From the Minister

There is no way to include everything we’ve done together, but I want to begin a list here.  And perhaps a better way to describe it is who we’ve been together….

We renewed the mission of the Fellowship – Explore, Love, Act — and birthed the Council structure from the mission. The Justice Council took form, we began to work collaboratively, and our impacts increased.  Stewardship increased.  We professionalized more of our staff.  We renewed our pastoral care structures and created the Fellowship Care and Support Team. We divested from fossil fuels and invested in local solar energy projects. We continued a partnership with Unitarians in Transylvania and increased our global connections to the Philippines and Burundi. We welcomed and supported refugees from Burundi and El Salvador.  We became a Sanctuary Church.  We created the Justice Outreach Fund to make grants, and leveraged one of those grants to help create Unity Shelter.  We created an Emergency Aid Fund.  We invited and enjoyed UU singer-songwriters.  We welcomed Kirtan as a form of worship at the Fellowship, and later Dance Planet.  We collaborated with a local Zen Buddhist sangha, then sold them the house next door and became neighbors and partners.

We re-started project to renovate and expand our buildings; in a successful capital campaign we raised more than 2 million dollars. We allowed ourselves to change course in the building project several times, for good reasons, and finally we have completed the renovation of our classroom wing.  The Grounds Stewards program increased creativity and participation on our grounds and began a process of strategic planning.   WE SURVIVED THE PANDEMIC.  We became much more technologically diverse.  We made commitments to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and sought training to learn more skills toward anti-racism and multi-culturalism. We became more intentional about strengthening inter-generational connections. Together we learned new ways to tend to grief, and depression.  In worship we focused on annual themes including Faithfulness, Courage, Deepening, World Religions, and more.  We created connect-up activities and groups. We welcomed new members.  We gathered to share the sadness of deaths among us.  We weathered conflicts and learned to focus on right relations.  We created a disruptive behavior policy, a Right Relations Team, and a new Covenant of Right Relations. We partnered with the Mid-Willamette Valley Trans Network.   We looked forward to, and appreciated, our Sunday music and musicians, weekly flower arrangements, and the ministry of our coffee crews. We reviewed what worship means to us…….   And so much more.  What do you remember and appreciate?

Another huge blow to the health and well-being of Americans – and others, and the Earth — this week.  With the approval in Congress of this terrible bill –  called ‘Beautiful’ as an indicator of cultural insanity — an era of cruelty,  greed, exclusion, vengeance, inequity and injustice is re-affirmed. These are clearly the values of those who dominate the power structure of our country right now.  But dominant values are not the only values, and never have been.  We must take some time to feel the pain and the fear, we must take time to grieve and lament, and then we must find our footing again and return to love.  

To return to love is to be ever more clear about our values of justice and compassion, inclusion and generosity, reason and wisdom and peace.  To examine our own lives ever more closely and deeply to discover our own contradictions, our own edges for growth.  To take risks for our values, to join voices with others for our values, to practice and teach and embody our values without ceasing. 

As a good next step, tomorrow, Monday July 7, you’re invited to join in a workshop on Creative Lament – a form of medicine for these times – offered by our Religious Exploration (RE) department.   Registration is required.  See This Week At UUFC for more information.

We’re busy at the Fellowship – finishing up painting in the classroom wing and getting ready to move all the furniture back in in a few weeks; weeding, watering and mowing the grounds; watching the online auction and getting ready for the in-person event on June 28; caring for each other and encouraging each other as we navigate life in this country; gathering on Sundays to center together; looking towards the transition in ministry which will happen next month.  This week we are nourished and nurtured by Juneteenth, the Summer Solstice, Immigrants Day and more.  And each day, from day to night, amidst deaths and births and other changes, we are being breathed – each of us held and moved by Life. 

For the next several weeks, I look forward to meeting with and talking with as many of you as I can.  Here are several opportunities for us to get together:

~You can sign up for a conversation with me at this link: https://calendar.app.google/XsnZe2AFZiwfooqP8

~You can join me, with others, for one or two happy hour gatherings:  Thursday June 26, or Wednesday July 2, 5:30 PM, on the deck and patio at the Fellowship.  Bring your own favorite beverage and a snack to share if you like. 

~ You can attend one of the several events planned for July 11,12 and 13 – my retirement weekend.

There is much to share! I look forward to connecting with you.

It has been a particularly horrifying week in the USA. I will be taking to the streets this weekend along with many of you, because I can, and because I need to be surrounded by a feeling of shared resistance.  

Often these days, I’m asked “what can UU’s do to counter the erosion of rights, the corruption, the misuses of power, and so many other things?”  Just like you, I wish I had an easy answer. If there were such an answer, we’d know it.  

For myself, I think about where we are this way:  First, I need to stay aware.  Not consumed by information, but also not in denial.  I need to be ready to move — to change, to help, to respond – in ways I may not be able to imagine. I need to be courageous. I need to be clear about what my values are and what I’m willing to risk to keep them alive.  I think this is what love means now. What I’m willing to risk, to give up, to lose.  When I say I try to live with love at the center, love as the guide, it’s a serious commitment, not at all sentimental.  I don’t know if I’m up to it or if I’m capable, but I know I have to try. 

And, we need to be helping, supporting and protecting those who are most at risk – especially refugees, immigrants, and trans people — in all the ways we can.  But you know all this as well as I do.  And knowing that helps me.  

I’m grateful that this week we are once again hosting my colleague and friend Rev. Mwibutsawineza F. Ndagijimanayburundi. Rev. Mwibutsa lives in Ottawa, ON, where he settled after going to Canada as a refugee from his homeland, Burundi, in East Africa. It was in Burundi that Mwibutsa, then studying to become a Dominican priest, heard about Unitarian Universalism, and eventually established the first UU congregation in East Africa, becoming a UU minister along the way. I have shared in that process with him – a beautiful international form of shared ministry. He has continually been an inspiration and a guide for me, especially in my learning that Unitarian Universalism is not just a “casual faith” but can be a lifesaving force. These are days in which we need to lean into and learn more about that aspect of who we are, and who we can be.

Some of you will recognize that Mwibutsa is a new name for the person you originally met as Fulgence Ndagijimana. There are reasons for this – having to do with the legacies of colonialism, a need to understand oneself in changed circumstances, and more. Mwibutsa will tell some of this story in his sermon on Sunday morning.

For more than ten years the Fellowship has supported Mwibutsa’s work to sustain and grow the UU presence in East Africa ( Burundi and Rwanda), through the NGO he created, Flaming Chalice International. Our support has made a difference not only in individual lives but in the survival of one of the newest UU communities in the world. It is my hope that this relationship with Flaming Chalice International will continue to be a part of the Fellowship’s dedication to outreach and justice for a long time to come. Please join us on Sunday to welcome Rev. Mwibutsa.

On May 22 the Fellowship hosted a meeting of leaders of local religious congregations plus a few community service organizations.  The invitation was issued at the request of our own justice teams:  could we bring together other religious folks to begin to create networks for resource sharing and shared response to the effects of government cruelty we’re all seeing?  More than 30 people attended the meeting, from seven or eight congregations and several agencies.  All were grateful to be able to talk together, to tell each other what they are seeing and experiencing in their own groups.  Folks losing livelihoods as government jobs are discontinued, immigrants and refugees in deepening fear for their safety, the effects of discontinued federal funding on shelters, schools, family support, healthcare and more basic needs. 

What didn’t happen, and remains to be seen (and needed) is leadership.  All necessary movements require someone(s) to take a step and articulate next steps, to invite and organize.  Or, necessary movements need to emerge within already operating structures.  Corvallis has many networks and agencies working for common goals and the common good.  All of the religious organizations who attended the meeting have working structures and are part of wider networks. Possibilities for shared response certainly exist.

The next clear step to a broad religious network, to coordinating efforts for greater impact, did not emerge in this one meeting.  That doesn’t mean that we haven’t begun.  Out of the chaos of the immense changes that are happening, I’m convinced that what we need to be doing together is being formed, little by little.  Here at the Fellowship, that means staying engaged in the work we are doing and step-by-step connecting our work with the work of others.   If you have not yet found your place in the work of the Fellowship, you are most definitely needed and invited.  Please, join in!

Our Annual Meeting is this Sunday May 18 at noon.  In it, all members present participate in the essential business of sustaining the Fellowship.  This is one of the main ways we live up to and live out our commitments to democratic ways of governance. And, it is one of the primary responsibilities of membership. What are some of the other responsibilities of membership?

 Membership means taking your religious life seriously, helping to sustain the life of the Fellowship, and supporting it with time, talent and money according to your own means and needs. 

Membership means being present and accountable in this vital, dynamic congregation, joining hundreds of others as we work for justice, nurture freedom of thought and religious expression, advocate for the worth and dignity of every human being, and dedicate ourselves to environmental stewardship.

Membership is required for taking part in the governance of the Fellowship – electing the Board of Directors who are charged with overseeing policies and finances for the health and wellbeing of the congregation, renewing and changing bylaws when needed.  Membership is required for serving on the Board and for being eligible to vote at official congregational meetings. Members receive the UUA World, the bi-annual journal of the Unitarian Universalist Association.  

In all of these ways, and more, being a member of the Fellowship is a source of fulfillment, of learning and growth, and of making a difference.  I look forward to seeing you at the Annual Meeting.

My decision to retire from the ministry has set in motion a huge transition for me. I’ve worried about the fact that it has set in motion a huge transition for the Fellowship as well.  I’ve worried, but I’ve also begun to be very encouraged by this time of change for all of us.  The life of the Fellowship is a story in chapters – and new chapters are about to begin!   For those of you who are relatively new, I can’t think of a better time to be part of this congregation and its movements and growth.  For those of you who are not new, I have so much faith that making changes will be enlivening and inspiring for you as well.

As part of these movements, the Committee on Ministry and I invite all leaders of teams, councils, projects, tasks (and the Board) to gather together for the next Leadership Supper, which is scheduled for Thursday May 29 at 6 PM.   Leadership Suppers have been happening here for more than 10 years, to help leaders remember and recognize that all the work we do, we do together.  At the coming gathering, we’ll talk about how the transition affects all of us, and what we need to do to be able to manage it well by working together.  

The familiar words of James Vila Blake can be our guide:  “Love is the spirit of this church, and service is its law.  This is our great covenant: to dwell together in peace, to seek the truth in love, and to help one another.”