Our UUHoulton logo has a new look. It is a creative reworking of our old newsletter header and church letterhead, a stylized, yet simple, rendering of our building’s distinct roofline. We’ve also added a rainbow chalice for a splash of color and identifier as a LGBTQ+ welcoming organization (it fits nicely in the arch), and then a shortened version of our name. It’s hard to fit “Unitarian Universalist Church of Houlton” on a logo! You will see it everywhere as we prepare for Eclipse ’24 which is only 50 days away and counting…
Joshua Atkinson leads our Sunday Service this week and the title of his topic is “Understanding Archetypes: Transitioning from Reaction to Intentional Response.” Grasping archetypes allows us to break free from reactive, polarized views of ourselves and the world. This leads to enhanced self-awareness and agency.
YouTube Channel content for this week is a Sunday Service led by our Co-Chair of the UUHoulton Eclipse Planning Committee, Holli Nicknair, and focuses on our plans and preparations for the event. “The Things We Do For Love” is the title of the message; a combination of Valentine’s Day and looking at an inspired and positive approach to cosmic event planning. Holli will be sharing the work accomplished so far and other areas where we will need volunteers and assistance in preparing for the eclipse happenings. We will need everyone! The link for our YouTube service is listed below.
We hope you can join us for one of the services. Keep warm everyone!
In Ministry,
Dave
LGBTQ+ luncheon is at 12 noon on Saturday, February 17 in the UUHoulton church basement. Food is provided, but please bring a potluck item to add to the event. It’s always fun to see what delicious fare shows up. The Cup Cafe will also have the espresso machine turned on for those interested in a caffeinated treat. Allies welcome!
HOULTON COFFEEHOUSE
February 17, Saturday Evening 7-9 PM
The Cup Cafe, 61 Military Street
OPEN-MIC NIGHT
We were snowed out last month, but Houlton Coffeehouse is back with open-mic night this Saturday at 7PM (weather permitting). If you are an aspiring musician, poet or stand-up comedian you won’t find a better stage (or more supportive audience) to try out your material. We are now live-streaming coffeehouse so the stage is even larger. Come early to sign up and we’ll try to fit in as many performers as possible. We have classic beef stew on the menu and our barista staff will be pulling shots on the espresso machine with our full line of coffee drinks. Cherry Garcia latte is our drink special; espresso, chocolate sauce and cherry flavor shot. (Don’t tell Ben and Jerry’s about it!) We also have cherry lemon spritz Italian sodas at the fizz bar.
Come early for supper and hang out before the show. Cafe doors open at 5:30PM.See you at the Cup!Feel the buzz…
MenuClassic American Beef Stew
Cherry Lemon Spritz Italian SodaCherry Garcia Latte
In Celebration of Music, Poetry and the Arts…
Eclipse ’24Last week in the Sunday service Holli shared some of our UUHoulton plans for Eclipse ’24 and we collected even more ideas on the white board. We have clipboards and committees ready if you’d like to sign up as an eclipse volunteer. You will see a steady stream of various committee meetings from here on out. There will be a “Food Committee” meeting during coffee hour this Sunday. Please sit in and see what’s cooking!
Once again, I’m including Holli Nicknair’s contact information. She is one of the co-chairs of our UUHoulton Eclipse Planning Committee.
Holli Nicknairhnicknair@gmail.com971-227-2933
THIS WEEK’S YOUTUBE SERVICE:
HERE IS THE SERVICE LINK FOR THIS WEEK’S YOUTUBE SERVICE
(Please note it won’t be active until 10AM on Sunday morning)
HERE IS THE ZOOM LINK FOR SUNDAY COFFEE HOUR:
Topic: UUHoulton coffee hour & check-inTime: Feb 18, 2024 11:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us06web.zoom.us/j/89792563015?pwd=2Yrqd76hvdKZc2DE7rp2nx5bLQux9h.1
Meeting ID: 897 9256 3015 Passcode: 779220
Calendar of Events @UUHoulton
Feb 17 LGBTQ+ Luncheon in the cafe Noon
Feb 17 Houlton Coffeehouse 7PM Open-Mic Night
Feb 18 Sunday Service: Joshua Atkinson
Feb 25 Sunday Service: David Hutchinson
Feb 27 Meditation Group 4PM (online)
March 3 Sunday Service: TBA
March 6 Aroostook Climate Group meeting in the cafe 6PM
March 10 Sunday Service:David Hutchinson
March 10 Social Action Committee meeting during coffee hour
March 12 Meditation Group 4PM (online)March 16 LGBTQ+ Luncheon in the cafe Noon
March 16 Houlton Coffeehouse 7PM
March 17 Sunday Service: Annual Meeting (abbreviated service followed by potluck and meeting)
March 24 Sunday Service: Rev. Dale Holden Palm Sunday
March 31 Sunday Service: David Hutchinson Easter Sunday
Virtual Offering Plate
If you would like to send in your pledge or donation simply drop an envelope in the mail. The address is listed below. You can also send your donation electronically with our new payment system on the church website. Simply go to uuhoulton.org and click “Donate” on the menu and it will explain how the system works. You can set up a regular monthly payment plan or donate in single transactions. Thank you for your generous support!
UU Church of Houlton,61 Military Street (aka U.S. Route 2), Houlton, Maine 04730
That Numbness You’re Feeling?There’s a Word For It.
By Adam Grant
Contributing Opinion Writer
In mid-October, a few days after the attack on Israel, a friend sent me a text from a rabbi. She said she couldn’t look away from the horror on the news but felt completely numb. She was struggling to feel even the tiniest bit useful: “What can I even do?”Many people are feeling similarly defeated, and many others are outraged by the political inaction that ensues. A Muslim colleague of mine said she was appalled to see so much indifference to the atrocities and innocent lives lost in Gaza and Israel. How could anyone just go on as if nothing had happened?A common conclusion is that people just don’t care. But inaction isn’t always caused by apathy. It can also be the product of empathy. More specifically, it can be the result of what psychologists call empathic distress: hurting for others while feeling unable to help.I felt it intensely this fall, as violence escalated abroad and anger echoed across the United States. Helpless as a teacher, unsure of how to protect my students from hostility and hate. Useless as a psychologist and writer, finding words too empty to offer any hope. Powerless as a parent, searching for ways to reassure my kids that the world is a safe place and most people are good. Soon I found myself avoiding the news altogether and changing the subject when war came up. Understanding how empathy can immobilize us like that is a critical step for helping others — and ourselves.
Empathic distress explains why many people have checked out in the wake of these tragedies. The small gestures they could make seem like an exercise in futility. Giving to charity feels like a drop in the ocean. Posting on social media is poking a hornet’s nest. Having concluded that nothing they do will make a difference, they start to become indifferent.The symptoms of empathic distress were originally diagnosed in health care, with nurses and doctors who appeared to become insensitive to the pain of their patients. Early researchers labeled it compassion fatigue and described it as the cost of caring. The theory was that seeing so much suffering is a form of vicarious trauma that depletes us until we no longer have enough energy to care.But when two neuroscientists, Olga Klimecki and Tania Singer, reviewed the evidence, they discovered that “compassion fatigue” is a misnomer. Caring itself is not costly. What drains people is not merely witnessing others’ pain but feeling incapable of alleviating it. In times of sustained anguish, empathy is a recipe for more distress, and in some cases even depression. What we need instead is compassion.Although they’re often used interchangeably, empathy and compassion aren’t the same. Empathy absorbs others’ emotions as your own: “I’m hurting for you.” Compassion focuses your action on their emotions: “I see that you’re hurting, and I’m here for you.”That’s a big difference. “Empathy is biased,” the psychologist Paul Bloom writes. It’s something we usually reserve for our own group, and in that sense, it can even be “a powerful force for war and atrocity.”
Another difference is that empathy makes us ache. Neuroscientists can see it in brain scans. Dr. Klimecki, Dr. Singer and their colleagues trained people to empathize by trying to feel other people’s pain. When the participants saw someone suffering, it activated a neural network that would light up if they themselves were in pain. It hurt. And when people can’t help, they escape the pain by withdrawing.To combat this, the Klimecki and Singer team taught their participants to respond with compassion rather than empathy — focusing not on sharing others’ pain but on noticing their feelings and offering comfort. A different neural network lit up, one associated with affiliation and social connection. This is why a growing body of evidence suggests that compassion is healthier for you and kinder to others than empathy: When you see others in pain, instead of causing you to get overloaded and retreat, compassion motivates you to reach out and help.In the midst of the recent turmoil on college campuses, I got an email out of the blue from an old friend named Sarah. Recognizing the impact on me and my students, she wrote: “Nothing more to say really than I just wanted to send along a big big hug. And just a reminder that I love you and your family so very much.” She added, “If I can ever be an ear to talk to, I am all in.” It warmed my heart to know that she was thinking of us.The most basic form of compassion is not assuaging distress but acknowledging it. When we can’t make people feel better, we can still make a difference by making them feel seen. And in my research, I’ve found that being helpful has a secondary benefit: It’s an antidote to feeling helpless.To figure out who needs your support after something terrible happens, the psychologist Susan Silk suggests picturing a dart board, with the people closest to the trauma in the bull’s-eye and those more peripherally affected in the outer rings.
The victims of violence in Israel and Gaza are in the center ring. Their immediate family members and closest friends are in the ring surrounding them. The local community is in the next ring, followed by people in other communities who share an identity or affiliation with them. Once you’ve figured out where you belong on the dart board, look for support from people outside your ring, and offer it to people closer to the center.Even if people aren’t personally in the line of fire, attacks targeting members of a specific group can shatter a whole population’s sense of security. This is how many Muslims are feeling in reaction to the horrific shooting of three Palestinian students in Vermont. It’s how many Jews are feeling amid vile expressions of antisemitism. And it’s what leaves many people around them frozen in empathic distress, at a loss for how to help.If you notice that people in your life seem disengaged around an issue that matters to you, it’s worth considering whose pain they might be carrying. Instead of demanding that they do more, it may be time to show them compassion — and help them find compassion for themselves, too.Your small gesture of kindness won’t end the crisis in the Middle East, but it can help someone else. And that can give you the strength to help more.That’s why I’m writing this article. It’s not because I feel your pain. It’s because I see your pain, just as others saw mine and reached out to me. It helped.
Adam Grant, a contributing Opinion writer, is an organizational psychologist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of “Hidden Potential” and “Think Again,” and the host of the TED podcast “Re: Thinking.”
Poetry Section
A love poem for Valentine’s Week:
[love is more thicker than forget]
\
BY E. E. CUMMINGSlove is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail
it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea
love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive
it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky
E.E. Cummings, “[love is more thicker than forget]” from Complete Poems 1904-1962, edited by George J. Firmage. Copyright 1926, 1954, 1991 by the Trustees for the E.E. Cummings Trust. Copyright © 1985 by George James Firmage. Reprinted with the permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.
Greetings from MaryAlice at Mardi Gras in Texas!
Eclipse ’24 Merchandise Swag…(from the Christoph Leibrecht collection)
The honorable Dick Rhoda posing by the Unitarian fireplace after last week’s service. He heard there is a “Fellowship of UU bow-tie wearers” at UUHoulton and felt right at home.
Mike Anderson and Christoph added an upgrade to the cabinets in the kitchen that houses the organ motor so now it can breathe without having to open the cabinet doors every time.
Thanks Christoph!!!!
Prayer List
For those working for social justice and societal changePray for peaceful action and democratic process in our nationThe war in Ukraine continues
Prayers for those in Palestine and Israel as the war continues into its fourth monthPrayers for the worsening humanitarian crisis in GazaPrayers for the homeless and hunger challenged during the cold season
The Four Limitless Ones Prayer
May all sentient beings enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.
May we be free from suffering and the root of suffering.
May we not be separated from the great happiness devoid of suffering.
May we dwell in the great equanimity free from anger, aggression and delusion.
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