by Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper
As we move into Holy Week, let us enjoy:
- the green of our Easter flyer;
- the talent of our staff who put it together;
- the leaving of Dar from the position of Interim Support Staff;
- the impromptu barbecue that Larry Alsobrook won as a prize and gave to the staff and others as gratitude to those whose works go mostly unseen;
- the Seder;
- the Good Friday evening service that will give us all shelter in the storm of life these days;
- the soon-to-be new minister and new executive director coming to get the current interim minister on her way;
- the potential restructuring of church governance that is grail under our earth at UCG;
- the palpably close success of our 60th anniversary capital campaign; and
- the clearing out of the rummage and the way it turned into $5,000+ for our Youth Work Tour this summer.Better yet, let us enjoy each other and not miss the holiness of all of April together.
Help needed: If you want to add to the list of social justice campaigns at UCG, which will roll out when Rev. Andy Bachmann preaches April 12, please send me your own personal history! I will be introducing Andy with a little anniversary-based history of what we have done in our justice autobiography.
A Poem for your Spiritual Growth
Pockets of Calm
I carry a stone in my pocket
and rub it from time to time.
it calms me.
then i give it to my friend
to calm her.
A Poem to Relax our Anxiety about the World
The Art of Care
Care is not fixing.
You are not a repair-person.
Care is relationship, not repair.
Care is engagement with the story as it is, not the story as you want it.
Care is a non-fiction book, not a fiction book.
Care that you must do is contractual care.
Spiritual care is covenantal care.
You choose it because you choose it because you choose it.
There is rarely any reward beyond the choice itself.
A Prayer for Your Personal Relationships
Powerless Love and Loveless Power
How do we get to powerful love?
Why be stuck in loveless power or powerless love?
Any day is time to move on.
A Prayer of Thanks to Shelly for Preaching so Well
Wombs as Places
First the sea, then the fish.
First the sky, then the bird.
First the garden, then the human.
First the place, then the people.
First the womb, then the child.
First the place, then the placement.
Adapted from the reading from This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us by Cole Arthur Riley, used by Rev. Dr. Shelly Wilson for her modern testimony in the March 22 service, and adapted by Rev. Donna above.
Isn’t it something that in Genesis, God makes a home for things before God makes the thing? Not the fish first but the sea. Not the bird first but the sky. Not the human first but the garden. I like to think of God hunched over in the garden, fingernails hugging the brown soil, mighty hands cradling mud like it’s the last flame in a windstorm. A God who says, not out of my own womb but out of this here dust will I make you. Place has always been the thing that made us. We cannot escape being formed by it. Thank you, Shelly, for this beautiful reading on March 22.
A Prayer
For Dolores Huerta’s 96th Birthday
When the news about Cesar Chavez came –
That he had molested children –
And raped Dolores Huerta,
Both times fertilizing her
With two now grown children,
I went looking for that box in my closet,
Where I keep my lost innocence.
The box was overflowing.
I had to get a new box.
Is one crime different than another?
The President of the United States is a sexual criminal.
Are the Epsteins of the world saved for a special place in hell,
Where someone violates them regularly?
I hope so.
I don’t like hoping so.
I really don’t want to be caught by their impotence
And join it to mine.
When people harm children,
The hurt is long.
Not short.
It is deep.
Not shallow.
Its penetration is a scar.
Prohibiting many from positive attachments
Or the fun of sex.
The box will soon be filled.
Many get away with scarring,
While I walk around wearing a pink pussy hat.
My impotence speaks to their impotence.
My box speaks to theirs.
It says, ME TOO.
Wanted: Executive Director.
UCG has long been vexed about internal and external hiring practices. Who knows what we would have done without Dar to onboard Donna, or the Reimers still loving to be with us, or Andy’s music, or Tami’s youth work? These are all internal hires that really worked and very few external hires have. Just sayin’.
The Human Relations Board has struggled with how to hire the new Executive Director (the Church Council, all four active moderators, and the staff all agree that we need one). We have an active external search going. If you know someone in your own contacts who would like to apply, please send them this Job Description. If you would like to apply yourself, please do so. The deadline to apply is Sunday, April 5. The job has been posted externally since March 17.
One more thing: An invitation
I’d like to invite you to my husband’s 75th Birthday Party!: