Rev. Daniel's Blog

Pro & Con: Should Congress pass the DREAM Act for immigrant children? | ajc.com

2011-08-25T11:23:00.000-07:00

Pro & Con: Should Congress pass the DREAM Act for immigrant children? | ajc.com

Interesting take! What do you think?

UU convicted of littering while supplying humanitarian aid

2009-07-01T12:45:00.001-07:00

Title: uuworld.org : uu convicted of littering while supplying humanitarian aid

You try and do something nice, and what do you get for your trouble? The threat of a $10k fine and a year in jail.

Chances are, he'll be in seminary in a year...

How my congregation voted for Morales and Hallman

2009-05-22T10:40:00.000-07:00

At our annual congregational meeting, members looked over the two single page sheets the UUA provided in the last meeting, one for each presidential candidate.

Last month's newsletter article from me, which went out in April, but didn't get posted here until recently, and it had the web site addresses for the candidates, etcetera.

I told people I would announce who I was backing at the annual meeting, but I stressed they should check out the web sites and try to get a feel for the best president themselves, in advance of the annual meeting.

At our annual congregational meeting we had a secret ballot, it occurred early in the meeting, so we could announce the results before the end of the meeting. We had previously agreed that we would award votes proportionally. That is if 50% of the congregation voted for one candidate, then each would get 6 votes (we get 12 delegates at GA, due to our size-- 576 adult members).

I discovered just before the annual meeting that I, the outgoing board president, the music director, and an incoming board member (the only people who told me their picks) had all chosen the same candidate-- Peter Morales.

The congregation voted this way:

10 votes -- Rev. Peter Morales
2 votes -- Rev. Laurel Hallman

We will be mailing in our absentee ballots next week, well in advance of the June 17 deadline.

I am proud of my congregation. They did the research, arrived at their choice, and are making their voice heard, despite the fact that only 4 of us are attending GA in Salt Lake City, due to costs, etcetera.

The Next UUA President

2009-05-22T10:37:00.000-07:00

Paul Rickter, the secretary of the Unitarian Universalist Association’s board of trustees, writes:

“Absentee ballots with instructions and biographical information about the candidates will be mailed to congregations in early May and must be returned by June 17.

“By sending delegates to vote on site at General Assembly on Saturday, June 27. All GA delegates who have voting credentials that were not used to vote absentee will be eligible to vote on site...

“When discerning how to vote in the election (absentee or on site), congregations have wide discretion in determining whether and how to instruct their delegates. For example, a congregation could hold a congregational meeting to discuss the election and then could direct its delegates to vote for particular candidates. Or the congregation could appoint delegates and allow those delegates to vote their consciences.

“More detailed instructions for voting will be included with the ballot mailing in early May.

“Please let me know if you have questions about the election. For more information on UUA Elections, see http://www.uua.org/aboutus/governance/elections/index.shtml.”

What does this have to do with you? About every 8 years, there is a major election for UUA president. This year, at the General Assembly (GA) in Salt Lake City, Utah, is a major election for UUA president, and the two candidates are distinctively different.

Because the GA is being held in Utah, and few Eliot members are expected to attend, and because many UUs (including me) believe the selection of the next president is an issue critical to the future of Unitarian Universalism, we will take part of our annual meeting (9:30 a.m., Sunday, May 17) to vote the congregation’s wishes. At that time, I will also indicate who I am endorsing. In the meantime, you should review the two candidates web sites yourself:

Peter Morales - http://www.moralesforuuapresident.org
Laurel Hallman - http://www.hallmanforuuapresident.com

We will accomplish our democratic exercise by briefly reviewing the two candidates, vote by secret ballot, and then fill out the absentee ballots proportionally. For example, we get 12 delegate votes: if the two candidates each get about half the Eliot member votes, then the absentee ballots will be split 6 and 6, and we will mail them all in. Hopefully, one candidate will clearly emerge as the front runner, but it is more important that we vote the congregation’s will, and not any particular person’s will.

Notice of Eliot Unitarian Chapel
Annual Meeting

9:30 a.m. Sunday, May 17, 2009

Halfway There

2009-03-22T14:27:00.000-07:00

A minister was in a long line at a gas station. The cashier said: “It seems as if everyone waits until the last minute to get ready for a long trip.” And the minister replied, “It’s the same in my business.”

As I write this, we are 4 weeks into our canvass, and half of our pledging families (200 out of 350+) have made their financial pledge. It used to surprise me that after a month only half a congregation would answer the call to make their pledge.

After all, it happens every year, it’s not a surprise or anything. It takes less than 5 minutes to fill out a card. Why would it take more than a month to answer the call?

I think many of us have an ambivalent attitude toward financially supporting our church.

We like church, but we are uneasy with the thought of paying for it. And if we don’t send our money in, we won’t get our home foreclosed on, our water or electricity turned off, our cable TV going dark, or our cell phone silenced.

Does my congregation really need “my” financial donation? The short answer is: yes.

We have collected about $300,000 of the $430,000 we hope to collect for the annual canvass. Half the members and friends have already contributed more than half the money we need. But it is those last few dollars and pledges that will make a difference.

We operate on a very thin margin. It is the extraordinary generosity that makes things happen, that keeps the mortgage paid, the water & electricity flowing, the phone and computer systems humming.

Frankly, it’s a miracle that 570+ mostly unrelated adults get together and continue a 50 year tradition that is Eliot. They don’t have to. No one is forcing them.

And yet, the miracle that is Eliot continues.

Soon, we will send out an email and begin to make phone calls for the remaining pledges. After that, we will send a letter, and then another one. That’s what it takes to get some folks to follow through on their implicit promise they make when they agree to support Eliot.

The implicit covenant is this: when you join a church like Eliot, you promise to support it with your care, concern, and gifts. You do this because you know that is what it takes to make Eliot happen.

In turn, the community makes things happen you could never do on your own: we foster free religious thought in Kirkwood, we nurture spiritual growth for hundreds of children and adults; and we act for social justice in many, many ways.

No matter how often you come to church, whether or not you like the music or the preaching on a particular Sunday, the miracle that is Eliot Chapel is deserving of your speedy, thoughtful consideration.

Only you can know how generous you want to be financially with Eliot. But all of us can know, that getting a pledge card in quickly– regardless of the amount– enables the leadership to plan well for the short term future.

How much should you pledge? I think 3% is a goal worth shooting for. It’s what Bonnie and I aim for. Gross or net or adjusted gross or whatever. Pick a number.

If that number is too big, think about a base line pledge of $150 per month (Bonnie and I are increasing 5%, and will be at $275 per month, starting now).

In any event, think about a 5% increase to support a cost of living adjustment for our excellent, new staff. For the vast majority of us, a 10% increase in our pledge wouldn’t even be noticed in our cash flow.

And remember the Preservation Pledge the congregation unanimously voted for at our last annual meeting. That works out to $1 per day for 3 years. I just wrote a check for $365 last month.

So? If you feel you can’t afford $365 for a Preservation pledge, then make some smaller amount. It is important to participate in the Preservation Pledge at whatever level you can. Your financial contribution is more important than the actual amount.

It may seem like a lot to ask for a 5% raise and another $365 per year to fix up the aging sanctuary. It is.

It is a lot to ask 570+ mostly unrelated adults and over 300 children to think about coming to church several times a month, to teach, to sing, to read, to talk, to drink coffee, to delve thoughtfully into the great events of the day, to truly consider who we really are, and who we really want to be.

It’s too much to ask, really. It’s an impossible undertaking. Probably one that shouldn’t even be tried.

But that’s what we ask people to do. And by some sort of incredible, wonderful miracle, that’s what happens.

If you have already made your pledge: bless you and thank you.

If you haven’t yet made your pledge, you can call us, email us, go to our web site and fill out a form. There are a dozen ways to say: Yes! Eliot is important, and I’m going to do my share to make it happen.

May you feel good about your generosity, and may we continue the miracle that is Eliot.

Taking the Next Step

2009-02-12T10:24:00.000-08:00

We are at a unique time in our history. On February 1st, we had 36 people sign the membership book, probably the most who have signed in one day since Charter Sunday. Our adult membership is at 576, making us the 37th largest physical congregation (out of 1100) in the United States, and our children’s program, at 305, makes ours the 14th largest.

We are in the middle of our canvass, which, despite the economic recession, looks to be doing well. This fall we will celebrate our 50th year. Already, Jan Erdman and Mary Quinn are working on this. We will begin a new ministry evaluation process. We will begin a new strategic planning process. We are beginning to think, now in the spring, about the kinds of things we want to be doing in the fall.

Now is the time to think about how you might help fulfill your personal life mission, by helping fulfill the Eliot mission: we gather to foster free religious thought, nurture spiritual growth, and act for social justice.

There will be leadership opportunities in some new groups that are forming. And it can be great to get leadership training and the opportunity to network with other UUs about how they get things done, and the kinds of programs they are doing.

So, I encourage you to think big about what we might do in the fall, and I encourage you to consider attending the annual District Assembly in Milwaukee, WI in late April. A couple hundred UUs will be in attendance and you can read more about it in this newsletter.

If you are considering going to the UU General Assembly in Salt Lake City, UT in late June, you will want to acquire housing via the UU web site ASAP. I have more information about that in this newsletter as well.

Just remember– if you’re an old-timer, or you just signed the book, or even if you are still a guest– now is the time to think about your involvement at Eliot. Just check the Information Guide, the website, and this newsletter for the latest updates. And please, don’t hesitate to give me a call, send me a note, or make an appointment if you would like to ask a question, make a comment, or just plain talk. I would really enjoy that.

DA: Leadership in Times of Profound Change

2009-02-12T10:22:00.000-08:00

I invite you to join me and hundreds of Unitarian Universalists to the 2009 Central Midwest District Assembly! We will gather in Waukesha WI, for three days of worship, fellowship, and fun. The dates of the Assembly are: April 24-26, 2009, Friday through Sunday.

We welcome Sharon Daloz Parks, author and independent scholar, as our keynote speaker to speak on our theme this year "Leadership in Times of Profound Change," followed later in the afternoon by the reverends Peter Morales and Laurel Hallman. We are one of the few districts to get them both in person at our annual meeting. These two candidates for the Presidency of the UUA will speak to us and will answer some prepared questions. Our UUA trustee, Justine Urbikas will moderate.

Our district executives and staff solicit ideas about the kind of programming that will be most valuable to the leadership of congregations. This year, we have recruited people to present workshops on such topics as ecology and sustainability, retaining visitors as involved members, and healthy congregations and covenants.

Our exciting Opening Celebration comes with music, inspiration and a banner parade. There will be a delicious banquet along with fabulous entertainment. We will gather Sunday morning for special worship. We will be together with UU friends, old and new, from across our Central Midwest District!

The registration fee for the District Assembly itself is $155. All events will be held at the Marriott Milwaukee West in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and overnight rooms are reserved until April 15, 2009 at the rate of $105 per night. You can reserve rooms online.

Consider a weekend of inspiration and celebration. I do have some funds available to defray registration costs for Eliot folk who want to go as our congregational delegate.

GA and the next UUA president

2009-02-12T10:21:00.000-08:00

Some of you will recall that the UU General Assembly (GA) happened in St. Louis in 2006.

About 4,000 UUs invaded downtown for four days of workshops, worship, networking, singing, and so forth. There are tremendous opportunities to learn more about all aspects of church leadership from the best and brightest in the denomination.

This year, the GA is being held in Salt Lake City, Utah. So far, the only people going I know about are my family, Jan Chamberlin (music director) and Leon Burke (choir director). We will go to learn, and to contribute, and to bring back creative ideas for Eliot for the coming year.

Every great once in a while, a really important election happens at the national level of the Unitarian Universalist Association. This year there will be an election for the next UUA President. Two UU ministers are running: Peter Morales and Laurel Hallman.

Peter’s web site is at: http://www.moralesforuuapresident.org.
Laurel’s website is at: http://www.hallmanforuuapresident.com.

Much like the United States, the UUA national organization is at a critical time in its discernment for the future. It is important that Eliot make its voice heard in such an important decision.

Only congregational (and minister) delegates get to vote at GA. Delegates are apportioned according to congregational size, with a ratio of one delegate per 50 congregational members. Because of our membership size (576 as of this writing), we get 12 delegates. Normally, those delegates would only get to vote if they were physically present in Salt Lake City.

However, the UUA bylaws allow for the provision of absentee ballots in elections. This means, we as a congregation can figure out who we want to be president, and send in all 12 absentee ballots accordingly.

Since delegates are representatives of a local congregation, they should vote the will of the congregation, not their own will; otherwise they are representing themselves as individuals, not as a messenger from the congregation. The difference here is between representative democracy and direct democracy.

So, here is how we can accomplish this at Eliot. At our annual meeting in May (or perhaps sooner), I will have the two candidates information available, probably as an order of service insert, along with a ballot of our own design.

I will answer any questions you may have about the process and tell you who I am endorsing as president. Then, we will collect the Eliot ballots and with the help of 12 volunteers, apportion the UUA absentee ballots according to how the congregation votes. So, each candidate got half the vote, we would send in 6 ballots for one candidate, and 6 for the other.

This system ensures it is the will of the congregation-- not the opinion of particular individuals-- who decide the votes. It also ensures we vote all of the absentee ballots we are entitled to. This system ensures any congregational member can have input simply by showing up to a meeting after church. It allows you to be more informed as to what is going on at the national level, it gets far more people informed about the candidates, and it insures the congregation as a whole (and not just a few elite) gets a chance to participate in the election process of GA.

Membership Growth - You Have to Ask

2009-02-01T18:13:00.000-08:00

To see a 2 minute video about membership growth at our church, click here:

What We Get From Eliot

2008-11-21T13:39:00.000-08:00

What We Get From Eliot

We are at a turning point– in so many ways– at Eliot Unitarian Chapel. We have a new, coherent administrative staff. We have new energy in our music program. We are standing by our faith in restoring our historic stone chapel. And our children’s religious education program continues to grow. Six years ago, when Rev. Bonnie and I first got here, the RE registration was a little over 250. Now it is over 300, a 20% increase. To accommodate further growth, we will eventually have to gut the old RE wing and put something else up. But that is an issue for another day.

We are undergoing another staffing transition in our children’s RE program. As part of that effort, meetings have been held, surveys collected, conversations started. Some of the initial results are in– results about how people feel about their Eliot experience.

Three questions, in particular, struck me as particularly interesting. The comments we got were thought provoking too. Below are the 3 questions, and a sampling of responses, some edited for length.

In what ways have you and your family gotten what you hoped for from Eliot?

We have met a group of friends with young children that are a constant support. We have Sunday services with messages that relate to our daily lives and ministers who give 100% to support the greater Eliot community. Eliot support staff are hard working and very supportive.
My kids and I have found a lot of friends and they are learning respect for many religious and spiritual traditions. Also, I have found a congregation that gives voice to my spiritual beliefs.
I feel like I have a spiritual community of people that share many of my values, though not all and that’s a good thing. I feel spiritual leadership from Daniel and Bonnie and support from them in a personal way. I think having a ‘third’ place’ has truly enriched our family life– creating a sense of belonging in a larger community.
I could write a book about how my children have a healthy, balanced understanding of faith and religion that they have received from Eliot’s RE program, which is really the Eliot members and friends that have taught my children.
We found a place [our daughter] can learn more about the different religious traditions than we could have shared. And in the process found out that we had a hole in our lives as well that Eliot has filled. It’s amazing to find out you were UU all along and just didn’t know it.
I like the way the kids are exposed to a wide variety of religious traditions, and the seven principles. I like that they can see that you can live a moral, meaningful life without having to buy into a rigid set of religious beliefs. Things that come up at church often serve as a springboard for discussions at home. The kids have friends who are very religious, and I like that their experience at Eliot gives them their own religion and they are not interested in getting involved with their friends' religion. They are respectful of others' beliefs, but they identify as UUs.
I feel like there is definitely a place for us at Eliot Chapel. We feel very integrated into the RE community in particular. I also feel like I'm challenged to live my values in a way that I wasn't before, but always felt was important.
My children now feel our beliefs are part of something larger than ourselves. My daughter couldn't understand why we didn't attend a church when all of her friends did. When we found Eliot we were in shock that there was a place for us in the organized religion world.

In what ways have you and your family not gotten what you hoped for from Eliot?

I wish influences beyond Jewish and Christian traditions could be utilized for teaching and learning during services and beyond. I want my children to be exposed to many perspectives.
I haven’t connected deeply with anyone. I have a lot of buddies, but no friends.
I would like to see, hear, feel more about social justice and community activism and how world religions, including Christianity instruct us in this way.
I would really like more traditional spirituality, more Jewish and Christian focus.
I think the spiritual leadership is excellent; however, I sometimes feel short-changed when we don’t get the real leaders. Both Dan and Bonnie are excellent, but the assistant/ interns have left a lot to be desired. In addition, the lay support often wears, suggests, and speaks their social agenda. I usually check the calendar to see who is ‘playing’ before we decide to go or not.
Little attention paid to Unitarian Christian roots.
Making more friends and family connections (due to our lack of attendance).
Sometimes Sunday morning can actually be too hectic with the Chalice Choir, teaching, donuts, special services, forms to fill out, etc. We could of course, just choose to do less, but they are ALL things we want to do ;-)

In what ways have you and your family gotten more than you expected from Eliot?

We have found the people that attend Eliot to be accepting and friendly. I appreciate the ministers are willing to listen to ideas/suggestions are promote a community that strives for decency in their thoughts and actions.
The more we give and participate, the more we get that feeling of belonging.
I think we are surprised by how many people are at Eliot who seem to genuinely care about us and our well-being- and vice versa. We came looking for spiritual guidance and ended up with a place that feels like home.
I am slowly repairing my very broken relationship with God and enjoying my personal spiritual journey.
I got more than I expected to (services and sermons, etc), when I first started coming for the kids.
I never could have expected to feel so much a part of things so easily. We spent several years searching for our spiritual home and we felt almost instantly that we were more than just welcomed, but integrated almost seamlessly.
I am so impressed by all the ways that parents and kids can be involved. From chalice choir to service projects.
Met so many more wonderful people than I ever thought. Taking my kids to Bergfried has been an unexpected treat.

The good news is that, for the most part, Eliot folk are making connections, living out their faith, and finding hope and courage to act for social justice. Of course, there are the obstacles of time and follow through, but the range of responses is heartening and a good reminder of what we’re about, and what we might do better.

Here’s hoping you find some peace and joy in the beginning of winter.

2008-11 Board Report

2008-11-14T11:54:00.001-08:00

My goals have been to: (1) Assure worship services are meaningful and challenging; (2) Administer Chapel business (including staff); (3) regular social & pastoral contact.

Worship Services

Nothing significant to report. Overall, this has been a relatively quiet month.

Chapel Business

Budget Update. We should have an income statement, and balance sheet for you in the Office Report. We are on track are we with income and expense for the current fiscal year. For Canvass 2008-2009, Ken Denson and Charlie have had a preliminary meeting.

Building and Grounds. At my request, Charlie Lewis conducted some research as to how much of the utilities the Nursery School has been using. At the moment, we think that the current amount of 25% of the utility bill looks to be a correct apportionment.

Membership. Our first “New U” of the program year will be conducted on Saturday, 11/15/08. Previously, we did not have the minimum of 10 people we want to start the class. I have a separate memo for the board on the membership process.

Staff. They have been working well together. Rev. Bonnie has an update for you regarding the RE Administrator search.

Web Site. Charlie has more on this in the Office Report.

Social & Pastoral contact

Community for Understanding and Healing. I continue to participate in that group as part of my plan to be active in the civic life of Kirkwood. I see other Eliot members (including a youth) at these events. This month, we had a speaker from the St Louis historical society.

Police Chaplain program. I continue to meet with this group. We are going to meet with an officer who will tell us the police perspective on domestic violence intervention. This will be helpful to know. Also, we are gathering names for folks who might need a turkey for thanksgiving, and another list of folks who the police should check out in times of crisis (e.g., those on oxygen during a power outage). If you have some names, please let me know.

Pastoral Activities. I had two phone calls, along with a couple of coffee hour discussions.

Tough economic times

2008-10-22T07:27:00.000-07:00

Tough Times

"It was a harsh summer... For many, it was as if the clocks had rolled back to the thirties and the time of the Great Depression. Company upon company declared bankruptcy. Unemployment soared. The 'sever and prolonged recession,' as it was dubbed by the media, sent ripples of depression across America. Politicians used the depressed state of the country to their advantage."

The excerpt above is from evangelist Robert Schuller's best seller, Tough Times Never Last; Tough People Do. And by the way, the book was written 25 years ago, and he was talking about the recession of 1982!

In the book, he argues that the biggest problem at the time was dealing with negative anticipation, and negative attitudes. I think that is still the challenge today. And some say we are not in as bad economic fundamentally, as we were in 1982.

I know people are nervous about the drop in the stock market, about the drop in our congregation's portfolio. But I also understand that most congregations don't see a significant decrease in giving in tough economic times. This is good news.

At Eliot, we do have a few families that have been particularly hard hit, and folks having been asking for larger amounts from the Ministers Discretionary Fund. And there was such a hit to that account, that we got board permission to do an appeal at a Sunday service in October, and people were very generous. We received $2,530 in cash and checks from one Sunday appeal, and a couple folks who sent checks in later. So, UUs can be very generous.

Yes, some people are out of work, but most are not. Those of us with retirement accounts or mortgages have seen those values go down. But most of us are- I imagine- still going to keep kids in music lessons, buy groceries, gasoline, and all the rest of it.

Even though I may not have much in common theologically with Robert Schuller, I agree with him that attitude is everything. In fact, we can look for strategic opportunities, and we can remember that just as we got through 1982, we'll get through 2008.

And although we will have some surprises- some unpleasant, some wonderful- we will walk together on our journey as religious communities.

At times like these, I find it helpful to keep my head up, my gaze to the horizon, and to keep moving!

Reflections on a Police Ride Along

2008-09-12T09:35:00.000-07:00

Reflections on a Police Ride Along
Thursday, August 28, 2008.

Along with about 20 other Kirkwood area ministers, I have joined the chaplain program sponsored by the Kirkwood Police Department. I have a pocket badge, and an ID. I understand we are going to get jackets later on.

As part of the program, the ministers go on ride-a-longs. I understand I was the 2nd one to do so. Below is an account of how the day went. Enjoy!

Thursday morning, 6:45 am, roll call. A half dozen police sitting around. The lieutenant recaps a little of what is going on. There is some light joking.

I am assigned to two different officers for different parts of the 8 hour shift that runs from 7 am to 3 pm.

One officer mainly drives me around and shows me where our US Senator, Claire MaCaskill's compound is in Kirkwood, plus the homes of a few TV announcers. He has also been investigating the theft of a parishioners purse during a Room At The Inn night at Eliot. He has been living in Kirkwood and serving on our police force for 38 ½ years. He has seen it all. I don’t really want to know what ‘it’ is, actually.

We get a call from the dispatcher. A woman is complaining about difficulty breathing. When we arrive, there is an ambulance and a fire truck. We enter the woman’s home. Inside there are about 7 people. The old woman is complaining about difficulty breathing, but she seems fine to me. She is not getting along with her equally aged husband. A neighbor is in the room. He agrees to hang out with the husband until another relative shows up. One of the men in the room confides to me that he thinks the old woman is fed up with caring for her husband and just needs a couple days away at Missouri Baptist. It is really hard to be old and feeble yourself and have to take care of a crotchety spouse at the same time.

When I inquire as to why so many emergency responders are here in this woman’s house, this is how it is explained to me. The woman called, 911, so an ambulance came. When an ambulance comes, usually a fire truck comes, too, because they don’t know how many people they will actually need. When the fire truck comes, the police now come, too. Why? Because not that long ago, a man in Maplewood set fire to his truck, and when the firemen came to put out the fire, he shot and killed the fireman. So, now the police go on fire calls too.

Otherwise we drive around the high school a few times making sure the high schoolers are getting to school. We turn on the radar gun a few times riding around town– it checks car speeds while we are moving and it checks ahead and behind our police car.

We give out a couple of parking tickets to outrageously and dangerously parked cars. We pull over an old guy in a pickup truck, which is heavily laden with old pallets. Apparently, he drives around town, picks up the pallets from loading docks, and then goes and sells them somewhere. That’s not the problem. It’s that he has no tail lights or brake light. So, the officer tells him that she could have the truck towed, since it is illegal to drive, but she will just give him a ticket and tell him to get the lights fixed.

When the officer calls the car’s license plate in, they can tell us what kind of car it is supposed to be, the address it is registered to, and the date of its registration sticker.

At one point, the air conditioning breaks down. It is about 90 degrees out. The police officers wear tight fitting ballistic vests, along with tee shirts and their uniform. It gets them pretty hot. So the a/c is pretty important. And they often keep their driver’s side window down to hear better for better situational awareness. So, we take the car into the depot, and they test it, fix something, send us back out. Later in the day, it happens again, so we get a ‘new’ car. These cars are not in the best of shape. They are running pretty much constantly– 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There are always 5 of them out on the streets of Kirkwood. The officers patrol in zones, so they cover a lot of the same ground.

The dispatcher comes on line to tell us a woman has called 911 several times. All they can hear is her telling someone to stop what they are doing and the woman is saying to this person they should go into a mental institution. And the woman hangs up. Several times. They can target a cell phone to a certain range, but not pinpoint. We drive over to where the call was to have originated. We drive around slowly, looking around, listening. The cell phone call could have come from inside a house. The woman is not answering her cell phone now. Who knows? We don’t find anything. We drive on. Later on, they get through to the woman. It was just an argument about something. Nothing serious.

I remind the officer about lunch. This is about one o’clock. Two hours to go on the shift. We go to Subway, sit down to eat. I get three bites in, and we get a call on the radio. A truck has crashed into a tree on North Taylor street. That is in our zone. Just like on TV, we quickly stash our lunch in the plastic bags, and jog out to the patrol car.

I’m wondering if it is going to be a grisly scene. If there will be an opportunity to offer pastoral care or a prayer to a stranger. I’m a chaplain after all. The adrenaline begins to pump a little bit.

We hop in, maneuver over to Taylor, and with our light on and siren whooping, we quickly get in behind a fire truck and an ambulance. They got the call too. We are going about 40 miles an hour up Taylor toward Manchester. We are zooming through stop signs, people are pulled over for us. First in line is the fire truck, then the ambulance, and then us, the police car. And I’m riding shot gun. Whooee!

When we get there, we don’t see anything. Some guys mowing lawns tell us there was a panel truck that crashed into a tree over there– they point– and the truck took off again. We look around and can see where the truck hit the tree. There are small bits of truck and a huge gouge. We drive around the block but the panel truck is long gone. Finally, the fire truck and ambulance head back to their station.

We drive and talk a bit more. We get a call about a suspicious character on North Taylor street: an African American youth with a red Mohawk haircut. Well, he shouldn’t be hard to spot. And we spot him. He seems like an ordinary youth. But he is black. With a red Mohawk, and he is seated on a curb scratching his leg. The officer asks if he is hurt or anything. He says, no, he is just scratching his leg. She waves and we drive off. She happens to know who he is, and that the youth is out on bond for some offense, and she knows he isn’t wanted for anything.

So the gist of it is that a neighbor sees a black youth with a red Mohawk haircut walking down the street, and that automatically makes him a suspicious character, and it is good to call the police in on such situations, right? Because North Taylor doesn’t have black people, and black people– especially youth, and especially a youth with a red Mohawk– how much more suspicious can you get? But this is profiling, it is racist. And the police get calls like this all the time. Calls about the neighbors leaves blowing on to your yard. Calls about rescuing a lost cat, dog.

We end our day by driving to a few houses in Kirkwood and handing out packs of 20 flyers to neighborhood block captains. The flyers are about a Take Back the Night event coming up later next month. It is community policing. I think next time, I’ll do a half shift, because 8 hours is pretty grueling. And I’ll go later in the day. They tell me more is going on then. The bad guys don’t get up early in the morning. Most shoplifting and other crime happens after 2 pm.

Well, you can learn a lot about how people view the police by riding with them in their cars. Some people smile and wave, others look suspiciously at the officers, as if the police are already guilty of something. But the ones I met are caring people with a tough job to do.

September Board Report

2008-09-12T09:21:00.000-07:00

Lead Minister’s Report to the Board of Trustees
September 12, 2008

My goals have been to: (1) Assure worship services are meaningful and challenging; (2) Administer Chapel business (including staff); (3) regular social & pastoral contact.

Worship Services

Sunday Services. I preached twice last month, and I am set to preach three times in September, with Rev. Bonnie preaching on 9/21. I will be preaching in Mt Vernon, IL that day. I am still working on getting the rest of the fall scheduled. Last Sunday service produced several dozen responses to the question: when did you first know you were white? I have been able to use transcription software to get all those handwritten notes into electronic form. While I won’t be able to use all of the responses in the upcoming sermon, I will post them all on my blog: http://revdanielsblog.blogspot.com.

Chapel Business

Adult religious education. This month I began teaching a four session class called, “articulating your theology.” It will meet for four Wednesday night, and participants will produce a short statement about Unitarian universalism and their religious beliefs.

Board Stewardship Committee. I participated in this meeting. We discussed raising the pledge base, cultivating large gifts, expanding the script program, and moving Eliot more fully into e-commerce. Charlie Lewis and I are making progress in this area. Bill Miller and I meeting later this month to discuss the same topics.

Bookkeeper. Our bookkeeper is back on the job and doing well.

Building and Grounds. I called a meeting to try and get everyone on the same page as far as our grounds keeping and landscape plan goes. Besides myself, Marge Bergfeld (an Eliot member who owns a landscaping business), Charlie Lewis (Office Manager), Karen Rose (Eliot’s landscape contractor) attended, along with Larry Reuter and Curtis Kristofitz of the Building and Grounds (B&G) Committee. There has been some tension as the guys from B&G have been denied access to work orders, invoices, and even contact with Karen Rose by the previous Business Administrator. We discussed the work Ms Rose was doing, had done, her general plan and approach to the grounds. Larry & Curtis had a variety of saved up, pointed questions, which were answered satisfactorily. Marge Bergfeld was able to provide a professional perspective that was most helpful. Our group toured the grounds and made on the spot decisions about particular plants. Charlie will come up with a proposed annual calendar and grounds plan which we will then take back to the group. There is some tension between ‘old school’ and ‘new school’ of thought here. The old school apparently thinks there should be as few plants as possible with as much lawn grass as possible. The new school favors more native plants with reduced water, chemical, and maintenance inputs.

Canvass. The staff and I are eager to begin to work with the new canvass team. Hopefully we will receive some information soon.

Chapel Calendar. We have been making tweaks to the online CalendarWiz program we use for our calendaring. It is working well, and is available as a link from our new web site.

Disaster Preparedness. I distributed kits for families for disaster preparedness last Sunday, as part of the Sunday service. I also asked for volunteers for a Disaster Preparedness Task Force. I have since received about a half dozen inquiries. I plan to convene the group in two weeks, after returning from Boston. I also convened a telephone conference call among ministers from large UU churches in our district. We discussed what we were doing (if anything) and best practices.

Membership Coordinator. After an extensive interview, I have brought on Tracey Howe Koch as “Volunteer Membership Coordinator.” This is essentially, a staff position, but unpaid for this year. Tracey will work with me initially, and then I plan on handing off the membership area to Rev. Bonnie, due to the civic activity I have taken up in Kirkwood.

Our Neighbors. Our lawyer for the property line dispute has advised us to get another survey done to see if our neighbor has complied with the court order. Charlie is working on facilitating this. Our lawyer has been on vacation, but I will be communicating with him regarding the sign posted on the neighbor’s RV. It continues to be an eyesore.

Information guide. We are in the process of a total overhaul of the information guide. Previously, all of the religious education material was published in separate booklets and pamphlets. While some material for RE will still be published separately, the new information guide will be a comprehensive resource for all the activities and programs of Eliot Unitarian Chapel.

Web Site. The board let me know last spring that a more functional web site was a priority. Brent Vaughn and Charlie Lewis have been working tirelessly to get this up and running. They have even installed a major upgrade of the software. I have been doing some testing and updating.

Social & Pastoral contact

Community for Understanding and Healing. I participated in the last meeting where we saw a short video on white privilege and then broke out into discussion groups. I will continue to participate in that group as part of my plan to be active in the civic life of Kirkwood.

Pastoral Activities. I had two office visits, and a phone call, along with the usual coffee hour discussions. I plan on two in home visits in the next month.

Picnic at Des Peres Park. We had an Eliot picnic at Des Peres Park (8/24). Bonnie, and I and our girls spent a couple hours there with parishioners in a relaxed environment.

Police Chaplain program. I have been in several meetings at the police department with other Kirkwood area ministers to discuss and implement the chaplain program. I took my “ride-a-long” in an 8 hour shift. It was illuminating. You can read more about the ride along on my blog which is at: http://revdanielsblog.blogspot.com. I plan on doing this about once per month as a way of meeting more neighbors and interacting with our public officials.

Upcoming.

I will be in Boston from September 14 through the 17th for a UUA task force.
On September 18 I will be introduced with the chaplain team to the Kirkwood city Council.
On September 19 and 20th I will be in Chicago for a district board meeting.
On September 21 I will be preaching in Mount Vernon, Illinois, and Rev. Bonnie will be doing the service here.

When did you first know you were “white?”

2008-09-12T09:18:00.000-07:00

When did you first know you were “white?”
25 People answered the question. Below is a transcription of their handwritten notes. Each story is separated by a blank line.

As a youngster I grew up in a community of mostly white people except for a neighborhood called “Hershey Hill.” When we passed through this area, my mom would tell us to lock our car door, and we did. I noticed that the porches and front yards of these homes were filled with people with brown skin and as I grew older, equated this with the chocolate candy for which the neighborhood was so named. How clever, I thought.
At eight years of age, my dad coached my basketball team and we gave rides to a girl who lived in Hershey Hill. One evening I asked her if she was scared to live in Hershey Hill. She cried, my dad got mad at me and I suddenly realized the thoughtless prejudice of my family.

When I first went to Nipher junior high with kids from the Meacham Park area, I was taken aback by the dark skin and loud, aggressive behavior of the black kids. It took me most of high school to stop being startled by both of these aspects.

My first memories were living on a military base in Germany. We had lived on and off base, so I knew we were Americans and not Germans. In the states, from second grade on, I lived several years in Lincoln, Nebraska. At some point we heard about Omaha having problems but I probably didn’t realize those problems may have been a result of being poor and black until high school. However, we did have a handful of black families all accepted as part of our community. In grade school the immigrant kids seemed more exotic and different than the black kids. The kid’s parents spoke Lativan and the girl with a really long braids had a funny name. They were different.
The three black kids in our high school were just kids. It didn’t seem like they were different. I didn’t really know about problems until I was out of high school. Lincoln was a lot different from Omaha and way different from St. Louis. Now I know there are a lot of black kids at another high school in Lincoln and racial tensions were not unknown. It was just not something my family had to deal with. However it is possible that her family’s choice of high school may have been based partly on race. What we were told was that it was because my brother wanted to be on the debate team.

I grew up in a country that was 99% white and 95% one religion. Sometime around 10 years of age, I was at an amusement park, where they had rides and so on. In one corner they had some shows, singing and so on. One little closed area had inside an exotic “jungle” show. A featured part was a black person, presumably African, who was dressed in a grass skirt holding a spear. He walked on hot coals and broken glass. He said not a word and an emcee narrated. I thought of Tarzan books. It was obviously cool. These exotic people lived in a land far away. Among us white people lived a small number of gypsies, the only minority that were different already by the way they dressed.
We had a sort of passive religion, a religion weren’t mostly in school. Religion was not a major part of ethnic identity, at least not in childhood. Language was a major barrier between “us” and “them.”
I then had to become “them.” though still part of white people! In my 13th year I was in an urban Chicago school and did have one black friend, one of the handful of black kids in the school. I had trouble understanding several kids, they spoke poorly. My black friends spoke perfect Midwest English.

By the time I was a toddler, I knew “white” was considered superior, or preferable, to “black,” but because of an early memory of a friendly black man, I could not figure out why.

When I was six or seven years old my father, a social worker in Kansas City was helping us with bailing people out of jail during the riots following King’s assassination. Late one night he came home tired and frustrated and it was the first and only time I saw him cry. This was a monumental in my thinking about the divide that existed between the races and I definitely knew I was white.

I was 2 ½ years old when I first knew I was white. We had a black cleaning lady once a week.

When we were driving downtown and my father pointed out the ‘ziggaboos’ and I saw chocolate colored people. But somehow I knew he was wrong to call them that. So from an early age – five? – I knew my father and I had different beliefs.

Growing up in Edwardsville, Illinois and going to Catholic school, I had no exposure to any ethnic city other than Caucasians and primarily Catholics. I do remember an African American – although I did not know that term – called “preach” who walked the streets of downtown and ran errands for merchants and lawyers from the county courthouse. He was extremely friendly and well liked by the community. I had a sense that I was different from preach in many ways. Skin color was just one of those ways.

I first knew I was white at age 12, in 1964, in downtown St. Louis. A black man saved my life. Obviously, he was a good person. The only difference between us was the color of our skin.

Somewhere around six or seven years old I learned I was white when my father worked with the Mill Hill missionary fathers were coming and going between Africa and St. Louis and England. As Catholics we work for the poor who always seemed to be black. Living in the city of St. Louis my other experienced was a racist grandfather who – for as long as I can remember – talked about the “niggers” who we saw around us. Then in seventh grade we move toward integrated neighborhood which I loved. It was always confusing until then. Now I am struggling with the “whiteness” in many ways of our congregation. It just doesn’t feel like home. I wish I had suggestions...

My first recollection was when I was around 10 years old walking up to town in Sparta, Illinois where my grandma and grandpa lived. I was with my sister who was 11. Two girls of color approached us and we all exchanged looks and remarks, thus I knew that I was white and they were black.

When I was growing up in Kirkwood I only saw white people. I don’t remember seeing many people with dark skin until TV, and I went to college at a SIU in Carbondale.

I grew up in a town and state that had very few minorities. However, in second or third grade, I became friends with an African American girl named Laverne. My mom and I would go to her house (in a “bad” part of town) and bring her back to our house so we could play together. I was fortunate to have parents who didn’t see people as black or white.

When I was a child, age 5 to 12, I lived in a small town of block from the county courthouse. Our next-door neighbors on both sides were “rich,” business owners in town whose homes were brick. We rented a white framed two-story house from one of them. The other had children my age, my only playmates. They also had a black maid, whom I noticed a dark skin, but I never saw any other discrimination. A block away lived a black family you the mother was renowned for her barbecue, which another neighbor used to buy and take home. I don’t remember any other contact with black people except the black AME small white framed church, which was right next door to our big Zion UCC church uptown, only a couple of blocks on the other side of the courthouse.
I went to church camp in the late 1950s, early 1960s, and met kids from Fort Smith, Arkansas. The civil rights movement and the lunch counter demonstrations across the South came in to my consciousness. The kids I met at Camp became penpals, and I learned there older college aged siblings were participating in the protests. The music at church camp that we didn’t like was due up – early rock ‘n roll – so I joined with three or four black kids and started an a cappella to a group that sang at Camp Aurora and Windyville, Missouri.
After college in a few years at Monsanto – when they started hiring blacks – I met the best friend I had there for over 25 years I’ve been retired six years now, and we still get together for dinner several times a year – recently to celebrate Obama’s nomination.
I still find “white” and “Caucasian” we are words to describe myself. I’m German through and through, but intellectually I know that race as such doesn’t exist scientifically. It’s a weird world and getting weirder the longer I live!

I think I knew I was white when I knew black people were not “allowed” in our neighborhood or schools in 1945. “They” had their own neighborhoods and their houses were not nice – they didn’t keep them up. Then I didn’t think more about it – until I was old enough to see the injustice. I began to imagine what it must be like to be another race. I had to deal with fear also. I was afraid of black people. I stayed clear.
Of course that changed you I’m still afraid of hatred no matter where it comes from – and uncomfortable sometimes. But, I have found love and appreciation. I also see progress.

My parents talked about the Negroes. It seems difficult to say the word... we were driving they talked in general – they did not point. But I could see and feel the difference. I could feel a difference because of the way my dad said the word: Negro.

I graduated in January 1955. And I knew that the schools would be integrated in February 1955. I first realized that it wasn’t because no “Negroes” lived in my school district and that none came to my school – I was shocked to learn that they were not allowed to come to school. P.S. I. thought of myself as “Italian” but then new I was “white.”

There was a woman my grandmother called “the maid.” My grandfather called her “the colored gal.” Tinnie and I loved each other, or at least I loved her and she was very, very kind to me. The first time I realized we were different colors I at least had the sense to feel guilty. My grandma and I had lunch at the kitchen table and Tinnie said on a stool at the counter. I asked me to come sit with us. But my grandmother said, oh no, she preferred to sit at the counter. Tinnie did not smile at me, concentrated on her lunch, and I knew it wasn’t the truth. I knew that she was somehow considered inferior, and I felt very bad about that I felt bad because I loved her. Incidentally, my grandmother always was polite and considerate of her employees and unfailingly went through the annual struggle of paying Social Security on their behalf.

I grew up in Hungary (100% Caucasian population) and the first time I realized I was white was when I saw black students in my biology class at the local university.

I grew up in East St. Louis, Illinois. Quite a while ago now. About that time I was in kindergarten, my mother told me that I should not talk to the “dark” people on the buses, which we regularly rode around town. She said their skin was dark because they were bad and we were very lucky because our skin was white. I can remember thinking two things: (one) that the dark people were different shades and (two) I wasn’t white like milk or my white crayons, but I knew if I said these things, I would be “in trouble are you” shortly after this, I was watching a “arc” mother on the bus with her children and she was very good to them and I thought my mother was wrong or she had lied to me.
This is something that happened with my twin boys when they were four years old. Their best friend was a black boy from preschool. It was early summer and we had invited him over to play. I told the boys that could change into their swim trunks before getting into a little wading pool in the backyard. A few minutes later, my boys came running out of the bedroom and one of them said excitedly, “mommy, mommy, guess what! Vernon’s black all over.”
They had obviously thought previously that only his face and hands were black (the visible parts). I’ve always loved this memory.

I grew up in Chicago and when Martin Luther King was assassinated, there were terrible riots in the city. I particularly remember because it happened the day before my birthday, and the police were telling people not to come down into the city until the streets were under control from rioters and looters.
I remember my dad speaking about the looters "schvartzahs" (blacks in yiddish), how they were acting like animals turning on their own kind and ruining their neighborhoods.
This was the day I knew I was white, and because I was afraid of that was going on in the city, I was glad I was.

Growing up in rural Iowa in the 30’s and 40’s, I had never seen a black person until I entered high school. Then there were two black boys in school. I had little contact with them. I was never taught to be prejudiced even though I had grown up in a white society.
When I entered college, my room mate who grew up in a segregated Kansas City told me how difficult it was for her to drink from a fountain after a black person. I was shocked!
When Duke Ellington and his band came to play a concert at the college, there was no motel in Waterloo or Cedar Falls, Iowa, that would let them stay over night. They had to be housed in a dorm at the college. I was the editor of the College newspaper and wrote an editorial about the irony of this.

I was introduced to the idea of "white" in 1967 when I was 7 years old and I was invited to a friend's birthday party. Melody was African-American and my parents told me I was not allowed to attend the party because she was black. My older sister who was 19 at the time took me aside, out of hearing of my parents, and told me that our parents were wrong and she would get me to the party. Everything went as planned that Sunday afternoon and I did go to the party. I don't recall my parents ever finding out. My parents have both since passed away. Dad would be 91 and Mom would be 88 if they were still living. My parents did "evolve" and make changes in their thinking as they aged, but in 1967, that was who they were.

August Board Report

2008-09-12T09:15:00.000-07:00

Lead Minister’s Report to the Board of Trustees
August 15, 2008

My goals have been to: (1) Assure worship services are meaningful and challenging; (2) Administer Chapel business (including staff); (3) regular social & pastoral contact.

Worship Services

Sunday Services. Last month, I was on vacation, and checked in regularly with the staff to ensure we were making progress on our summer plans. Study Leave has occupied me for the first two weeks of this month. I have about half the 30 service topics I need, and am making headway on the last half. In the coming year, we hope to have more “non-competes” when it comes to Sunday fund-raising, and we hope to be able to champion our Social Action projects throughout the year via a “Mission Minute” in the Sunday service.

Chapel Calendar. I have been trying to do more coordination regarding the Eliot Calendar and Sunday Services. Bonnie and I met with Amy Stark to discuss calendar planning for Social Action projects and shared collection recipients and the shared collection calendar. This year, we also will be coordinating with the Partner Church Council (PCC). Last year, we ran into a few glitches. For example, the PCC scholarship kickoff Sunday was also to be a shared collection Sunday.

Chapel Business

Bookkeeper. As you read in the Office Report, our bookkeeper had a heart attack recently, so we don’t have complete numbers for you but we do have a financial snapshot for you.

Membership Coordinator. Citing family concerns, Jennifer Foss has resigned. She has indicated she is available to train the next MC. I believe we need the Membership Coordinator function to keep newer and older members engaged and committed, to help with volunteer recruitment, and some development work. Having a non-member fill this position has not worked out. Hiring a member is fraught with possible complications. After considerable discussion, Bonnie and I think we have an Eliot member as a possible candidate. We will meet privately with that person to discuss possibilities, and will report to the board on our progress.

Summer Projects. Our publications are moving along on schedule. We hope to have the picture directory, the information guide, new brochures, and new business cards ready early next month.

Building and Grounds. You can read about our progress in the Office Report.

Our Neighbors. Our lawyer for the property line dispute notes that we won our court case, and that the neighbors have put up a sign on the side of their RV that is “is retaliatory in nature and highly inaccurate factually and legally.” He recommends we ask them to take the sign down, and if they don’t to make a formal complaint to the City of Kirkwood. I am sending his letter under separate cover. I believe the board should make a decision as to how we should proceed, and that ideally we will decide this at the August board meeting in advance of the program year kick off, September 7.

Disaster Preparedness. I attended a two day conference on disaster preparedness held at Concordia Lutheran Church in Kirkwood. We will be reviewing our procedures for fire drills, earthquake, tornado, and ‘invader’ drills in the coming year. We will be distributing kits for families for disaster preparedness sometime this fall.

Social & Pastoral contact

Community for Understanding and Healing. They have had some book reading and reviews. Bonnie attended the most recent one. Their community conversations start up again in September, and I plan on attending those.

Police Chaplain program. I have signed up for my first “ride-a-long” and will report about that in my blog and board report.

Pastoral Activities. I have been keeping up with Bonnie in this area. And I plan to start my regular pastoral routine (monthly quota of visits and calls initiated by me) in September.

Parade Participation

2008-06-18T13:31:00.001-07:00

There is a photo (below) in a recent Webster-Kirkwood times edition, where you can see the lawn chair brigade that a dozen folks (including me), featured in the Meacham Park Parade and Homecoming.

It's true, all of us in the lawn chair brigade were white, but it is also true that there were a lot more white faces at this event than in previous years. My face is blocked, but if you look carefully, you can see Rev. Bonnie and daughter Kaylie standing next to her, bringing up the rear of the parade. We were the very last item in the parade, and our captain liked to stop and show us off, so we were really dragging and bringing up the rear.

On the other hand, all the residents lining the streets were grateful we were there to lend support and recognition to their parade. Apparently, the parade & homecoming celebrated its 35th year this year. And despite being a Kirkwood resident for the last 6 years, I had never heard of it.

In fact, until the parade, I didn’t know there was an actual ‘park’ in Meacham Park. And it is a nice one, too. In the end, we got a snow cone, walked around, smiled at babies. I saw a few Eliot folk there– including a couple people singing in the community gospel choir.

Our ‘precision lawn chair brigade’ was sponsored by the Community of Understanding and Healing, which has done a lot of work since the shootings in February to try and bring understanding and healing to our community.

Despite the fact that our brigade was late coming to the end of the parade, we showed up, we showed our support, and it was appreciated.

I suppose many of us have been a little late to the parade of working for an anti-racist multi-cultural town.

But there will be other opportunities– maybe not a lawn chair brigade– but other substantive opportunities for you to try and live your faith, and work for an earth made fair and all her people one. Just keep your eyes and ears open!

See you in August– Daniel

Eliot member Kevin Mitchell has a new book out

2008-06-18T13:29:00.001-07:00

Eliot member Kevin Mitchell has a new book out. You can read about it here.

June 7 – Meacham Park Homecoming and Parade

2008-05-16T09:21:00.000-07:00

June 7 – Meacham Park Homecoming and Parade

I think the idea of a a precision lawn chair brigade is just too good to pass up. I invite you to join me at the three rehearsal sessions listed below, or to join the parade that Saturday, or simply to show up and see the thing.

It would be good for folks like us to go hang out with neighbors to our south in Meacham Park.

This event is coordinated by the Community for Understanding and Healing. You can read more about them here.

==

Mark your calendar, put on your walking shoes, and join CFUH as part of the Meacham Park parade and homecoming Saturday, June 7 – parade at 11:00 AM – food, fun, and games for the kids afterward in the Park. The parade route begins at Turner School, circles the Meacham Park area (a distance of about one mile), ending at the park grounds at the corner of New York and Orleans.

We also want as many of the drill team members as possible to attend a first rehearsal and planning session on May 21 at 6:30. (It takes bodies to make sure the plans are reasonable.) All rehearsals will be on the Kirkwood High School Essex parking lot.

The CFUH parade contingent – a precision lawn chair brigade, followed by, hopefully, many marchers – will assemble at 10 AM at Turner School. We are looking for a couple dozen good strong women and men for our precision lawn chair brigade.

People who are in the brigade will need to meet several requirements:

• the ability to carry an aluminum lawn chair the distance of the parade (BringYourOwnChair).
• the ability to learn a drill routine which may require lifting, sitting, getting up, reversing direction, etc.
• availability to attend two Wednesday evening rehearsals - May 28 and June 4 at 6:30 PM.

We are ordering CFUH t-shirts, blue with white lettering – (see a mockup at http://cfuh.org/mpParade.html)

Front: "Community for Understanding and Healing" with our logo

Back: "on a quest to transform Kirkwood into a prejudice-free, highly respectful community"

We hope many of you will order one of these shirts for $8 (XXL $9), but this is not a requirement for marching in the parade – you can wear a white or blue shirt of your own.

Send an e-mail to register@cfuh.org and let us know:

• if you plan participate in the parade, and if you want to be in the lawn chair drill team or march behind them. We want to identify our lawn chair brigade members by May 20.
• if you would like to order a t-shirt. Include the size: S, M, L, XL, or XXL. Payment can be made at the time of delivery which will be at the drill team rehearsals or on the day of the parade.

2008 District Assembly

2008-04-30T10:22:00.000-07:00

2008 District Assembly in St. Louis

Was great! We got lots of good comments on the Friday night opening celebration. Thanks to the UU ministers of St. Louis. And Eliot’s choirs, including Inner Voices and the Children’s Choir, were wonderful with the banner parade.

Saturday worship was led by Rev. Bill Sasso (Carbondale) and was well received.

The Sunday morning worship featured the 1st Unitarian Church of St Louis choir. And they were excellent. As was Rev. Khelber van Zandt V (Alton) as liturgist, and Rev. Krista Taves (Emerson) doing a children’s story which involved about a dozen adult actors who could barely keep straight faces to tell.

The highlight of Sunday morning at the Hilton Frontenac was the preacher– our own Tracey Howe-Koch, who overcame 8 other contestants to win the sermon prize and who delivered the sermon with such enthusiasm she received a standing ovation!

I have no doubt Tracey will be asked to deliver her sermon again at area churches.

We had all eleven delegates attend, so a good Eliot turnout. Krista and I– along with Eliot Senior Youth Victoria Mitchell– did a workshop on our innovative youth programming at Emerson and at Eliot.

Jan Chamberlin also led a workshop and her efforts were highly praised by district staff as going above and beyond expectations so much, the staff felt they had to give her a special gift certificate for all the work she had done.

We passed two district resolutions to be sent on to the UUA board. One was about affordable child programming at the UU General Assembly (GA); the other was about funding for national youth programming. This last resolution, originating from our own Ms Mitchell, has spread like wildfire and will be brought up and voted on at this year’s GA in Fort Lauderdale, FL.

We might only get District Assembly here once every 20 years or so, but the people and staff at Eliot did a fantastic job!

Racism in Kirkwood

2008-04-23T13:52:00.000-07:00

Racism in Kirkwood

On Saturday morning, April 12, there were a couple hundred people from Kirkwood and surrounding areas at the Kirkwood United Methodist Church. I saw about 10 or so folks from Eliot that morning. Pastor Dave Bennet and a few others gave some opening remarks.

We were reminded that 99.9% of the human genome is the same, and that only .1% is different among the human races. We were reminded that the US Senator Barack Obama is a distant cousin of the movie actor Brad Pitt.

We were also reminded that there are significant cultural differences between blacks and whites, and certainly Kirkwood is no different than other places in that regard. There are economic and educational differences.

Mostly racism in Kirkwood is the corporate, silent kind. We don’t have Klansmen walking around town in hooded robes.

We reminded of drug and prison statistics: 11% of white teens use drugs; 9% of black teens. But white teens were 1/3 more likely to have sold drugs, and black teens represent half of those jailed for drug use. We were told there are more black men in prison than in dorm rooms. And that even if there are more black police, things don’t seem to have changed much.

We were given a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.: “a religion concerned about souls but not about conditions that hurt the soul– that religion is a dry, dead, do-nothing religion in need of doing something.”

As in March, we broke up into one of about 20 different groups (I’ve been in group #12). And we talked about our racial & ethnic backgrounds, when we first came to realize what ethnicity we were, when we’ve experienced racism, and ideas for improving race relations in Kirkwood.

There was an old timer from Meacham Park there. I remembered him from last time. Fascinating guy. He talked about how in the old days, Meacham Park was part of the county, not Kirkwood. Most people didn’t have indoor plumbing. It was a ‘rough’ neighborhood in some respects, there were drug houses.

Even though white people saw blacks as more or less monolithic, some of the blacks saw themselves as being in different ‘sects’ depending on where– exactly– they lived.

Come to think of it, I have to wonder if that isn’t the whole thing about ‘what high school you went to’ in Kirkwood, as being such a defining thing. I guess it is defining because by saying where you went to high school, you say what neighborhood you grew up in, and that– somehow– brands you for life.

I heard a story about how 5 black girls died in house a fire in 1965 and no fire truck showed up. And that shortly after that, there was a black fire chief for a while. An article from the Kirkwood- Webster Times had this to say:

[Kirkwood Mayor] Reim said he was shocked and saddened to learn of the disaster. Meacham Park's volunteer fire department was unable to respond to the house fire, because of a broken-down fire truck. Reim speculated that with proper fire equipment or a building code, the children might still be living.

I heard another story about a black woman going to a restaurant at Station Plaza, just across from our church across the railroad tracks. And that not only was she the only black person out of a couple hundred people, but that people kept looking at her– as if she was out of place. She felt so uncomfortable, she finally got up and left.

And we heard more stories about black men simply walking through a traditionally white neighborhood, getting questioned by police. And about police pulling over black folks in cars for the crime of ‘driving while black.’

We heard how Meacham Park still has only one entrance and exit, and that there is no polling place to vote there. Part of the reason there is no polling place is that you need 100+ registered voters in an area to get a polling place, and that a lot of folks in Meacham Park feel disenfranchised enough to think it not worthwhile to vote at all.

We don’t like to admit racism exists, but it does. What shall we do about it? You might join folks for the next meeting of the Community for Understanding and Healing (www.cfuh.org) which is on Saturday, May 3 at Grace Episcopal Church on the corner of Argonne & Woodlawn. Registration and coffee is at 9:30 a.m. with the program running from 10 to noon. All adults and teens are welcome, and no child care is available.

Kirkwood Candidate Forum

2008-04-01T12:20:00.001-07:00

The following is from the Community of Understanding and Healing, but it just came out, so it's a little late.....

The topic of city government has clearly emerged from our two dialogue sessions. In an effort to provide additional valuable resources to our participants, we feel this announcement is in line with our community effort to understand and heal through reflective dialogue. We want to make it very clear that we do not endorse any candidate as our mission states that we are a "non-political group." We encourage all of our participants to become informed about candidates’ positions. Audience members can submit questions to be addressed by the candidates.

Candidate Forum

sponsored by Meacham Park Neighborhood Improvement Association (MPNIA)

Tuesday, April 1 – 7:00 p.m.

Kirkwood Church of God

345 Meacham St.

All Candidates for Mayor and City Council have been invited. MPNIA is hoping for a very good turnout.

Directions from Big Bend: At the light just east of Combs Tire, go south On Milwaukee Ave, go 3 blocks then left onto Meacham St., go 1 block (you will pass the park) to the corner of Orleans and Meacham St.

Civic Involvement, Racial Healing

2008-03-19T10:52:00.000-07:00

Civic Involvement, Racial Healing

The shootings in Kirkwood has changed the nature of the Kirkwood Ministerial Alliance (KMA). At the last meeting, the KMA attendance wasn’t 7 evangelical pastors, but 25 pastors, and a couple of laymen, with 2 black pastors and 2 black laymen, and a white businessman who wants to help. And me, the only non-Christian in the group.

We are hosting the KMA here at Eliot in early April.

I also participated in the Community of Understanding and Healing (CUH), held at Meramec last month, and was joined by about 6-12 Eliot folks. I will be actively participating in the Alliance and at the monthly CUH meetings.

The first CUH Dialogue Session was held 23 February 2008 at Kirkwood Baptist Church. Almost 200 people attended, and 161 people participated in 12 groups. On March 8 the group met again at St. Louis Community College at Meramec. Over 250 people attended, and 242 participated in 15 small groups.

The next CUH meeting will be Saturday, April 12 at Kirkwood United Methodist Church (201 W. Adams - Kirkwood) . Here's the schedule: 9:30 a.m. - Registration, coffee, and conversation; 10:00 a.m. to noon - Small group dialogue sessions. I hope to see Eliot folks again!

Also in "Eliot Peace and Justice News," I arranged for Rev. Bonnie and David to lead Eliot folks to join Meacham Park folks, in a new group called "Coalition for Peace," where about 10-12 Eliot folk (all white) joined about 20 Meacham Park folk (all African American) in marching this last Saturday from Nipher School to City Hall, to show solidarity, work for justice, voter registration for young African American men, and the willingness to work with the larger Kirkwood community. Bonnie has an article about that in this newsletter.

You can see a KMOV news (tv) clip of our Eliot participation here.

If you look closely, you can see Rev. Bonnie a couple times, as well as David Breeden our intern. And an Eliot member was interviewed.

Even though the Coalition for Peace was announced at the KMA meeting, Eliot Chapel folks were the only "white" people to show up. Why?

I hope to find out at the next KMA meeting, April 5. And I hope to see you at Kirkwood United Methodist, April 12.

These are small steps, but they are the steps that could make a difference. I am reminded of a politician who reminded us we can trash talk about race, or throw our hands up in despair. Or we can say– now is the time to do something about racial healing and reconciliation. And it begins with us.

Trying to get more integrated into Kirkwood

2008-02-20T11:12:00.000-08:00

Trying to get more integrated into Kirkwood

It has been a violent month. First the shootings in Kirkwood. Then a week later more shootings at Northwestern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL.

On Thursday, February 7th, the massacre in Kirkwood occurred. I was in a meeting with the Lead Ministers Relations Committee (Kim Fitzgerald, Kathy Mead, Luis Ortiz, David Seidensticker, and Julie Triplett).

Within 24 hours, the Kirkwood Ministerial Alliance (KMA) organized a prayer vigil for that Friday night. Unfortunately, they didn’t notify us. We found out about it anyway, but by the time I found out I was most of the way to Bloomington, IL for a district board meeting and wouldn’t be able to make it back in time.

We were able to get our intern and Reverend Bonnie there. Rev. Bonnie wore her stole and stood toward the front, and I understand one of the TV stations showed her a few times. I also heard from a few of you that it was hard to hear the prayers through all the noise of the generators for the TV crews and the helicopters above. And that what prayers were heard were very much in line with evangelical Christianity, and it would have been nice to hear something a little more in keeping with liberal religion.

So, the KMA has changed its meeting time (which conflicted with another monthly meeting I have) and will now meet once a month on Saturday at 8 am. Why the change? In the years I’ve attended KMA meetings (off and on), there haven’t been any black pastors, because unlike the white pastors, the black pastors have day jobs and can’t afford the luxury of attending a mid-day meeting.

You can be sure we will be attending the March meeting, and trying to make sure we get called in emergency pastoral visits– if they will let us!

February 2008 Newsletter Essay

2008-01-24T09:25:00.000-08:00

Giving it to the Church

The Butterball Turkey Company set up a hotline to answer consumer questions about preparing holiday turkeys. One woman called to inquire about cooking a turkey that had been in her freezer for twenty-three years. The operator told her it might be safe if the freezer had been kept below zero degrees the entire time. But the operator warned the woman that, even if it were safe, the flavor had probably deteriorated, and she wouldn't recommend eating it. The caller replied, "That's what we thought. We'll just give it to the church."

Giving it to the church, indeed! Sometimes, if we don't pay attention, it seems like the spirit of creativity, of stone soup, can become the spirit of Scrooge. The story goes like this:

Once upon a time, in the distant past, some folks wanted to get together and create something larger than themselves. They wanted to get together with other folks– to create a church! They wanted to create a place where people could share their history, a place where people could openly explore & present their religious ideas, a place of toleration, of reason, conscience, and the never-ending search for truth.

Their desire was strong, their number small. Long was their reach, swift was their response, creative was their approach to creating a new church as an offshoot from an older one.

The years rolled by. People died, others were born, drifters came & went. Old folks came just in time to find the religion of their dreams. Children grew up in the church, became youth, and moved away, some moved back. New people came, old-timers stayed.

The spirit of operating on a shoestring, the spirit of "making do" stayed; it seemed the right thing to do. But over time, the church grew large, it's children needed materials, its ministers & employees needed a fair wage & benefits.

The church moved from folks gathered 'round a living room to folks gathered in an English Gothic style church. A place of art and music, a place where children could learn, and all could be warm in the winter & cool in the summer, a place to sink into silence, meditation, and prayer, a place to dream dreams. The church planted roots which grew deep, it grew & flowered!

By now, most of you are considering your financial pledge for the upcoming fiscal year (July through June) and let me say– thank you! For the consideration. But don’t miss Celebration Sunday on February 10! – Daniel

Lead Minister’s Report to the Board of Trustees

2007-12-19T11:33:00.000-08:00

Lead Minister’s Report to the Board of Trustees December 13, 2007

My goals are: (1) Assure worship services are meaningful and challenging; (2) Administer Chapel business (including staff); (3) regular social & pastoral contact.

Worship Services

I think we had our largest attendance ever for our Christmas Pageant service.
I am continuing the discernment process of adding a 3rd service.
I met with Leon, Jan, and our intern to plan Christmas Eve and Canvass Sunday services.

Administer Chapel business.

We announced Joy’s 65th birthday at the three Bread Communion services, and we printed an article about her retirement date of September 1, 2008.

Bill Miller continues to interview church staff on succession planning and on gathering input for the new job description. Once we have that, we will begin to advertise. I hope to begin advertising for the position late next month.

I’ve been meeting weekly with Jennifer Kirkton-Foss, our new membership coordinator. I will have some handouts for you about her work at the board meeting.

I will be on study leave from Monday January 7th through Monday January 21st. During that time, I will take a two day intensive class at Meadville Lombard in Chicago on “Minister as Fundraiser” led by the school’s president.

We are looking into MyChurchCalendar.com as a way of having a single calendar for printed newsletter, web site, and in house calendar.

I would like to make sure that our Business Administrator meets with the Treasurer to give him a copy of the general ledger password, and show him the basics of our ACS system. I know they have met a couple times but not what the substance of their meetings have been.

I had a special meeting with the new co-chairs of the Social Action committee about our split collection schedule and how I and the staff can better support, sustain, and recruit for their efforts.

Regular social & pastoral contact.

I made a home visit in Kirkwood and two evening phone calls of significance. We have several folks who have serious cancer, or are recently institutionalized.

The above is in addition to the regularly scheduled meetings, visits, and calls requested by parishioners.

I did the dinner blessing at the Singletarians dinner / auction, where our intern, David Breeden distinguished himself as auctioneer. They raised more than expected, some $250 for charity that night.

Lead Minister’s Report to the Board of Trustees November 16, 2007

2007-11-16T08:56:00.000-08:00

My goals are: (1) Assure worship services are meaningful and challenging; (2) Oversee financial stewardship; (3) Administer Chapel business (including staff); (4) regular social & pastoral contact.

The Personnel Committee and I have come up with the specifics for this year’s implementation.

Worship Services.

Although the Personnel Committee and I didn’t discuss this, I am meeting monthly with Jan and Leon to more thoroughly integrate musical coherence with sermon and service content.

As you know, I am in with the Senior High youth most Sundays for the first part of the second service, and they are in with me once per month. Although attendance was light a couple weeks ago, last Sunday there were more than 30 youth, plus the 3 advisors, plus me– and we are getting too big for the room. A couple other Sundays have been similarly full. I made a variety of suggestions about the Youth Program over the summer, most of which the advisors and youth accepted, but splitting up into multiple groups was politely declined. I think we have a great program. I am concerned that we will lose some kids due to overcrowding.

Our sanctuary attendance has been down a little this fall as compared to last year. Also, the service attendance is much more balanced than previously– I attribute this to the changed service times.

I found at the Fall district ministers meeting, that FUS Milwaukee (711 members) has added a 3rd service (8:30, 11, 5 pm) with a 7 sermon series in the fall asking big questions (“what do you believe,” “what is the meaning of life,” etc). Also, Appleton, WI (513 listed, but now larger than our 550), has added a 4th service (4:30 Saturday, 3 on Sunday). Both ministers report increased attendance of 20-40 right away at the new service. The new services are expected to generate increase attendance, membership, and pledging. So, I will be in the discernment process (and I’m reading a book on the subject) of adding a 3rd service. A 3rd service would probably have a different format or feel to it than the 2 we have now. Again, a discernment process is needed. Ideally, we’d have this figured out for roll out in September 2008, but that may be overly ambitious.

Oversee financial stewardship

Establish a legacy gifts and bequests program to help ensure Eliot's financial future. I am have asked Bill Miller (who has been brought on as a contractor at $5 per month), to get us moving in this direction.

By January 2, 2008, provide more complete detail to the Personnel Committee regarding all compensation and benefits, current and proposed, so they are fully informed and can counsel the board and congregation at large. I am asking JoAnn Stephan, our business administrator to prepare for board presentation, the spreadsheet she and I usually use in preparing the budget.

Develop a written procedure (including a possible board policy) for responding to member inquiries concerning salaries, contracts, and other sensitive financial matters, in order to provide more transparency while retaining a degree of confidentiality. I have asked Ian Evison, our Central Midwest District Services Director, to get me copies of board and congregational budget documents from several large churches so we can see what others are using, and get some ideas for ourselves.

Provide quarterly budget updates for the next fiscal year, so the board is more fully informed of likely directions of the discretionary portion of the budget. I hope to have a rough, draft budget for the November board meeting. JoAnn has prepared something but I have yet to get to it.

I attended a “generosity” meeting arranged by our Canvass Co-Chairs, Mary Quinn & Jan Erdman. There were some interesting ideas, and I think there may be another focus group to generate more. I and most of the rest of the staff will be working with them more on Celebration Sunday, our big canvass event.

Administer Chapel business.

We will announce Joy’s 65th birthday at the three Bread Communion services, along with her projected retirement date of September 1, 2008. Through private fund-raising– mostly consisting of donors who are no longer affiliated with the church– we have raised a rather large sum of money. This money will be used to hire Joy’s replacement sooner rather than later, and to pay for some of her medical costs, and add to an annuity set up for her. Joy was not in a pension plan until a few years ago, and we want to do what we can to help. We may provide an opportunity for congregational members and friends to make a parting financial gift for Joy at a convenient time in the spring of 2008. We will need special accounting for the money raised and spent in order to be able to show the donors the money was spent in a manner consistent to which it was received.

Complete the employee succession project (this is rather large, and some of it is confidential) to more fully comply with the governance policies. I have asked Bill Miller to help with this. He is interviewing all of us to ask two questions, and then suggest procedures based on how the answers turn out: (1) If you were going to be gone for a few days or weeks, how would we ‘cover’ for you? (2) If you were to be gone for months or to be gone altogether, what would the rest of the staff do to compensate?

Update, post, and provide to the board, a complete employee and church procedures manual. This would include converting all job descriptions to a standardized Position Description and Memorandum of Understanding to ensure equitable treatment to more fully comply with the governance policies. The target date for this is May 1, 2008. I probably won’t really get started on this until early March.

Improve church communications and outreach by an updated and more functional church web site, calendar, and electronic communications. While we have a volunteer working on moving us to a content management system, I am concerned we are not moving fast enough to make measurable progress. I will put a call in to the district web master to discuss our overall site and plan. If it seems right, I may engage her on a contract basis to move us forward.

Continue to implement KEB recommendations regarding financial administration, and report progress to the board. JoAnn reported last month, and I believe has an updated report this month on progress or comment.

Assist the Treasurer and Business Administrator in improving financial administration by development of a "dashboard financials" document or procedures as determined by the Treasurer to show the congregation that the church finances are in order and are being well managed. Our Treasurer is taking the lead on this. He has met with JoAnn to (among other things) get the information flow set up.

We are considering another photo directory. The business has changed a little. Now some companies are offering to do the shoot without the extensive volunteer help that was previously required.

Regular social & pastoral contact.

A monthly visit (e.g., lunch) with a large donor, or past or current lay leader, in order to more fully cover some pastoral needs. This last month, I met with a couple in their home in Chesterfield.

Two pastoral outreach calls per week. I made a hospital visit to St. Luke’s and an evening phone call of significance.

The above is in addition to the regularly scheduled meetings, visits, and calls requested by parishioners.

Other

I presented a paper entitled “What is Commonly Believed Among Us Today” to the Prairie Group, a ministers study group I belong to. I am leading the District Board Meeting at the First Unitarian Church of Alton, IL Friday 11-16-07 through Saturday.

The 2008 UUA directory is out, and our flag (with 14 others) is on the cover.

A Time of Remembrance

2007-10-31T10:17:00.000-07:00

The first quarter has ended in some schools, and all the schedules– church, school, work– seem to be speeding up toward the end of the calendar year and the quiet of winter. Even the leaves of trees move through their colors and cycles at a quickened pace.

Despite our speeded up schedules, November is the time to remember to be thankful. We take a moment to celebrate the abundance around us. This time of celebration can help us to enter winter’s chill with a feeling of warmth and fullness.

We come to church and see people we know, people we care about. We meet newcomers, greet old-timers, we are acknowledged by our co-religionists in return. We feast together on Sunday mornings and discuss our dreams on a weekday evening. We gather to meet and plan and do good works.

Part of celebrating abundance comes through sharing it. We remember children and women and men at risk because of poverty, abuse, and neglect. We are reminded that though there is food to feed the world, that’s not the way it gets distributed.

At Eliot, some of us will drive, cook, launder, and host the homeless right in our church through the Room At The Inn program. We will collect for the St Louis Area Food Bank and for our Partner Church this month in order to live out our values and in order to celebrate our abundance through generosity.

This month, let us set aside some special time to be thankful for the community we have, to appreciate the abundance of love and support we feel at church. Perhaps you could tell someone you're really glad they are here at Eliot. Let us remember to extend this feeling of abundance to the new people and visitors who come to be part of us.

The end of November brings the beginning of our annual Madrigal– a renaissance dinner theater with fabulous singing and food and the efforts of dozens and dozens of volunteers working in an enormous variety of capacities. Hint: if you're looking to make a friend or two or five, volunteering to work on the Madrigal is a sure fire bet.

May your November be a time of appreciation.

October 2007 Board Report

2007-10-12T09:18:00.000-07:00

Lead Minister’s Report to the Board of Trustees
October 10, 2007

Last year's goals were: (1) Assure worship services are meaningful and challenging; (2) Oversee financial stewardship; (3) Supervise and develop staff; (4) Administer Chapel business; (5) regular social & pastoral contact.

The Personnel Committee and I are working on specifics for implementing this year's goals. If the primary goals, 1-5 above don't change, then in working with lay and paid staff, I would plan on offering the following ideas to be completed by or before the end of the program year (June 2008):

In the area of overseeing financial stewardship:

Establish a legacy gifts and bequests program to help ensure Eliot's financial future.
Provide more complete detail to the Personnel Committee regarding all compensation and benefits, current and proposed, so they are fully informed and can counsel the board and congregation at large.
Develop a written procedure (including a possible board policy) for responding to member inquiries concerning salaries, contracts, and other sensitive financial matters, in order to provide more transparency while retaining a degree of confidentiality.
Provide quarterly budget updates for the next fiscal year, so the board is more fully informed of likely directions of the discretionary portion of the budget.

In the area of staff development:

Complete the employee succession project (this is rather large, and some of it is confidential) to more fully comply with the governance policies.
Convert all job descriptions to a standardized Position Description and Memorandum of Understanding to ensure equitable treatment to more fully comply with the governance policies.

In the area of administering Chapel business:

Improve church communications and outreach by an updated and more functional church web site, calendar, and electronic communications.
Continue to implement KEB recommendations regarding financial administration, and report progress to the board.
Assist the Treasurer and Business Administrator in improving financial administration by development of a "dashboard financials" document or procedures as determined by the Treasurer to show the congregation that the church finances are in order and are being well managed.
Update, post, and provide to the board, a complete employee and church procedures manual.

In the area of regular social & pastoral contact:

A monthly visit (e.g., lunch) with a large donor, or past or current lay leader, in order to more fully cover some pastoral needs.
Two pastoral outreach calls per week.
The above is in addition to the regularly scheduled meetings, visits, and calls requested by parishioners.

Here is this month's board report–

Worship Services.

The Senior High youth participated in the Sunday service twice so far, with good results. I have met with them twice also. I plan on continuing the practice where most Sundays I preach, I will be in with the Senior High for the first half of the service, then come in to the sanctuary to lead the second half of the service. Senior High attendance usually begins to drop off by this time in the program year, but it hasn't yet.
Our Founder's Day service was well received.
I will be doing a Family Worship Service this Sunday (10/14) at both services in Adams' Hall.
I will be doing a pulpit exchange with Rev. Suzanne Meyer the following Sunday (10/21) for the UUA's Association Sunday. We will take a collection for the UUA's Capital Campaign at that time. We will be draping a huge banner across the back of the sanctuary. I will be pledging $100 to the effort.

Oversee financial stewardship .

I met with Brian Krippner to discuss the dashboard design process and KEB involvement. We discussed the previous KEB process, the general financial health of the Chapel, possible board goals for me, and how he and I and JoAnn can work together to increase financial transparency. I understand Brian will take the lead in designing and implementing the "dashboard financials" process with JoAnn (and I) providing the support he needs. We talked in general terms about what level of information should be supplied to various groups. It is my understanding that he will do some more investigation with individuals or groups on his own, and come up with some protocols. He will also decide on whether to advise us to use KEB again or not.
I think our board retreat (9/22) went very well. I am pleased we got board goals out of it, and look forward to the board's reporting on goals and increasing its communications with the congregation.

Staff.

I continue to meet with staff in a variety of configurations. Rev. Bonnie and I met with John Robinson. I am working on succession planning. I can talk more about this in executive session.

Administer Chapel business.

I met with the president of the Women's Alliance to discuss space use issues.
I worked on responding (again) to last year's Lead Minister Review (I had already done this in May), and then discovered a mis-communication. So, now I will be giving a draft of this year's goals to the Personnel Committee by the end of this week. It is essentially included above. They will review my draft and make suggested emendations.
I met again with Bill Miller, and will be bringing him on as a contractor / consultant, specifically to advise me on administrative management, succession planning, and legacy gifts. This will be a revenue neutral change to the budget. Bill and I will likely meet weekly for ½ hour to an hour. I prepared a Position Description and a Memorandum of Understanding.
The Social Action Committee has decided not to continue with the Christmas Bazaar. So, the office will coordinate a 2 Sunday event. It will be first come, first served on a coffee table sized place. Vendors (Eliot members or friends) will have two options: 100% of proceeds to a charity of their choice, or a 50-50 split between the vendor and the charity known as Eliot Chapel. This will operate on the honor system, but we will keep track of money raised for charities– to whom, and how much. There will be a blurb in the newsletter explaining everything.

Social and Pastoral Contact.

I continue to meet with people informally. I am arranging for lunch or other kinds of meetings with large donors and with "sidelined" members (members formerly active, who have moved off to the sidelines to some degree). I am coordinating this effort with our Membership Coordinator, Jennifer Kirkton.

Other

I will be presiding over the monthly meeting of the Bi-statue UU Ministers meeting, on Thursday, hosted at Alton. We will be planning the big opening celebration for District Assembly to be held at the Hilton in Frontenac from Friday, April 25 through Sunday, April 27, 2008. Save the date!
I am still working on a paper entitled "What is Commonly Believed Among Us" for the Prairie Group, a scholarly ministers group which meets in November at Pere Marquette Lodge in Grafton, IL.
Bonnie and I are having extensive renovation work done on our house (kitchen & bathroom floors, new shower, new stove).

New Faces, New Friends

2007-09-20T08:28:00.000-07:00

New Faces, New Friends

We have hired a new Membership Coordinator– Jennifer Kirkton-Foss. You can read more about her in her newsletter column.

One of the challenges for a congregation the size of Eliot Unitarian Chapel is how to make friends. Perhaps the most straightforward way is to join a Covenant Group or committee. But even that can be confusing sometimes.

Our membership coordinator has 3 primary areas of work: newcomers (people who have visited us 2 or more times and are interested in the next step); members through their first year of membership; and old timers (everyone else). Jennifer will also be working with our membership database, Membership Committee, and me to work on membership satisfaction information gathering.

You will probably see Jennifer on Sunday mornings greeting at one of the entrances, or soon, introducing herself from the pulpit.

On a broader scale, you can meet UUs from all over the Central Midwest District. The District is comprised of some 11,000 UUs from eastern Missouri, all of Illinois, south east Wisconsin, and slivers of Indiana and Michigan.

This year's District Assembly will be held in St Louis at the Hilton Hotel in Frontenac from Friday night, April 25 through Sunday, April 27, 2008. The St Louis area ministers and musicians will be taking part in the fabulous Friday night kick off, introduced by yours truly.

Friday night has a banner parade, and a big celebration with a half dozen ministers, scores of singers, and it will be a "family friendly event," meaning the content will be pitched such that 11 year olds should be able to be engaged (for most of it).

Saturday will see a keynote speech about the UU church in the 21^st century, along with a workshop on innovative worship ideas, plus a lot more.

There are opportunities to– among other things– be greeters at the hotel, staff the bookstore, or provide home hospitality, One thing is for sure, there will be lots of UUs in St Louis that weekend. You can find out more here.

If you haven't done so already, check out our Information Guide in Visitor's Corner, and in our newsletter for a listing of all the programs, events, and classes coming up.

Daniel

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day!

2007-09-19T11:03:00.000-07:00

Celebration Sunday Date Set

2007-09-06T08:28:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone:

It looks like we have the Kirkwood Community Center for Canvass Sunday on 2/10/08. We will have a single service at 10 am.We will want as many musical, program, RE, and other groups to participate as possible. I plan on doing a UU revival service. We will take pledge cards at the very end of the service. We want to show off our talents, programs, people, and energy in the most energetic and satisfying way.

So! In the months to come, I'd like the staff to start generating ideas for music, reading, testimonials, etcetera. The lay canvass leadership will likely also contribute ideas and especially the collection coordination, logistics, etcetera. This will be BIG.

Here's the time breakdown:

Theatre for church service at 10:00 a.m., approximately one hour (9:00 a.m. – 12 noon, including one hour before and after for set up and clean up).

Gymnasium for a brunch or potluck at 11:00, approximately two hours (10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m., including one hour before and after for set up and clean up).

Daniel

P.S. This changes the February 2008 Sunday Service Schedule. I will email out an update to the OOS List and any board member who wants one.

2007-2008 Service Topics

2007-08-23T09:06:00.000-07:00

Below is the draft list of sermon and service topics for 2007-2008. If you have any ideas you would like considered for a sermon or service, please don't hesitate to contact me and let me know.

Thanks!

Sunday Services 2007-2008
Last Updated: August 23, 2007 (11:10am). These dates & topics will change without notice. For the really up to date list, consult www.eliotchapel.org web site or the printed newsletter.

September 9, 2007. Leading From Strength. Let's say your kid or employee comes to you with 3 As, 2 Bs, and an F. What do you spend the most time talking about? Do we make the most progress fixing our weaknesses or building our strengths? Our annual Ingathering Service. We begin our program year service times of 9 and 11:30 am, led by the Rev. Dr. Daniel ÓConnell.

September 16, 2007. Longing. Where does our sense of incompleteness lie? Where does it come from? Where does it go? Why do we hate it and yet sometimes yearn to wallow in it? How do we deal with it? Led by the Rev. Dr. Daniel ÓConnell.

September 23, 2007. Mistakes? Me? Why do we dodge responsibility so thoroughly? Or get caught up in endless nit picking about who "is right?" Why can we see hypocrisy in others but not in ourselves? We will look at some recent research in social psychology. Led by the Rev. Dr. Daniel ÓConnell.

September 30, 2007. Politics in Process. What would our country look like if all the winners in 2008 were process theologians? Led by the Rev. Dr. Susan Videen.

October 7, 2007. Founder's Day. How did we get here? Who brought us here? Where are we going? We celebrate our 49th year. Led by the Rev. Dr. Daniel ÓConnell.

October 14, 2007. TBA. Led by our intern minister, David Breeden. Our 1st of 3 Town Hall meetings is at noon today.

October 21, 2007. Association Sunday. We do not practice Unitarian Universalism in a vacuum. All over the USA today and last week, UU congregations celebrate our commonality. The Rev. Suzanne Meyer will preach here, while I preach from her pulpit at the First Unitarian Church of St. Louis, MO.

October 28, 2007. The End of Democracy. In a rare sermon on politics, I look at the steps between democracy and fascism and consider how far we've moved down that path. Led by the Rev. Dr. Daniel ÓConnell.

November 4, 2007. TBA. Led by our intern minister, David Breeden. Daylight Savings Time ends today.

November 11, 2007. TBA. Guest Preacher.

November 18, 2007. Bread Communion. Our annual intergenerational Eliot Thanksgiving. Three services: 9:15, 10:15, and 11:15 am. Reverends Daniel ÓConnell & Bonnie Vegiard, and our intern David Breeden will lead the service.

November 25, 2007. TBA. Rev. Dick Haynes, Eliot Community Minister. Services at 9:30 and 11 am.

December 2, 2007. Highly Unlikely. When certain wildly unpredictable events happen– like 9/11 or the Google phenomenon, we spin a back story to make sense of it all. But if we want to tell the truth to ourselves, we have to tell a different story. Led by the Rev. Dr. Daniel ÓConnell.

December 9, 2007. Christmas Pageant. Our annual intergenerational service where our children show us the story of Christmas. Service coordinated by Rev. Bonnie Vegiard, Joan Casey, DRE, and many, many other helpers.

December 16, 2007. Making Peace with Reality. The desire to argue with reality can withstand all sorts of struggle. Sometimes we don't want to let go, forgive, forget, or move on. What to do then? Taoism has some answers. Led by the Rev. Dr. Daniel ÓConnell.

December 23, 2007. TBA. Led by the Rev. Bonnie Vegiard.

December 24, 2007. Christmas Eve. Four traditional services: 5, 6:30, 8, and 10 pm.

December 30, 2007. TBA. Led by our intern minister, David Breeden. A single service at 10 am.

January 6, 2008. Circle of Life. Our annual remembrance of births, marriages & unions, and deaths. Service by the Reverends Bonnie Vegiard & Dr. Daniel ÓConnell. Services at 9:30 and 11 am.

January 13, 2008. TBA. Led by the Rev. Bonnie Vegiard.

January 20, 2008. TBA. Human Justice Sunday. Guest Speaker from Social Action Committee.

January 27, 2008. Blink and Miss. It's easy to ignore what we don't want to see. But then we can miss what's most important. Led by the Rev. Dr. Daniel ÓConnell. Our 2nd of 3 Town Hall meetings is at noon today.

February 3, 2008. Self-Made Man. We explore the construction of gender and reflect on what a woman learned after posing as a man for a year. Led by the Rev. Dr. Daniel ÓConnell.

February 10, 2008. Music Sunday. Our 5th annual musical extravaganza. Led by our Music Director, Jan Chamberlin, and our Choir Director, Leon Burke, III..

February 17, 2008. Money for Nothing. How can we be rich and bored? Maybe "The Secret" can help? Led by the Rev. Dr. Daniel ÓConnell.

February 24, 2008. Celebration Sunday. We will be meeting off site to celebrate everything Eliot means to us in ONE big service with all kinds of production values and FOOD. You won't want to miss this! A REVIVAL SERVICE Led by the Rev. Dr. Daniel ÓConnell, and many, many others.

March 2, 2008. Youth Service. Our Senior High will lead our service today.

March 9, 2008. Evil. Religious Liberals generally don't talk about this much. But sometimes we have to. Led by the Rev. Dr. Daniel ÓConnell. Daylight Savings Time starts today.

March 16, 2008. TBA. Led by our intern minister, David Breeden.

March 23, 2008. Easter. Three Easter services at 9:15, 10:15, and 11:15 am. A UU communion ceremony commemorating the life and deeds of Jesus will be offered at the end of the first two services. Led by the Rev. Dr. Daniel ÓConnell.

March 30, 2008. Our Common Beliefs. UUs don't have beliefs in common, right? We'll see. Led by the Rev. Dr. Daniel ÓConnell. Our 3rd of 3 Town Hall meetings is at noon today.

April 6, 2008. TBA. Led by the Rev. Dr. Daniel ÓConnell.

April 13, 2008. UUSC Sunday. Special Guest Speaker.

April 20, 2008. Bankers to the Poor. One man began lending small change to poor women in the third world and has lifted thousands out of poverty. Can we help, too? Led by the Rev. Dr. Daniel ÓConnell.

April 27, 2008. TBA. Led by our intern minister, David Breeden.

May 4, 2008. TBA. Led by the Rev. Bonnie Vegiard.

May 11, 2008. Flower Communion. Our annual Mother's Day and Flower Communion Service.

May 18, 2008. The Politically Incorrect Truth. There are certain things we might not like to admit that are nevertheless true. Led by the Rev. Dr. Daniel ÓConnell. One service at 9 am, followed by our annual meeting at 11 am.

May 25, 2008. Animal Blessing Sunday. Our annual event, led by the Rev. Dr. Susan Videen. One service at 10 am today.

June 1, 2008. Graduation. We honor our junior and senior high students at their time of graduation. Service by the Rev. Bonnie Vegiard, Joan Casey, and others.

June 8, 2008. TBA. A swan song service. Led by our intern minister, David Breeden.

June 15, 2008. Father's Day. Today begins our summer services– a single service at 10 am, through Labor Day. Look for another insert on our summer services.

2007 Annual Meeting Review

2007-05-24T08:54:00.000-07:00

Annual Meeting Review
May 20, 2007

I thought it was a pretty good annual meeting, with a good turn out. We held the annual meeting in place of the 2nd service on Sunday May 20. It felt a little odd to only preach once on a Sunday, but the idea was that we would have 2 RE programs as we normally do. That way parents of children could attend the 9:30 service and the 11:00 am meeting, while their children went to RE classes twice, with 2 different sets of teachers, etc. I don't have hard numbers, but just from looking, I'd say attendance at this year's annual meeting was a little better than last year.

Outgoing President Mary Quinn kept things moving and honored some staff and committee chairs. After some important discussion, the Asset Management Task Force proposal passed easily,.

I heard comments of concern about several key areas: financial transparency, loss of old members, membership numbers, and the Pet Blessing service on Memorial Day weekend.

Transparency about the budget.

It was pointed out that what was shown to the congregation was a summary, and not an in depth report that would show, for example, what we're paying for building or health insurance, and salaries for individual employees.

Another issue was seeing exactly what was spent on say– building and grounds in the last year. Although this wasn't brought up at the meeting, saying what was spent on building and grounds in a particular time period isn't as straightforward as it sounds because we have line items for utilities, contract labor, building repair, and so forth, any one of which, a portion could be considered for buildings and grounds. The "contractor" line item not only pays for building contractors but for our musical accompanists.

It was clear to me that the sense of the meeting is– and was at the last Town Hall meeting– that we need a financial reporting system that better serves what people want than the current system. So, as I understand it, the Congregational Treasurer and the Business Administrator, perhaps along with the Finance Committee, will take some time in the coming program year to develop more financial reporting transparency, and perhaps a "dashboard" which would contain a half dozen to 10 key metrics as to spending and budgeting.

The board of trustees already hears from the Business Administrator as to the monthly budget variances (if any), and while most people in the congregation aren't interested in monthly financial reports, that information should be available to congregational members and to committees who have an interest in a particular budget area.

It was also pointed out that (1) there used to be a budget "hearing" in advance of the annual meeting, so people could ask more in depth questions there rather than at the annual meeting, and (2) such meetings were so poorly attended that it was decided to stop having them. Nevertheless, it seems that bringing back such a meeting will be a good idea. So, I for one, will plan on it, probably a week or so before the annual meeting in May.

There was some confusion as to committee budgets– most committees don't make budget requests anymore (a few do), and the budget has been relatively static. There was some question as to whether committees get monthly budget reports or not. I'll ask our Business Administrator to make sure these get sent monthly.

Loss of old members.

A couple people pointed out that some members of Eliot have left over the last several years. It was also noted that over 50 new members were listed in the Sunday bulletin, but what about the old folks who used to be here?

Rev. John Robinson, the minister who retired before I got here told me that something like 1/3 of the congregation turned over during his first couple of years at Eliot. His personality and style were substantially different from his predecessor, Rev. Webster Kitchell. My personality and style is probably as different from Rev. Robinson's as his was to Rev. Kitchell's.

I've also read that on average about half of a UU congregation will turn over every 8 years, with the number being slightly smaller for larger congregations like ours.

Bonnie and I have been here 5 years now. When one prominent lay person told me she was leaving to go to 1st Church, I asked her if there was anything I could do to change her mind. She told me no, she preferred the minister over there, and that people's personalities are who they are.

I and our Membership Coordinator have made some inquiries, and heard good stories. People mostly make up their minds as to their satisfaction and commitment to church on their own. And we will continue to reach out, but in a more coordinated effort in this coming year. This is something new, it hasn't been done before, and it is an effort to reach out to long time members and to those in their first year of membership to make sure we are doing what we can to help folks fit in and find a place at Eliot.

Of course, if someone is on the verge of leaving because they are upset about something– perhaps they have an issue with a minister or staff member or church program, it is wonderful if they would tell someone. We can't read minds. It's great to approach someone directly, but there is always the Lead Minister's Relations Committee (LMRC) which is composed of Luis Ortiz, Julie Triplett, Rich Vaughn, Kathleen Mead, and Kim Fitzgerald.

With our LMRC and membership coordinator, plus any tips I get at coffee hour, I plan on phone calls and visits and emails to try and keep in touch. If you or someone you know would like to chat over lunch or over the phone or at church, please let me know.

Membership numbers.

Someone wondered aloud if Eliot had not shrunk in membership in the last few years. They recalled hearing a figure of 770 members.

From 1984 to 1994, the number of adults ranged from 402 to 458, and the number of kids from 183 to 295. From 1996 on the number of adults has hovered in the 550 range. Right before Rev. Robinson retired, the membership rolls were scrubbed to remove people who had died, left town, that sort of thing. In February 2002, just before we arrived, the reported membership was 576. In February 2007, the reported membership was 522. As of the annual meeting, membership was at 548.

You can also look at congregational commitment in terms of total expenditures. Other than a blip in 2002, there has been a steady upward progression.

1999 $443,600
2000 $474,820
2001 $488,200
2002 $527,000
2003 $497,000
2004 $497,000
2005 $499,000
2006 $516,500.

Memorial Day Service.

Several people balked at the notion of a Pet Blessing Sunday being held on Memorial Day. That has been the tradition since before I got here. It's probably one of those Sundays– like Easter– where some people come and love it, and others stay away. I have heard it is very meaningful for the people who come. It is also a Bergfried weekend, so it doesn't fit the "regular" Sunday format.

We do pay extra attention to our veterans during the Sunday closest to Veteran's Day, and to our own Eliot folks who have passed on at our Circle of Life service the first Sunday of the calendar year.

I appreciate the thoughtfulness of people at the annual meeting. I especially appreciate the hard work of our board of trustees and lay leaders. Everyone is trying their best to be earnest, authentic, and to do what's best for the congregation's future.

It is a blessing to be together. –Daniel.

Genius Ignored

2007-05-11T09:24:00.001-07:00

Genius Ignored

Earlier this year, a 30-something man, wearing a ball cap, long sleeved tee shirt and jeans played violin in a subway tunnel, at the top of an escalator in Washington, DC next to a trash basket. He had his violin case near him. An occasional passerby would toss him some change.

He had a couple people pause, slow down. Over the course of 45 minutes that morning he played a variety of classical pieces, including Chaconne from Bach's Partita #2 in D minor, considered one of the most difficult violin pieces to master (according to the Washington Post).

The subway violinist, Joshua Bell, routinely fills concert halls around the world, and is considered one of the finest classical musicians in the world. He was playing "some of the most elegant music ever written on a $3.5 million Stradivarius."

What happened? Over 1,000 people simply walked by. At a music hall, Mr. Bell might get upset at a cell phone call. In the subway, he admits he would have been happy with any acknowledgment.

As Unitarian Universalists, we affirm the inherent worth & dignity of every person. But I know that in my rush to get things done– people to visit, promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep– I can miss beauty, I can miss genius, I can miss the ordinary wonderfulness that is all around me.

Are you feeling rushed and overburdened? Do you have time for beauty?

Not all of us are virtuosos, but we each bring something unique and interesting to our religious community. We can each be a witness to beauty as well as truth.

There is one curious thing about the violinist in the subway. There was one class of people who tried to stop and listen, but they were physically pulled away– children. Sometimes our children are our best guide to the opportunity to get out of heads and experience beauty & wonder.

May your actual children or inner child stop for beauty, because if you don't, what else are you missing?

Mens' Advance in Review

2007-05-06T19:29:00.002-07:00

Men's Advance in Review

I think there were something like 30 men at any given time, maybe 40 men total over the weekend. Someone had arrived Tuesday, another arrived Thursday but left before Saturday-- such is the nature of fitting communing with nature into your schedule.

The age range of the men at Mens' Advance was from 10 to 60+. The food was better than ever. The pig was good, and we had asparagus, fruit compote, creamed corn, and 3 different kinds of pie. Not to mention the beverages of all sorts.

A little early for the morel mushrooms, but plenty of box turtles, june bugs, ticks, and taningers.

The weather was quite unusual. No rain. I've been told this has been the case in maybe 5 of the last 17 mens' advances. Plus it was cloudy Sunday morning, which meant the sun wasn't streaming in to the tents and heating them up by 7 am, so one could sleep in a little, if one liked.

The camaraderie was excellent as usual-- that's really the main reason to go. The check-in Saturday night was emotionally significant, and honored each man's story and contributions.

Did I mention the weather was beautiful?

Town Hall Meeting Reviewed

2007-05-02T08:02:00.000-07:00

Town Hall Meeting Reviewed
Held after services on Earth Day, April 22, 2007

Although an 'official' transcript of what was discussed at the Town Hall Meeting is forthcoming, I thought I'd share some thoughts here.

Advance Notice of the Town Hall Meeting's Purpose?

Several people at the meeting said that there was no advance notice of the meeting's content purpose. The reality is that newsletter articles were posted on April 7 and on April 21. Additionally, there was almost a full page article in the March 10 newsletter about the Asset Management Task Force (AMTF).

Fairly regularly, individuals will complain that they haven't been informed about something when the information was printed in their newsletter, in their order of service, on the web site, and occasionally announced from the pulpit. To some degree, communication is a two way street. It won't do us much good to put it in the newsletter if people won't read it.

The AMTF looked at our 1998 Bergfried policy, and how restricted funds are designated. You can read more about their recommendations in the newsletter and on the web site. Basically, it says the 1998 Bergfried policy statement is pretty good, but it doesn't reflect actual practice. So the principles will be the same, but the language will be updated. Also, that there should be a board representative to the Bergfried Committee, that incoming board members should visit the Bergfried property, among other things.

Transparency & Accountability in Financial Matters.

Some folks said they wanted Chapel financial information in an easier to understand format than the monthly balance sheets we currently post on the Trustee section of the bulletin board in between the sanctuary and the fellowship hall. One man noted he's reduced his financial pledge to zero because of his frustration.

I noted that I too was frustrated with our system and that the board and I had engaged a consulting firm (KEB) to document our administrative procedures, and that we had some administrative process issues involved.

Meanwhile, I am asking the congregation's treasurer and our business administrator to get together and see if they can come up with something more in keeping with what will be useful to people.

Building and Capital Advisory Committee.

Board president Mary Quinn noted that a task force was being organized to look at our building usage and repair. She also noted that although we have over $100,000 in the Preservation Fund to patch up the sanctuary, it is likely we will need another capital campaign (the last one ended several years ago) to replenish the funds.

Opportunity for Input.

A long time member was concerned that the attendance did not seem to be high at the town hall meeting, and that there should be more frequent meetings and that younger people should attend.

My sense is that we could schedule more town hall meetings, but I don't know about the attendance. I agree more regular congregational input can be a good thing. Perhaps we could do electronic surveys, or somehow give folks more opportunities to be consulted in ways they would actually take advantage of.

Something to remember is that often times, people won't attend a congregational or town hall meeting when they think things are going well– why bother? They may be more likely to attend when they have a beef or are unhappy about something. When that's the case, it can skew the tenor of a meeting.

Congregational Delegates and Voting.

Eliot Chapel gets more delegate slots for General Assembly (UUA) and District Assembly (DA - for Central Midwest District) than we usually have people willing to attend.

The story is that before Bonnie and I got here, no one acted as a delegate from Eliot Unitarian Chapel to either GA or DA. Occasionally, there is something important to vote on. There is usually a Social Action Initiative or bylaw change or election at the GA or DA.

Who gets to be a delegate? Since there was no process or call for a process before Bonnie and I got here, and since there have always been more delegate slots than actual delegates, the de facto process that evolved was that if someone wanted to be a delegate, they contacted me, and as along as they were a member of Eliot in good standing, they became a delegate.

One criticism of DA & GA delegates is that they tend to vote their individual whim, rather than the considered deliberation of the congregation or the congregation's leadership. This leads to the charge that decisions made at GA (in particular) do not accurately reflect a congregational wishes, and that in fact, congregations are largely in the dark regarding what happens at GA, and therefore GA resolutions and business have little connection to congregational life.

The people who run GA recognize that, which is one reason why they have encouraged congregational presidents to attend GA as delegates by refunding their registration fees.

In the last couple of years, I have asked people to be a delegate for the purpose of an absentee ballot, so we could begin to participate more in the wider denomination. I have laid out what the matter is to be decided, and what my opinion was, then asked them to make their own choice. After tallying up all the choices, the majority opinion was voted on by all absentee ballots. This ensured a democratic decision was reached, and that the congregation spoke "with one voice" rather than the many individual voices of whoever happened to self-select as a delegate.

This approach was challenged at the Town Hall Meeting in the sense that one person in particular thought that those delegates who attended a DA or GA meeting ought to be able to vote their (the delegate's) opinion and not the board or congregation's opinion because the delegate might learn something at the meeting that the congregation could not have known about in advance.

This makes a certain amount of sense to me, and I will discuss it with the particular individual and with our congregation's board of trustees. Ultimately, we'll do a survey via order of service or newsletter or internet survey, to get the congregational opinion.

Want to give input?

Meanwhile, if you have input on the delegate process, transparency in financial matters, or anything else, feel free to contact me at daniel at eliotchapel dot org or (314) 821-0911.

Thanks!

More on the Easter Communion

2007-04-24T13:12:00.000-07:00

I received this email recently, and the sender gave me permission to share it here.

I just wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed the Easter Communion. I thought it was a lovely way to celebrate community and to embrace traditions other than our own (a truly Unitarian concept). I was shocked that anyone had such a "problem" with it.

The truth is, every religion has beautiful elements and as Unitarians, we should have no problem honoring those elements and stepping outside of our notions of what is and isn't Unitarian. I hope that the Unitarian communion will return next year and that perhaps, with a little pre-emptive encouragement and mind-opening sermon, people will see how a long standing christian tradition can take on new meanings for each individual in the congregation.

I was raised Unitarian (at Eliot Chapel no less), and the only thing I've ever wanted more of in my church is more ritual and ceremony because, like paintings or music, I think they can become unique spiritual experiences for each person who opens their heart to it. Isn't that a large part of what Unitarianism is?

Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I loved the Easter service and think that the communion was a wonderful symol of coming together and sharing. Thank you.

Laura L. Hepburn

UU Communion Connection?

2007-04-24T08:02:00.000-07:00

UU Communion Connection?

After church on Easter Sunday, someone asked why our Unitarian Universalist church would have communion. After all, wasn’t that Christian?

I think are several fold implications: communion is a Christian activity; UUs, are not by and large, Christian. So why the ceremony?

Of course the reality is that both Unitarianism and Universalism were (and still are), historical Christian doctrines. While it is true that most UUs would not consider themselves, or be considered by others, as traditional Christians, it is true that there are at least 6 sources to our faith, including “Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves.”

The Christian communion service was based on Jesus’ last supper– itself a Jewish Passover meal. Long before Passover, religious people used food and drink to cement their bond, and to recall religious rituals.

Similarly, at Eliot Unitarian Chapel, we use Bread Communion (the Sunday before Thanksgiving) to recall our various cultural heritages, and how they inform who we are in our local and regional areas. We sing ‘America the Beautiful’ even if we’re unhappy with our current political administration, because we find it important to be reminded that despite our diverse backgrounds, we commit to a common ideal.

Similarly, when we celebrate a Universalist Christian communion at Easter, we are reminded that “we need not believe alike to love alike,” in the words of Unitarian martyr, Francis David.

Easter communion is a ritual to remind us of the life and deeds of Jesus. We do not affirm some sort of gnostic “blood and body” theology, and we don’t tend to subscribe to the notion that “Jesus died for our sins.” Instead we remember his amazing ministry in just 3 short years and how it changed history forever. That’s the connection.

–Daniel