Fall Follows Summer, oh my . . .

Were you among those from UCM who enjoyed Unicamp, near Wasaga Beach, Ontario, this summer? Or did you venture to another Unitarian Universalist summer institution such as Star Island or Ferry Beach on the New England coast, or Unirondack, near Nyack, NY? Each place has its beauty, traditions, spirit of life and fun! Each exudes that special feel of a dedicated group working together to build a beloved community based on UU principles. Other programs meant to deepen our sense of being UU and to grow lay leadership are CUUL School and the youth equivalent Goldmine -- both very structured, yet also enormously fun! (both programs currently being updated). Beyond the specific UU world there are also wonderful learn-and-share places like the Chatauqua Institution in western New York (with lineal descendants across the continent), or Omega, in the Hudson valley. Of course there are also yoga, fiddle, wilderness, singing and sports camps. Myriad ways in which our ever-inventive fellow humans seek to create an ideal, loving, knowledge-, skills- and growth-promoting environment. At all these grand places, all kinds of people -- from "lions" to "lambs" -- explore dwelling together, coming together for a brief time, briefer than we might in our more permanent homes. Over the decades I have participated in many of these temporary "homes," for longer or shorter spells. Lately I have been struck by how much common ground there is among these summer communities, despite variations of theme, cost or location. Attendees share the summer weather and the desire to foster our best selves, our biggest dreams of new abilities or adventures, and optimal relationships with one another and the natural world. From the time my children were small and into their teens, our family would spend an annual ten days or more at NeeKauNis, a Quaker camp on Georgian Bay in central Ontario. Over that period we experienced different groupings of camp programs like "Family Camp" (predominance of small children), or "Community Camp" (including singles as well as three generation family groups), or camps for pre- or young teens. Often I helped direct one or another -- a mixed bag job, rather like being a D.R.E.! All the camps shared a relaxed pattern to our summer days: some self-created programming, three wonderful meals prepared by a head cook (many years that was me!) with a raft of volunteers, waterfront time to swim, canoe or sail, and every morning after chores, a half hour of meeting for worship. We sat on the hill above Georgian Bay, immersed in nature and silence, and often there was spoken or sung ministry to amplify our joyful sense of community. In my book, The Heron Spirals, I recount one such camp experience: "...watching some little children play quietly nearby, I thought about the way the camp experience nurtures them all, how we all share the parenting. Next, I pondered the question of whether my husband and I had ever fully allowed, let alone truly encouraged, each other to stretch ourselves to be our most whole selves. I thought we seemed to have succeeded with our son and daughter, but hardly ever as partners.      Then I felt a prayer rise in me, that we adults may help each other, and each young one especially, stretch his or her wings fully, that we not inhibit, but enhance one another. I felt this longing very deeply, and wide-winged heron images flooded my mind, almost as if they were surrounding me in Spirit, vividly present although not physically visible." Years later, reading Marriage and Other Acts of Charity by Kate Braestrup, the Unitarian Universalist chaplain and author, I found these words: "Love really has just that one absolute, implacable demand, ...to desire the achievement of wholeness by the beloved." I trust your summer has been rich with your own sense of wholeness, wherever you have spent it! I look forward to working with our children, youth and Religious Education staff and volunteers as we, too, grow in wholeness. P.S. My own summer has had many wonderful heron, "camp" and book moments of wholeness, following all the support this community offered me in June --and before! For copies of The Heron Spirals: A Commonplace Book, please contact me.

Halloween, the best way!

Dusk falls, and people are coming together outside the NDG Food Depot, blocking the street ahead, I see as I bike down Oxford Street to join them.  They are milling about in various costumes, mostly with some sort of white zombie make up, bloody drips and scars, and a whole range of outfits, from blood-stained lab coats to wedding dresses to flower-power hippie gear.  (I myself pull out a huge old velvet cape I made in ca 1970 to wear, but don't have any makeup) . . .
So then they spread out to practice their zombie moves for the "Thriller" dance, there in the middle of the street, the guy in the black and white stripes leading them.  He knows all the moves, gets a front row line up of dancers who really have it down, and they start by rising from squat, "dead" positions, with the boom box on a wagon blasting out the music.  They strut, stagger, wave arms and bums, pivot, jump -- all in synchronized fun, music blaring.  It's Halloween, and the Zombie Dancers are at it again!
My role is to hand out little 1/4 sheet paper flyers, in French and English, reminding people on the streets, in slowing down cars, on doorsteps with Halloween treats, parents supervising little ones, EVERYone, that the Depot's big annual food drive will be the first Saturday in December.  What a blessedly fun way to be part of all the energy --the jack-o-lanterns, lights, cobwebs, gravestones, witches and collection bags-- for this Montreal Halloween night!

The "MIT" or Most Important Thing about helping the NDG Food Bank (so far)

This fall we focused four successive RE sessions for the All Ages class on food and hunger issues, making soup and bright posters to raise awareness about the NDG Food Depot.  By Thanksgiving my small RE unit came to its third and climactic Sunday of going to visit the local food bank, a fifteen minute walk away from church.  It was a good day in many ways:  lots of frozen soup that we had made to take; our laminated posters and recycled egg boxes to share; plenty of children (12, some of whom were visitors, plus one baby and one teen) and five adults (one youth advisor, three parents, of whom one is the RE chair, and myself).

I think the "MIT" was that the children (and adults, too) got a chance to see inside the Food Depot, that we went together to learn and to share what we had brought.  It meant we got a visceral sense that the huge 40 kg sack of rice the children bagged into small 2 cup portions, was not actually going to feed many people for very long. 

One mum came up to me, back at church where we ate our own "stone" soup, to underline how much her daughter was loving this unit of RE.  Sunny, the daughter, had in fact made three beautiful posters to contribute.  On our fourth food issues Sunday, Mathias told the follow-up class he thought it was a long way to walk, but “once we got there, it was fun to pack the rice, and the people there were so appreciative of everything we did!”

Two years ago, after attending my professional conference in New Orleans, I came home longing to find ways to do more hand-on service work, and since then I have been volunteering with a NDP Food Depot and Seniors’ Council program for "Boomers" and building relationships with Depot staff.  I hope this R.E. project is just one of many we can do to help our neighborhood take care of the hungry, while teaching our children about sharing resources and social justice issues.

Thanks to a local Depot Board member being available on Sunday mornings, we hope to return to help out again this year, and to participate in the annual early December food drive.  Watch for our children’s laminated posters at area Food Depot drop off points!

REFLECTION ON BRIDGING

On Sunday morning at the CUC Symposium on Spiritual Leadership (May 20, 2012), our minister, Rev. Diane Rollert, was one of our service leaders, and she orchestrated a wonderful Bridging ceremony as a part of our very multigenerational weekend.  This special UU ritual is a time for aging-out Junior or Senior youth to go through a series of two person arches, formed by the older youth or Young Adults who welcome them to the next stage of their lives. Usually the “bridge’ consists of perhaps five, ten or fifteen pairs, arms upraised, and after the Bridgers traverse this passageway, accompanied by a song or music, there are lots of hugs and smiles from the bridge builders for those who passed under their arms.

For our special Symposium bridge, however, there were many more bodies to build with, and Diane also added further dimensions.  FIrst, she asked people to wait til after the service for congratulations and hugs, so that bridgers could focus on their transition more strongly,  and we all could beam our support to them.  Then she called up all the youth and young adults who were not at the age-end of a stage in their lives, therefore not bridging, to come form a bridge line down the middle of our temporary sanctuary -- I am guessing there were 50 or 60 youth and young adults altogether (it was a loooong bridge!).  She directed them to stay standing with arms extended for far more bridgers than most of us had ever thought of, and it was a very moving rite of passage!

After the Junior and Senior youth bridged, those circa-35-year-olds ready to move on into “adulthood beyond” were called to go through, while the congregation kept singing Tony Turner’s wonderful song --the one we will be singing during the service on Sunday, May 27th -- “Circle of Song.”  

Next lay leaders who were beginning or ending a role in their congregations were invited to bridge; then staff of all our congregations and of the CUC itself, who are moving to some new role or place, passed through the long bridging line.  (There was heartache for the three CUC employees whose positions have had to be cut due to financial constraints).  

FInally, anyone in the entire room who felt they were changing in some way they wanted to mark (in our world of constant change), was invited forward.  Suddenly I found myself on my feet, in the line of bridgers, and I walked under/through all those caring arms with tears streaming down my face, because I realized I am personally experiencing my own sense of moving to a new stage of being:  I am learning to make better boundaries and say a firmer “yes” or “no” in my life than ever before, and it is h-a-a-a-r-r-d.  And so I bridged, and felt symbolically better --plus sensed so much support surrounding me!

Life does have a way of returning to normal after such moments of insight or epiphany as this was, and our sense of transformation often dulls, needs to be renewed again, but the ceremonial way in which I bridged, along with many others, was a spiritual moment I will treasure.  My new boundary-defining practice may sometimes feel just ordinary, but the community was my witness, and we shared an extra-ordinary process.

In terms of Bridging at our own congregation, we have plenty of Young Adult attenders, and could encourage them have a yearly Bridging, but I --sadly, as I would love to cover the whole cradle to sage spectrum -- am not a Director of Lifespan Learning, but only of the nursery, children and youth programs that comprise “religious education” at present at UCM.  However, I am longing for more critical mass in our youth group so that there could be enough bodies to actually hold such a ceremony with them.  It’s a powerful tool and one that is a part of many UU youths’ lives -- I want it to be so for our youth, too!

What we long for, for our children's inner well being

In our UCM Parents Group which met on March 14th (after a brief RE Committee meeting and therefore had a few more members), we were a range of ages and stages of parenting, from grandmother to busy parent of a preschooler. We took time to share what we each long/longed for, for our children and their sense of self, their sense of identity, what we wanted for their spiritual nurture....

I believe we all found this a moving and powerful exercise, even though brief, and thus I wanted to open it out to all our UCM parents to consider. What would you say for the precious young people in your own lives? Without revealing personal names and details, here's a series of tastes of what we told one another we hoped for, that evening over our cups of tea:

--That an 11 year old's abundance of creativity not get quashed.

--That a young man at 18, the edge of adulthood, hold onto the deep sense of his goodness and ability to make a difference in the world; may he always keep the deep conviction that his life will make a difference.

--For an active four and a half year old: that whatever he ends up doing, the wish that when he looks back he is happy with the path he took, that he not feel locked in, that he knows he can change

--For my pre-schooler: that he mostly meets kindness in the world, because he is a quirky child, needs kind and positive and supporting people

--For all my family: that they always have faith in themselves and the integrity to be who they really are, not doing things just for other people. Yet at the same time to know the joy of putting others first, that paradox.

--For my children to keep the core spirituality they "came" with, based on a sense of wonder and connection. For them to feel at home in the world, to have that profound sense they belong in the world, see the value of others and to value the world.

--That my 11 year old be free to make choices, not have to fit into molds, can be herself. that she feel good to be who she is

--That my 8 year old have the unstructured days she needs "to do her own thing," to have more time to wander around nude and do nothing!

The Pleasures of Parenting, long term . . .

From the clippings so often left in my mailbox, I know that many Unitarian Church of Montreal attenders know my son Richard Reed is a creative musician and composer based here in Montreal. In fact when I was first hired as your Director of Religious Ed in 2008, I remember being told some of the Nursery caregivers who were moving on to other jobs almost changed their plans, they were such huge Arcade Fire fans! Of course I have appreciated your comments and congrats over the past few years, but now I want to draw your attention to my other creative adult child, Richard’s older sister Evalyn, who is also a graduate of Concordia, but based in Toronto. She holds a drama degree and performs as an actor, singer songwriter, spoken word artist, or sometimes a combination of all three.

You can learn a lot about Evalyn’s many artistic achievements at www.evalynparry.com, and this spring you can see her in person at three different venues here in Montreal, which I am very excited to tell you about!

1. Her amazing theatrical creation, “SPIN” is an “interdisciplinary performance which celebrates The Bicycle as Muse, Musical Instrument, and Agent of Social Change.” She will be presenting it as part of the Edgy Women Festival on March 22nd at the Sala Rossa. Check www.edgywomen.ca for details. It says:

Innovative Toronto artist Evalyn Parry takes her audience on a unique theatrical and musical journey in her tour-de-force performance celebrating the Bicycle. Inspired by the first woman to ride around the world on a bicycle in 1894, Parry weaves a web of stories that deftly travel from 19th century women’s emancipation to 21st century consumer culture, from the political to the personal.

March 22nd 2012 at 8 p.m. (doors at 7:30 p.m.)

Price : $15 pre-sale, students/$20 regular

Venue: Sala Rossa (4848 St-Laurent)

Duration: 1 h 30

2. Evalyn will also be performing a concert of mostly other material, on Friday March 23rd --at Shaika Cafe on Sherbrooke; please contact me for further details.

3. Then, on Saturday, May 5, Evalyn will be singing at the Petit Campus (57 Prince-Arthur East, 8 pm), along with Theresa Doyle Hannam from P.E.I., as a part of the Wintergreen Concert series promoted by Hello Darlin’ productions.

I really hope to see you at any or all of these fun events! (If you catch me, I also will be happy to tell you about either of my children’s creative childhood exploits, as proud parents are wont to do!)

Forty Acts for sacred water for Earth Day

We are celebrating Earth Day differently this year at UCM: our spring multigen will be held on May Day because the calendar has given us the gift of May First on a Sunday, but I want to share a way you can affirm the sacred waters that surround us here on the island of Montreal and in this water-blessed country. For Earth Day 2011, the UU Ministry for Earth has challenged congregations to celebrate the sacred waters that sustain us, and to commit to 40 days of actions that will make our world more just.
Last week on April 17th , the kick-off Sunday for those 40 days, I brought a tray of some seemingly disparate objects to show the children during Time for All Ages, asking “What do a brick, a toothbrush, and a plastic and metal water bottle all have in common?” The children correctly guessed “water,” (though not everyone understood at first that the brick was to put in a toilet tank!) and we talked about the water saving practices each represented: I went on to encourage them to see how quickly they could count up their own 40 water-saving acts.
Question for parents and other adults: do YOU turn off the water while brushing your teeth or applying shampoo in the shower? Remember that “Water is a human right, not a luxury” (from my daughter Evalyn Parry’s “Bottle This!” –you can listen to it on her website, www.evalynparry.com). Check out http://uuministryforearth.org/ for more information.