The Communicator
June 2020 Volume 37 Issue 6
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Inspired by love, we transform ourselves and serve others.
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This Sunday, June 7th
Please join us online this Sunday at 10:30 AM. Our sermon is titled
This Liminal Moment,
and will be given by the Reverend Kenneth G. Hurto.
The Worship Service is made possible by:
Rev. Kenneth G. Hurto,
Guest Minister
Suellen Kipp
, Director of Music
Jenn Blosser,
Director of Religious Education, Tech Team Member
Mary Cline Golbitz,
Worship Associate
Allie Carville,
Chalice Lighter
Peter Golbitz,
Musician
Lesley Peterson,
Musician and Tech Team Member
Mark Brandon,
Tech Team Member
Walter Peterson,
Tech Team Member
Krista Hopper,
Tech Team Member
And YOU!
Please go to our website for the Zoom meeting link and the audio only link for Sunday's Service:
uucfm.org
If you join Zoom before 10:30 AM, you will be placed in an online "Waiting Room," and will manually be added when the worship team is ready to begin the service.
If you would like to make a pledge or donation to UUCFM at any time,
you may mail a check to UUCFM, 13411 Shire Lane, Fort Myers, FL 33912 or visit our
PayPal .
Search for Unitarian Universalist Church of Fort Myers, then type in your donation and in the notes section, please add either
for UUCFM
or
Community Sharing,
or how much to split between both.
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Community Sharing
Our Community Sharing partner
for the month of June
is
SalusCare.
SalusCare
is the most comprehensive provider of behavioral healthcare services in Southwest Florida, incorporated in 2013 after the merger of Lee Mental Health and Southwest Florida Addiction Services (SWFAS). Today, SalusCare employs 400 professionals who provide hope and recovery to nearly 16,000 adults and children in outpatient psychiatry and therapy, residential programs, recovery residences, emergency/crisis services, detox and community-based services from multiple locations in Lee County. No one will ever be denied access to services due to an inability to pay. A sliding-fee scale is utilized for many services based on family size and income.
SalusCare
is also a proud National Health Service Corps site.
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A Message from the President
We continue to remain together as a community during the Covid-19 pandemic. It has been difficult, as we long to be together once again in person – to share a smile, a hug, a conversation over coffee. But this is still not the right time to do so. It is not safe. The pandemic continues.
The UUA has provided updated guidance regarding in-person gatherings. In her published statement, UUA President Sharon Frederick-Gray states:
“As states around the country begin to loosen guidelines and take actions to reopen, even as COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to climb, we have received many questions from congregations about returning to in-person gatherings.
“Over the past several weeks, the UUA has consulted with multiple public health officials in order to update the guidance we provided on March 12 recommending congregations stop gathering in person.
“Based on advice from experts, we continue to recommend that congregations not gather in person. We also recommend that congregations begin planning for virtual operations for the next year (through May 2021).”
At this point, we don’t know how long our campus will remain closed to in-person gatherings. Your church leaders are continuing to keep an eye on the situation and will make decisions based upon the best available advice from the scientific and medical communities. It is our moral obligation to make certain that our UUCFM campus is not a spreading point for this deadly virus. The lives of our members, friends, and community are simply too precious for us to risk.
Our building supervisor, Mickey Kellam, has done a thorough job of sanitizing all hard surfaces on campus. We want to respect his diligent work and keep people away from the buildings during this time. While we are closed to in-person gatherings, there may be times when a member needs to come on campus for an essential reason. If you feel that you have such a reason, please contact me (
[email protected]
), Dorothy Van Howe (
[email protected]
), or Rev. Margaret Beard (
[email protected]
) to ask that an exception be granted.
Our leadership, staff, and volunteers are committed to providing a safe, virtual environment until this health crisis has abated. Until we are confident that we can provide a safe place for people to gather in person once again, we ask that everyone share in the responsibility to remain off-campus. I realize that this is difficult. Staying away at this time is an act of love that we extend to each other. It is a sacrifice that we make now so that no one’s life need be sacrificed. Everyone here is precious. Please have confidence that when the time is right, we will come together in person again and celebrate,
with great rejoicing.
Lesley Peterson
President – UUCFM Board of Trustees
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Meet the Newest Members of the Board of Trustees!
Lane Cook, President Elect
Lane graduated from the University of Texas in 1992 with a degree in Radio/Television/Film. She was a producer at CNN first in Atlanta and then Los Angeles, and graduated from the University of Southern California Law School in 2002. She is a Supervising Attorney with the Department of Children and Families and has been so for more than 10 years. She supervises four attorneys and carries her own caseload. In the past year, she and her boyfriend bought their first home together. She enjoys reading, cats, wine, cooking, birding and Pilates.
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Ruth Fotovat, Secretary
Ruth has been a member of UUCFM for over 20 years. She was on the Board years ago as the Treasurer. She has a B.A. from Florida International University. She retired from the Florida Dept. of Revenue in 2009. Ruth met Ellen Peterson, whom she describes as “one of the most incredible women I have ever known, at UUCFM.” Ruth was Secretary of the Happehatchee Center, Inc., Ellen's wonderful environmental place in Estero--which our Board just transferred to the City of Estero. They wanted to make certain it wasn't sold, and that it was kept under the City of Estero's environmental protection. Ruth has been a choir member and CUUPS member for a very long time.
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Genelle Grant, Member at Large
Genelle G. Grant, Ed.D. first attended the UUCFM in 1993. In the mid-1990’s she was one of the CUUPs founders, and in 1996 she started working with migrant farmworker families in the Lee County School District. In 2005, Genelle created the GRACE Project (Guatemalan Rural Adult and Children’s Education),
http://www.thegraceproject.org
which is an outreach program of the UUCFM Social Justice Ministry.
GRACE team members deliver faculty development and reproductive health workshops in Guatemala and in Southwest Florida. Locally they provide therapy groups (in Spanish) for survivors of human trafficking and domestic violence. Volunteer groups with UUCFM members have traveled yearly to Guatemala, where GRACE works with the Guatemala Ministry of Education, women’s craft cooperatives, indigenous rights organizations, and with the vocational college created by Nobel Laureate Dr. Rigoberta Menchu Tum.
Genelle has practiced Yoga and meditation since 1972, has been a joyful drummer in Ubaka Hill’s Drumsong Orchestra, and is currently Zooming with the Womyn Singing in Sacred Circle group based at UUCFM. She was a founding Board member of the Happehatchee Eco-spiritual Center in Estero in 2006 and has served as Happehatchee’s President since 2011.
Genelle has taught in universities in Puerto Rico, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, New Hampshire, Boston, and Florida. Her areas of expertise are reproductive health education, community organizing, TV and radio production, art instruction and mural painting, and educational methods and materials development for teachers. She married Richard Shine in the Concord, N.H. UU Church in 1982, and they have two sons.
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Classes & Groups
The Book Club
The UUCFM Book Club now meets online. Our current book is
Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain
, by David Eagleman.
Clicking this link will take you to the next meeting, Wednesday, May 27 at 1:00 PM.
If you prefer to access the meeting without the link, use this information to log on:
Meeting ID: 784 376 873
Password: 329478
You'll be able to join the meeting as early as 12:45 PM Wednesday and we'll begin our usual check-in at 1 o'clock. If you’re joining for the first time via Zoom, please sign in closer to 12:45 pm to allow for any extra time you may need. Mary Studer is hosting the Zoom meetings, so if you have any questions, call or text her at 269-449-2488.
The discussion schedule is as follows:
June 10: Chapter 7,
Life After the Monarchy
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Caloosahatchee Mindfulness
The Caloosahatchee Mindfulness & UUCFM book study group has resumed and is meeting on Zoom every Wednesday at 10:00 AM. We are reading
The Wise Heart
by Jack Kornfield. Please join us.
Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 849 5260 9369
Password: My1heart
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Zoom Connection Circle
Whether you are new to UU or a long-term member, whether you are in Florida or far away, you are invited to participate in a Connection Circle by Zoom. Now is your chance to experience this way to connect with others on a deep and meaningful level. Trained facilitators, Mary Cline Golbitz and Leslie Gatto will choose timely topics for discussion. This is a covenanted group, where group rules protect confidentiality and promote compassionate dialogue. Participants are expected to attend all sessions. The Zoom circles will be held weekly on Thursdays from 1:00 to 2:30 pm from June 4 through July 9
Please contact Leslie by phone or text at 239-850-9664 or email
[email protected]
to join this circle. Let her know if you need help setting up Zoom. Looking forward to connecting with you. Stay well, stay home, stay connected!
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Please mark your calendars!
Our UUCFM worship service on Sunday, June 28th will be live streamed from the UUA Virtual General Assembly. This powerful, communal worship experience will stream at 10:00 a.m. EDT and again at 10:00 a.m. PDT which would be 1:00 EDT. (More information and the link will be made available as we get closer.) Please note the change in time from our usual time of 10:30. It won’t be quite the same as being together in person but we know the power of being together virtually.
So please join us for the largest annual gathering of UUs joining in worship. Rev. Joan Javier-Duval is worship leader and will give the sermon. She will be joined by Rev. Mykal O’Neal Slack. The worship service will include a collection for the
Tomaquag Museum
, an indigenous museum featuring an extensive collection and archive of Southern New England tribal communities. Those of us who have attended General Assembly remember great music and powerful sermons. This will be different but well worth it.
So, stay tuned.—
Margaret (the Reverend Margaret L. Beard, Minister)
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From Our Caring Network
If you or another member of the Congregation needs some extra attention during this time, your Pastoral Care Committee is here to help as much as we can while keeping us all safe and protected.
Our Committee members include Mary Faegre, Joan Hickok, Deborah Lewis, Mary Alice Pierce, Mary Tracy-Sigman, Patricia Vivier-Naidl, Holley Rauen and Suzanne Ziemer. If any members of the Congregation are available to help during this crisis, please contact Mary Golbitz
We have been holding weekly calls as a check in at the beginning of this crisis. Since the need for these calls seems to have dwindled, we will
not
be holding these calls any longer. If you feel strongly that you would like these calls to continue please contact Mary Golbitz. Thanks to all who participated and supported one another.
There is an on-going Connection Circle on Zoom right now and another Connection Circle beginning June 4. If you would like to join in connecting with other Congregation members, please contact Leslie Gatto by phone or text at 239-850-9664 or email at
[email protected]
We can connect with you individually by phone if you are feeling isolated and offer other assistance. Please contact Mary Golbitz for information or assistance at
[email protected]
207 479-4082 (phone or text) or Holley Rauen at
[email protected]
or 239 464-6556.
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Social Justice
South Fort Myers Food Pantry
Hi everyone! We would like to provide you with an update on how things are going at the food pantry.
Clients continue to drive through to pick up pre-bagged items. This is going well and allows our clients and our volunteers to be safe by socially distancing. Just this past Monday, we served 175 clients and we anticipate this number to increase.
Each week we are going to grocers, warehouse stores and places such as dollar stores and big box stores to shop for much needed items to stock our shelves. We are receiving ample meat and fresh vegetable supplies from Harry Chapin, however canned goods are somewhat sporadic. The 28th Annual Mail Carriers Food Drive that was scheduled in May has been postponed to a yet to be determined date. This food drive normally supplies Harry Chapin with many of the canned goods that we would receive during the summer months.
As restrictions loosen, would you consider having a food drive to help stock our shelves? The items we are finding hard to obtain in large quantities are peanut butter and jelly (please no glass containers), cereal and breakfast bars. We are always happy to receive canned fruit and vegetables, tomato sauce products, protein-rich soups and beans.
For questions, call Fran Rose at 617-750-0470. Leave a message and she will get back to you. There are still a lot of hungry people out there. If you want to drop food off at the pantry, the address is 8260 Cypress Lake Drive, Fort Myers. The best time is Monday at 9 AM or 4 PM.
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Our UU Story
Unitarian Universalist Pagans Celebrate Summer Solstice
The summer solstice celebrates the longest day of the year. In 2020, this occurs on Saturday, June 20, marking the start of summer in the Northern Hemisphere. It has been marked with rituals since pagan times. At the Unitarian Universalist Church of Fort Myers, the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans (CUUPS) celebrate this day.
CUUPS
CUUPS is an organization chartered by the Unitarian Universalist Association in 1987 to practice and share Earth-centered traditions within the larger denomination. An important purpose of CUUPS is to build bridges between 21st-century pagans and people who embrace other religious traditions. Another is to celebrate the “interdependent web of all existence” as recognized in the Seventh Principle of Unitarian Universalism.
Folklore
Folklore holds that bonfires on Midsummer, as the solstice was known among northern Europeans, would banish demons and evil spirits and lead young maidens to their future husbands. Some Christian churches dubbed it St John’s Day in commemoration of the birth of John the Baptist. Ancient monuments are thought to have been built to align with the Sun during the solstice. The most famous is Stonehenge, a 5,000-year-old stone circle in Wiltshire, England.
The Year’s Longest Day
The Summer Solstice is the day with the longest period of sunlight. The sun will rise before 5 am and sets after 9 pm. This is when the sun is at the highest point in the sky.
After the solstice, the sun appears to reverse course and head back in the opposite direction. The motion referred to here is the apparent path of the sun when one views its position in the sky at the same time each day, for example at local noon. Of course, the sun itself is not moving (unless you consider its own orbit around the Milky Way galaxy). Instead, this change in position in the sky that we on Earth notice is caused by the tilt of Earth’s axis as it orbits the sun, as well as Earth’s elliptical, rather than circular, orbit.
Solstice
The solstice has been celebrated since ancient times and is one of the earliest astronomical observations in human history. The word “solstice” comes from Latin solstitium—from sol (sun) and stitium (still or stopped), reflecting the fact that on the solstice, the sun appears to stop “moving” in the sky as it reaches its northern- or southernmost point (declination) for the year, as seen from Earth.
Edited by Joy F. Sokeitous
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Our Greater Community
From NAMI
Joanne Halt, our speaker from last week, would like to share some mental health tips with our congregation. Here is a link to a booklet called
Navigating a Mental Health Crisis
.
Here, also, are some mental health tips:
Better Brain Health
Positive Social Connections – The people you spend time with matters.
New Learning – Whenever you learn something new, your brain makes new connections.
Great Diet – Food and other substances you put into the body are either medicine or poison.
Sleep – Your brain cannot function properly without a chance to rest and revive.
Exercise – Exercise increases blood flow and oxygen to the brain.
Healthy Anxiety Levels – You need to be worried enough about your brain health to treat your brain right.
Meditation – Activates the front part of your brain. Walking in nature can be meditative. Be present.
Gratitude – Notice what is going right for you at all time to prevent negativity and resentment.
ANT (automatic negative thought) Killing – Don’t believe every stupid thought you have. The brain is a thought factory and 80% of what is constructed by our brain is negative. In ancient times anticipating the worst could ensure survival. Our reptilian/primitive brain continues to scan for danger. Recognize this as it happens.
ANTS
Assumptions/Mind reading: You predict and think you know another person’s thinking without them telling you. You don’t have all the information so how can you know? Be a good listener.
Fortune telling/Catastrophizing: You predict a bad outcome to a situation before it occurs. Unconsciously, predicting failure will often cause failure. Catastrophizing can be in images and not in words.
Overgeneralizing/Always or Never thinking: “always”, “never”, “every time” or “everyone”. These thoughts are overgeneralizations which can alter behavior. “She never listens when I talk” can lead to a cutoff.
Guilting: Being overrun by thoughts of "should, must, ought, have to/shoulda, woulda, coulda” . Unrealistic guilt is powerful at making us feel bad. Realistic guilt is recognizing a failure. Failure isn’t fatal if it motivates us to improve.
Filtering/Focusing on Negatives: You see only the bad in a situation or person; focusing on one part of the event or situation.
Magnifying: You make a small event or conversation into a big important event or conversation.
Emotional reasoning: You believe your negative feeling without questioning the facts. “I feel rejected; therefore you must not love me.” Ask yourself “how factual is this?”
Labeling or Name-calling: Negative labeling of self or others “I’m such a dummy.” “He’s such a nerd.” It closes off the ability to be clear and fresh in assessing a situation. Practice non-violence in thought and words.
Personalizing: Innocent events are taken to have personal meaning. “She didn’t talk to me, she must be mad at me.” A negative look from someone else may mean nothing more than he or she is constipated. Are you really so important that the world is focused on you?
Blaming: If you blame others for your problems, this helps you to remain a victim of others because it takes away your responsibility to change. Be empowered to define problems non-judgmentally to avoid blaming.
ABCs OF STRESS MANAGEMENT
OPTIONS for STRESS RESPONSE:
1 Alter it
2 Avoid it
3. ACCEPT IT
Remove the sources of stress by:
-Problem-solving
-Direct communication
-Planning
-Time management
Get away or prevent the stress by:
-Letting go
-Say nc
-Delegate
-Withdraw
-Knowing your limits
Live with it by:
building your resistance
-Physically: Exercise, diet, relaxing, etc, -Mentally: Affirmation, time off , clear
goals, priorities, etc. -Socially: Support system,
relationships, clear communication, etc
-Spiritually: Prayer, worship, faith, commitment, meditation, etc
Changing your perception
-Redefining the situation
-Changing expectations
-Creating a positive attitude
-Realizing you do some things well
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June 8 Joe Sexton
June 11 John Worster
June 12 Linda Jensen
June 16 Betty Tobin
June 17 Phyllis Brewer
June 19 Suzanne Ziemer
June 21 Chet Beemer
June 23 Karen Brown
June 24 Helen Krieger
June 25 Rosalie Kuehn
June 28 Chris Rosa
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UUCFM Staff and Board of Trustees
President
Lesley Peterson
President Elect
Lane Cook
Secretary
Ruth King Fotovat
Treasurer
Pati Maier
VP Ministerial Services
Keith Hamlin
VP Operations
Dorothy Van Howe
VP Programming
Toni Latino
Member at Large
Genelle Grant
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Please send all newsletter articles by
Wednesday at noon
for publication in Thursday's newsletter. Send articles to
[email protected]
.
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