Editor: Steve Botts, stbotts@texas.net
Nosotros, las congregaciones miembros de la Asociación UU, convenimos en afirmar y formentar el valor y la dignidad propria de cada persona.
President
Mary Grace Ketner
Secretary
Vicki Lee Mattern
Treasurer
Nancy White
At Large Member
Sonya Graham
At Large member
Peter Van Dusen
Operations & Maintenance Committee Coordinator
John Bradshaw, Patrick Shearer
Member Services Committee Coordinators
Clem Chow, Jeff Ketner
Program Committee Coordinators
Henry Halff, Stephanie Shearer
CUUC Website Manager
Margaret Batschelet
It’s obvious that babies require adults who will attend to their needs. Babies come into this world dependent and crying for help. “Feed me, keep me warm, hold me, change my diaper, I have gas, I am tired, help me!” Many religious traditions suggest that this neediness reflects a sinful nature, and that religion (God’s law, instruction etc) is needed to correct and free us from our selfishness and train us to become the good people that God wants us to be.
Our religious liberal tradition holds a more positive view of nature. But we too value the need to grow from selfishness to soulfulness. Like any religious institution, we try to encourage spiritual growth and better citizenship.
Many people come to church seeking refuge from the incivility and callousness of today’s society. Parents don’t want their children to participate in the destructiveness they see all about us. Parents want their children to value life.
We come to churches seeking refuge from a society that devalues life. We come hungry for purpose and meaning. A society that requires gross inequities, that promotes greed and wanton exploitation can’t fulfill our deepest needs. We live in a materially rich but spiritually impoverished nation. We are expected to fight for an ever greater share of resources while ignoring the effect our collective actions are having. The short-sighted selfishness promoted in our culture is evidence of a spiritual poverty that thwarts greater human development.
Although materialism influences us, we inherently know that it offers no permanent fulfillment. The structure of our society makes little sense to us on our deepest levels. We long for jobs and lives that fulfill our deeper needs.
One of the greatest human needs is the need to give; the need to contribute to quality of life. When we have our spiritual as well as material needs met, we desire to grow in our ability to figure out new and greater ways to contribute to quality of life for all.
The need to contribute is surely one reason that people have dedicated countless hours creating and sustaining our church. I am grateful and amazed that a small number of people have given so much, and sustained what is clearly a force for good.
New people sometimes see how hard most of the “members’ work, and run the other way. People come to us with busy lives, burdened by demands already placed upon them. Our friends and guests come to us with needs of their own. When people experience fulfillment here, they will want to participate and contribute, but people need time to discover how they can make use of and contribute to our congregation.
One reason we exist is to contribute to all those who visit our church. I am rewarded when visitors tell me how a service has inspired or challenged them. We are uplifted when we can notice the positive impact our church gives to visitors or members. This church exists to serve the needs of its members, its guests and to contribute to this world through the promotion of UU Principles. We can’t meet everyone’s needs, but we can come together in ways that add quality to life. We can enjoy ourselves as we seek fulfillment of our needs for faith, spiritual growth and community. We can fulfill our need to contribute and to be nurtured. We can appreciate and give thanks to everyone who contributes to this congregation.
As one Sunday School child tells it: "Lot's wife was a pillar of salt during the day but a ball of fire at night." Sometimes I think our church could fit that description. Just when I think we are a pillar of salt, we become a ball of fire.
I had been worried about the fact that our two official covenant groups seem to have melted away this year like a pillar of salt on a humid San Antonio day. But then it comes to me that, like a ball of fire, we suddenly have a new Book Club burning to start, a Co-Housing Group meeting twice a month, and an Ad Hoc Garden Club that seems to ignite out of nowhere several times a week to brighten up our landscape for our members and our guests. We have several other groups meeting at our church that keep the place lit up as well: Northwest Toastmasters, FACT (the Freethinkers Association of Central Texas), and the Theosophical Society. Lately the Vegetarian Society has met at 4818 East Beverly Mae, and this month the Social Action Committee and the Men's Group are hosting a special lecture of interest to environmentalists, who will no doubt appreciate the "green" landscaping being done by the Ad Hoc Garden Club. So we come full circle, feed our own flames.
And that's without mentioning our ongoing Men's Group, Women's Group, Remarkable Films, Fourth Sunday Discussion Group, our several busy committees and...and....
Perhaps instead of having no covenant groups, it is more accurate to say we have many groups who, like our members, have a covenental relationship with our church, each on the level appropriate for themselves. We are buzzing with interesting affairs--like Solomon, who, according to another Sunday School Child's description, "had 300 wives and 700 porcupines."
This is the last in a series of parables for the wonderful folks who make this church run. My aim in publishing them, other than my own amusement, is to help make this church’s programs so good that every newcomer will say, "This is a church where people really care."
My father recently told me an interesting story about his early engineering career. When we first moved to Dallas in 1950, he formed a partnership with another engineer, Allen Hundley. After a few years, my father and Hundley decided to part ways. I always thought that they broke up because my father had greater ambitions, but that was not the case. The way he tells it, Hundley was the kind of guy that would peer over his employees’ shoulders making sure that everything that they did met his approval. “That was not my way,” Dad said. “I hired good people, gave them a job to do and left them alone to do it.” I don’t think that Allen Hundley’s firm ever amounted to much.
If you’ve been to church recently, you’ve no doubt noticed the poster boards and stickies that grace the walls of the sanctuary. If you’re a member, you’ve no doubt noticed the large packet of materials that you’ve received in connection with the annual church canvass. These are invitations to renew your relationship with the church, to ask what the church means to you and to decide what you will do to help the church thrive in the coming year.
(By the way, if you read no further, and do nothing more, please make sure that your signed covenant form gets to our treasurer, Nancy White, by April 23, or as soon thereafter as possible.)
Often, what we think we can give the church and what the church really needs don’t match up. What the church really needs this year is leadership. The church will not survive, much less thrive, unless enough of us take responsibility for her programs, support for her members, and maintaining her infrastructure.
Let’s get specific.
In short, the church needs you. She needs you take your fair share of responsibility.
If you’re still with me, you’re probably now sifting through the Standard Excuse List, which reads something like this.
The problem with these excuses is not so much that they aren’t any good (although they actually aren’t) but rather that at least one of them works for everybody, leaving the church without effective leadership.
Perhaps it is time for each of us to re-evaluate our relationship to CUUC. Few of us, stumbling through life, find ourselves in a position to put first in our lives what we think should come first. Some of us enjoy our work and even think it important. But work is not the only or even the most important thing in our lives. Many of us are devoted to our children. At the same time we recognize that such devotion counts for nothing if we are not also devoted to a higher cause. Still others commit themselves to social action, to improve the human condition or sustain the environment. However, even these causes, worthy though they are, are worthy for a reason.
Where, then, do we invest ourselves in what ultimately matters to us? What institution is there to support what we put first? The answer is church. That is what church is for, and it is only what church is for. Church is the repository of what we put first. This notion is profound. It is even mystical because what we put first in our lives is impossible to fully articulate (as hard as UUs try to do so). Words can only dance around it.
We UUs are fortunate because we belong to a church in which we can invest what matters to us as individuals. In many other religions it is authority that dictates what matters. But the freedom to forge our own individual destinies comes with the burden of commitment to those destinies. Here, to CUUC, you bring what matters most to you, and here you commit yourself to what you bring.
What you do to sustain this church then, is what you do to sustain yourself. Serving this church is nothing more than being true to yourself, of putting first that which ought to be first in your life. Serving this church as a leader is taking control of what matters most to you.
If you’re still with me, you may be going back to the excuses. I have tried to make them work for me in the past, and in the end none of them do. In the end, there are only me and an opportunity to make something of what matters most to me. So, I wind up taking on more responsibility than wisdom dictates. But, for each responsibility that I do take on, I can say that “There’s a piece of my life that I did not let pass me by.”
There are bits of your life posted on stickies around the sanctuary this week. Take a look at all of them, and take a special look at the ones for leadership. Don’t let these bits of your life pass you by this year.
Glenna Jones-Kachtik holds a BS in Elementary Education (grades 1-8); having graduated from Texas A&I (now A&M). She has taught in the public and private schools in grades 2 through 7. She was children's librarian at Butt Holdsworth Memorial Library in Kerrville for 5 years and put on some great puppet shows and plays during that time. She is also a registered massage therapist.
Warren Lieberman is a former administrator of Temple Beth-El here in San Antonio. He is also actively involved in a number of civic, professional, and religious organizations and their activities. There are too many to list completely, but some include serving as a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity and the SAM Ministry Homeless Shelter, as well as serving as a panel member of the Youth Program Review for the United way. Mr. Lieberman has also served as chair and teacher for a religious school.
Does worship and devotion imply superstition? Must celebrating diversity mean settling for political correctness and lowest common denominator services? Should religious liberals stick to lecture and discussion? Can agnostics, atheists and those who claim to worship God do anything religiously meaningful together?
Phil Schulman, the consulting minister at CUUC, has been a lifelong advocate of ecological awareness and social justice. At age 11, he first petitioned the citizens of his town to save the forest behind his home. Since then he has written editorials, served as a board member of a national human rights organization, participated in myriad campaigns for peace, ecology and social justice, spoken at rallies, vigils and demonstrations, and walked on peace pilgrimages across the US, France and Palestine. He says he's delighted to share his passion with us all.
(See 4/23 posting for information about Glenna.)
The RE Class has spent the last months studying Buddhism, then we studied Confucianism and Taoism - the Eastern Religions.
This month so far, we studied Shintoism (GOD is like light) and we heard the story of Amaterasu and her mirror; and we made mirrors. Then we studied about Mawu - God is like breath. This was a story from the Pygmy people and an African American story. We learned how there was no one religion but stories had been passed down from generation to generation. Mawu is a Creator Goddess who not only gives breath, but takes breath away.
We made a banner for Sgt Kevin Downs who was injured in Iraq. Patty Gullick's husband is going to try to get it to him at Brooks. We made doodle pictures for him and we also made mirrors.
The children participated in the flower communion/Easter service and seemed to enjoy themselves even without the Easter Bunny visit. (He did leave lots of chocolate candy and even cascarones for consolation.) They also enjoyed Joan Rabb's and Joan Bradshaw's deviled eggs and hard boiled eggs.
On the 23rd, the children will be participating in the Earth Day Service and will also be singing This Land Is Your Land.... We will end the month talking about cosmic singularity and revisiting mandalas.
I hope that you strive to come to the Feast & Celebration for Earth Day on 4/23. Come enjoy a different kind of soup lunch!!!
This RE year is coming to a close. The RE closing service will be on 5/14 even though the children will have class through the last Sunday in May. We will be listening to the 5/25 service, since I think that it is important that they listen to other religious leaders - and that is the week we will have an honest to gosh Rabbi here at CUUC!!!
I will need to start planning for next RE year. It would help if you parents would let me know what you are interested in. I have plans to teach some tolerance-based lessons, but let me know if there is something you are particularly interested in. Or, let Henry Halff or Joan Bradshaw know. We will meet and discuss it.
Until next month, reduce - reuse - recycle!! Take care of the Earth and it will take care of us.
Lori McVey has lived most of her life in Texas. She earned her bachelor’s degree with honors in English Literature from the University of Iowa and worked on a magazine in Des Moines. Lori was awarded a fellowship from the National Institute of Mental Health to undertake a master’s degree at the University of Texas in Austin. She also was married in Austin and her 31 year-old son lives and works there still. Lori also worked at newspapers in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas Panhandle and the border.
She fell in love with her students in Laredo which prompted her return to the University of Texas to pursue a doctorate in American Studies encompassing a number of disciplines.
Lori’s study covers the American photographers of the Mexican Revolution in West Texas and Chihuahua, Mexico. Given her interests in literature, history and photography, Lori is considering taking on the post of photographer for our church
A new task force on Membership Growth has been established by the Board at their regular meeting on April 12, 2006. This is a task force of a specific mission with a specific three-month life span. The mission is to search for means to encourage growth in membership for our church. This may be done by making the church even more relevant to the needs of the potential members and by devising means to reach out and inform the potential membership population of such capabilities of the church.
Currently membership of this task force includes: Mary Grace Ketner, Peter Van Dusen, Vicki Mattern, Rev. Phil Schulman and Clem Chow. The task force has decided to have its first meeting at 7:00 pm on Wednesday, April 26 at the church. The task force seeks and welcomes input and participation from any member of the congregation. Please address your ideas to Clem Chow at 495-1798 or ccima8@swbell.net or any other members of the task force
Dan Brown's hot book, THE DA VINCI CODE is the topic for the first meeting of the Book Club at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, May 2nd, at the church. In addition to a murder mystery, romance and controversy, the novel offers an unusual religious controversy: Did Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene marry and create a bloodline that continues today?
Have you ever walked the Appalachian Trail? I thought not. If you had, you would have realized what a great national treasure is this mountain range. John Denver was right when he sang
Life is old there,
Older than the trees,c
Younger than the mountains,
Growin’ like a breeze.
Have you ever seen an open-pit mine? I thought not. You’re lucky. Open-pit mines look like great festering sores on the landscape. Even worse is the practice of mountain-top removal mining. The tops of mountains, the tops of the oldest mountains on the continent, are not replaceable. Strangely enough, some mining interests back east want to remove the tops of mountains in the Appalachians to get at the coal underneath.
You can help stop this terrible practice, at least by informing yourselves. A project known as Appalachian Treasures will, at 7:00 PM on Sunday, April 23, visit CUUC with a slide show presented by Appalachian residents. Come and see the show. Bring as many of your friends as you can rope in. Who knows, even Kinky might show up.
Oh, and in case you’re thinking that Appalachia is so far away, think about the prospects of sink-holes in the Edwards Aquifer or air pollution in the Big Bend. One day, you might find yourself in Virginia enlisting support for the fight against these our problems.
The next actor/director the group has chosen to showcase will be Kenneth Branagh. An actor who also directs, Branagh is often credited with making the works of Shakespeare more accessible to the modern audience.
The second film in the Kenneth Branagh series will be "Othello". The 1995 film features Laurence Fishburne (http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0000401/)in the title role with Branagh assuming the role of Iago. This film will be shown at church at 6:00 PM on Sunday, May 21.
The Remarkable Film Group selected "Rabbit-Proof Fence" as the third in the series. The 2002 film is set in Australia in 1931 when three aboriginal girls escaped after being plucked from their homes to be trained as domestic staff and set off on a trek across 1500 miles in the Outback. This film will be shown at church at 6:00 PM on Sunday, June 18.
This year's sale is very important financially. Please do serious house cleaning for saleable items and offer to help out.
IF YOU HAVE ITEMS: Please bring them from after Church on 30 April to Thursday the 4th. Put them in the Sanctuary/Meeting Room. We take books; we don't do clothes.
IF YOU CAN HELP: Please come on Thursday, May 4th, starting at 9AM to sort and display and/or Friday, May 5th, to sort, display and price, and Saturday at 8:30 AM to help with the sale itself. If you have a van or truck and can help transport donations let me know.
SPECIAL CHALLENGE: A rental of the Meeting Room to the San Antonio Vegetarian Society for Thursday Evening 7 to 9 means we will have to keep our tables on the edges of the room and covered with sheets during that affair.
EXHORTATION: If you are able, don't miss an opportunity to participate in a very special experience: cleaning, recycling, sorting, displaying, pricing and being a retailer for a day.
Easy Questions and offers to help; John Bradshaw 341-8506 Hard questions to: Steve Boyd 830-606-0636.
The building and grounds are both huge, and not enough hands are being applied to their needs. Phil's role is for just maintenance, not for numerous big jobs awaiting big efforts.
Take the planted area in front: John and Joan Bradshaw, Sandy Boyd, Phil, and I have spent many, but many, hours laboring to bring it back to life, and, as of April 13, the status was still not optimal. That's just one job calling for volunteer effort.
John is the head honcho of these projects, and I have volunteered as his lieutenant. But we are well into our 70's, with our sometimes cranky backs and other bodily nuisances.
So listen up, you whippersnappers (under 70), and let John know what you'll do; he has a substantial list of projects. Not just a half-day once a month, but anytime you're willing. And you girls/ladies: you're plenty strong and resilient; I know because I have 3 daughters whose strength and endurance can put me in the shade.
Back to table of contentsThe Women's Support Group is open to women and friends of the church. We meet every 2 weeks, on a Monday night at the church, starting at 7 p.m. and usually finishing before 9 p.m. Each woman usually talks for about 10 minutes about anything she wishes. However, you don't have to talk if you would rather not. What is divulged is kept confidential unless otherwise stated. It is a great way to get to know the women in the church on a more personal level in a safe environment.
We invite you to come and join us and let us get to know you. 4/24, 5/8, and 5/22 are the meeting times for the current period.
The Cuuc men's group meets every other Sunday from 6:30 - 8:30 P.M. All CUUC men or visitors are welcome to join us.
Group leadership rotates from meeting to meeting. The leader for each meeting is also the host, and he is responsible for furnishing snacks and drinks.
We usually start off meetings with a clearing, in which each member is allowed to talk about recent events in his life, if he wishes to, for as long as he sees fit. Next, the facilitator introduces the topic for the evening. This may involve a short reading - a poem, an article or other text. The subject could be just about anything that the facilitator would like the group to address: What's going on at CUUC, religion, economics science, health, family, friendship, etc.
Around 8:30, we wind things up by deciding who is going to facilitate the next meeting, declare this one finished, clean up, and leave.
The Remarkable Film Group consists of members and friends of CUUC who gather each month to view one feature film and discuss it afterward. Everyone is welcome to attend. The films are usually shown at church at 6 PM on the third Sunday of each month. Films are shown in a series. The attendees select the theme and content of each series normally compose of four films of a common theme, directed by the same person or featuring a specific actor or actress. Past film series have carried such themes as Women Messiahs or include films directed by John Sayles or those featuring Peter Sellers. Current leaders of the group are Clem and Joyce Chow. Any questions about this group may be directed to Clem or Joyce.
This year the Fourth Sunday Discussion Group has been reading and discussing by chapters the UUA Commission on Appraisal report, ENGAGING OUR THEOLOGICAL DIVERSITY. The Chapter for May is “Justice-Making: How Shall We Serve,” and discussion leader for this month is Von Kachtik.
All are welcome to join the conversation on Fourth Sundays following Soup Lunch, 12:30-2:00 pm. Copies of ENGAGING OUR THEOLOGICAL DIVERSITY are available from Mary Grace Ketner, who is having a half-price sale on the last three copies, $8 each.
The Northwest Toastmasters is a community group as well as an affinity group of CUUC. Toastmasters Groups provide opportunities for members to become better speakers and better members and better leaders in their communities. CUUC’s Northwest Toastmasters meets each Monday night at 7:00 PM. Visitors from CUUC and beyond are welcome.
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