From the Minister

Dear Members and Friends of the Fellowship:

The contract I signed to serve you includes an agreement that the Board and I will work to support the congregation in multicultural understanding.  I am so excited that Skyla, the Fellowship’s Director of Religious Education, has arranged for you to be able to participate in Mosaic, which is a new UUA program inviting us to reflect on anti-racism, UU culture, and how to transform our best intentions into better understanding.  This is core to the congregation’s acknowledgement (published at the bottom of the order of service each week), saying that we are committed to dismantling oppression and continually learning more.  I look forward to seeing you there on Monday nights in the fall: https://uucorvallis.org/mosaic-antiracism-workshop-for-adults-register-by-9-1/.

I said in last week’s sermon that I would give you the links to creative campaigns that are working to stop deportations.  Even if this isn’t how you will choose to take action, please read about them so you can learn from their strategies.  Perhaps you would like to commit to share the links with three other people?

Ground Avelo is a campaign to stop and disincentivize this airline from secretly deporting people using tax dollars.

Signs of Solidarity provides a toolkit to talk to local business owners about worker safety in case of ICE presence. 

I want to offer you a spiritual music video from time to time in this weekly email.  So, here is one related to this coming Sunday’s sermon on “Dignity of Labor.”  During the sermon I will describe a group of Christian songwriters who felt that more songs were needed to honor not just Sundays, but also the workweek.  Therefore, a few years ago they created an album.  One song particularly moves me, as it describes feelings of never being able to get ahead despite hard work.  The YouTube video of the song is embedded below.  If you listen to it, I hope you will tell me how it made you feel.  If you don’t see the video, click this link to watch it: https://youtu.be/IsoCkFqai8k.

This week included my first board meeting.  I admire the Board’s ability to handle both the macro and micro.  The board members bring a rich variety of skills and insight.  I am excited about how they are tending to the justice work, spiritual work, and financial stability of the congregation.  

As I come into the end of my third week with you, I continue to observe your hospitality, sense of community, and service work.  I loved being outside in the fresh air together on Sunday evening at the grounds work party and enjoying Joyce’s peach rhubarb crisp!  And thank you to everyone who answered the survey that greeted me when I came.  I have already used those tips to make an appointment for an oil change in my car, to find great gluten free food and local produce, and to slip away for quiet time in nature.  And thank you to everyone who helped me get the office set up here for my use.

In a few weeks, college students will be returning.  Please look for ways to reach out, tell them why you value this Fellowship, and offer them a ride, or offer to bike or walk together.

May you find moments of beauty each day,

Rev. Alex McGee
(she/her)
rev.alex.mcgee@uucorvallis.org

Hello dear congregants at UUFC:  What a week it has been in this world, with the extreme heat and more painful political news.  But that discomfort and pain is not the whole picture.  As we continue in our spiritual growth and grounding together, we have opportunities to find a soothing balm as well as deep courage.  Please continue to make time for the things that nourish you spiritually and connect you to others.  I was grateful for the coincidence that my sister was travelling through Oregon this week and I got to go hiking with her as we explored the mountains and waterfalls together.  Here is a photo!

In my second week at the Fellowship, I continue to observe generosity of time, talent, and treasure.  I see so many members getting great joy from doing their part in sustaining this spiritual community.  I was inspired to see the nearly 30 people who came on Wednesday evening to the training coordinated by the Democracy Action Team.  Folks left energized with ideas of the many ways to resist autocracy with focus on what is unique to this location in Oregon, to their unique abilities, and to this spiritual community.  

Next week will be my first board meeting and I will begin working with the board as they provide leadership to you all during this interim time. I will be leading worship with you here for the first time this coming Sunday, and I look forward to being with you there.

In joy and patience,

Rev. Alex McGee, Interim Minister

Rev. Alex McGee began on August 1, 2025 serving as Interim Minister as our Fellowship enters our interim time, following the retirement of Rev. Jill McAllister. 

Greetings UUFC!

What a joy and honor it has been to spend the first week with you.  Thank you for your thoughtful welcomes in so many ways.  I see warmth and enthusiasm here.  Just in a few days I have observed the lovely shared worship leadership on Aug 3; the thoughtful caring of the Coordinating Council; the many hands painting, fixing, carrying, and beautifying the renovated wing.  I have met with the staff and am learning their talents.  

As I look ahead, I am excited to undertake the five tasks of interim ministry with you.  These five areas are a professional standard nationwide, across faith groups, for congregations during a transition time.  They are:

• Reviewing history
• Clarifying identity
• Bolstering leadership
• Strengthening connections locally and nationally
• Looking to the future together

You will be seeing these show up in many opportunities throughout the life of the Fellowship.

What is moving in me in my daily prayer as I journey with you at this moment are three themes from our Universalist heritage:  Faith, Hope and Love.  These enhearten me as I honor the unknowns of this new-to-me place, the heartache of the national and international news, and the stories that each of you are holding.  Faith is something I understand from both my Christian and Yoga experience, as something that comes from beyond us to help us trust there is a wider meaning we cannot yet see.  Hope is something we choose so we can step forward.  And Love is a current that flows through us connecting us to others with compassion and joy.  I look forward to hearing from you all what is moving in you spiritually at this time.

—Namaste, Rev. Alex McGee

August 7, 2025

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!