Discussing the G-word (answering questions about God when you’re not sure yourself)

If you’re a UU who gets an itchy feeling when you hear the word God, you’re not alone. There are plenty of reasons we might avoid the subject, but our kids will hear the word without our help. It doesn’t matter if you abandoned the notion of God long ago, you’ve got a solid relationship with your Goddess, or you’ve gotten comfortable with just not knowing. I’m all but 100% certain that your kids are going to have questions about God anyway. UU minister, Reverend Robin Bartlett says, “I have a responsibility to say something about god because someone else on the playground, or at a friend’s house, or at a summer camp will fill the vacuum I’ve left if I say nothing at all… I need to counter the message that God picks and chooses, that some souls are saved, but not all souls.”

Let’s explore some ways we might authentically fill that vacuum.

Half an Answer is Better Than an Answer and a Half

When we’re caught off guard, uncomfortable, or overly passionate about a topic — all feelings we might have when our kids ask about the G-word — it’s easy to give too much of an answer, and even start to answer questions that weren’t actually asked.

Sound familiar?

With younger, elementary-aged children, asking more questions before offering answers can help you discern what’s really being asked. Our own baggage can cause us to read too much into the question & give an answer that is too big for our child. Take a breath so you can listen & discern first.

If we give too big an answer, our children are likely to tune out before they get the answer they were looking for. If we’re regulars at giving too much of an answer, they might even develop a habit of not asking.

Remember this: Half an answer is better than an answer and a half!

While this is true for all aged audiences, it’s especially true when talking with our children. By keeping our answers short, we give our children time to digest what they’ve heard & ourselves time to consider what more we wish to say. When we leave our kids with a valid answer, but still wanting more, we make space for the conversation to circle back around a few more times, and these big conversations with no easy answers are at their best when we plant the seed, give it time to grow, and return to tend it regularly.

We’ve got a lifetime for this talk. No need to overdo it on our first go.

Other Ways of Saying God

Very often, “god” is just a quick way to say “something bigger than ourselves that inspires awe.”

If your younger kiddo asked about God, it’s probably best to stick with that word for now and just try not to make it weird.

If you have older kids, though, who are capable of more flexible and nuanced thinking, it can be useful to come up with a list of longhand terms for God that feel less loaded. Then, when you encounter religious wisdom with god talk together, you can evaluate it with more clarity by substituting your longhand terminology to see if it’s wisdom that resonates with you.

Here’s a short list to get you started.

God is:

the Big Mystery Love with a capitol L

the Unknowable Power the Really Real

the Inner Calling the Governing Laws of the Universe

Anne Lamott & Howard

Next month, we’ll be adding prayer to our toolkit. As a bridge from here to there, I offer the words of the brilliant and ever-salty Anne Lamott:

You may in fact be wondering what I even mean when I use the word “prayer.” It is communication from the heart to that which surpasses understanding. Let’s say it is communication from one’s heart to God. Or if that is too triggering or ludicrous a concept for you, to the Good, the force that is beyond our comprehension but that in our pain or supplication or relief we don’t need to define or have proof of or any established contact with. Let’s say it is what the Greeks called the Really Real, what lies within us, beyond the scrim of our values, positions, convictions, and wounds. Or let’s say it is a cry from deep within to Life or Love, with capital L’s. Nothing could matter less than what we call this force. I know some ironic believers who call God Howard, as in “Our Father, who art in Heaven, Howard be thy name.”… Let’s not get bogged down on whom or what we pray to. Let’s just say prayer is communication from our hearts to the great mystery, or Goodness, or Howard; to the animating energy of love we are sometimes bold enough to believe in; to something unimaginably big, and not us. We could call this force Not Me, and Not Preachers Onstage with a Choir of 800. Or for convenience we could just say ‘God.’

Homework for Caregivers

If you can, practice speaking out loud what you would say if your child asked, “What is God?” or “Do you believe in God?” Notice how it goes, and whether it reflects your truest answer. If they’ve already asked and you feel like it could have gone WAY better, don’t fret. It’ll circle back around. And when it does, you’ll have a little practice, and hopefully a little community of support.

Speaking of support…

Ask a friend if they’ve had the god talk with their kids and would be willing to share how it went. If they’re still a part of your life, ask your parents or caregivers about how old you were when you first got curious about God and how they felt. Have their feelings about god shifted over time? If they could go back, would they teach you the same? The more we talk about these topics with our people, the less weighty they start to feel, and then we can approach these conversations with our usual calm.

And, as always, if you want to pop in and discuss the big G or anything else, my door is always open!

Building New Ways of Communication

We’re trying out a new online version of the weekly announcements here at uucorvallis.org/news. It contains all the same information as the pdf version of the Weekly Announcements that is emailed to you, but in a little different format. This page also includes easy links to the latest information about everything that’s going on at the Fellowship here in one place. 

Here are a few things to note:

  1. Under each announcement headline is a short excerpt with link that takes you to the full text.
  2. Like the pdf version, the announcements aren’t in any particular order, expect for that we’ve curated a few of them to appear at the top.
  3. To see announcements from of a specific type, click on one of the tabs on the left. Each tab will have the latest announcements, as well past info. The newest info will still appear under Weekly Announcements, so if you only read the main weekly announcements tab, you should still be up to date.
  4. To see past announcements from previous weeks, you will no longer have to search through your emails. Just click on the button that says “past announcements” at the bottom of the list. It will only show past announcements that have appeared here — not weekly announcements from years past, sorry. 
  5. If you want to see a pdf version, you should still be getting it in your email. You can also still find all the Weekly Announcements Archives in the filing cabinet.

In the spirit of the theme for this year, “Building a new Way,” we are working on building new ways of communication to help everyone stay connected. 

If you have questions, comments, or ideas about this format for the weekly announcements, or about the website, please email David Servias.

Trick or Treat 10/29

Wear your costumes to the service on Sunday, October 29th for the intergenerational Samhain service, and stay after for some fun!

All ages are invited to come play games and eat treats while you learn about what our various teams, councils, and board of directors are up to at our third annual Teams and Councils Trick or Treat!

Children’s Holiday Book Donation through 11/26

The Holiday Fair Team, in conjunction with Religious Exploration, would like to offer the gift of a free children’s book to any child who attends the holiday fair. Please consider donating a new children’s book for this event. Need help deciding on a book? Skyla can help! Donations can be left in the box outside of the RE office anytime between now and November 26th. Thanks for giving the gift of reading to our children and youth this holiday season!

Another Way to Support the Fellowship!

Link Your Fred Meyer Rewards Card!

The Fellowship is now a part of the Fred Meyer Community Rewards Program. What’s needed from you?

Please visit: https://www.fredmeyer.com. Once logged into your Fred Meyer account, search for Unitarian Fellowship of Corvallis either by name or FN605 and then click Enroll. New users will need to create an account which requires some basic information, a valid email address and a rewards card.

*You must have a registered Fred Meyer rewards card account in order to link to the Fellowship.

*If you do not not yet have a Fred Meyer rewards card, they are available at the customer service desk at any Fred Meyer.

Once your rewards card is registered, then purchases will count for your the Fellowship!

A reminder that participants must swipe their registered Fred Meyer rewards card or use the phone number that is related to their registered Fred Meyer rewards card when shopping for each purchase to count.

Grounds Stewards

With fall here, we are recruiting help for UUFC leaf clean up. To help, please email Michael Hughes, subject Fall Clean Up.

October 15th, 2023, Daily Practice: A Weekly Reminder

When we first entered into the pandemic shut-down, in March of 2020, we also entered into a shared daily practice to help ourselves stay connected to each other and to our religious lives. Over several months we began to consider skills that could help us, including cultivating inner nobility and steadiness, naming our fears and counting our blessings at the same time, and nurturing courage and trust within ourselves and between us. Later, we talked about “the art of embracing” as a practice of turning toward and moving toward what the world brings us — moving in that direction of with arms opened wide, as much as possible.

It has been three and a half years since we shut down and entered into pandemic living, and a little over a year since we finally returned to indoor Sunday services. There will never be a time when everything simply reverts to the way it was “before.” We are living in, and are part of, calamitous and fractious years in the human world. We worried in 2016, and then during the pandemic, and then the invasion of Ukraine, and now the horrible situation for Israelis and Palestinians. Horrors, and more horrors. For those of us dedicated to a practice of peace and justice making, there are constant opportunities to start over, to begin anew in a changed world, as always. The organizer /humanitarian / activist Valerie Kaur says this: “Our most powerful response to the horror in Israel and Palestine is to refuse to surrender our humanity. Opening our hearts to grief—others and our own—is how we hold our humanity in a world that would destroy it. It’s how we will begin to survive this.”

May our practice be dedicated to this – to maintaining and nurturing humanity, in all the ways we can. The question is, “What are you willing and able to move toward for the good of all?” Everything we have been practicing will help us. The way stretches before us, and we can only take one step at a time. There are blessings that live in the very act of reaching out. May we find the needed courage.

“What Is Transformation?”

It would be hard to argue that things don’t change, or that they aren’t changing constantly, and not always in ways we understand or are prepared for. Take this week for example, or almost any of the past seven years. A new generation of UU’s describes a need for us to be able and willing to not only change, but be changed, in order to keep adding love into the world.

Rev. Jill McAllister

Tending Our Grief Circle, 4/11

Thursday, April 11th at 12:00 – 1:30 pm in the UUFC library

We will gather together to share from our hearts about the griefs we are carrying and to witness one another. These may be very personal sorrows or extend to the losses that we witness in the world.

Our time together will include sharing, poetry and simple ritual.
“Every one of us must do this. We must learn how to work with the grief in our lives…simply gather the courage to speak from your heart, and let the others know that you are feeling sad and carrying grief in your body. What I have discovered in grief rituals over many years is that we feel relief when we finally are able to acknowledge our pain with one another.” ~ Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow.

Facilitated by Anna Coffman and Susan Sanford.

Register for April 11 Grief Circle

UUFC Members-Only Facebook Group

Members of the Fellowship are invited to join the UUFC Community Page for Members and Friends on Facebook. Request to join! This is a great place not only to hear about what’s going on at the Fellowship, but also to share resources within our community and to share other community events that aren’t directly related to the work of the Fellowship, but would be of interest to folks.