“Pure Gold” photo by Bruce GlickWith the first week of May, Spring is finally starting to phase in. The photo “Pure Gold” by Bruce Glick captures the vivid colors of Spring emerging. In the caption, Bruce writes, “Held up like an olympic torch, the golden reproductive organs of a crocus mark the opening of a new season of life’s renewal.”
Other local markers of Spring this weekend are the Meduxnekeag River Canoe Race (get your paddles!) and May Day observations as UUHoulton will have our annual Maypole event this Sunday. Fred & Leigh Griffith lead the 10 o’clock service providing background on Maypole celebrations and then we go outside on the church front lawn (weather permitting) and participate in the “wrapping of the pole.” It’s a great event for children and adults alike. If it happens to be your first time, instructions are included in today’s Support Page. Please bring a long piece of ribbon with you, but in any case, we’ll have plenty of extra ribbon available.
Earth Day is the largest non-religious holiday in the world (a truly global event). Since its early beginnings in 1970, Earth Day has evolved into an event that celebrates our ecological home as well as an educational opportunity to explore the challenges we face in caring for our planet today and in the coming years. YouTube Channel content for this week recognizes Earth Day in the early part of the Sunday Service with special guest musician Bertrand Laurence, who composed a special song for the occasion titled “Mermaid.” Kathryn Harnish delivers the message of the day (which is not Earth Day related) titled “Belonging Begins with ‘I See You’” The transcript of Kathryn’s talk is included in today’s Support Page along with links to the YouTube video of The Highwomen performing “Crowded Table” and her power point slides used in the presentation. Thank you Kathryn!!
We hope you can join us for one of the services online or in-person.
In Ministry,
Dave
Maypole ServiceMay 4, 2025
The Maypole ExperienceHere are some helpful (we hope) instructions for the Maypole:
From the time that you hand one end of your ribbon to the person attaching it to the pole, be sure to hold on tight to your ribbon! Otherwise, you may be left out, squinting at the ribbon five to ten feet above your head as it flaps in the breeze!
After the ribbons are attached and the pole is stuck into the ground, form an evenly spaced circle around the Maypole and pull your ribbon taut. Count off by twos. The “ones” will turn to the left and, when told to start, will proceed around the pole clockwise. The “twos” will turn to the right and, when told to start, will proceed around the pole counter-clockwise. Do try to keep your ribbon taut so as not to create loops.
When we begin, the “ones” will move to the outside of the first person they meet, meaning that the “twos” will move first to the inside. When they meet the next person the “ones” will go to the inside and the “twos” to the outside. Continue alternating this way until you run out of ribbon, have lost your ribbon, or are tied to the pole. Simple!
When we near the end of the ribbons, the ends will be braided together and tied near the bottom of the pole. If done perfectly, the ribbons will be neatly woven around the pole from top to bottom. However, reality often dictates a much more interesting weave.
Belonging Starts with “I See You”
Kathryn Harnish | UU Church of Houlton Service
4/27/2025
Here’s the link to the slides used in the presentation.
Here is the YouTube link to The Highwomen song “Crowded Table”
(since it is copyrighted material it doesn’t appear in our YouTube Channel service, but here it is!)
Let’s take a breath and settle into this space together, knowing this:
You belong here.
Whether you’ve come with joy in your heart or weariness in your bones…
Surrounded by community or aching with loneliness…
This space, these people, hold you.
Among the Zulu people, the greeting sawubona (SOW-bo-na) means, “I see
you, and by seeing you, I bring you into being.” It’s not just about being
acknowledged…it’s about being recognized, accepted, and valued by both the
individual and the larger, interconnected community.
The divine in me recognizes the divine in you.
And the traditional response – ngikhona (na-GEEK-o-nah) – means, “I am
here.”
This is where belonging begins.
Across time, cultures, and faith traditions, we find the same deep longing:
To be seen. To be heard. To be valued.
To belong.
It’s important to note that belonging is not the same as fitting in.
Fitting in requires us to reshape ourselves to meet others’ expectations.
Belonging, in the spirit of sawubona, invites us to show up as we are…and be
embraced because of it.
In Design for Belonging, Susie Wise writes:“Belonging is the invitation to be your full self… It is the opportunity – no
matter who you are – to learn, live, and love, to be honored, encouraged, and
allowed to develop as you and as part of the groups that celebrate your
identities, needs, and contributions.”
That kind of belonging is essential. And my interest in it came from listening to
people who felt its absence.
At the Aroostook Agency on Aging, I help lead the Aroostook County Health
Improvement Partnership, a network of healthcare, public health, and social
service organizations trying to understand and address barriers to well-being.
We spoke with more than sixty people across the County – people of all
backgrounds – about access to care, transportation, housing, and food
security. But beneath those practical needs, we heard something deeper.
People talked about feeling unseen. Judged. Quietly pushed aside.
They didn’t use the word belonging, but that’s what they were describing.
Some were labeled “from away,” a phrase that signals you’ll never fully be one
of us. Others were dismissed because of poverty, disability, mental health, or
past struggles. Some were shunned for being different. Many were simply
forgotten – isolated in their homes, far from care, far from comfort.
This exclusion wasn’t usually loud.
It sounded like silence.
Like being tolerated, but not trusted.
Allowed in, but not invited close.
And I recognized it, because I’d felt it, too.
When Rob and I moved here from Chicago over 20 years ago, we were treated
with kindness. People were curious, supportive of our farm, glad to see us at
the community market. We were welcome.But I still felt like I was standing just outside the frame. Included, but not of the
community.
Later, as I continued my research at work, I came across these words from
John A. Powell, Director of the Othering and Belonging Institute at UC
Berkeley:
“Belonging means more than being seen. It entails having a meaningful
voice… and the right to contribute to and make demands on society and
institutions.”
That’s what I had been missing.
Not friendliness. Not access. But agency.
Belonging is more than being allowed to pull a chair up to the table.
It’s being able to help decide what’s on the menu.
Belonging Is a Human Need
The people we listened to described what it feels like to be left out, labeled,
forgotten. And the impacts weren’t just emotional…they were physical, social,
and deeply spiritual.
As Brené Brown, a social work academic and bestselling author, puts it:
“Belonging is an irreducible need of all people… When those needs are not
met, we don’t function as we were meant to. We break. We fall apart.”
And research confirms it:
• Social rejection activates the same part of the brain as physical pain.
• People with strong social ties are 50% more likely to survive than those
who are isolated.
• In schools, workplaces, and communities, a sense of belonging
improves motivation, performance, and well-being.We’re living in what Pete Buttigieg once called “a crisis of belonging.”
Because in too many places, difference is still treated as threat.
And in too many communities, people live at the edges, unsure if there’s truly
room for them.
If belonging is so essential, why is it so rare?
Because it asks more than politeness. More than inclusion.
Belonging asks us to see each other…not as roles or labels, but as whole
people. And that kind of seeing takes effort. Humility. Courage. It asks us to
show up. To tell the truth. To stay. And it asks us to build spaces where others
can do the same.
But fortunately, there are ways that we can build belonging in our every day
interactions:
1. Make Room.
Especially for those at the edges. The newcomers. The quiet ones. The ones
who left and came back. Let’s not just include them – let’s expect them.
2. See Each Other Clearly.
Not just as functions, but as whole people. Ask, “How are you – really?” Then
listen.
3. Reflect the Gifts We Receive.
Belonging deepens when we name someone’s impact:
“You make me feel safe.”
“You help me see things differently.”
“When you show up, it matters.”
When we reflect someone’s value back to them, we help belonging take root.
4. Be Willing to Be Changed.
Real belonging isn’t about letting others in on our terms.It’s about letting ourselves be reshaped by relationship, responsibility, and our
shared humanity.
As I said earlier, sawubona isn’t just a word…it’s a practice.
It calls us to a love big enough to hold difference, and brave enough to change
in its presence.
In a divided world, choosing to belong to one another is a radical act.
An act of courage. An act of faith.
Faith in the healing power of connection.
Faith that we are better together than alone.
Faith that there is room for all of us—just as we are.
Wallace Stegner once wrote:
“After all, what are any of us after but the conviction of belonging?”
Let’s offer that conviction to one another.
Let’s be the kind of people who live sawubona – who see each other, hold
each other, and build spaces where everyone belongs.
To close, let’s read this blessing together. I’ll begin with the first line, and we’ll
alternate:
May you find the people who see you.
May you hear the voice that says, “You are welcome here.”
May you become a home for others.
And may we all walk in the world as if we belong—because we do.
Sawubona – I see you.
Ngikhona – I am here.
May it be so.
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: May 4, 2025 11:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada) https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83348399635?pwd=cC4JJrpfIOWPb37MSVUsVMZXSTi1xF.1
Meeting ID: 833 4839 9635Passcode: 109968
Calendar of Events @UUHoulton
May 3 “Restore” Group Meeting 2PM
May 3 Unitarian Concert with James Mullinger is postposedMay 4 Sunday Service: Leigh & Fred (Maypole Service)
May 7 Climate Group Meeting in the cafe 6PM
May 11 Sunday Service: David Hutchinson
May 13Meditation Group 4PM (online)
May 17 LGBTQ+ Luncheon 12 Noon
May 17 “Restore” Group Meeting 2PM
May 17 Houlton Coffeehouse 7PM Feature: Just Us (Janice, Doug & Ira)
May 18 Sunday Service: Randi Bradbury & Ira Dyer
May 25 Sunday Service: David Hutchinson
May 27 Meditation Group 4PM (online)
June 1 Sunday Service: MaryAlice Mowry & Friends (Pride Service)
June 8 Sunday Service: Flower Communion David Hutchinson BBQ cookout & party at Randi and Ira’s after the 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. Our PayPal payment system is temporarily disabled. Once retored 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
Live into Love
Today in UU congregations all over the world, people will gather in an effort to live into, as best as we can, what we profess about placing love at the center of all we do.
What a magnificent challenge. We are currently living in times baiting us not to love. The social and political atmosphere in which we travel insidiously tempts us to find fault, place blame, point fingers, and increase that which can tear us apart. And yet, we practice a faith—often imperfectly, because after all we are human—but we continue to practice a faith where we are called to answer the question, what is the most loving thing I can do right now?
What an astounding challenge! What an unbelievably vital attempt! What an incredibly needed beacon for the future of us all!
So as we gather today to support each other in living this mission, may the light of our flaming chalice breathe life and love into every one of our congregations and into those, who by the very nature of this calling, have this great and wonderful opportunity to live into love in these days filled with so many struggles and so much possibility.
May that be so.
By David A Miller
For Those Who Wish to Fight Back but Don’t Know How
WWMLKD What would MLK do?
May 2, 2025
By Jonathan Eig
Mr. Eig is the author of “King: A Life,” the winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for biography.
Great waves of cruelty pound us. Government officials use the law to attack the weak and vulnerable. Out of fear or indifference, citizens turn a blind eye to suffering and injustice.
These were the conditions the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. described in the letter he wrote from a Birmingham, Ala., jail cell. First published in May 1963, the letter spread widely, no small feat for a nearly 7,000-word, philosophy-filled essay in the days before electronic media. Newspapers and magazines reprinted it, and churches handed out copies to worshipers.
The letter struck a chord because, more than anything else, it was a love letter — a love letter written for a nation torn by hate. Dr. King’s message was rooted in the belief that love has the power to overcome cruelty, the power even to reform unjust systems and laws. His protests in Birmingham were intended not simply to condemn the city’s segregation laws but also to call Americans to action.
Dr. King believed most government leaders and ordinary Americans would choose mercy over meanness if they saw the meanness for themselves. It was a belief inspired by his Christian faith. That’s why he went to jail and why he asked hundreds of others to follow him there. And indeed, when Americans subsequently saw peaceful protesters thrashed by water cannons, attacked by police dogs and loaded in police wagons, the nation’s mood shifted, and politicians responded.
Today, as the Trump administration deports people without due process, cuts funding for education and science, fires federal workers by the thousands, disrupts global alliances and punishes perceived enemies, cruelty prevails. At the same time, President Trump’s approval ratings are falling.
For those who disapprove of his tactics, who prefer mercy for the marginalized and who wish to fight back but don’t know how, Dr. King’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail” shows the way.
The Episcopal bishop Mariann Edgar Budde demonstrated Dr. King’s form of peaceful protest in January when she directly askedMr. Trump at an inauguration service to show compassion to immigrants and L.G.B.T.Q. people. Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland did the same last month when he met with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was wrongly deported, in El Salvador. One might imagine a delegation of American religious leaders following the senator’s and Dr. King’s examples and marching in front of the prison where Mr. Abrego Garcia is detained and demanding his release, their number growing by the day and week as Americans recognize that one man’s arbitrary loss of rights threatens all of our rights.
Striking the balance between love and action was never easy for Dr. King. Some of his critics complained that he was too passive, because he insisted on working in and around the system, meeting and negotiating with the mayors and police chiefs and presidents who enforced the policies he protested, never calling for violence. Others accused him of seeking too much too soon, saying he needed to give government officials and white segregationists more time to change.
But Dr. King almost always erred on the side of confrontation, which is why, rather than just wait for his release, he began scribbling his letter from the Birmingham jail on napkins, newspaper scraps and toilet paper.
“We have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure,” he wrote. People in power seldom give up their power voluntarily. “Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture,” but “groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.”
Democracy is a pact that depends on individuals for its survival. The moment one group decides that it no longer respects the pact, the system can collapse. Dr. King’s letter from the Birmingham jail is a tribute to democracy and a plea for the renewal of the contract that binds us. Black men and women, the descendants of enslaved people, showed the nation that they loved American democracy enough to fight for it. Those who faced arrest and assault for their lunch-counter protests in the South, Dr. King wrote, were “standing up for what is best in the American dream” and “bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers.”
Dr. King suffered to prove his faith in God and America. He was arrested 29 times before his assassination in 1968.
What would Dr. King do today? In his sermons, speeches and essays, he gave us the answer. He told us that while elected officials may try to divide us by stoking resentment and rage, we shouldn’t let them. He reminded us of our essential goodness and encouraged us to trust and rely on the goodness of others. He told us not to expect immediate results. We often forget, in telling Dr. King’s story today, how many of his organized protests were judged failures in their time, from Albany, Ga., to Chicago. Even his efforts in Birmingham were faltering for weeks, with participation falling off and media interest fading, until the city’s youth joined the protests and reinvigorated the movement.
Today Dr. King would certainly call on elected leaders to change unjust policies, and he would get specific in his demands. He rejected counsels of gradualism or moderation, yet he didn’t dismiss his opponents as unreachable. He might call for economic boycotts to pressure business leaders, as he did in Birmingham. He might lean on the respectability of clergy, as he often did, to seize the moral high ground. That might mean asking clergy members to stand at schoolhouse doors to block the removal of children of undocumented immigrants.
As we consider our own actions, it’s worth remembering that Dr. King made the choice to get arrested on April 12, 1963, in Birmingham, intentionally violating a local court order that banned marches and protests. Yes, he was breaking the law, but with his action, he sought to demonstrate that American law itself was broken and in need of repair.
For everyone who believes Dr. King’s words, sitting on the sidelines is not an option.
“I am in Birmingham because injustice is here,” he wrote. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”
Mr. Eig is the author of “King: A Life,” the winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for biography.
Easter Altar 2025
last week…
this week!!
Prayer List
For those working for social justice and societal change
Pray for peaceful action and democratic process in our nation
The war in Ukraine continues
Prayers for the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza
Prayers for peace in the Middle East
Prayers for this affected by the tragic aircrash in Washington DC
Prayers for those affected by recent governmental (and policy) changes in DC
Prayers for those affected by the earthquake in Myanmar
Prayers for those affected by the recent shooting at Florida State University
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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