Sing and Rejoice!
Rev. Katie's Animas View
 
Summer Travel
Summer solstice arrives on June 20th and we're jumping right in to all the summer activities. My schedule this summer includes traveling for ministry as well as the vacation provided in my letter of agreement. The last week in June I'll be attending Ministry Days and then General Assembly in Columbus, Ohio. Later in July, I'll be attending an anniversary pilgrimage to historic roots of Unitarianism, Transylvania. I will take a bit of vacation in June, some in July, and the remainder at the beginning of August. I'll return to the Fellowship on August 16th. I will be in the church office one week in July just before our Four Corners Retreat.
 
Summer Reading
I always like to share a summer reading schedule, even if I don't get to all the books. Here's what's intriguing me for this summer:
  1. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. This is the book that inspired the popular Broadway play.
  2. Witness to War: An American Doctor in El Salvador by Charlie Clements. One of our congregation's Social Justice team leaders wrote this book in 1984. It's available at the Social Justice table.
  3. Black Dog of Fate: An American son Uncovers His Armenian Past by Peter Balakian. My list last year had an Armenian novel-this memoir was suggested by another Armenian.
  4. the life-changing magic of ...[caring less] by Sarah Knight. This book is a "practical parody" of the Marie Kondo book and it focuses on people instead of things.
  5. I'm leaving this spot open for a novel that sounds interesting. Any ideas for me?
 
For September  
Please make it a priority for your calendaring to attend the historic installation ceremony for the first settled minister at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Durango. It'll be held Sunday, September 25th at 4pm. We will welcome dignitaries from Durango, and clergy colleagues from inside and outside Durango. A special reception will follow.
 
May you have a summer full of beauty and joy.
 
Love,
 
Rev. Katie



June Sunday Services

Sunburst This month's theme: Sing and Rejoice
As we come to the end of the traditional church year, we have much to celebrate!       
Concepts: Celebration, joy, appreciation
 
June 5           
Lean on Me                   
Rev. Katie Kandarian-Morris & Lisa McCorry
We affirm our ministry with children and youth by acknowledging the complex and wonderful ways teaching is an exercise in faith development for the teachers. Teaching and learning is reciprocal - what a gift!

June 12   
Wholeheartedness Interrupted                        
Kathleen Adams, pulpit guest  
What are the highs of making a difference in others' lives and the risks of letting go of those opportunities?
 
June 19                  
His Father's Pulpit                             
Rev. Katie Kandarian-Morris  
Thomas Starr King was not only one of the fathers of Unitarian and Universalism, but during the Civil War, he's credited with saving California for the Union.  How might we learn from his legacy?
 
Summer Series: Stories of Transformation
 
June 26
Navigating Our Way to an Authentic Life 
Like a ship at sea, the task of recharting our life direction in middle age can be daunting. What are some of the celestial markers that help us find our way to new shores?


Social Responsibility and Justice opportunities  
Coordinators:  Charlie Clements, Bonnie Miller, Betty Schwartz-Bozeman
 
Consulting with a number of members of the congregation and Rev. Katie Kandarian-Morris, the Social Responsibility & Justice (SRJ) Coordinators - Betty Schwarz-Bozeman, Bonnie Miller, and Charlie Clements - are consolidating the Fellowships' activities with deeper involvement in fewer directions. Some of the questions that have guided their efforts are:  1) Where do we have leadership and passion within the congregation? 2) How can we make concrete, measurable differences in and around Durango? 3) How can we make it easier for volunteers to become involved in these activities on a regular basis, especially youth? 4) What are ways we can make service fun as well as rewarding and connect to the broader community in Durango?

These reflections have resulted in three primary umbrellas of activity:  Healing Racism, Supporting LGBTQ Issues, and Meeting Basic Needs. Issues such as hunger, un- or under employment, and lack of housing are all interrelated, and we hope to have volunteers make the connections between the reason for a living wage campaign in Durango (THRIVE), the shortage of low income housing, and the need for a soup kitchen like Manna or the Durango Food Bank. We hope to develop a few 'signature' events that are congregation and community-wide such as Love Out Loud on June 10th and 11th.  We will continue to support disaster relief, whether it is local or international, through UUSC's Rights at Risk in areas like Syria or the recent earthquake in Ecuador.

All of SRJ is a work in progress, so if you wish to become involved or help shape it, please contact one of the coordinators. 

Please join us in one or more of the upcoming events described below and contribute to our social justice mission.  Many of you told us through the comments you made at the Dream Makers dinners that, as we move forward into the future we desire, we want UUFD to have a strong presence in our community.  This is your chance to show up and make it be so!
 
Durango Pride Festival
The seventh year of the annual Pride Festival, organized by the Four Corners Alliance for Diversity, is June 22-26. Watch the Durango Herald for information about varying events during those days, but Saturday June 25 is the special Festival in the Park and we'd encourage everyone to attend.  Beginning at noon, Buckley Park will be filled with music, food, vendors and fun.  UUFD will have a booth again this year where we will give away colorful rainbow bracelets with our name on them, sweet treats, and information about who we are and what we stand for.  Our intention is carry out our welcoming commitment and witness our support for all LGBTQ individuals.
 
We need your help!  Can you volunteer to be in the UUFD booth for an hour or two? Help with setup or take down of the tent?  Bring a couple of tables and eight chairs from Bowman to Buckley?  Bring a clean empty gallon size plastic jug (we need 8) to help secure the tent? Donate some wrapped treats like Hershey's kisses, hard candies, or snacks?  If you can help, we much appreciate it and know it will contribute to making our presence at Pride Festival a meaningful and successful. Contact Bonnie Miller at yjmiller2@gmail.com.
 
Whether you come to volunteer or just to join in the event fun, wear your Standing on the Side of Love tee shirt to visibly express our message!

Love out Loud   (certainly sounds a lot like "service is its prayer"!)
With gratitude to our neighbors at First United Methodist Church, Christ the King Lutheran Church, and the River Church, we have an amazing opportunity to serve needs in our community and interact with other faith group members.  Together, we are the sponsors for this annual activity--this year taking place on June 11 and 12. One of our UUFD-recognized goals has been to have a larger presence in the community, and this is an amazing opportunity to do so while we serve/pray.  Visit this link or stop by the social justice tent/table to register for the activity you would prefer, and plan to attend the lunch at First UMC after noon on Sunday the 12th.  There are also spaces for table decorators for the lunch; see Marilyn Garst or Crystal Carroll if you would enjoy helping them.  Also, activity coordinators are needed to help with phone calls/reminders to volunteers; if that is your specialty, let us know.  


Youth News 
Our unstoppable origami crane folders

The UUFD youth have continued to fold origami cranes with the goal of having more bundles of one thousand cranes to present to people somewhere in the world who are in need of our awareness and to pass on wishes for good health and inspiration. They seem to be unstoppable!


Our first thousand were gifted to people of Sierra Leone to help them deal with the Ebola crisis.  We received a reply of gratitude back from our contacts  there.  Click here for the January 2015 article in the Durango Herald  about this gift.


The decision was made by the youth to gift their second bundle of one thousand cranes to the Community Shelter of Durango.  In early May, we cooked a meal at the shelter, which was followed by a ceremonial gifting of the bundle of cranes. After teaching the members of the Rainbow Youth Center how to fold cranes, we invited them to join us at the Shelter.  The residents seemed to be very interested in this gift. Their appreciation was passed along to us with a thank you note.


Now back to folding, we have about 400 cranes folded for the third bundle.  

Kathleen Adams, advisor



CUUPs Corner
Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans
 
A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.
-- St. Francis of Assisi

June is the month that earth-based religions celebrate the sun and the longest day of the year, Summer Solstice.  How many times do you find yourself grumping because the sun has come up and another day has dawned and you want to hit the snooze button for five more minutes of sleep to shut out the sun?  I think this is a natural part of being human.  It is easy for our intellect to understand the science behind the sun.  Simply put, we would not be here as we are without the sun.  But what about in your heart?  Come and join us at CUUPs as we honor the sun this month. We finish our candle making session by blessing the candles we have made, the single sun beam to drive away some shadow.  We finish our month with an overnight retreat in ceremony to honor the bright ball itself!  I look forward to seeing you there!

-Linda Gumper


Faith Formation News
Being the stable bow

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness.
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He also loves the bow that is stable.
-Kahlil Gibran

Parenting is the hardest job I've ever had. As parents, our hearts are opened, ready (or not) and willing to hold deep love and pain. Multiple times per day, we're faced with choices. Is this the mountain I'm willing to die on? Coats in the cold, flip flops in the snow, eating broccoli, eating food coloring, doing homework, wearing helmets, brushing teeth, showering frequency, the breakfast debate. (Because really, energy bars are just candy bars posing as health food.)

Given the choice, would a child choose to brush their teeth? Or floss? When I tell people about the wide world of children's and youth ministry in a liberal religious faith, they often say how wonderful that sounds and how much the kids must like it. Nope, I say, the model is the same. They still complain, don't want to go and say it's boring. Just like I did about my childhood faith upbringing. We remain stable when it comes to our children's hygiene, nourishment and education. Why not their spiritual well being?

With permission, I am honored to share an article written by Rev. Katie over a decade ago in the midst of mothering. 

-Lisa McCorry, Director of Faith Formation

A Minister Mother Muses About Sunday School

I always wonder about the appropriateness of bugging my own children to come to church  on Sunday morning. After all, I'm the minister there and I suppose it looks good to have my own children attending if I expect others to do the same. Then again, I suppose that's self-serving-it shouldn't be about my job, should it? 

Well, beside being a parish minister with the concerns of my professional persona, I am also a mother. I am a mother who cares deeply for her children, as I know do most UU parents of UU children. In that role, I take seriously my children's religious and spiritual development, just as seriously, in fact, as I take their academic and social development. 

My kids seem to be the typical American kids, teens at this point. I have a boy who is a senior this year, another who is a freshman, and a daughter in middle school. They are all happy and active. Many times  on Sunday mornings they wake up and as I struggle to get us dressed appropriately and all out the door, they complain and tell me they don't want to go. "I'm too tired mom; I was out late last night," or, "I'll just stay here today and clean up the kitchen and do my homework," or, "church is dumb, those boys drive me crazy." 

Sympathetic minister mother that I am, I nod understandingly (and hopefully, when I imagine coming home to a clean kitchen) and remember that I had liberal UU parents who listened to me when I said I didn't want to go to church that morning. What ended up happening in my youth is that the whole family stopped going to church altogether. 

I missed the experience of being a UU youth, of 15 years of Unitarian Universalism, since I didn't really go back until I had my own children. My mother went back too. 

Wouldn't it be a shame if I were that open-minded about my children's attendance in public school or participation at the dinner table or household responsibilities? Yes. I said above I believe in their academic, social, and athletic development, and their spiritual and religious development. I am their parent-I make them come to church. When they are 18, they can decide for themselves what they want to do about school, about religion. I hope they choose to continue in both, but if I give them a good start, there's a good chance that they will. 

-Rev. Katie Kandarian Willis, Starr King UU Church, Hayward 
UUMA News, September 2002 - The Newsletter of the Unitarian Universalists Ministers' Association




Sunday, Sept 25, 4:00 pm
Ceremony of Installation
UUFD Sanctuary

Save the date for this Ceremony of Installation, a celebratory service of formal recognition and covenant with our first minister, Rev. Katie Kandarian-Morris. We know it seems like a long way off, but this will be a special time for our congregation and for Rev. Katie, so we'd like to give you as much advance notice as we can. We hope to see you there!


Plan for Fun and FROLIC!
Co-chairs: Lynn Griffith, Connie Jacobs, Bonnie Miller
 
Yes, we are approaching the time again for our UUFD Frolic...an event where we raise money to support desired projects while having a great time with family and friends!  Please reserve the date of Saturday, October 15, on your calendar so you can join in the festivities. We promise to continue the tradition of yummy food, good drinks, entertainment and enticing items to bid on. 
 
The 2014 Frolic made possible some awesome projects - remodeling the two bathrooms in the main building to attractive gender-neutral facilities, adding fencing to the playground area to make a safer place for our children, upgrading the lighting in our Sanctuary, and providing an extraordinary new pulpit that brings an additional touch of beauty to the chancel area in the Sanctuary.  The Board will soon be considering our next most pressing needs to which we will dedicate Frolic funds.
 
We have an amazing history of success with the Frolic, much of which is due to the generous help of so many folks.  We need you to help us continue this tradition!  If you are willing to work on food for the event, entertainment, catalogue of donations, communications, setup and take down, or any of the assorted tasks for that evening, please let one of the co-chairs know.  We will be scheduling an initial planning meeting soon and hope that you can join us to share ideas for the event and help us get organized with the varying tasks. We are already looking forward to this community-building fun event and the potential of good work it will enable!



Meet Elizabeth Crawford
UUFD Member Spotlight
 
Elizabeth Crawford and husband Larry at the Taj Mahal in 2015.
I grew up in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, but left for college at age 17, and since then have lived in various cities across the U.S. and overseas.  My husband Larry and I, with our two teenaged daughters, moved to Durango in 2002 from Melbourne, Australia. 
 
I've completed undergraduate studies in English, Spanish and Music.  I hold an MBA in Finance and earned my Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation in 1991.  After a few years of teaching language in the U.S. and Spain, I pursued graduate studies in Finance and Investments.  I had a successful career as an investment portfolio manager in the U.S., and taught Finance at a major university in Melbourne, Australia.
 
Throughout my years working in other fields, I continued to study and perform music, and after moving back to the U.S. in 2002 I retired from the finance industry and pursued full-time music study and performance.  I became music director at the First United Methodist Church in Durango, and have also served as interim choir director at Christ the King Lutheran Church in Durango.  For the past decade I have sung and played flute/guitar/mandolin/mandola in ensembles and as a soloist with the Durango Choral Society mixed and women's choirs, various church choirs and praise bands, the Southwest Civic Winds, local chamber orchestras and festivals, and with the Vivace Mandolin Ensemble.  I am founder and Artistic Director of the Durango Chamber Singers.
 
I currently serve on the board of the Southwest Civic Winds, and am past president of the board of Adult Day Care at Our Place, where I continue to volunteer weekly.  I hike with my dogs, play golf (badly), and ski on "bluebird" days.
 
I was raised as a Presbyterian.  Many years ago, while living in New Jersey, I attended several UU services, which I found intellectually stimulating and free from ritual.  While that appealed to me, my familiarity with traditional church music and doctrine led me back to mainline churches.  Over the years, through a combination of maturity, religious study, world travel, and geopolitical events, my worldview evolved away from the traditional beliefs I was raised with.  In the spring of 2015 I began attending UUFD services, remembering the seed that had been planted all those years ago in New Jersey.  Here I felt no pressure to accept certain beliefs; I was stimulated and challenged by the Sunday topics and post-service discussions; I felt free to explore and openly discuss spiritual questions; I could leave behind the religion of my childhood and still be part of a community that lived out humanist principles.  I "signed the book" to join the UUFD in February 2016 so I could officially support its mission.
 
Larry and I have been married since 1985.  As a couple, recreation, cultural events, and travel keep us on the go, as do our children and grandchildren living in Durango, Salt Lake, and New York.


Pause for Poetry

Meeting every second Monday evening from 6 to  8 PM in Bowman Hall, the Poetry Circle invites guests to share their poetry and their favorites over light refreshments. Inquire and/or RSVP at  durangofolk@frontier.net.

               Spring on the Animas River
 
On an island beneath the bridge
A pair of Canadian Geese tended their nest 
Sitting through rain, cold and wind and -- all around, 
The rising, rushing surge of spring run-off.
 
One morning - only an empty nest, 
Shell fragments -the roiling waters.
On shore two geese, five tiny yellow goslings
               Stumbling through the grass
               Stabbing twigs and bugs
               Wandering off, tumbling into the river
               Scrambling back to shore. 
 
Imagining the moment - the command -
The  plop of heedless, tiny yellow bodies 
Striking out for shore  -- swimming 
Into their lives - buoyant as corks,
Already masters of the surging spring run-off.

Doreen Hunter

**
            Untitled

She awoke in a garden
Gone the forest home 
she spent years making
Gone the tropical heat and city life
Gone too the frozen earth of her youth
 
The garden
Inviting from inside and welcoming from without
A sunny, marble patio
A bamboo enclosed grassy sanctuary for chi to flow
A covered area to fend off showers with fireplace for cooler evenings.
 
The garden surrounded by chickens,
raised vegetable beds, ancient evergreens, a horseshoe pit
 and a long open grassy area for dog play.
The garden 
Circling her home with life, color,
Pleasing scents, energy and bird song.
 
The garden inviting, alive,
Surprises and delights around every corner
Protective, soul nurturing and spirit filled.
 
She awoke in a garden
Feeling her own roots,
Taking -
Feeling something long ago lost
Recaptured
Feeling finally home.

Dawenwalker