are more people to love, there is a better chance that your heart will hurt for someone when hard things happen.

We're not supposed to get too connected, we religious professionals. We're supposed to be able to have some distance and keep some perspective. I have tried, but I'm not sure how you do that when you know the 10 year-olds who lose a parent or watch their parents divorce. I kind of think in those cases it is my job to be connected. A broken heart is just a logical hazard of the job.

So, I'm grateful. I'm grateful for being too busy and doing things that are not really my job, but just really need to be done for goodness sake, and are so important and worthy. I'm still not grateful for the task of making more animal costumes, I would have paid money from my own pocket if I just could have found some to buy, but I am grateful for the need for more costumes. I'm grateful for more people to love.

And yes, grateful for the sore heart, because it means even though sometimes I feel like my skin will peel off, this work still touches my soul.

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!

Recipe for an Excellent Meeting

Mix:
One part pressing need
Three parts dedicated volunteers
Two parts beloved community

Shake vigorously

Fold in careful consideration
Sprinkle consensus

Let rest for one full month until the next committee meeting comes around

Form into fine ministry that serves all people with love and hope
Serve a fine church with ministry for all

(Had a fabulous RE Committee meeting tonight! Thank you for the opportunity to serve, what a lucky girl I am!)

Amen!

iphone syndrome

I have joined the new decade--just a little late, I know, but hey--I've been busy and I work for a non-profit. It's just the way it goes!

But as I learn how to check my three email accounts, and facebook, and pandora and the super cool weather app-- I have realized what's been happening in the volunteer support portion of my job.

iphone syndrome.

People say to me: "I didn't see that email". "We've got a meeting tonight?" "You tried to reach me?" "You're not going to be there?" "When?" "Where?" "How?"

I thought I was absolutely losing my mind. Really? How did I get so extremely flaky? But then I realized that half the people I thought I'd communicated with, knew about the meeting or the plan or whatever.

Then I got my iphone and the rest became clear. If you read a message in the parking lot between the grocery store and the car--you may not remember either the details or the whole message, you probably won't reply, and you certainly aren't going to take time to put it on your calendar.

But there's more than just iphone syndrome. People are not checking email--opting for texting and facebook instead. They're probably active on twitter, but that's on my list for July, so I'm not even aware of what I'm missing there. And when they see "church" come up on their caller id, they let my calls go to voice mail--I know that's true!

It's good to know I've not lost my mind. And it's good to know that some of the lovely volunteers and parents and teens I communicate with aren't just dismissing me out of hand. I think I just need to adjust the way I manage communications. I need a twitter feed that posts to a facebook page that you can sign up to receive text messages from. And I need to learn to communicate in 10 word bursts. "like" the status and I'll consider it a done deal.

Or I'll just build a bonfire and learn to send smoke signals. Or semaphore. Or drumming. Or maybe I'll just pare down the schedule a little, post the information on a bulletin board and call it "retro" scheduling! Ha.

So all that said, when I blow off your cute facebook post on my wall, hit me back--I probably just read it on my iphone while buying huge vats of hummus at Costco. Ha!

Almost summer. Almost summer. Almost summer.

June, finally, June.

It's finally June. Well, it's been June for a few days now, but it's finally sinking in. We held the last day of classes for our church school yesterday. And we had our final Religious Exploration committee meeting last night. I could hardly even socialize at our impromptu outing to a local restaurant, I was so exhausted.

It was really nice to see this article from Marilyn Sewell and to watch the official trailer for her movie which is about to debut.



This is what I want to do, the things she speaks of in the opening scene. I want to help create a place that gives children the freedom to be who and what they are deep in their soul. Not sure if that is possible anymore. I'm too tired!

Maybe some coffee, some mindless work cleaning out electronic files. And then maybe the sun will come out and I can sing like Annie and find that spark of hope again!

Because, at least--at least--it's JUNE!

Vampires Have Consumed the WEEK!

I'm so sorry, there must be a rampant rage of vampires running wild here in the dewy dawn of June.

Vampires.

Sucking every last stinkin' minute from the week.

There was the last minute need at our little homeschool school because almost every family has a child who is sick so all the moms and dads are home.....but of course sending the one or two healthy kids to school. And our brand new hardly- ruined-at-all office manager was out sick, and our temporary-doing-heroic-double-duty-work program manager actually has to teach the high school classes on Thursday--so she was busy. I think the first adult in the building wound up subbing in the office (reason 348 to never walk in the building first...one other being the possibility of discovering ant infestations...) and so when I saw the call on facebook for a headcount of who was going to be on site for the day--with no replies, I knew I was on.

No problem, really. This school has been our home and offered a fabulous education to all my boys. I can give a day.

So that was no vampire, really. Just a need.

And then there was this project I said I'd do that I didn't really want to do but I felt obligated to do because it wasn't really that difficult after all, and the people asking me were really overwhelmed with other things.....so I said yes. Oh dear. Say no. Never say yes. Practice with me. "No" "Noooooooooo!" "Nope" "No" "No thank you!" Um, yeah. Didn't say no, and I really should have. Well, unless *I* ask you for something. Then say yes.

So, yeah, that was kind of a vampire. Vampire-ish. Taking lots of time and lots of time to just worry about busted deadlines and falling reputation.

Then there was all those children I had a couple of decades ago who need to go places and eat and register for new schools and interview for internships and you know.....live in my house. Geez!

No, OK, not vampires at all. Just lovely children who are so happy to be together after months apart that video games are played until all hours of the night and homework is sloppily completed--so much so it's sent home again. Oh well. People are more important than algebra, right?

And then the actual work I do, which is lovely work that is only possible with the combination of a devoted faith community and families and children and the end of the church year. And movies--the production of the year end movie. And bridging gifts which can no longer be purchased at the local drug store but must now be purchased from a mega-provider of Kindergarten bears. Because we've grown by some 60% this year. And I'm tired, and it's overwhelming every time I walk in the building, or log onto email. or think about our little church busting out of it's walls....still busting out of it's walls.

But that's not a vampire. That's a glad gift of exhausting and exhilarating service. And it's lots of amazing children and youth. That's always a good thing.

OK, I guess I take it back. It wasn't vampires that consumed my week. It was my life. My rich and full and vibrant life. And it wasn't sucked out of anything. It was just the real truth of what happens when we engage in this one wild life and when we care. It's life.

My life.

Amen.

Church Mothers

I'm bringing the flowers tomorrow for the chalice table at church, which I do a couple of times every year. I honor teachers and leaders--I honor the lovely and talented colleague that shares my job. I like to make my gratitude public and share it with the whole congregation.

But this time I'd like to share my gratitude even further.

The flower dedication written in the order of service says:

The flowers today are given by Kari Kopnick in honor of the women in churches everywhere who lovingly "mother" the packs of children who raid the snacks and run when they should walk and are sometimes loud.

Especially in honor of one of Kari's "church mothers" Barb Bollag; with heartfelt thanks for passing down the family china to a church daughter.


I grew up with the blessing of a group of church mothers. These were women who were always there, who's presence runs through the story of my growing-up years. I have a wonderful mother, but I was wildly blessed to have a pack of church mothers, too.

Recently, Barb Bollag, the woman I mention by name in the flower dedication, offered my family her beautiful family china. She doesn't have a daughter or daughter-in-law to use the beautiful dishes. But of course, family isn't always arranged by blood or by marriage. Sometimes family just happens.

I flew back to Minnesota for a my nephew's wedding a few weeks ago, and my mom and I went to pick up the china. It was lovely to see Barb, and of course we had a good discussion about politics and about what was good and not so good in the life of our little church, my home church. The dishes were even more beautiful than I hoped, and we loaded the boxes in the car.

I explored just about every way of getting them home, but finally decided to take a long term approach--I very carefully packed all the plates in a carry-on bag, we packed a box of serving pieces in a whole slew of bubble wrap and peanuts and we decided the cups and and saucers would have to wait at my parent's house until the next time we drove back. Everything made it back to Washington without a chip.

I finally got to use the dishes for Easter....first I had to find a special place to put them (clean out cupboards, buy felt dividers.....)










and shop for just the right linens (spring but not kitchy--these dishes are far too classic for bunnies and eggs!) and then the old flatware just looked awful next to the beautiful new plates, so--new flatwear came into the house! That was a fun process, and I am so pleased with the result:

Today is my Mother's Day. Since I work on Sundays, we've decided to reschedule our holidays, so we're celebrating by buying a chimnea fire pit for the patio, and spending some time all together, and having take-out on our beautiful new family china.

Thank you to church mothers everywhere, and thank you, Barb, for the family treasure. It means the world to me.

Blessings all, for a lovely Mother's Day.

.....and on Southwest Airlines

In a previous life I worked for an airline.

No, actually I worked on the phones, you know, taking calls from people. Usually taking calls from people who were having trouble.

The worst kind of calls we got started with a little whisper in the headset. It let you know that trouble was coming because the agents at the airport had rolled out the portable bank of phones. Not good.

"....rebook..."

Oh no. Not rebook. No, please.

It usually meant bad weather or some other bad thing was happening in some poor city. And people were going to be stuck. I mean, eventually they'd get out and on to their vacation or business trip or they'd get home to their cat or their baby or their elderly great Aunt. I mean, no one gets stuck in an airport forever.

The poor folks would yell and curse or sniffle, but really--there was not a whole lot I could do. Planes usually fly mostly full--even the flights from other airlines. There's not a whole lot of room on other planes to get you there, buddy. Sorry.

We were authorized to put people on other airlines when things were really bad. Usually when there was a mechanical delay to the flight--a problem with the plane, not weather. I mean weather just happens and if one airline is grounded, they're all grounded.

There was a hierarchy to getting the passengers on other airlines. The airlines with codeshare agreements were highest on the list, the ones who shared the routes and mileage plans and all. The others were lower on the list, but we could do it when things were really crazy.

But not Southwest. They didn't code share with anyone. No luggage agreements, no shared flight information. They were on their own, no need for any other airlines.

I gotta wonder how things went on those zillions of cancelled flights this weekend. And oh man, am I glad I wasn't anywhere near that mess!

Give me a quiet church kitchen with some crusty dirty dishes left over from a big auction and a quick turn to a soup lunch any day! Upset kids having a bad morning and needing to do the rounds with me? Yep. They hug you at the end of the day. Sweeping up after a very successful money making lunch while a marimba band practices? Oh yeah.




But please, never again ".....rebook..."

Definitive Hymns of Chilhood

When I was a little girl growing up in a little fellowship in Minnesota, this was the hymn that we sang when there was a big reason to sing--like Easter, or a special service like our most holy water communion.



I think for this generation of children the "go to" hymn is this one:



Before our little church on the hill in Settle even had a paid music director, we put a group together a group to accompany this hymn for a visit from Gini Courter (UUA Moderator), and now years later, we have a first class music director and choir, and we still sing it for our special celebrations. I think congregations across the continent sing it for special days.

And in just a few days, Peter Mayer is going to come and SING with us in our own beautiful holy space! Oh please don't let me gush too badly. I am so excited! I can't wait. Can't WAIT!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I have picked the absolute worst time on the planet to get sick. Completely. If I had pulled up my google calendar and said "hmmmmmm.....when can I find the worst weekend to get sick, let's see" this would have been it.

Bad timing.

This was the kind of  sickness that makes you want to scrape out your lungs with one of those plastic scrapers that come with stone cook wear. And it makes you wish you could just sleep but the stupid cough wakes you up again and again and again. And you just wish you could fast forward a week until you're just a little tired in the evening and you've almost caught up on your work.

No luck.

Here's the thing; a Director of Religious Education can't just call in sick. Stuff needs to happen. Programs don't just stop. And here's  the other thing-- the people I work with are absolutely lovely, and everything that needed to happen, happened. People just stepped up and rolled up their sleeves and said "of course I can help". My church community is overflowing with the most giving and caring group of people who have ever worked hard on church work, ever. This is what I wish for people who have been wounded by church, I wish that they could experience this kind of church. The church of love and care and faith and hope.

Bless you, Westside folks. You make it so easy to love my crazy, impossible job. Bless you all!

A Fancy Staff Meeting

I had a wonderful staff meeting today. Or well, you know, I walked out of a meeting at 9:45 pm and had a nice conversation in the parking lot with the minister I serve with.

For a couple of weeks I've had to miss my regular Wednesday office hours for a family commitment so I've been working from home. Today was  a work from home day but it was such a busy day with deadlines and hot deadlines and then smoking hot deadlines. But I had to go in to church for an evening safety meeting.

So, tonight I was telling my colleague about this busy but super productive day and she said "me, too!" and then she told me that she'd just cleaned out all the stuff she'd been carrying around in her brief case that she really didn't need. I said  "Me, too!" Really, it's true. I just did that yesterday.

And then we both said "something is different" "something has settled down a little" and then the Twilight Zone Show theme music started playing. OK, not really. But it COULD have. It really could have.

I have no idea what happened to the "busy" juju. There are still meetings that go for hours and hours every week. The money in this budget year is tight, the tasks ever increasing--still. But something is good, and calm. And it feels really nice.

I like having staff meetings in the parking lot.  It's all good. It's actually all pretty smokin' hot good.

Simple Saturday

I'm sitting in the main office of our new church building, we just finished up a lovely planning meeting for our Breakthrough Congregation presentation. The wind seems like it's coming straight off Puget Sound and trying to push the church right off it's perch on the hill. Rain is slamming into the windows.

But there's no pushing this church off of anything. It's solid as a rock.

It was such an honor to sit with some of the wise leaders of this church as they brainstrormed how to convey the story of our breakthrough. This congregation was founded in 1963, it's older than I am. And it has had a long and lively history. But the recent story, the one I'm familiar with, is what leaves me still smiling as I pause before the next event here tonight.

Tonight we'll have a gathering of families with children in Kindergarten through 5th grade. If everyone shows up, we could have 40 families. Now that is a crowd. But it hasn't always been this way.

In 2005, when I started working here, we had 113 adult members and about 23 kids. Today, we have 180 adult members and 101 registered kids. That's part of the story, a lovely part that allows us to have three levels of Our Whole Lives classes and a real youth group with sleep overs and hide and seek games in dark.

The other part of the story is about the passion and fire of this pretty small group of people, who, during the darkest of times in the US economy, raised almost a million dollars to buy a church home in about four month's time. And then, when the paperwork was all signed and filed away, they rolled up their sleeves and proceeded to renovate the building, taking it from a near disaster to a beautiful church home. Today they're still working hard. We're a fair share congregation who have paid our dues to the district and the UUA for as long as anyone can remember. Our members clean and maintain this building. Yes, we could hire a sexton if we didn't pay those dues. No one has ever suggested it and no one ever will. It's part of the mettle of these people. These lovely people. No one here is afraid of really hard work. They thrive on it.

How do we tell this story in 6 minutes of video that will be shown at the UUA General Assembly? We might just have to bring buckets of sweat and tears and somehow --I have no idea how--convey the love that guided every move.

What an honor to serve this group.

Speaking of serving this group, there are lights to be turned on, doors to unlock and a fussy old dishwasher to go wrestle with to be ready for the families who will arrive out of the blustery night very soon. But you know what? It's all good. I appreciate all the work there is to do, because it's quite a testament to all the work we've done to get here. Hard work really does have its rewards.

And I've got a lovely church dinner to prepare for.

Amen. Big, huge Amen.

Breaking Through

It was pageant day! A bright sunny day and our new windows combined with the extremely low solstice sun to sweat us just about out in lamb and cow costumes! We used the lovely Joyce Poley pageant "Would You Like to Hold the Baby?" and it was fabulous.

We almost felt that somehow we were, you know, breaking through. I mean, after all, I've hesitated to ever do such an involved holiday program because we never quite knew who we'd get from week to week or how things would go.

Definitely a breakthrough for us.

In fact, decorating for the holiday before the afternoon of Christmas Eve was fabulous even though our minister our ADRE and a number of other core folks spend three hours assembling a fake tree. This was another breakthrough. We love this whole owning a building thing. Fabulous. Except that now we can't just call the people we rent from to fix things, but oh well, who cares. It's obviously a breakthrough.

So many breakthroughs for little Westside Unitarian Universalst Congregation.. So, so many.

I mean, you'd almost think that we'd be headed to the UUA General Assembly this year to accept some kind of honor for all of our breaking through. Almost. I mean, maybe it really is true. Maybe.....

Yep. It is true.

Westiside Unitarian Universalist Congregation, the little church on the hill that could, IS a 2011 Breakthrough Congregation. See y'all in Charlotte!

And, by the way, whoo hoo!

Mr. Jule Sugarman, Unitarian Universalist, and an amazing man

We lost a treasure of our church community this week. Mr. Jule Sugarman died on Wednesday afternoon. At the end he was surrounded by people who loved him and kept vigil that last day, holding him in love and care.

This lovely church community that I serve will miss him, dearly. He lived a long and wonderful life. He was a man who lived to serve. He was profiled by the Washington Post and the New York Times and given much of the credit for getting Head Start off the ground as well as running it for most of its first five years.

But here's what I know about Jule. He never gave up. I was a brand new Religious Educator when Jule and his wife Candy first came to our church. I met them at a picnic down by Puget Sound. They were kind and full of energy, lovely folks. After a few years Jule became the president of our congregation. I attend monthly board meetings and offer reports about the children and youth programs. During Jule's presidency my reports were often peppered with mention of the inadequate space for classes and the difficulty of holding classes in foyer outside a restroom or behind a felt partition in the gym-like hall at the Masonic Temple we rented.

Jule listened. But he didn't just take it in. He made a plan. And....he never gave up. Never. I had long since decided that perhaps we just needed to use yurts or portable classrooms perched in the Mason's parking lot. Or perhaps nothing would ever really happen to give us the space we needed to provide a great religious education for our kids.

But Jule continued to host "New Home" committee meetings, he continued to look for creative options. He never gave up. I very distinctly remember him showing me plans he'd drawn up for one creative option and saying "look at that, Kari, think about what you can do in those spaces!"

Jule was absolutely convinced that there was a way. Somehow, that we would have a church home of our own. He was even mentioned in the Seattle Times article this fall.

And here we are, in our new church building. Two weeks ago Jule came to the dedication of our new building. I believe it was his last outing. Thank God that he was here.

Jule's spirit and dedication live on in every child touched by Head Start, in every person he helped through the programs and social action he championed. And his spirit lives here in the Westside Unitarian Universalist Congregation, in the reality that came from the dream he wouldn't let die.

Blessings, Jule. We are deeply thankful for all you gave us. And, we really miss you.

Amen.

Proper Care and Feeding of Your Religious Educator

Having your very own Religious Educator can be a pleasure for the whole church family! Simply follow the Top 10 easy care steps outlined below for a healthy and happy Religious Educator:

10. Take your Religious Educator out for some fresh air every day. Long stays in the RE office surrounded by craft sticks and battery candles makes them frustrated and likely to drink pots of coffee directly from the carafe.

9. Bring your Religious Educator the entire list of craft supplies needed for the lesson to be taught well before Saturday night at 9:43 pm. While some stores are open this late, your Religious Educator is sure to be filling the slots of teachers who are sick and finding a great children's message for the outside speaker who "forgot" to prepare a story.

8. Remember, be careful not to pile huge loads of miscellaneous junk and building supplies in RE classrooms! Your Religious Educator still has that bad back from slipping on the stairs in the dark at the last youth group overnight on the way to brew coffee at 5:59 am! You don't want to aggravate that nasty injury!

7. When your Religious Educator begins screaming at the computer screen for the fifth time in 10 minutes, be sure to help recruit some volunteers to staff the game night or the spaghetti dinner as surely there have been six people who have changed their plans and can't help now that the weather forecast has taken a turn for the better!

6. During coffee hour, when the line to speak with your Religious Educator is winding out the door and past the parking lot, bring that trooper a nice cup of coffee! Remember, an IV drip for your Religious Educator's coffee just might be necessary given the constant need to answer questions, stop children from committing murder and plan meetings.

5. If you see your Religious Educator sit down and actually begin to enjoy the Sunday Service, be a dear and gently go over and shake them awake, the sleeplessness has surely taken over and you know they need to go check to be certain that the class full of the especially squirrley girls hasn't decided to make duct tape teacher traps instead of duct tape wallets.

4. To promote the longest possible length of employment for your Religious Educator, remember not to ask them what they do for their real career! This will make them grumble and wonder just what that Master's Level credentialing is all for, anyway!

3. Should your Religious Educator ask about taking a Sunday off, remember, don't say "But you just had a Sunday off last year!" Oh, no, no! Sit patiently by while the Religious Educator notices how much easier it is to just work on Sunday than to cover all those tasks.

2. If your Religious Educator begins to look crispy around the edges in September, October or November it's a sure sign of "START-UP BURN OUT!" Immediately remove all extra responsibilities from their four foot long "TO DO" list and bring the best chocolate available locally, administer in large doses. If smoke begins to come out of their ears, you might as well form a search committee, you've accidentally fried one.

And the number one thing to remember in the care and feeding of your Religious Educator:

1. Always, always hold a weekly meeting in the Fireside room overlooking the water--include the Religious Educator and other staff who love and care for the church and the children as much as they do. If you can, bring cookies. Laugh a little, cry a little and remind that Religious Educator that things that are worth doing are often pretty damn hard to do.

Amen.

Deep Peace

Working for a church can be completely exhausting. Add in a transition or two, and it's overwhelming. Pile on top some conflict and it takes you under the water where you think you will simply never breathe again.

And of course, you can't go to church to help you soothe your spirit, that's where you work for heavens sake!

But this......well, this does a body good. Amen.

More coverage of the new building for the Westside Unitarian Universalist Congregation