Kim Wade, 2025-2026 UUCC President

Dear UU folks,

Last week, while unpacking from our move across town, I pulled out a small grey stone with the word “slow” written on it in metallic purple ink. I dropped it. I picked it back up. I’d inked that word on that stone at least three (maybe four?) years ago during one of our worship services.

It seems like every meeting check-in I’m part of these days involves folks revealing just how exhausted, overwhelmed or depleted they feel. And slowing down would be nice, but . . . it is not an option. For so many among us – folks in caregiving roles, folks trying to make ends meet, folks doing what a body can do in service to something or someone. . . like democracy . . . or a child – there is more that needs doing than can be done. There are loved ones who need to be driven, meals to be cooked, bills to be paid, and petitions to be signed. I bet you’ve got a list.

So . . . was that stone a remnant from naive then-me? Or a reminder? Wishful thinking or wisdom?

One thing I’m learning from Unitarian Universalism is to question the questions. To look beyond the binary choices. To welcome nuance. To ask different questions. And so I asked myself instead, what could “slow” look like to me, and perhaps to others, these days?

And then I caught myself in our Sanctuary during worship doing something I’ve been doing unintentionally for a while now. Every Sunday, at some point while folks are singing, or blowing bubbles, or tossing balls of yarn to one another, I find myself scanning the room. I soak in the multitude of familiar and not-yet-familiar faces. I let go of some fragment of me-ness to welcome in a bit more we-ness. My experience of time slows for just a moment. And it feels like a balm.

And then the following morning I stepped out onto a deck at dawn. I noticed a splotch of mud, or was it a dry leaf or . . . it moved! Was it a frog? A toad? I resisted the urge to identify or name it and sat down at a distance. I sipped coffee, watched the sun rise, remembered frog/toad and looked around. They had moved closer. They were now sitting right next to me and, having pivoted, were now also facing east. I had . . . so many questions. And once again, looking at the face of an-other, I let go of a fragment of me-ness to welcome in a bit more we-ness. And once again, my experience of time slowed for just a moment.

So here is my wish for anyone who feels the strain of too much too fast, for anyone in sore need of rest and respite. My wish is that you find yourself caught up in a moment in which time slows. A moment, however brief, that is expansive enough for you to know that you are not alone.

With gratitude
Kim Wade
2025-26 President

Rev. Dr. Molly Housh Gordon, Minister

This month’s worship theme is: “Survival is not a siren. It is a symphony.”

Dear UU Churchers,

I don’t know about you, but these days I experience quite often that all of my internal alarm bells are blaring. The authoritarian strategies for consolidating control are an assault on bodies, livelihoods, relationships, and all of our nervous systems, and none of us are untouched.

None of us are untouched.

I think it is important for us each to find our “self-interest” in this moment, which is community organizer-speak for understanding your own stakes in the change that is needed.

This is not only happening to someone else. It is happening to you, too. It is happening to you, and I would welcome the chance to grieve and hold with you the ways that you are being affected in this time of cruelty. Please do reach out.

For those of you closest in to the harm, and those being actively targeted by violent forces, the alarms may be very loud indeed, and it is not because your internal alarm systems have gone haywire. The harm is real and dangerous and vast.

And it’s hard to live this way, isn’t it? It doesn’t feel like real survival.

You deserve real survival. Every person does.

So here is another truth. Like the strings before the concert begins, fall is tuning up its oncoming beauty. Birds are singing their traveling songs as their southward migration begins. Autumn rain (finally) adds a soothing rhythm to some of our days. Evening campfires crackle, and our community gathers to sing and grieve and be together.

Amid the real, blaring alarms, these sounds are present too, and so are these truths: The reliability of the earth’s cycles, even as they shift. The beauty of the world we share, even as we suffer. The power of community, even and especially now. We can turn the volume up on these things as we deepen our spiritual community.

How can we join our hearts and voices in a way that mitigates the harm authoritarian forces are exacting upon us? How can we quiet the blaring alarm bells — not by drowning them out in false positivity and business-as-usual, but by coming alongside one another in deep and vocal care that brings real safety?

Gabor Maté has written: “Safety is not the absence of threat… it is the presence of connection.”

Can we make our community a symphony of connection and solidarity so powerful that the alarms begin to quiet? Can we be a true shelter for one another in the face of such pervasive cruelty? These are questions we will live together this month. These are questions worthy of our hearts.

See you in church!
Rev. Molly

Intern Minister Monica Clark-Robinson

“Survival is not a siren. It is a symphony.” —Kyle Tran Myhre

In my second year of seminary, I took a class on nature and spirituality titled “Call of the Wild.” One of my assignments was about listening deeply to the symphony of nature.

In the week leading up to the class, I began spending time outside, closing my eyes and just listening. It was early spring, so I heard barred owls at night, chickadees in the morning, and the sounds of thawing and dripping all day long as the land around me began its yearly warming. But by far, my favorite sound that week of listening was the call of the Pseudacris crucifer, the spring peeper frog. I hadn’t fully realized just how calm and joyful the sound of the peeper frog made me feel. As the male frogs call for their mate, the sound – which some have called audible glitter – makes my shoulders relax and a smile come unbidden to my face.

Sometimes, allowing ourselves to simply be in the presence of the sights and sounds of nature can be balm to our soul. It is a symphony that is always available to us, and the concerto that is currently playing outside is Autumn, No. 1. If “despair for the world” is growing in you lately, I invite you to first listen to my favorite autumnal sound, then consider Wendell Berry’s poem, “The Peace of Wild Things,” for a moment of respite.

Geese flying south: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XG_L5H-RoOA

“The Peace of Wild Things”

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Jamila Batchelder, Director of Religious Education

We are off to a great start in R.E., thanks to our many wonderful volunteers! if you are planning to volunteer, but haven’t signed up yet, please do so, as it saves me a lot of time searching for available people on any given Sunday. And if you are on the fence about volunteering, I want to clear up a common misconception: You do not have to volunteer every Sunday! I love for people to volunteer five Sundays over the course of the year, but if you can only do once or twice, that is great too! The more caring adults our children interact with in our church, the better!

You can volunteer here.