UU How-Tos

Helpful hints for living by your own lights

UUA looking for Volunteers

CZ

There is a space for you at the table. The UUA is looking for volunteers for our committees, panels, and task forces such as the Board of Trustees, Moderator Search Committee, and Presidential Search Committee. https://bit.ly/2CgtSlI

You will work to carry out the mission of the organization to promote UUism in creating more beloved community for all.

Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.

Tips for Talking about the UU World Article

CZ

“This week the UU World published an article that was harmful to trans people people in the Unitarian Universalist movement. Many cisgender (non-trans) UUs are wondering how to best understand and support non-binary folks, trans women and men, intersex people, and others most affected by the article when they talk about it with other cis people. Here are some tips.”

Here is the full article from the Transforming Hearts Collective “Tips for Talking about the UU World Article“

We can do better. We should do better.

CZ

Earlier this week, UU World published a problematic, hurtful, and harmful article. Instead of writing my own response, I am passing the mic. In their article on Medium, CB Beal “Centering the Marginalized: symphony and triptych” describes why the UU World article was so upsetting and how we can do better in the future.

“When we want to do justice, and I believe that UU’s do, we have always to ask ourselves “Who is this about, and where is their story?”” – CB Beal

Alex Kapitan also made a public response on Facebook. 

And here is the Response from TRUUsT : “Putting the “T” First: Public Statement on This Week’s UU World Article” written by the TRUUsT Steering Committee.

Please read them and share them widely.

 

Image Credit to Su’ad Abdul Khabeer from their twitter account @DrSuad.

Lent is coming

CZ

#UULent is designed to be used individually, as a family, or as a congregation. For each day in Lent a word has been selected. Each day participants are invited to reflect on the meaning of the day’s word, then create a photograph that represents the word, idea, practice, or concept and post it here and/or elsewhere.

Beginning on Ash Wednesday and for each day until Easter, the word for the day and a related quote will be posted. Reflect and engage throughout the day, checking for the word and quote in the morning, then come back later in the day to add your photo* and to see the images and words others have shared throughout the day (*YOUR photo – please respect copyright!).

May this intentional practice and discipline impact your daily life in ways that bring you closer to your spiritual core and offer you resiliency for life.

Here at West Fork Unitarian Universalists we will strive to post a reflection each day on the word of the day. We look forward to journeying through this season of contemplation with you.

 

Transgender Day of Remembrance

CZ

It is Transgender Day of Remembrance. Here are some thoughts: from Rev. Sean Dennison

Today is a sacred day,
a day to remember and mourn,
a day to count the cost of so much hatred.
But don’t think that saying the names
of my 368 siblings–
(a number that rises so fast that by the time
we are done with our rituals, it may be more,
and more again)
almost all of them my sisters,
black and brown sisters–
don’t think saying their names
is enough.
It will never be enough.
Each year I am asked to absorb
the losses of hundreds
of my people, my family.
To use the word “tragedy,”
instead of genocide.
To express grief
instead of rage.

I am tired.
For decades now, I have mourned.
For decades now, I have politely
listened to lists of names, mispronounced
and loved too late, honored only
posthumously.

I want to know.
Can you love me while I live?
Can you love my siblings?
My black and brown sisters?
Can you love them no matter
the choices they made to survive?
Can you love them politically?
Can you love them personally,
allowing them to come into your church?
your home?
your heart?

I am tired.
Because these hundreds of names
are not even all.
These are only the ones who died
at the hands of someone else’s hatred.
That number does not count the ones
I have lost to self-hatred, to despair,
to hunger and cold.
It does not count the ones who are dying inside
because seeing all this,
they don’t dare to live.

So today, when you ask me to perform
my grief and sorrow on your stage,
Do not be surprised if it comes with
rage. If it comes with weeping so fierce
that I cannot speak, cannot breathe.
If it comes with wailing so loud
that (if only, if only) it could wake the dead.

And tomorrow, when the world moves on,
and I am left alone again,
with all of this,
all my beloveds dead
all my people endangered,
all the pieces of my broken heart
still piercing and bleeding,
still enraged
still heavy with grief,
Will you still remember?
And more importantly,
What will you do?

 

TRUUsT calls on Unitarian Universalists everywhere to take immediate action to live out the above truths and directly support trans UUs. #TDOR #WontBeErased

This evening there is a vigil for Transgender Day of Remembrance this evening in Morgantown at the Morgantown Church of the Brethren-Mennonite at 6pm.