Welcome, my friends

I’m glad you’re here

Bringing your joy and bringing your tears.

We’ll make music, we’ll sing a song

To brighten your spirit all week long. 

I wrote those words several years ago as a way to open our Children’s Choir rehearsal. I was reminded of the words as I began to ponder September’s theme, The Gift of Welcome. I remember asking the children, “Why would we bring our tears to choir?” The answers I received were, as is usually the case with our kids, surprisingly insightful. "Because church is a place where we can let our feelings out” and “Music helps us feel happy AND sad.” I am so glad that our church, whether in choir rehearsals, in Faith Exploration classes or in our sanctuary, gives us the gift of welcoming ALL of our emotions. We want our people to bring their joy and their tears and to feel safe doing so. We want members of our congregation, young and old, to bring their whole selves to church. We welcome people’s full sharing of the both/and (as Rev. Wendy loves to say) of our lives.  

Our amazing Faith Exploration Teachers are preparing to welcome our children and youth to a new church year. At a recent teacher training I asked our teachers to share their hopes and dreams for the coming year. 

Among many inspiring thoughts that were shared, our teachers hope:

"To foster authenticity and add a sense of belonging and joy.” 

“That children will feel comfortable bringing their whole selves to class.” 

“We have fun, expected and unexpected.”  

“That I am an adult in their life that they can trust and open up to.”  

As Laura and I have been meeting with our teaching teams we have been so impressed with the level of thoughtfulness and intentionality that they bring to our kids. Our kids are truly fortunate to have this caring group of individuals who are so dedicated to helping our children and youth explore their UU faith. 

I am excited about starting up our new round of Youth Faith Exploration classes on Sunday, September 17! Our adult programming will also begin in September and October. We have many exciting, enriching, deepening opportunities this fall - for our kids and for our adults! If you are wondering how to stay connected to what is happening at JUC the best way is to make a habit of reading the Weekly Connection email each week. The JUC Virtual Commons and the JUC Families Facebook pages are another way to stay connected.  

And be sure to come to the Multigenerational Celebration Sunday Service on September 10 at 9 and 11 am. It is going to be full of music, joy, and surprises and will be followed by cookies on the patio.

In this month of welcome, I can’t help but think of some of the welcomes I’ve received in my travels. When I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Namibia in southern Africa, I stayed with a host family in the northern part of the country, in a village called Oshilemba, with the Ovambo people. In the north, single volunteers were placed in each host village; the nearest non-Namibians were 20km away.  Most people in my village didn’t speak English and had very little exposure to Western or American culture -  there was no electricity in the village, so most people didn’t even see western television. (The one exception I can think of was a TV that was somehow hooked up at the same time every day to a car battery so the family could enjoy their favorite South African soap opera!)

So before we got to our permanent volunteer sites, the Peace Corps administration was in the habit of handing out a leaflet to our host families and the teachers we would be working with, written in Oshiwambo. We referred to this leaflet affectionately as “Care and Feeding of your Volunteer.” And the first thing on it was the following: “Sometimes your volunteer will want to be alone. This is normal for Americans. Your volunteer is not sick or angry.” True story.

This tells us something about Ovambo culture - and in this case, it can be generalized to pretty much all African cultures: Community is assumed. Togetherness is the norm. Everything is done together. And everything - work, joy, sorrow, grief, food, and often even sleeping space - is shared. I saw this when I first arrived at the home of my host family, and all the children showed up to carry my bags into my quarters without ever being asked. I saw it when my host sister got married, and women from the entire village - heck, several villages from the looks of it - showed up at our home to camp out within the fence of the family compound for days in order to help cook the wedding feast - stopping every so often, of course, for a dance break. I saw it when one child received a single cookie and immediately shared it with half a dozen friends. I saw it at night, when the family gathered around the waning cookfire to share stories of their day.

I can’t say as I always appreciated all of this togetherness, to be honest. Even with the help of the Care and Feeding pamphlet, finding times to be alone was a challenging proposition.  Even being informed of the odd proclivities of Americans toward solitude, I think something in my host family felt it profoundly wrong to leave one person - even the odd, light-skinned American - outside the circle of safety and fellowship that the physical proximity of the close-knit group represented. It was something I hadn’t really experienced; even the culture of closer community ties I’d experienced in my Caribbean family didn’t approximate the kind of togetherness that my Ovambo friends and family lived.

That was a way of being together that was, at that point, far outside any cultural display of welcome I had yet experienced in my life. I don’t think I’ve experienced anything quite like it since leaving Namibia (though the Bulgarians sometimes came in a close second - but that’s for another article). Though I realize we Americans might not wish to replicate every part of that cultural experience, I do wonder - what would our community here at JUC look like if we all assumed, as a community culture, that togetherness was our natural state? I’m not saying we shouldn’t have any privacy or preference as individuals, but how would we structure ourselves differently, how would our welcome be different if we built it on the assumption that all of the events of our lives, whether joyous or challenging, whether disappointing or celebratory, whether brag-worthy or downright embarrassing - were meant to be shared in community. That leaving any one person to fend for themselves was at best a major faux pas, at worst a great strike against who we are as a people.

I wonder…

I admit that, as I began the process of writing this article, my mind came up blank. I realized that, up until this point, I have had a fairly shallow understanding of what it means to welcome and be welcomed. The word didn’t initially inspire me, but I couldn’t quite articulate why. Naturally, I went to the internet and typed in: what does it mean to welcome? 

When combing through the various definitions and examples of the word in use, I was struck by how much capitalism and corporate culture has usurped the language of welcoming. “Hotels should welcome their guests in their own language,” or “the bank's decision to cut its rates was widely welcomed,” were just two of the many corporate examples that came up first. My own professional background reflects this as well; in my past, the idea of welcome was used only in reference to bringing in more customers–and therefore more profit. 

I sat with that for a bit. What does it mean to give the gift of welcome in the context of our church? What does it look like to welcome for the sake of welcoming, for the sake of the people who walk in our door, and not for the implicit desire to make money? 

Furthermore, how do we remove the capitalistic echo behind the word, where “welcome” becomes almost a product in itself? 

I love that this coming month is not the “month of welcome,” but the “gift of welcome.” A gift is something imparted freely, with no expectation of reciprocity. It is, by its very nature, not transactional (at least in its purest, most hopeful form). A gift is given with the simple idea that the receiver should have it, and deserves to have it. You are deserving of welcome, of coming home. In our case, it is also an invitation: to be welcomed and to welcome others. To go deeper, to consider what you want out of this new church year, the ways you’d like to grow, and companion others in their growth.

Aptly, this calls to mind Mary Oliver’s poem, The Invitation, which begins:

Oh do you have time / to linger / for just a little while / out of your busy // and very / important day / for the goldfinches / that have gathered / in a field of thistles // for a musical battle, / to see who can sing / the highest note, / or the lowest, // or the most expressive of mirth, / or the most tender?

In honor of each other and our beloved Mary Oliver, let’s take the time to linger together – mirthfully, tenderly – for just a little while.

I told myself I’d write a super light-hearted music-centered introduction for my first newsletter article, but something else has been on my mind as we begin to explore the Gift of Welcome.

We all know that starting a new job is intimidating. There are first impressions to make and expectations to fulfill. I would say, I’m feeling extra intimidated because Rev. Keith is so beloved, and I so badly want to do a good job during my time here. I’m certainly feeling the pressure.

And so, I do what I always do when I find myself in a position where I want people to like me: I put on a mask.

I learned about this mask early in life. It’s not a physical mask, but a metaphorical one I can create by carefully controlling my facial expressions, body language, and voice. In elementary school, I was scolded because teachers thought I wasn’t paying attention, so I learned how to sit very still with my eyes on the whiteboard, even if it meant I no longer had the energy to pay attention to the lesson. In middle school, family members would tell me, “You look disgusted,” when I wasn’t actively controlling my facial expression, so I quickly learned to be aware of my face at all times. In college, a friend once asked me, “Why do you act that way when meeting new people?” so I quickly added the classic “active listening smile-and-nod” to my repertoire.

A big piece that has impacted how I act now has to do with this idea of being “professional,” and I attempt to present an air of confidence to be taken seriously, (but not too confident as to be perceived as arrogant.) I spend so much energy focusing on how people might perceive me that it often prevents me from truly connecting with others. I bring this up, because I know I am not the only person that experiences this, and it is exhausting.

Since these social expectations are, in fact, created by society, couldn’t we just abandon them? I’ve never understood why people put such an emphasis on things that seem so unimportant to me, like whether a person sustains eye contact, or shakes your hand when you meet them, or smiles “frequently enough.” Who decided that these things matter? And beyond that, why does it seem to matter more than what a person says or does? How different would the world be if a person was judged on the content of what they said rather than how “well” it was delivered or written? In what ways can we uplift leaders that are quiet or non-verbal rather than always defaulting to the outgoing, charismatic person in the room? Who might we meet if we didn’t always value “seamless conversation” over other qualities?

I challenge each of us to not let our expectations prevent us from being truly welcoming and connecting with others. Let’s continue to ask ourselves: In what ways can we as a church community encourage people to show up as they truly are?

Telling Our Story

Case Collard, Trustee

This spring, Julica Hermann de la Fuente came to our church to work with our congregation on anti-racism and to preach about Joy and Justice. In her workshop, she asked us to reflect on our story as a church and congregation. Part of the beauty of our lives and our work together at JUC is that we write and re-write our stories every day. 

In the wake of our congregational vote to stay at our current campus, the board is processing and thinking about how our work on the Making Room project fits into our larger story. And how to write the next chapter together. This fall, Wendy has invited the board members to share their thoughts about this work with the congregation during Sunday service. I’m delighted for this opportunity and look forward to sharing my perspective on how our work on Making Room over the last four or five years fits into the larger story of JUC. 

For me, the story includes a willingness to be bold (after all, the project started as a “BHAG” or “Big Hairy Audacious Goal”) but also an ability to take our stewardship responsibilities and democratic principles seriously. The board, staff, and special project groups did a tremendous job thinking through all the key issues that needed attention as the project progressed. The congregation and leadership collectively engaged in deep reflection on our values, mission, and ends to help guide our processes. We conducted an informed voting process to make the ultimate decision. Regardless of the outcome of the vote, we lived our values in the process. I am proud of that. 

While the board engages in this work, I invite you to think about how the Making Room process fits into your story at JUC. If you see a board member at service, please feel free to share. We’d love to hear from you. 

Habitat for Humanity Update

Bruce and Cathy Martin

JUC was represented by Julie and Ken Andrus at the most recent build date at the Metro Denver Habitat for Humanity Miller Street project site. The four duplexes are coming along well and Habitat is taking the applications from buyers for the homes. We don't have any more JUC build dates scheduled for this season but you are free to sign up individually for habitat projects.

Our next JUC support request to help out our Jeffco Interfaith Partners (JIP) will be for the pumpkin patch fundraising projects that happen in October. JIP sets up and runs two pumpkin patches. One is in Lakewood at the Mile High Church east of Kipling on Alameda. The second patch is in Arvada. We can help by unloading a semi truck full of pumpkins on a delivery day, signing up for afternoon or evening shifts to sell pumpkins or by buying your pumpkins at the patches. The Lakewood patch delivery dates for pumpkins are Wednesday, October 4 and Sunday, October 15. The pumpkin delivery date for the Arvada patch is Wednesday, October 11. Contact Cathy or Bruce Martin if you wish to help out with "chuckin' pumpkins" on any of the delivery dates.