Our Wider Faith
Rev. Sara LaWall
This past weekend of celebration was truly magical! I am still floating from the beautiful Installation service and our wonderful Celebration Sunday. Thank you to the many, many volunteers who helped make the whole weekend happen. With so many UU members and ministers in one place, honoring the special covenant between minister and congregation, the Installation service was a great reminder of our connection to our wider faith tradition. It is often easy to forget we are a part of a national association representing more than 1,000 UU churches and faith communities.
We are part of the Pacific Western Region of the Unitarian Universalist Association. You can read more about how we're organized on the UUA website.
Every summer our Unitarian Universalist Association gathers for its General Assembly (GA), the annual meeting of congregation in our association. Participants attend association wide business meetings, worship, workshops While anyone may attend, each church is assigned a number of delegates who are eligible to represent their congregation and vote on Social Witness issues and other business items. Several BUUFers have attended and been delegates at GA over the years and we all can tell you, there is nothing like worshiping and learning with more than 3,000 UUs--we take over the city and convention center and it feels great.
This summer, GA is in Columbus Ohio, June 22- 26 with the theme of Heart Land: Where Faiths Connect. The Ware Lecture will be given by NPR radio host, Krista Tippet, whose weekly show On Being explores meaning, faith, ethics and ideas in conversation with leaders in these areas. You can read more about GA programming HERE. If you are interested in attending and being a delegate, please talk with Board president, Sue Langley or with me. I look forward to attending GA every year. It is a time of renewal but also a time when I can immerse myself in possibilities for new projects, vision and direction for my ministry and our Fellowship. Ministers gather for our UU Ministers Association professional days just before GA to connect, share insights, and hear about some of the innovative ministries of our colleagues. I would be delighted to have you join me in Columbus, you won't be disappointed.
From the Board
Lori Watsen
World Café Recap - the opportunities growth brings!
The Board wants to thank all members and friends who participated in the World Café discussion on February 21st. World Café is a method to facilitate important conversations for large groups. Participants discuss each question in a small group and then a spokesperson summarizes each group's key ideas and points for the larger group. The Board hosts World Café discussions two-three times a year to get member and friend input on issues or questions of concern to the Fellowship. We encourage you to watch for future World Café dates and join us for ongoing dialogue about issues important to all of us.
On the 21st - we focused on three questions, all centered on our current growth and the expectation that growth will continue.
Questions included:
1) What opportunities does growth bring for us for internal
communications?
2) What opportunities does growth bring for us with regard to our
building / physical space and grounds?
3) What opportunities does growth bring for us with regard to creating
new and effective pathways to engagement?
Participants were full of wonderful ideas and suggestions for how we can manage and benefit from our current growth. The notes below include diverse comments and perspectives and can be reviewed in the Governance section of our website.
The Board and the Program Ministry Council will use these suggestions and ideas to guide future projects and work of the Fellowship. The Board is open to gathering feedback from members who were unable to attend. If you have thoughts or ideas you would like to share on these questions, please email Sue Langley, Board President at slangley8416@gmail.com or Lori Watsen, Vice President at LWatts816@cableone.net. We will accept additional feedback through the end of April.
Don't forget to join us for our annual meeting on Sunday, May 15th!
Opportunities to Serve
Sara Olson, Social Justice/Volunteer Coordinator
"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others." ~ Mahatma Ghandi
Spring is a busy time of year in Boise and at BUUF. The legislature is no longer in session, but there are still numerous social justice opportunities, and at Boise UU we are a-bustle with new opportunities and events.
If you are one of the MANY people to become a new member in the last few months, welcome! There are so many ways to get involved in our church, whether through joining a committee, volunteering for an event, or passing round the collection plate on Sundays.
Several committees are in need of volunteers, these are mostly short-term commitments and are great ways for all of us to deepen our connections to our community.
Some of the current volunteer needs are:
- Making coffee once a month for 1st service
- Usher at a Sunday service
- Help with the Welcoming Committee cart once a month and greet newcomers
- Make a meal for a fellow BUUFer - the Congregational Care Committee needs volunteers to make a meal or provide a ride for those in need
- Participate in an outdoor sanctuary work party!
If you are interested in signing up to support any of the above activities or want to hear about other options, please email me. I am happy to help you connect and engage with our beloved community.
RE Volunteers Bless our World
Emmie Schlobohm, Director of Religious Education
In the spirit of the joys and blessings of our multigenerational community, I'm filling my RE space this month with testimonials from parents who share their children with us, and a few of our open-hearted volunteers who dedicate their time talent, joy, heart and soul to those same small spiritual guides, our children.
Matthew Sabin - parent, senior high advisor, Our Whole Lives (OWL)
facilitator:
"We brought our three year old to church and looked at the teens. If
there was any chance the congregation could help us turn out ours as
great as the ones we saw, we were committed. It worked!"
Mary Stell - parent and RE volunteer
"RE has been an important part of my BUUF experience. I started
attending BUUF when my children were about 6, 4, and 2. I looked to the
RE guides in awe, and wanted to become one! The day I was asked to
teach a class felt like a dream come true. I wanted my children to be
part of something bigger than our family, and I loved the course content
and personal philosophies of the people I saw teaching RE. I learned a
great lesson in talking with a friend who had been called to sub in for
a sick RE guide. She said "There's gotta be somebody who cares about
this more than I do," to which I replied "No, there isn't!" If we don't
care, who will?!"
Sarah Olson - Sunday classroom guide for all-ages elementary
class:
"I teach RE because I get to connect with the youngest members of our
congregation and help give them a great start to the week. Whether we
are singing about the seven principles or building Jello towers (in
honor of Peter Cooper, Unitarian and inventor of Jello) or just sharing
our own joys and sorrows from the previous week, this is one of the most
fulfilling and rewarding experiences I have had."
Sharon BarlowPalm - grandparent, K-1 Sunday classroom guide:
"I don't teach every year but I keep coming back. Not just for the
magical times that sometimes occur. And not just because I like watching
them grow up and can say, "I remember that kid when she was in first
grade." No, I keep coming back because someday I will not be here to
come back, but they will."
As we approach the end of our program year and head into summer, please search your heart as to whether it's your time to join our RE community as a nursery care provider or a classroom guide. Opportunities for personal and spiritual growth abound in our RE community! Come talk with me to find out where you can find a place to realize your personal ministry. May the wisdom and joy of our younger generation fill our walls - and our hearts!
The Way We Have to Go
Patricia Heeb, Quest Spiritual Coordinator
Consider this wisdom from Rumi:
You and I have spoken all these words,
but as for the way we have to go, words are no preparation.
There is no getting ready, other than grace....
I have one small drop of knowing in my soul.
Let it dissolve in your ocean.
There are so many threats to it.
Inside each of us, there's a continual autumn.
Our leaves fall and are blown out over the water.
A crow sits in the blackened limbs and talks about what's gone.
Then your generosity returns: spring, moisture, intelligence,
the scent of hyacinth and rose and cypress....
Weep and then smile....
Very little grows on jagged rock. Be ground. Be crumbled, so wildflowers
will come up where you are....
Beneath Rumi's words, my own dark muttering: Oh, the uphill trudge against the gravitational pull of despairing legislative action! Oh, so many assaults on justice! Oh, the needs and demands and personal limitations and aberrations! Oh, the hard, hard work of being human!
But also...quietly... Yes! that one small drop of knowing in the soul. Knowing beyond reason another Rumi truth: When you do things from your soul, a river moves through you. Freshness and a deep joy are the signs. This is the way we have to go.
Therein is the essence of BUUF's 19-month program of spiritual development, Quest, A Spiritual Journey. It is a journey to foster and nourish our souls so we might live more fully in the scent of hyacinth as we go about our daily lives and about the work of equity, compassion and justice. If you listen to your own small drop of knowing and find a yearning for a deeper, richer spiritual experience, consider joining Quest II. Pick up a brochure from the welcome carts, attend an information session after a service or read more on our website. The program can accommodate 16-18 participants, and applications will be accepted through April 30. Let wildflowers come up where you are!
Spiritual Exercises
What does it mean to live a life of rootedness?
Join us for or Soulful Sundown worship service this Tuesday, April 12, at 7:00 pm in the sanctuary. This month's theme is rootedness. Whether you can attend or not, here are some spiritual exercises to explore how the theme of rootedness shows up in your life.
WORSHIP IN A NEW LIGHT
SOULFUL
SUNDOWN
APRIL 12, 7pm at BUUF
& SOULTALKS
APRIL 26, 7pm at location TBD
ROOTEDNESS
#UUSOULFUL #UUSOULTALK #BOISEUU
Music by William Smith
Childcare provide at Soulful Sundown
Unmonitored kids table available at SoulTalk
We've sung the familiar lyric: "Roots hold me close; wings set me free. Spirit of life, come to me, come to me." These lines from our beloved hymn, Spirit of Life, are a window into one of Unitarian Universalism's most radical theological assertions: Divinity and spirit are encountered not through blind faith or forgiveness of sin, but through remaining rooted in our deepest and most unique selves. For UUs, the religious search has more to do with the hunger for authenticity than for redemption.
Indeed, who of us is not felt an ache for "home"? We live in a culture that is constantly challenging the connection to our deepest selves. Speed and noise make it almost impossible to hear the call of our inner voice. The cult of celebrity and marketing urge us to imitate others. Consumerism celebrates the accumulation of stuff rather than the knowledge of self. Capitalism requires us to be mobile rather than rooted in community. All of it adding up to a nagging and numbing sense of shallowness.
So this month we invite each other into the radically counter-cultural practice of simply reconnecting with ourselves.
If you had to choose one story to explain your roots, what would it be? There is a deep connection between rootedness and storytelling. We all have at least one story that others need to hear in order to truly know and understand who we are. What one story would you use to explain yourself to others? What one story do you frequently return to to remember who you are?
Check out this beautiful visual meditation on the theme of rootedness by UU George Grimm Howell.
May newsletter will be sent May 9th
