Ruth Milledge, 2024-25 President

Your Board of Trustees has made this statement publicly via several media:

As we witness cruel, destructive, and divisive acts by our Federal and State governments, we, the Board of Trustees of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbia, Missouri, are moved to speak out.

Love is the foundation of our faith. Courageous love calls us to care for each other as neighbors and to oppose attempts to diminish or demonize any among us.

Courageous love binds us together. It compels us to speak and to act on one another’s behalf. Silence, when someone in our community is threatened or harmed, is itself a threat and a harm. Silence when neighbors suffer is not what love looks like. And so, in the spirit of courageous love:

• We reaffirm our commitment as a Sanctuary Congregation, to practice embodied solidarity and spiritual accompaniment with our beloved immigrant neighbors.
• We reaffirm our commitment to celebrate all queer and trans identities as sacred expressions of wholeness and love and to care well for our queer and trans members, friends, and neighbors.
• We reaffirm our core belief that diversity, equity, and inclusion are not slogans, but pathways to creating the beloved community, holy expressions of difference and the sacredness of human worth.
• We resolve to cultivate ever-widening networks of communal care and mutual aid to help alleviate the financial distress and economic harms caused by the policy violence of our state and federal governments.

As we resource the work of our congregation, we will continue to prioritize programs and efforts that support our targeted neighbors.

We will work alongside others in our community to deepen and to embolden these commitments to collective care. We invite people of conscience to join us.

Rev. Dr. Molly Housh Gordon

When I Am Among The Trees
by Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

What is saving you today? Is it the trees? The lengthening days amid bright sunshine? The nourishing rain? A loved one? A community?

This month at UUCC, we conclude our year of exploring a Culture of Care, and I’ve been thinking that the hardest, most beautiful lesson of it all is the calling to sink into the vulnerable openness which saves us daily. To be present to one another, to move slowly, and bow often, to treat this life with reverence. That is the deepest source of care.

This month, may you go easy, know yourself filled with light, and shine on!

See you in church,
Rev. Molly

Jamila Batchelder, Director of Religious Education

May is always a busy month in the UUCC calendar, a chance to celebrate this caring community, especially our children and youth! For those of you newer to Unitarian Universalism, on May 11 we will celebrate one of our most beloved UU rituals, the Flower Communion. On May 18, the high schoolers will lead the worship service and share with you their own approach to Unitarian Universalism. And on May 25, we will celebrate bridging — the conclusion of one chapter of our lives and the beginning of a new, both in worship and in our R.E. classes. I hope you can join us for all this celebration. Thank you for being a part of this community of care!