2025-26 President Kim Wade
Dear UU folks,
Cardboard boxes take up a lot of space in my head and home these days. My spouse and I are moving across town. Long before I was at the “we’re-gonna-need-boxes” stage of moving, folks began offering us boxes.
Folks went out of their way, even while slogging through their own moves, to give us their boxes. They put boxes in storage sheds until we needed them, left boxes in our driveway, gave us their garage door code saying, “Take what you need.”
Three of these box-bearers are friends I met through UUCC who have grown very dear to me. Others, while not members of UUCC, have all taken part in various offerings at our church over the years.
When I joined UUCC eight years ago, I did not think, “Great! Now I’ll be getting my cardboard box needs met.” But here we are.
While folks were saying: “We’ve got boxes. Do you need them?” I was hearing “We’ve got your back.”
And so, while packing, I’ve been pondering the ways in which material needs are also spiritual needs. Is the gift of material aid also a gift of spiritual accompaniment? Here, in this box, I’m packing up the bowls we eat from every day. This same box once held, or may someday hold, the bowls you eat from. That feels spiritual to me.
In this box, I’m packing up the large, impossibly flat round stones my kids carried from the shore of Lake Superior nearly 20 years ago. This same box once held, or may someday hold, objects that speak stories to you. And by you, I really mean You. Not a hypothetical you. But the You who is reading this text. That feels spiritual to me.
And might these small, everyday acts of material and spiritual aid also be acts that weave ever deepening and ever widening webs of relational care? Might these acts ready us for times when each of us in turn will need, and be prepared to give and to receive, so much more?
Through September, and again in the spring, our congregation will host Rev. Jordinn Nelson Long, a cultural geographer and visiting scholar who is a colleague and conversational partner of Reverend Molly’s. Jordinn will be exploring, alongside us, the nature, the extent, and the depth of the relational webs we are weaving, within our congregation as well as without.
I can picture a map of this box’s journey, this box that I am now closing up. On this map, the box started in your old home, traveled to your new home, then came, temporarily, to me. I will hand it off to the next one of us, and on and on. Overlay that map with other maps of other boxes passing through our hands, and we begin to see a beautiful, practical, intricate and growing network of care.
And so, who’s next? We’ve got your back box.
With gratitude
Kim Wade
2025-26 President
Rev. Dr. Molly Housh Gordon, Minister
Dear UU Churchers,
This year’s worship arc is “Survival Is a Garden.” To develop the themes for our year, your Worship Associates, the Writing for Spiritual Sustenance Group and I took inspiration from a poem by Kyle Tran Myhre called “When it Really is Just the Wind and Not a Furious Vexation.” In it, the poet reflects that all the post-apocalyptic images of hard-core guys with machetes on motorcycles are false visions of survival. Instead, he realizes, “…in every universe in which / I am alive, it is because of other people.” He lays out a vision of thriving where we all survive because we know we need each other, and then he lays down these two beautiful couplets that have inspired our year:
Survival is not a fortress. It is a garden.
Survival is not a siren. It is a symphony.
In this moment when fascists are trying to sell us a bleak wasteland of survival, built on violent control and betrayal of one another, it is time for us to remember what real, collective survival is… and what it isn’t.
Together with your Worship Associates and Writing for Spiritual Sustenance Group, and some beloved colleagues of mine, we generated a huge list of things that survival is and isn’t. Nine of them became our themes for the year. They are all worthy of our reflection, and we invite you to bring us even more!
One way we survive is with art, and there will be many ways to creatively engage in collective art and creative prompts around the themes this year, including our new First Friday offering — Guidebook to the Garden, when we will explore the theme together in more creative ways.
What is our collective survival, and what is it not? Join us all year to deepen our understanding together.
| Month | Theme | Translation |
| September | Survival is not a fortress. It is a garden. | Abundance. Care. |
| October | Survival is not a siren. It is a symphony. | Collaboration. Harmony. |
| November | Survival is not a promise. It is a memory. | Ancestry. Wisdom. |
| December | Survival is not a sprint. It is a breath. | Patience. Rest. |
| January | Survival is not a prison. It is a candle. | Freedom. Hope. |
| February | Survival is not a factory. It is a poem. | Creativity. Beauty. |
| March | Survival is not a tank. It is a caravan. | Community. Nourishment. |
| April | Survival is not the end. It is a seed. | Possibility. Future. |
| May | Survival is not a wasteland. It is a dance party. | Joy. Thriving. |
See you in church!
Rev. Molly
Monica Clark-Robinson, Intern Minister
Dear UUComo folks,
I’m writing this to you the week before officially joining you as your new intern minister, and I can scarcely wait to meet you all! About 26 years ago, my family and I joined UUComo as members—and for two lovely years, it became our first UU church home before we moved for grad school. It feels like a perfect circle for me to come back to Columbia for my second year of internship. I wish I could sit down for tea and conversation with all of you, but until then, here’s a bit about me:
I live in Little Rock, Ark. in a bright blue yurt in the woods with my wife Greta and youngest daughter Beatrice, who just graduated high school. My oldest daughter Madeleine is 26 and was just a babe in arms when we first brought her to UUComo! I’m an actor and children’s book writer, and have felt the call to UU ministry for years as an active lay leader in my congregations. Each of those parts of me — actor, writer, minister — is about my love of story and my belief in the value of shared story to usher change. There’s a song in one of my favorite musicals, Once On This Island, that’s called “Why We Tell the Story.” The final lyrics of the song best explain how I feel about the power of story:
For out of what we live and we believe,
Our lives become
The stories that we weave.
I dream of a world where people are seen and cherished, where creativity deepens our sense of the sacred, and where our shared stories guide us toward transformation and radical mutual flourishing. I cannot wait to do the joyful weaving of story, of church, and of Love-at-the-Center community with you all.
In gratitude,
Monica
Jamila Batchelder, Director of Religious Education
We are beginning another new year at UUCC, my tenth as your Director of Religious Education. Here is what we have planned for every age group:
- Potter Class (PreK) will learn about friendships and community, and about how taking care of each other is what it means to be a UU.
- Barton Class (K-2 grade) will learn about our relationship with the earth and how to care and protect it.
- Latimer Class (3-4th grade) will learn about the long history of amazing UUs who inspire us in what it means to be a Unitarian Universalist.
- Adams Family Class (5-6th grade) will watch that most peculiar UU-created show, “The Twilight Zone,” and practice finding insight and wisdom wherever it is to be found.
- Young UUs (7-8th grade) will learn about different faith traditions and then will visit different religious services around town to see how other people practice their faiths. We will learn about being open to different ways of being and new ideas, while still holding true to our own values.
Violet Vonder Haar, Director of Music Ministry
Hello UU Friends,
Choir: It’s time for another season of singing UU! The UUCC Choir will resume our weekly rehearsals this Wednesday, Sept. 3 at 7 p.m. Members are invited to bring a dish for a potluck for our first rehearsal. We will eat together, sing simple songs, and (re)connect together as an ensemble. If you are interested in joining us, click on the button below to learn more and to sign up. If you’re not sure if choir is right for you, come to a rehearsal and we’ll fill you in on all the fun details!
Sacred Songs in Sacred Places: If you are interested in singing, but unable or hesitant to add a weekly commitment to your calendar or maybe a little intimidated by the idea of joining a choir, I am excited to announce that my Sacred Song Circles now have a permanent place in the schedule on Thursdays from 6:30 to 8 p.m. except the first Thursday of each month and on holidays, starting on Sept. 18.
What to expect: Simple songs taught on the spot, intended to open the heart and deepen into our humanity and inter-connectedness. No singing experience necessary. Some circles will be held outdoors while the weather is still nice. We will make our way indoors as the season changes. If you are at all interested in participating, please sign up for the weekly e-mail by clicking this button:
Sacred Songs Email LIst Signup
I look forward to singing with you this season, whether at these events, or on Sunday mornings. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me by email.
Violet Vonder Haar
(she/her/hers)
Director of Music Ministry