BUUF News – February 2015

Contents

Featured this month

"A Roman Holiday" DINNER & AUCTION – February 14, 6 pm

APPETIZERS & BUFFET DINNER — LIVE & SILENT AUCTION

Are you looking for something fun to do on Valentine's Day? Then join us for a Roman Holiday. Enjoy an evening of food and entertainment that provides the flavor and romance of the Eternal City. The Auction committee is designing an event that will be fun for everyone, so bring your friends and neighbors. In addition to our usual dinner and auction, we'll cap the evening with a dance party with DJ Julian Jenkins.

Volunteers will be needed to help with tasks such as set-up, decorations, ticket-taking, and clean-up. Visit the Auction table in the south vestibule for volunteer sign ups, or contact Becky Groff.

Donate an item or service, such as a meal in your home, a cake or pie for a special occasion, use of your cabin for a weekend, a gardening basket, your original artwork, babysitting services, housecleaning, garden maintenance or anything else you can come up with. Ask yourself what talents or resources you could offer to help BUUF raise funds and build bonds among its members and friends. This year, the donation process is online. To donate an item for the auction: boiseuu.afrogs.org/#/donate. Please contact Claudia Fernsworth or Gwyn Reid if you would like help in making a donation. This is the major fundraising event for the Fellowship.

Tickets for Roman Holiday are $35, available after each service, on Auction Frogs, or from a member of the auction committee: Gwyn or Bill Reid, Becky Groff, Patty Nakaoki, Nancy Harms. Also available from the BUUF office during office hours.

And for the second year, we also have an online auction on Auction Frogs. The online auction items are available for bidding until February 22. Go to boiseuu.afrogs.org to check it out.

In The Interim

One of my roles as your Interim Minister is to hold up a mirror, essentially saying to you, "Here is what I see. Is this how you see yourselves? Is this how you want to look?"

One thing I have heard consistently heard among you is that you want to live your mission of working for justice and compassion in the world more fully and effectively. You don't seem to think that you are especially good at this part of your mission.

Yet sometimes I wonder what you mean when I look at all you already do. Here is a partial list:

Recently 43 people from BUUF who came and stuffed meal backpacks at the Back Pack Project.

You help people on food stamps shop at the farmers' market and stretch their dollars.

You showed up in numbers for Add the Words rallies last year and this.

You generously give to the Idaho Food Bank and stock a mini-pantry for members of this congregation.

You regularly do a Habitat for Humanity Build, the Crop Walk and Paint the Town.

People volunteer regularly at the Interfaith Sanctuary homeless shelter.

I wonder if this is "just" a problem of self-perception. As worthy as all these things are, are you yet seeking something more?

I don't believe that social justice should be the center of a church's mission. Justice is the fruit of our work, not the root. When you create a community of people who understand the root – our connection to each other and the earth, commitment to reverence, reason and presence – then the compassionate work of justice becomes the fruit of personal and communal ethical/spiritual work.

The work of the church is transformation – transforming lives that transform the world.

What I hear in your desire for more social justice work is yearning for such transformation – doing more than helping others in need. For the true work of justice is not about the privileged helping those who are in greater need. It is about changing hearts and bringing more compassion into the world. If you take up the true work of justice your own lives will be changed.

This kind of justice work can be scary, so we often dance around the edges of it. What might it look like if you entered into real partnerships with people suffering poverty, hunger, oppression, racism? What would it look like if you used more of your resources to reach out to the people in your immediate neighborhood?

Perhaps this is why you do so much justice work and yet are still dissatisfied. Debra Smith hopes to create a "Justice Council" that might help to coordinate and focus BUUF's justice work and deepen your understanding of the transformative nature of this work.

The work of justice is not simply an outward movement into the world and healing its ills; it also asks that you take an inner journey to reveal the own calling of your heart and the source from which it arises. I invite you to take steps on this journey together.

With love,

dana

President's Message

Roger Sherman

"There are hundreds of paths up the mountain, all leading to the same place, so it doesn't matter which path you take. The only person wasting time is the one who runs around the mountain, telling everyone that his or her path is wrong."

This is Hindu proverb that I ran across lately. It parallels our UU belief that "there are many paths to the holy." The Hindus have just had a lot more experience in figuring that out. I have pretty much always been intrigued by Hindu philosophy, at least in part because my grandfather, Rajaram Gogate, came from India in the early part of the last century as a Hindu By the end of his life he described himself as a "Hindu Unitarian," after 50 some years in the U.S.

I like it for lots of other reasons though too. One is personal. I am probably not the only one who gets too attached to being right but it is something I am working on. Not always successfully. I think I am generally willing to concede a point but not before arguing my side first—often stubbornly. And often around inconsequential things like this morning when I argued with Cathy about whether the parking place she identified was actually a parking place. (It was.)

There are many paths to the holy and up the mountain. Many ways to skin a cat (whatever that means). We don't have to think alike to love alike. Lots of different ways to see the same thing. This many paths to the holy thing is not always an easy path though, when you want to build consensus in a congregation.

The Fellowship board is asked to make many decisions that affect the well being of this beloved institution, especially when it comes to budget time. We are charged with setting priorities through listening and ultimately discerning what we hope is the best direction. Many people are impacted by those decisions and they don't always agree with what the board decides.

Maybe that is as it must be in a denomination that in its fifth principle asks us to both honor the "right of conscience"—which is individualistic—and "the use of the democratic process"—which is collective and majoritarian. We can honor both but everyone will not necessarily be satisfied.

So I encourage you to let me and other members of the board know what you think about church priorities. I know we will all listen. I also know that we are all passionate in our beliefs and want the best for BUUF. We may even agree on what that is. But still there are hundreds of paths up the mountain...

Religious Exploration

Games at the Heart of the Family for February

Emmie Schlobohm, Director of Religious Exploration (DRE)

It is the season of the heart with Valentine's Day just around the corner. In my ever-evolving quest to invite families to incorporate Full Week Faith into their lives, this month's game is a Scavenger Hunt. As you might remember, I'm dedicating my monthly newsletter articles this year to themes based on favorite childhood games. The games will be familiar to most of you and you can play the traditional versions of them to your heart's content and enjoy the together time they create. My goal, however, is to suggest ways to go deeper with your children on your shared faith development journey using the template of a familiar game while expanding the rules and the "playground" to our community and the wider world.

Valentine's Day is filled with candy and bright red hearts and all the trimmings of expressing all the love we feel for our family and friends. The month of February and Valentine's Day have always been a great excuse to celebrate and give gifts of the heart. It's a great opportunity to find ways to express the love we feel for our neighbors, our pets, our community. Why not spend some time together and play, making the world a more loving place one scavenger hunt clue at a time?

The traditional version of Scavenger Hunt goes something like this... every team has a list of things to find and the team that has the most items after a set amount of time is the winner. This has an element of competition and is best for four people or more so that you can have at least two teams of at least two people each. Another version I played with my boys when they were little was to give them the first clue that helped them find the next clue, which pointed them to the next clue, and so on. This version could be played by just the two of them (or even just one of them if circumstances led to one being home alone with me while the other one was off on some adventure). When it was the two of them playing, it fostered cooperation and working together toward a common goal with lots of fun to be had in the process. This version works for all ages because the clues can be pictures cut out of a magazine or advertising mailers so that pre-readers can play too. I sometimes wrote short rhymes or riddles for the clues so that they had to solve them to find the next clue. Rebus puzzles work well for pre-readers too. You can find lots of ideas for rebus puzzles on Pinterest.

After you've played the traditional version until everyone is familiar with the idea, I invite you to go deeper. Base your scavenger hunts on themes of the heart. Take a nature walk and find heart-shaped objects like rocks and leaves and knot holes in trees. Since you probably already have several collections of treasures picked up in nature, why not make this particular hunt an opportunity to take or draw pictures instead of bringing more things home. With pictures, you can find a heart-shaped cloud and still be able to take it home. If the weather is bad or if everyone needs a dose of gratitude before bedtime, sit around the table and think of things that make you happy or make your heart light up. A way to give this a larger context is to have everyone come up with a list of ways to make other people happy and spend a Saturday afternoon spreading happiness among your friends or out into the community. The possibilities are endless! Enjoy the journey and please share your favorite scavenger hunt stories with me!

Justice outreach

Day of Service: Idaho Foodbank

Thanks to the big turnout of BUUFers at the Idaho Foodbank, on the Martin Luther King Day of Service, January 19, 2015! We filled 1700 backpacks for the school program.

Passionate about Human Rights?

Debbie Espen

Seeking a dedicated core of folks to help educate others and to be activist in working toward a just peace for the Palestinian people! contact Debbie Espen at debbieespen2014@yahoo.com with UUJME in the subject line. (UUJME: UU's for Justice in the Middle East)

Our Ministerial Search: The Times They are a Changing

Search Committee Update, David Clopton

Boise UU will be soon be living the words in the Bob Dylan song:
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown...
For the times they are a changin'

The Ministerial Search Team has completed the first round of interviews and selected three candidates for in-person interviews. It was a difficult decision to narrow the candidate list and the team is very excited to meet the candidates outside of a phone/computer discussion. Check in with any team member if you have questions about the process we're following.

Team members are Lori Watsen, Will Smith, Patty Nakaoki, Wanda Jennings, Elton Hall, David Clopton, and Linden Boice.

Committees

Changes are Afoot for the Newsletter

Nancy Harms

BUUF is looking to change from a paper newsletter to an electronic copy to reduce our annual postage cost. There will be few newsletters mailed. If you do not have an email address, or are unable to pick up a copy on Sundays, from our Welcome Carts, please contact Nancy Harms, 658-1710 to stay on the paper mailing list. Look for changes to occur in May, 2015.

Events & Activities

Quilt Raffle

Harriet Shaklee

Quilt raffle: Now is your chance to buy raffle tickets for this year's quilt by the Q-UU-ilters – $5 for one ticket, $20 for five. Drawing will be at the auction on February 14, but you do not need to be present to win. Check out the beautiful quilt and buy your tickets before and after Sunday services between now and the auction. Questions? contact Harriet Shaklee, 371-3634 or hshaklee2014@cableone.net.

Sharing our Resolve

Jeanette Ross

This month we looked at our lives, accomplishments and closets as we considered the role of the Roman god Janus. He was invoked at a time of beginnings and endings, setting out to travel and returning home. We have tacked on to this time of reflection an even more daunting task, that of setting goals, committing to positive changes.

At our January Humanist meeting we came prepared to share the attempts, successes and lamentable failures, an assignment that attracted a surprising crowd. After we'd found enough chairs and helped ourselves to Aria's cookies, we passed the idea of resolutions around. There was general agreement that smaller ones are safer, and committing to sort through collected photographs and letters was the most challenging of all.

We did hear of accomplishments. One of us is organizing family memorabilia; another scanned and passed on valuable old letters to relations. One hiked the John Muir trail; another kept his commitment to social action after leaving the faith of his youth and created his own social service organization, HumanKind. Some avoid the formal promise while incorporating useful habits into daily life. My favorite was that of a shy fellow who didn't have the privilege of raising children earlier in his life. Some time ago he placed himself on the BUUF nursery care roster and says now some of his better memories are talking on the (toy) telephone to small children.

February 15 we will follow Karen Lowe's advice and visit the Society for Critical Thinking website and pick something that resonates. March 15 we will discuss the new book by Sam Harris, "Waking Up: Spirituality Without Religion." To get on the reminder list, contact Rick Groff; Jeanette can give any additional information needed.

PNWD & UUA News

If you thought Spokane was great last March...

Bryan Jennings

...wait until you see Portland this summer! The Unitarian Universalist Association's General Assembly will be held there, at the Oregon Convention Center, June 24 – 28. We hope to have a contingent of BUUF youth and adults in attendance, so now is the time to start planning.

BUUF singers are encouraged to apply for the choir, which will perform Sunday morning and evening. Our church will be allotted five or six delegates, who will vote at the plenary sessions, so if you want to help determine the UUA's future, ask about delegate credentials.

Early registration, via the GA website, begins March 1 and runs through April 30. You can learn more about GA in Portland at uua.org/ga/.