ISSUE 85

JULY 2023

Welcome to the Summer of Belonging!

In March of 2020, we closed our church doors. Deciding to do so felt impossible and necessary. While we have been offering in-person services, as well as live streaming, for quite some time, there is little question that the pandemic has impacted us. There are those among us who couldn’t wait to get back to regular attendance and those who still feel challenged by it. In this time, how do we understand belonging to each other?

Gratefully, six of our members will bravely share their stories of belonging during our Sunday service from late July through the end of August. Additionally, we have several opportunities to be together outside of Sunday morning. We are hosting gatherings at a free concert in July and a brown bag dinner in a park in August. Additionally, plan on attending our congregational picnic on August 20!

What does it mean to belong? I have an emerging understanding of it, just as I did with delight. Maybe I have been converted to it as well.

I used to believe that belonging was something that I either felt or didn’t feel. Now, like so many other things, I clearly see it is more complicated than that. While I may get a good feeling about a place or a group of people, that feeling isn’t belonging.

In several groups this year, we interacted with Eric Carter's work on the 10 dimensions of belonging. Originally designed to address belonging for folks with intellectual disabilities, we quickly discovered that these dimensions directly apply to each of us. We also learned that belonging isn't something we feel or don't. It is something we co-create. Significantly, each of us find belonging through our own particular pieces of the pie, if you will. Some of us long to be needed. Others need to be invited. For some, feeling accepted was the most important thing. Others wanted to feel another be truly present. And so on and so on.

This is important because true belonging isn’t something we receive, it is something we give. If we don’t share the belonging we’ve found, it becomes a cage not a home. And why would we want to keep it to ourselves anyway? The gift of finding belonging comes with a deep sense of gratitude. And gratitude naturally leads to generosity. The best way to say thanks for a gift is to share it. In the end, it’s all one big reminder that being a people of belonging is inexorably intertwined with being a people of gratitude and a people of generosity.

Who helped you belong at church? At work? In some pocket of the world? How did it happen? Were you invited? Seen? Needed? Accepted? How did you use that gift? What generosity did it inspire in you? How has that experience changed you and called you into being an agent of belonging?

There are such great stories among us. I can’t wait to hear them in church on Sunday at during other gatherings too.

We all know that belonging is not just about place, but people as well. Quaker teacher, Douglas Steer gets at this beautifully:

The ancient question, Who am I? inevitably leads to a deeper one: Whose am I? – because there is no identity outside of relationship. You cannot be a person by yourself. To ask Whose am I is to extend the question far beyond the little self-absorbed self, and wonder: Who needs you? Who loves you? To whom are you accountable? To whom do you answer? Whose life is altered by your choices? With whose life is your own bound up, inextricably, in obvious or invisible ways?

It’s such a powerful and important truth: we are who we belong to. But it’s also a hard truth to remember. The world around us doesn’t help. Its focus is on becoming not belonging. It wants us to wake up every morning and ask, “Am I succeeding?” not “Who needs me?” “ Who loves me?” or “With whose life is my own bound up?”

So this summer let’s engage in a bit of course correction? Why not see what happens when who we belong to is front and center at the start of every day?

This exercise is designed to help with this. Here are your instructions:

Clear off a space on a table, dresser, desk or shelf in your house.
Over a few days or a week populate that space with pictures of people who come to mind when you ask yourself “Whose am I?” Find or print out the pictures. Add as many as feels right. Push yourself to think beyond the obvious answers: your family, your church community, etc. Treat the question as a meditation practice. Asking it each day will lead you to unexpected pictures: a mentor from your past, an unknown boy on the other side of the world suffering because of climate change caused by us, those who have been excluded from our faith because of white-centered structures. Or maybe it will take you beyond people, to a pet from your childhood or that park you walk in every Saturday of the Fall.
Once the space is filled with your chosen pictures, spend another week or two using it as an altar of sorts. Pause briefly before it every morning. Or maybe more than briefly.
Pay attention to how bringing your network of belonging changes your days. Journal about it. Discuss it with your partner or friend.

Many of you know that my son Luke, who is 20, has Down syndrome. Most of the time, having a person with Down syndrome in my life feels like the most normal (typical) thing in the world. Doesn’t everyone know and love someone with Down syndrome? However, there are times when it becomes shockingly clear that much of our society has no idea how to relate to someone with Down syndrome or can’t imagine themselves being the parent, sibling, cousin or even friend of a person with an intellectual disability.

I mention this because this summer our main focus as a church will be on belonging. We are going to have church events and activities that foster belonging, we are going to have a six week sharing of the pulpit from some of our JUC congregants who are going to talk about belonging - we are focusing on belonging big time!

One of the frames we will be using to talk about belonging comes from the work of Eric Carter. He has developed a framework that features 10 different elements of belonging.

It is important to me that as we talk about these elements throughout the summer, we remember that they were first developed with people with intellectual disabilities in mind. Carter created these after interviewing over 500 people with intellectual disabilities and their family members; asking them about what helped them flourish in schools, communities and churches. In his writing about these elements Carter points out that these clearly apply to anyone, not just people with intellectual disabilities. In fact, it is often the case that supports and concepts that are initially developed to serve people with intellectual and other disabilities turn out to be good for everyone (sidewalk ramps for example)! It can be easy, though, to take an idea and not give credit to its origins. We see this misappropriation often. Because people with intellectual disabilities are among some of the most isolated and marginalized people, I want to take extra care to give credit where it is due. I want us to use this framework and allow it to guide us to examine the ways that we foster belonging for all people AND I want us to remember that the framework was initially developed to help include people for whom belonging is never guaranteed. As you look at the elements of belonging, think about which ones resonate with you and think about which you might need to work on to help other people belong. We can all work together to create a deeper sense of belonging in our church.

In other news…

One way we are helping our congregation feel a sense of belonging is by providing opportunities to gather. Our middle and high school youth will be gathering for trips to Elitches, for Roller Skating, and will volunteer twice this summer during the service followed by lunch. Everyone in our congregation is invited to our family events from our monthly We Are Parents gathering to our Sunday, July 30 Family campfire singalong. We have three church field trips planned - a free concert at Levitt Pavilion on Sunday, July 2, a movie matinee on Friday, July 21 and an evening picnic on Wednesday, August 16. We have our all-church picnic on Sunday, August 20. Please check the Weekly Connection for a complete list of summer opportunities! And, since one of the element’s of Carter’s framework is invitation - be sure to invite someone to go with you to whichever event you are choosing!

Transitions

Carol Kolesnikoff passed away June 10. Obituary link.

Anne Kotch celebrates her 101st birthday June 27.

Worship Team Recruitment

Are you one of those folks who has been longing to return to our spoken chalice lightings? If so, you may want to join the new iteration of our Worship Team.

During the pandemic, it was simply too much to get volunteers to write and record a 3-4 minute reflection for each service. Many of us, including me, missed it. So, while we will continue to have our time for all ages and our sung chalice lighting, we are going to bring back member testimonies for a little later in the service.

Would you like to help?

If so, join Rev. Wendy on Tuesday, August 15 at 6:30 pm to become part of our Worship Team. Each month, we will discuss the theme for the upcoming month or two and generate ideas for testimonies. Worship team members will then find JUCers willing to share their story and work with them on their preparation.

If you have questions or would like to explore this opportunity further, please contact Rev. Wendy.

Board of Trustees June Meeting Summary

Making Room Halts. The Board discussed the recent congregational vote, which resulted in halting the Making Room project. We talked about how this decision made us feel, the impact of how close the final vote was, and the importance of holding space for all JUCers in the coming months as we adjust to this decision.

Growth. We talked about the different definitions of growth and how JUC can continue to grow in our current location.

Sunday Worship. Rev. Wendy discussed possible changes that she and the staff are considering for Sunday worship services, including bringing back chalice lightings offered by congregants.

Office Election. The Board nominated and elected Chris Sealy to serve as president and Brooke Maddaford to serve as secretary for the 2023-24 church year. Mary LeBeouf will serve as the Board’s social media manager for next year.

Retrospection. The Board discussed who JUC has been in the past and who we see ourselves becoming in the future. We talked about how we could live more deeply into our recently updated values, mission, and ends.

EMGT Grants. Chris and Rev. Wendy agreed to write an EMGT grant for the funds needed to bring Julica Hermann de la Fuente back to JUC for additional coaching.

Board Retreat. The Board discussed scheduling an in-person board retreat soon.

Delight and Planned Giving

Delight can be defined as a pleasant, unexpected outcome that contributes to one’s joy. We do not usually expect estate planning to bring delight, but it can! We might be delighted when it is done, with a feeling of relief and sense of accomplishment. Our loved ones will be delighted that we have made our wishes known and made plans for a most difficult time. Our beneficiaries may be delighted when they learn that we have remembered them. For certain the JUC congregation will be delighted that you have included our beloved community as a beneficiary. The planned giving team will be delighted when you let us know that you have remembered JUC.

Contact our Planned Giving team: Bud & B.J. Meadows or Carol Wilsey

Summer is here, and with it those events that have always meant community to me: cookouts, picnics, fireworks, camps, camping… This summer, one of the events I’m most looking forward to is QUUest Camp - a week-long UU summer camp for middle and high schoolers outside Casper, WY. I love being adult staff at UU youth camps in part because there’s so much that I find encouraging: the enthusiasm of the campers, the connections that form almost instantly and in the relative absence of screens, the deep spiritual growth that can happen in the space of a week… But one of my favorite things about camp is something that is known (in this part of the country, anyway) as “croissants, not doughnuts.”

Lest you be tempted to think this is some sort of new UU youth health kick, let me explain. This phrase refers to the configuration that campers stand in when having group conversations. Rather than stand in a closed circle (doughnut), campers are encouraged to leave a place in their circle for more people to join the conversation (croissant). As more people join, the circle expands, and a new space is created - an invitation for one more new, yet-to-be-named, yet-to-be-known stranger to come and be a part of the group.

Not that there’s anything wrong with private conversations in general, of course. But for the week of camp, campers and staff intentionally dedicate themselves to allowing EVERYONE to belong. It doesn’t matter the age, appearance, experience, or ability of the potential stranger: they’re welcome before they even arrive.

This touching ritual of community is an expression of one of the deepest tenets of our Unitarian Universalist faith - namely, that we are all individual expressions of a divine whole, and our spiritual wholeness depends on maintaining the integrity and honoring the holiness of our interconnection.

More than 200 years ago, Unitarian minister Ralph Waldo Emerson described it thus: “The influence of the senses has,” he says, “in most men, overpowered the mind to the degree that the walls of time and space have come to look real and insurmountable; and to speak with levity of these limits is, in the world, the sign of insanity. Yet, time and space are but inverse measures of the force of the soul.” Spiritually speaking, the ways in which we separate and classify ourselves is an illusion, a distraction.

More recently, we borrow the expression popularized by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King to explore and relate to this concept. We call it “Beloved Community.” As the King Center describes it, “The core value of the quest for Dr. King’s Beloved Community was agape love… which he described as ‘understanding, redeeming goodwill for all,’ an ‘overflowing love which is purely spontaneous, unmotivated, groundless and creative’…’the love of God operating in the human heart.’ He said that ‘Agape does not begin by discriminating between worthy and unworthy people…It begins by loving others for their sakes’ and ‘makes no distinction between a friend and enemy; it is directed toward both…Agape is love seeking to preserve and create community.’”

This summer at JUC, we’ll be exploring the theme of Belonging. What does it mean to truly belong? What does it mean to truly love? Because we don’t strive for beloved community out of a sense of “wokeness” (though we could do worse than to “stay woke” in its original sense). We do it because we know that our spiritual wholeness depends on drawing our circle ever wider. And the work of creating beloved community, of cultivating true belonging, isn’t easy. It’s gritty. Sometimes it’s difficult. It requires sustained emotional, mental, spiritual, and sometimes physical resolve.

So this month, as some of our youth go off to Wyoming for a week of pondering these truths, I invite you also to consider - how did you experience croissants, not doughnuts when you showed up at JUC? How do you individually and we collectively, continually create our croissant now? What could we be doing to make an even better croissant?

As I took a walk around my neighborhood last week, I noticed a pride flag in someone’s front yard. It had a ragged, aged look to it; the vibrant colors of the rainbow were muted, bleached by the sun. In that moment, I felt a pang of delight. In Florida, where I used to live, we didn’t feel safe putting a pride flag outside our house at all. Now, I’m delighted to live in a community where there are old pride flags, which have waved happily in the breeze for who knows how long. It serves as a lovely reminder: we are not new. We have always been here, and now we are coming out, enjoying the sunlight.

I’ve loved that June is the Month of Delight, because, as Jen taught us in their sermon last Sunday, delight is an essential part of honoring Pride month, as well as an essential part of protest and resistance. I am almost sad to leave behind this month that encourages us to look for nuggets of delight, as well as to celebrate queer community, history, and activism. Instead of dreading the end of June, though, I’m going to commit to carrying the lessons from this month forward into the summer instead.

Our summer of belonging is coming nearer, and I can’t help but think about how connected delight and belonging are. Humans are playful, goofy creatures, and I think an important part of belonging is a sense of freedom to play, to be silly, to pull faces and delight in making fools of ourselves. So, as we enter into our summer of belonging, let’s not forget the lessons we learned during the month of delight. Let’s take that levity and joy with us as we seek to strengthen our community.

When we see each other next, feel free to come up and tell me what belonging means to you. What are the places or communities where you have felt a sense of belonging, and what specifically instilled that feeling in you? If you have had an experience where you have felt a distinct lack of belonging, what contributed to that sense? In what ways do you seek to help others feel as though they belong? If we can consider these questions together, we are all the closer to fostering belonging and connection within our congregation.

I’ll leave you with this quotation from Brené Brown’s book: Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone:

“Stop walking through the world looking for confirmation that you don't belong. You will always find it because you've made that your mission. Stop scouring people's faces for evidence that you're not enough. You will always find it because you've made that your goal. True belonging and self-worth are not goods; we don't negotiate their value with the world. The truth about who we are lives in our hearts. Our call to courage is to protect our wild heart against constant evaluation, especially our own. No one belongs here more than you.”

Grocery Rewards

If you shop for food, the grocery store will give JUC money! Here are the ways the following stores donate when you shop:

King Soopers - Sign up with your SooperCard to have JUC as your chosen charity for their Community Rewards. When you scan your card, or enter your ID on the pin pad, JUC gets credit for your purchases and then King Soopers sends us a quarterly check.

Safeway - Get a free a reloadable gift card from JUC. When you reload at the store, JUC gets a donation of 5% of the amount.

Thanks for helping us raise a little money just by doing your normal grocery shopping!

Pastoral Care Needs You!

Deda Nelson

Our Pastoral Care Ministry seeks to create a caring, equipping, and supportive ministry to give and receive care. Our team has reached out to our JUC community, providing support in many ways. We’ve arranged assistance during an illness or challenging time, planned memorial receptions, offered workshops, and we’ve sent cards, celebrating Joys and soothing Sorrows. Thank you Pastoral Care Team for your dedication and generosity. We also want to thank JUC members for your generous support of the NAMI Special Plate this year.

Summer is here, but we are already anticipating new things for Pastoral Care this fall. We need volunteers to join us, particularly Connectors.

Many of us would like to volunteer at JUC, but often feel we don't have the time, especially those of us with children still at home. If you feel this way, you may be interested in volunteering as a Pastoral Care Connector. One month out of the year, a connector coordinates meals, rides, and durable medical equipment for JUC members who need them on a short term basis. As a connector, you would hear of a need through a minister. Then you contact the member to get more details. Next, you email our JUCehelper Team. They are members who are willing to provide meals, rides, or medical equipment. They do the work of providing the support a member needs. All of a connector's volunteering can be done remotely, from the comfort of your home or anywhere you have a phone or laptop. No errands to run or weekday trips to JUC! We can use your help. If you are interested in being a connector, please reach out to Rev. Jen Simon for more information.

Finally, if you need or know of someone who would benefit from Pastoral Care, call us at 720-CHURCH9 (720-248-7249) or email cares@jeffersonunitarian.org.

Habitat for Humanity Update

Bruce and Cathy Martin

The first JUC/JIP (Jeffco Interfaith Partners) build date at the Miller site was scheduled for Saturday, April 22 and was snowy and cold. Just ask Tom Reiley if you wish to know how cold that morning was. Our next build day should be warmer. We are slotted to provide three volunteers at the Miller Street site on Saturday, August 12 from 7:50 am to 3:30 pm. Remember, to work on a Metro Denver Habitat for Humanity (MD H4H) construction site one must be at least 16 years old (18 to climb ladders and use power tools). If you are interested in volunteering at the production shop there are some days with work planned for volunteers as young as 14 years old. For the work date at the Miller site on the 12th there will be lunch provided. Contact Cathy or Bruce Martin if you are interested in volunteering on Saturday, August 12.

For those who may wish to work only a half day we do have the opportunity to volunteer on Saturday, July 29 from 8 am to noon building an Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) on a family-owned property. The site is yet to be announced but will be in the west Denver area. There are six slots available to JIP volunteers.

We hope to see you out on a build date this construction season!