Mid-Columbia Unitarian Universalist Fellowship MCUUF Hood River Oregon White Salmon WA Church

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The Mission of Mid-Columbia Universalist Fellowship is to nurture individual spiritual belief and growth within a welcoming community. We meet at the Rockford Grange, 4262 Barrett Rd., Hood River, Oregon

We welcome all to join in our activities and enjoy including visitors, guests, and friends of the fellowship. The foundation of our community is formed by members, people who have chosen to make a commitment to engage deeply with our work and support it with their time and money. We offer a “New UU” class for prospective members and welcome new members in a special service several times each year. Opportunities to become a member are publicized in our newsletter, website, and orders of service. If you have interest or questions, please speak with one of our board members listed on the front page.

For Friends and Newcomers: Interested in finding out more about becoming a member of our congregation? The next “New UU” class is tentatively scheduled for June 1 at noon, with a New Member Welcome ceremony the following Sunday, June 8. Contact Scott Clements, Kristen Dillon, or any member of the Board for more information.

President's Letter

“Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” - Margaret Mead

I am comforted by the fact that our wonderfully talented outgoing President, Dr. Dillon, tells me that she regularly agonized over the content of her “President Letters”. My most accurate assessment as I approach my inaugural letter is, “I resemble that remark!”

The easy part is, to recognize the leadership contributions of Kristen and our two outgoing Board Members, Tamara Thiel and Ken McCarty. Kristen’s Presidential tenure has been characterized by patient, kind, mature, very sage leadership and healthy membership growth. Tamara has contributed in many ways, not the least of which is her advocacy for consistently applying our “Seven Principles” as we chart our course and evaluate actions. Ken’s candor and steady hand combined with his whimsical qualities will be sorely missed.

Leadership in our community is manifested in a variety of ways and a simple THANK YOU is inadequate to recognize and express our appreciation for all those of you who lead children’s R/E, conduct the Tween Program, provide our music, set up for services on Sunday, greet visitors, provide refreshments and clean-up after services, serve on committees/functions and act as Celebrant. All these activities are hard work and without these individuals’ commitment, we wouldn’t be the successful community that we have become.

On Canvas Sunday, I spoke of “investing” in our community and the point that I tried to make was, “investment” includes but goes beyond monetary support. We became and sustain ourselves as a “community” through shared experiences, intimate communications, trust and shared values. Each of us defines our “ministry” in our own terms and I am absolutely certain that the truism, “You get out of an experience what you put into it” applies. Regardless of the contributions you have made and continue to make, I urge you to look inwardly and ask, “What is my ministry or passion and how can I apply it to grow as a person and for the betterment of MCUUF?”

It is my hope that my tenure, as President, will see our Fellowship characterized by continued growth as a community, not so much in membership, but rather in the sense of belonging and being ”at one” with our Fellowship. Our Retreat, in September, is truly being designed with “community building” in mind with particular effort to be generationally and programmatically diverse and attractive. Holly and I will send a personal invitation to each of you in July, outlining the schedule and program content. I look forward to a bonding experience and hope you’ll put the event on your calendar.

I approach my new responsibilities with a combination of excitement and anxiety. I’m following several “tough acts” and can only promise to bring my “A” game and hope for the best.

In Peace,
Scott

Programs and Events

SUNDAY SERVICES: Services are held Sundays at 10 AM at the Rockford Grange, 4262 Barrett Drive, Hood River.

June 29—From Sacred to Sacred—Don Hardin will deliver a sermon by Rev. Dr. Peter Luton that he presented at our Pacific Northwest District Annual Meeting. Dr. Luton elaborates on the effects of Calvinistic roots in our congregations and how they still continue to effect us.

July 6, Common Threads: Stories from General Assembly—Myrna Clements and Kristen Dillon return from the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association with tales to tell. Thousands of people, hundreds of congregations, Florida in June…curious, so are we!

Also July 6th will, beyond other things, be "Leadership Appreciation Day". We'll be recognizing, amongst others, outgoing Board Members and Religious Education leaders.

July 13—"The Five Remembrances of Zen Buddhism" by Rev. Robert (Bob) Schaibly. The Rev Schaibly was ordained in the Unitarian Universalist ministry in 1971 after graduating from Harvard Divinity School. He served congregations in Chicago, Houston, and in New England before retiring to Portland. He felt particularly inspired to enter ministry after marching with Dr. Martin Luther King from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. In the course of his work the widely published Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh spoke at his church and invited him to Plum Village monastery in the south of France. Rev. Schaibly returned several times and has gone on Buddhist retreats with Nhat Hanh in the USA as well. In 1991 Nhat Hanh ordained him a Dharma Teacher. He will be speaking about his retreat experiences and the Five Remembrances which capture the essence of Zen teachings and are easily understood by those new to Buddhism as well as appreciated by long time students.

July 20—Making Spirituality Manly! by Paul Lyons. Spirituality examines all that concerns the life of our psyche, or soul. Religion, on the other hand, attaches to all that concerns the life and faith of a society or culture.

Exploring our needs as spiritual beings in a culture that defines what men can or cannot be, we can discover our creative potential - our spirituality.

The "men's movement" from recent decades was redirected by Christian religions in this country. As Unitarian Universalists, let's explore our uniqueness and our traditions of inquiry and ask: "What it is that is special about being a man. Who am I? What am I? Why am I here? How shall I live?"

Let's explore techniques to connect with our personal history, our "shadow" side, and what can get in our way from expanding our spirituality. We'll explore the traditions and practices that can guide us on our spiritual paths. We'll look at men's groups - what works or does not work. What do other spiritual paths offer, including Native American traditions and nature that surrounds us? And, let's finally answer the question" "How do you make spirituality manly!"

July 27—“On Poverty” Money is a funny thing, isn’t it? Can’t buy happiness, but some doesn’t hurt. Come join some pondering about standard and quality of living. Paul Blackburn

OTHER FELLOWSHIP SPONSORED EVENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS:

MCUUF in Song: Songfest for all—from 9:45 to 9:55 AM each Sunday before services. Come enjoy singing and learning the hymns that will be used during the service. Come and enjoy; no music skills needed. MCUUF Singers Practice—9 AM on the 3rd and 4th Sundays in preparation for singing during the service on the 4th Sunday.

Spiritual Practice Group—Mondays and Thursdays from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. The Teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky form the basis for study and discussion. Meeting place is at Tolya’s home.

July 4th—MCUUF on Parade—Meet David and his blue pickup at 9 AM on Pacific Avenue in the Heights. Please bring decorations.

July 25, 6 PM—July Potluck will be at the Ball home in Parkdale. Bring something to share and your swimsuit. Hopefully the pool will be up and running!

Traveling this summer? Don’t forget to bring home a small vial of water for the Water Ceremony! Bring it with you to the 2008 MCUUF Retreat September 19th – 21st. The Water Ceremony is a lovely tradition to bring us back together after the summer, and will be part of the Sunday Equinox service at the Retreat. See you all there!

Our Children need pictures and colored cardboard. During the last two weeks in July our children will be making posters that will be used at our Sept. Church Retreat. They need bits of colored paper and cardboard, magazines with pictures of scenery and animals. Your help in bringing these items to the church is appreciated. Please give them to Gladys.

Pastoral care request: Gladys is a fellowship member and has served us wonderfully through her work with our young children. She is facing the need for substantial dental work, and her insurance will not cover this care. For the month of July, our congregation will be collecting donations toward her $1200 bill, and the Board of Trustees has voted to match every contribution 1:1 with Fellowship money. Please put your donations in the offertory with “Gladys” on the envelope or memo line. Thank you for helping.

Newsletter Deadline for August Issue—Sunday, July 20.

FROM THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST DISTRICT AND THE UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST ASSOCIATION

Barrett Foundation Funds New Worship and Music Resources Director
The Rev. Erik Wikstrom will join the UUA staff as its very first Director of Worship and Music Resources this fall, supported by the exceptional generosity of Richard and Elaine Barrett of Boulder, Colorado.
Inspired by the work of Universalist minister Rev. Otto Raspe, Richard Barrett’s grandfather, the Barretts firmly believe that congregations draw new members through vibrant worship and rousing music. By providing substantial funding for this new national position, they are playing a major role in transforming Unitarian Universalist worship and music across our whole family of congregations.

The Inherent Worth And Dignity
Four generous donors have established the Walt Whitman Fund to increase public awareness of Unitarian Universalist perspectives on social justice issues, notably those that affect gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning persons, and to strengthen the UUA’s Beacon Press offerings on GLBTQ issues.

Our Flaming Chalice: The Story

A visitor, watching the reverent lighting of the flaming chalice in a UU congregation, might be forgiven for imagining that this symbol had originated in antiquity. Flame is among the oldest of religious symbols, and the chalice has been associated with communion since the early centuries of Christianity. Its use by Unitarian Universalists, however, has a more specific history. During the Second World War, a lot of people living in Eastern Europe—Unitarians, Jews, and others—were in danger of being put in prison or killed by Nazi soldiers. A group of Unitarians came together in Boston, Massachusetts, to form the Unitarian Service Committee and their plan was to help the people in danger from the Nazis. The new director of the Service Committee was the Unitarian minister Rev. Dr. Charles Lind Joy.

Known in the medical and relief communities for his translations of the works of Dr. Albert Schweitzer, in the Christian community as author of Harper's Topical Concordance, and among Unitarians as a former administrative vice president of the American Unitarian Association, Dr. Joy was a natural choice in 1940 to direct the Lisbon, Portugal, office of the USC. Lisbon, the only open port in Europe in the early 1940s, was the preferred destination for millions of refugees. The USC took special interest in helping artists, intellectuals, and dissidents escape the Nazis. And so while Joy worked with people from all walks of life, his clientele included many famous authors, scientists, and politicians.

Rev. Joy and his assistants often needed to ask governments and other organizations for their help to save people who were in danger. They would send messages to anyone in government who might give them money, transportation, or a safe route. Because they were a new organization though, not very many people had heard of them. This made it much harder for Rev. Joy and the people in the Unitarian Service Committee to get the help they needed.

Rev. Joy was in charge of a whole secret group of agents and messengers who worked hard trying to find safe routes for people to escape. In those days during the war, when danger was everywhere, lots of people were running away from their own countries. Often, people who were escaping and people who wanted to help didn't speak the same language. This was a special handicap in the cloak-and-dagger world, where establishing trust quickly across barriers of language, nationality, and faith could mean life instead of death. Disguises, signs and countersigns, and midnight runs across guarded borders were the means of freedom in those days. Many of the refugees fled without the identification papers they needed to cross borders, so the Lisbon office concentrated especially on helping them obtain replacement papers. Joy introduced an innovation: travel documents issued by the UUSC itself.

Rev. Joy decided it would be much better if the Service Committee had an official symbol for their papers "to make them look official, to give dignity and importance to them and at the same time to symbolize the spirit of our work.... When a document may keep a man out of jail, give him standing with governments and police, it is important that it look important.” With a picture or symbol, it wouldn't matter if people couldn't read the language.

In search of an artist Rev. Joy turned to a very talented man named Hans Deutsch. Deutsch had escaped from the Nazis in Paris, France, where he was in danger because he drew cartoons showing people how evil the Nazis were. Rev. Joy asked Deutsch to create a symbol to print on Service Committee papers.

Deutsch was most impressed and soon was working for the USC. He later wrote to Joy:

"There is something that urges me to tell you... how much I admire your utter self denial [and] readiness to serve, to sacrifice all, your time, your health, your well being, to help, help, help. "I am not what you may actually call a believer. But if your kind of life is the profession of your faith---as it is, I feel sure---then religion, ceasing to be magic and mysticism, becomes confession to practical philosophy and---what is more- --to active, really useful social work. And this religion--- with or without a heading---is one to which even a `godless' fellow like myself can say wholeheartedly, Yes!"

With pencil and ink he drew a chalice with a flame. When Deutsch drew his design he had never seen a Unitarian or Universalist church or heard a sermon. What he had seen was faith in action—people who were willing to risk all for others in a time of urgent need. There are differing reports on the sources of Deutsch’s inspiration. Some say Deutsch borrowed an old symbol of strength and freedom from Czechoslovakia—a chalice with a flame. Joy was to describe the chalice to his own UUSC Board in Boston as "a chalice with a flame, the kind of chalice which the Greeks and Romans put on their altars. The holy oil burning in it is a symbol of helpfulness and sacrifice.... This was in the mind of the artist. The fact, however, that it remotely suggests a cross was not in his mind, but to me this also has its merit. We do not limit our work to Christians. Indeed, at the present moment, our work is nine-tenths for the Jews, yet we do stem from the Christian tradition, and the cross does symbolize Christianity and its central theme of sacrificial love." Joy later wrote to other Boston friends that the new symbol seemed to show the real spirit of the Unitarian religion. It showed a chalice, or cup, that was used for giving a healing drink to others. And it showed a flame on top of the chalice because a flame was often used to represent a spirit of helpfulness and sacrifice.

A version of the symbol was adopted by the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches in Britain. Many years later, the flaming chalice would become the symbol of Unitarian Universalist groups all over the world. The ritual lighting of the chalice in a worship service has become widespread only in the last 25 years. By the early 1970s, enough Unitarian Universalists had heard the story of the flaming chalice symbol that they began to light a flaming chalice as part of the worship service in their churches. Over the years, this practice has spread over most of the United States and Canada, usually accompanied by the beautiful versions of poetic words referred to as “chalice lightings.”

To many, the cup represents religious community, while the flame represents ideas including the sacrificial flame, the flame of the spirit, and more. No one meaning or interpretation is official. The flaming chalice, like our faith, stands open to receive new truths that pass the tests of reason, justice, and compassion. Perhaps most importantly, it has become a focal point for worship coupled with the beautiful poetry of our chalice lighting words.

The flaming chalice image has changed many times over the past 65 years. Modern chalice designs often incorporate two overlapping circles which, for many people, represent our Unitarian and Universalist heritages. Other images include additional elements, some of which are merely decorative and others which are very meaningful.

Our current official (copyrighted) UUA logo (at the top left of each UUA.org web page) was designed to offer a visual representation of a modern and dynamic faith. Unitarian Universalist member congregations are free to use the UUA's logo in their congregational work, but they are not required to do so. Because of this, you may see many different styles of flaming chalices and other images used by UU congregations.

Our own Mid-Columbia Unitarian Universalist chalice has metamorphosed at least four times in the last ten years. For many years a simple ceramic plate was used while designing a chalice was talked about. In 1997 Juliana Sandahl purchased an antique brass plate on which a candle was placed. Then about 2000 Ray Klebba and Shelley Baxter donated a brass chalice. Meanwhile Cindy Horton commissioned the art work of the wooden chalice we now put up each Sunday morning. While attending UU General Assembly Dave Kao and Tamara Thiel saw and liked a ceramic chalice which they subsequently purchased and donated. It is the chalice we are currently using.

Information Sources:
UUA Website: http://www.uua.org/visitors/6901.shtml
Wartime Origins of the Flaming Chalice. UU World. By Dan Hotchkiss
May/June 2001 5.1.01
UUA Website:
http://www.uua.org/spirituallife/worshipweb/readings/submissions/5963.shtml
Wikipedia: “Flaming Chalice”

HIGHLIGHTS FROM OUR BOARD

The Board met June 8th with Members Scott Clements, Bruce Bolme, Debbie Olsen, Ken McCarty, and Tamara Thiel present. Incoming member Judith Tenbrook was also there.

The Board approved purchase of 2 microphones.

The job description for the Coordinator of Religious Education was distributed for review and was approved—please see below. Tamara and Bruce are heading up some recruitment efforts. Help continues to be needed for the summer religious education program. Debbie will make some phone calls.

Bruce presented the final version of the 08/09 budget and it was approved unanimously.

Scott will write the language for an endowment fund, started by our recent acquisition of a $5,000 seed grant, and put a note in the newsletter about its possible uses.

A request from Gorge Ecumenical Ministries for financial help with many of the functions taken on for emergency food/gas/housing formerly handled by HOPE was tabled pending further clarification.

Kristen Dillon and Myrna Clements were chosen as the delegates to this year’s UU General Assembly.

A draft for maintenance of membership roles was presented by Kristen and approved.

A request from Adventure Scouts for sponsorship of a new co-ed group was not approved; the board felt we do not have the resources at the present time.

Religious Education Coordinator Position

Description: The Coordinator’s position will be part time, involving approximately 20 hours per month. The Coordinator will be responsible for providing the services described under “Tasks.” The Coordinator will report to the Board of Trustees and will maintain ongoing contact and communications with the Board representative supporting the R/E function.

Tasks:

Prepare plan for each Sunday session, about 45 minutes of activities, and collect supplies. Have available for teacher at least a week in advance.
Schedule teachers for 3 to 4 Sundays a month and childcare for up to one Sunday if needed.
Stock cabinet with library or other books for teachers to read downstairs.
Stock cabinet and clean out at least once a month.
Meet with teachers quarterly.
Meet with parents and other congregants annually.
Start curriculum selection process for the coming year in June.
Register children into program by giving or mailing form to parents after two Sundays in church.

Qualifications: