November 24, 2024
“Thanksgiving and Gratitude”
I was in the grocery store last week and happened to notice eggnog already available for the holidays. I thought it was little early for eggnog, until someone told me, “Oh, it’s been in the stores since October!” Well, I like eggnog as well as anyone, but I still don’t buy my first carton until after Thanksgiving (even if it is available). I think Thanksgiving is one of our most practical of holidays. Even in the most difficult of years or hardest of times, Thanksgiving gives opportunity to reflect on our own “life circumstances” and those of others, to see what is most important, and then appreciate what we have or share with those who are in need. Our traditions and community life blend together into what will be our shared Thanksgiving this year and the years to come.
This week’s Sunday Service is a Thanksgiving Service and continuation of our theme for the year with Part Four; Love at the Center. And since generosity is one of the new UU Shared Values, it seems like an obvious choice for this week’s topic. Dale will be playing the piano and the minister will deliver the sermon titled “The Big Double G.”
YouTube Channel content for this week is our Pledge Drive Kick-Off Service presenting this year’s goals and targets for the drive and ways that you can participate in making UUHoulton your spiritual home and community. You’ll find a copy of this year’s Annual Request in today’s Support Page. The pledge campaign lasts from November 17 until December 15 as we will use these numbers to help in our budget process. Please consider a pledge of support! We hope you can join us for one of the services online or in-person.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Enjoy the week-end.
In Ministry,
Dave
Unitarian Universalist Church of Houlton
61 Military Street, Houlton, ME. 04730
ANNUAL PLEDGE APPEAL 2025
Dear Members and Friends,
As 2024 and the events of the spring, summer and fall are winding down, we look forward to our hunkering down period. The Danes and Norwegians refer to this as “Hygge”. A time of warmth, introspection, and planning. The dark colder months, in some ways, force us into the comfort of our homes, to take a deeper look into what the new year will bring. And what preparations we need to consider and address in the coming year.
Just as our own homes require tending to, so does our Church home. Caring for a 120+ year old building has it challenges. We are very grateful to our Building Committee (BC) for their dedication and support in giving of their volunteer hours, spent working on and assessing the needs and priorities of our Church building. We were blessed this year with a Putnam Grant award, which enabled us to update the building with heat pumps. We expect this upgrade will help us with lower costs in heating and cooling and a savings overall in the utilities budget for 2025. The BC is currently assessing what the priority projects are for this next budget year. We will be applying for another grant to help with those projects. While we don’t yet know exactly what needs to be done, we know there will inevitably be more projects than money to cover them all! We have all witnessed what happens to old buildings without regular maintenance and deferred repairs. So while we are hopeful we will be amongst those chosen by the grantor to receive funds, we still need to plan for the building needs, regardless of receiving grant funds. This is the hard work of stewardship.
The FRISBEE ORGAN has been tuned and some much needed repairs made. As you can imagine, an instrument of this size and age requires regular ongoing maintenance, and a plan to insure it continues to perform as the literal beating heart of the Sanctuary. The Board of Trustees (BoT) has established a separate fund (The FOFO) dedicated to keeping this beautiful organ in its best possible condition with regularly scheduled maintenance, repairs and tuning.
The Cup Cafe has re-opened post Covid after a much needed upgrade and investment in the kitchen. We are excited to see the progress and development of programs for the community being offered in that space. Our hope is that the evolving programs will help support us in many ways, spiritually, socially, and financially. And along with the re-opening of the Cup Cafe, the Houlton Coffee House Open Mic nights are back! We look forward to hearing more about these events as they unfold.
As a small, but growing congregation of 30-40 active members, the budget falls on these few shoulders in order to meet the needs of the church. The volunteers, in-kind hours spent, and donations of materials, are a priceless component of meeting these needs. We would be unable to meet the demands of our church without those contributions. Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts.
But there is still insurance and utilities to pay, fuel to buy, grounds maintenance fees, supplies to be ordered, an on line digital presence to support, and a salary to pay. Which doesn’t even begin to address the building maintenance and repairs.
For the last few years we have budgeted fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000.00) as the Annual Pledge goal. With your commitment, we have been successful at reaching that number! We recognize that you share a love for this Church, these people and the historic building we call our spiritual home. A place of acceptance and inclusion, a safe place to be yourself in what can sometimes be a hard and difficult world.
All of these efforts and budget items rely heavily on the pledges and financial contributions from our supporters. This year we are asking, if it is within your ability, to stretch a little bit more. We have raised the budget goal for the pledge to twenty thousand dollars ($20,000.00). We recognize this is ambitious, but also necessary to meet this goal and the operating costs we anticipate. Your pledge is only part, but a big part, of meeting our needs. It not only represents your financial commitment, but also a spiritual commitment by investing in our future and this congregation as a body of spiritual sustenance and fellowship.
We deeply appreciate all that you do and have done. These funds will help us continue the work that started here so many years ago. It may interest you to know that we are the only US UU Church reaching south to Bangor and as far north as Fort Kent. We are committed to continuing to be a beacon of UU principles for those people searching for a place to grow in their spiritual journey. We are committed to providing a Sanctuary of open doors, thoughtful minds and loving hearts here in the Crown of Maine.
Please consider making your pledge today. Enclosed is a pledge card to return to us along with your preferred payment method. If you wish to also donate to the organ fund than please mark the appropriate box and note the organ fund on any checks or correspondence for our accounting accuracy. The body of the pledge funds are dedicated towards to the general operations fund for the Church.
With deep gratitude and hopeful expectations for the next year, we respectfully ask for your support in making this pledge a reality.
The Board Of Trustees is in full support of this initiative and fully vested in the pledge drive. Each, to their own ability, has increased their pledge from the prior campaign as a commitment to this goal.
The Pledge Committee:
Chair, Randi Bradbury
Members
Reverend Dale Holden
Reverend David Hutchinson, Advisor
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 zoom coffee hour & check inTime: Nov 24, 2024 11:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us06web.zoom.us/j/85390620571?pwd=NowRXaQTDgG448agll58jd5HzyD8pz.1
Meeting ID: 853 9062 0571 Passcode: 534660
Calendar of Events @UUHoulton
Nov 24 Sunday Service: David Hutchinson
Nov 25 – 27 Rotary Houlton Auction Fundraiser, …Radio …and see it/bid in person at the Good Shepherd Church
November 30 , Saturday Christmas Parade with Tree lighting in Market Square 6:00PM+
Nov 24 Art Class @The Cup 1-3PM
Dec 1 Sunday Service: Bill White
Dec 3 Meditation Group 4PM (online)
Dec 4 Aroostook Climate Group meeting 6PM
Dec 8 Sunday Service: David Hutchinson
Dec 14 LGBTQ+ Luncheon 12 noonDec 14 Houlton Coffeehouse 7PM Feature: Event Horizon and Johnny Strings
Dec 15 Sunday Service: Dale Holden
Dec 21 Winter Solstice Celebration 7PM
Dec 22 Sunday Service: David Hutchinson
Dec 24 Christmas Eve Candlelight Service 4PM (potluck in the church fellowship hall following)
Dec 29 Sunday Service: Open Pulpit Service
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 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
‘
Here is a recent article from the UUA office in Boston by staff writer Wren Bellavance-Grace:
| How We Begin to Repair the World |
| by wren bellavance-grace |
Eight years ago I attended worship at our New London congregation, in a November eerily like this one. There I heard Rev. Carolyn Patierno preach, “We will not lay waste our power.”* As we turn the corner of this year toward Thanksgiving and the winter holidays, we find ourselves again in a moment of our history where the forces of hatred, exclusion, nationalism, and division believe they have won. Let us not lay waste our power now, either. “What power?” you ask. “In a world where churches are in decline and have not yet recovered from the Covid shutdown?” But this is only part of the story. The need for sanctuaries of safety has not declined. The need for places where people gather for meaning making has not declined – in fact the need is growing! Anecdotally, know that new families are showing up in and joining UU churches in every state in New England. And we have heard that on the first Sunday after the election, new visitors showed up in many of our sanctuaries. If past is prologue, more will come, seeking a wider welcome, kindred spirits, safe sanctuaries, and help to create meaning in a confounding world. Friends, we are not powerless. Here are things we can do in our homes and in our congregations to begin to repair the world in small, local ways: Remember who we are. We are a people of covenant, a covenant that places an obligation on us to be in relationships of care and accountability with one another. We are called to a spiritual discipline of Love. It is Love that guides us toward the world our faith insists is possible. This is who we are. We are inheritors of the birthright gift of Spiritual Leadership. Each of us has this power to claim it. Spiritual leadership is how we discern and decide to navigate the spaces between our power and our powerlessness. Each and every one of us has the power to exercise our spiritual leadership in our daily lives, and collectively in our congregations. When some of our congregations had Progress Pride flags or Black Lives Matter flags stolen from their buildings or defaced, they chose to replace them. Over and over they choose their power to proclaim the abundant Love that grounds our faith over their powerlessness to keep thieves from stealing that symbol. In the ways we welcome new seekers in coming months, and with the fierceness that we support and protect our Beloveds who are in fear for their lives and well being, we engage our spiritual leadership. We can decide to be prophets of a more loving world. Remember whose we are. Now is a time to look to our ancestors in faith for strength and resilience. Every Sunday when we light the chalice in worship is an opportunity to remember. The first flaming chalice design was created by an Austrian artist for the UU Service Committee, then helping people resist Nazi forces in WWII. He conceived of the chalice as a symbol of sacrificial love. Remember who we intend to be. Our hymn tells us there is more love, somewhere. We must keep faith with that vision. May each of our congregations be a haven for the hurting. Let our church bells ring out for hope. Let us be Sanctuary for one another. May every one of our beloved neighbors who fear for their safety, find it in our company. May we bring prophetic fire to the public squares and tend the fire of commitment in our own souls. May we be brave enough, and soft enough, to weather this coming winter. May we stay together. And let us not lay waste our power. |
Wren loves working with lay leaders and religious professionals serving congregations of all sizes across New England. She serves as the New England representative on the national Safer Congregations Team, which curates best practices for safer church communities and responds to misconduct and ethical breaches. Before joining the New England Region, wren was a religious educator. Through a fellowship granted by the Fahs Collaborative at the Meadville Lombard Theological School, she authored a paper, Full Week Faith, which proposed a new approach to our ministries of faith formation in response to the social, demographic, technological, and spiritual realities of 21st century America…and a Thanksgiving (gratitude) story from our recommended study book “Love at the Center.”
Love at the CenterChapter six
Hospice and Hors D’oeuvresRev. Nathan Detering”Can you get a straw for my wine?” Dot asked. “And can you put one of those shrimp on my plate?” she said, pointing with her eyes to the plate of cheeses, crackers, olives, and shrimp cocktail on the table next to her.
“You want cocktail sauce?” I asked, because when someone is in hospice you want to get things right, especially the hors d’oeuvres.
“Well of course!” Dot fired back, as if I had quite possibly asked the most ridiculous question anyone had asked her in her ninety-one years. Dot was dying, but her impatient wit was still in bloom.
“Lovely,” she said as I rested the plate on the tray pulled up close to her chest and put the straw into her glass of chilled chardonnay. She leaned forward, took a long sip, and then caught my eyes before sinking her head back into the propped-up pillow.
“So, how are you?” I’ve been a parish minister for twenty-two years, the last twenty of them in the same congregation, and I still don’t know what to say when someone asks me this question. Honesty is easy when things are going well, but when things aren’t, I’m not sure how much to reveal. This is because I was taught to minister from my scars and not my wounds, and Dot has caught me in a vulnerable, unhealed time.
What I wanted to tell her was that until this moment, I was feeling broken down. It was March 2021, and I had spent the last year preaching into my laptop from my bedroom, which was now my office during the day and my pulpit on Sunday mornings. In the early months of lockdown and zoom ministry, it was easier to get hyped-up for the challenge, but the novelty had long ago worn off and now the distance just felt sad. It didn’t help that the only thing I did in person were visits like this with Dot—that is, with people preparing to die. I’ve delivered and received the sermon many times that centers love for this life and this world, but these days that love felt very much on my periphery.
“Well,” I said, too tired in the end to pretend, “It’s been a bit rough, actually. Zoom is getting old now. I miss the way things were. I miss people. I even miss the receiving line!” This made Dot chuckle because she always skipped the receiving line.
“But I’m really glad to be here and see you.
Did you know I came yesterday to see you?”“Did you? I guess I was really asleep,” she said.
“Well, I guess you were!” I replied, not sure how or if to tell her that I had come because the hospice nurse had told me her death was probably imminent. There at the end of her bed, my fingers resting on the footboard, I had
even offered what I thought was a final blessing. I had told her on behalf of the congregation and myself how much she was loved. Thinking it was the last time I would see her, I then got in my car and took the long way home, because even after all these years of ministry, I still feel overwhelmed by the tenderness of these final goodbyes.
“But then I woke up today,” Dot continued, “and felt a little better. And hungry!”
“I mean, yes! It’s amazing! Yesterday when I came I thought—”
“Oh well, yes. Soon. But for today I’m here. Can I have another sip of wine?”
“Here,” I said, holding the glass in my hand and bending the straw toward her. “Just checking Dot: It’s okay if you have a little wine, right?” And after another sip she gave me a little side-eye that said, You know I’m in hospice, right?
The irony of the moment wasn’t lost on me. Between the two of us, Dot was definitely the more cheerful one. Love for the simple gifts of life—hors d’oeuvres or the opportunity to wake up another day feeling a little better and hungry!—might have been on my periphery, but for Dot they were everything and maybe even the only thing. As a minister weary from too much distance and too much death, I found myself wanting to bend, just like that straw, toward Dot’s perspective.
For the next hour, Dot continued to take occasional sips of wine, more crackers, more shrimp. I had some sips from my own cup, too, but what I was really drinking in was simply the gift of the time. After making sure I had all her instructions for her memorial service, she gently moved the conversation along to what she thought were more important topics: politics, football, the biology department at the beloved college she taught at for many years, and just how good everything tasted. With such a short time left to live, Dot seemed more present, more joyful, more alive than I had felt in months. It’s fair to wonder who was ministering to whom in that moment, but sometimes in shared ministry, we get to receive the very thing we hope to give.
I told Dot as much when I left, but simply. “Thank you so much, Dot,” I said, my fingers on the footboard, as they had been the day before when I had given my premature blessing, and she smiled with a nod before reaching for a final cracker and one more sip.
Two days later, the hospice nurse called to tell me that Dot had died in the night. “She even had some hors d’oeuvres earlier that evening,” said the nurse. “She was joyful; she was at peace.”
Learning to love life when life is beautiful and broken is complicated, but there are simple gifts to be had, too. One of them is learning that love can mean embracing the sweetness of living, even when that sweetness seems ordinary and that living is coming to a close. Dot, praise.
Prayer List
For those working for social justice and societal changePray for peaceful action and democratic process in our nationThe war in Ukraine continuesPrayers for those in Palestine and Israel as the war continues Prayers for the worsening humanitarian crisis in GazaPrayers for those affected by the tragic school shooting in Georgia.Prayers for those recovering from the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Florida, North Carolina and the South EastPrayers for peace in the Middle East as the conflict widensPrayers for those recovering from hurricane Milton in FloridaPrayers for post election AmericaPrayers for those in need or homeless at Thanksgiving
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.
*
No responses yet