Kim Wade, 2025-26 President

Dear UU folks,

Last night I could not sleep. By 1 a.m. I gave up trying. I washed some dishes, ate some banana bread, glanced out the window and . . . whoa!

Orion leapt toward me, blazing and bright. The night sky was so aswirl with stars that I swayed with vertigo and grasped the window ledge for support. One star hovered, seemingly just out of reach; some trick of reflection in the glass placed the star so near-at-hand that I imagined opening the window to let it float inside. As my vision adjusted to encompass both up-close reflection and distant constellation, a shooting star sliced the glittering black fabric between foreground and background. For a piercingly brief, pinprick of a moment, a light-filled seam flamed across Orion’s belt, and it was possible to perceive all, layered: the close-by, the middle distance, and the far away.

Our congregation was on my mind that night. So, this starry layering of perception got me thinking also about the layering of responsibilities as a kind of time travel. Here’s what I mean. The Board of Trustees recently determined how to apportion a generous $190,000 bequest from Dr. Dorothy Watson, a beloved one among us who died in 2024. I thought about how we are, always and all-at-once, indebted to those who come before and responsive to one another in the here and now, even while entrusted with nurturing this as a place of welcome for those who are yet-to-come.

We will celebrate UUCC’s 75th anniversary next January! Because of the work and foresight of our founders seventy-five years ago, we are able to be in relationship and in community with one another right now. In meeting their own needs, our founders prepared the ground for us as well.

And on it goes. Even as we decide how best to devote our resources today, as we shape and reshape this shared space to meet our spiritual and material needs, we are simultaneously working on behalf of unknown and unknowable future others. One day, folks we will not ever meet will also find one another and a place to belong here at UUCC.

I find comfort in that. I find comfort in thinking that we are constellating ourselves across generations. That we are part of an ongoing tradition. That we receive and pass along gifts through space and time. Like starlight that stirs us hundreds of light years after it has left home, our decisions and our efforts will reverberate long into the future. And . . . we will never truly know the import of what we have kept or set in motion.

The board held within its field of vision the past, the present, and the future generations of our congregation when deciding to apportion Dorothy’s bequest this way: 25% went toward present day operations for ministry work being done now; 55% was deposited into the Capital Fund to finance building and maintenance work that will be needed in the near future; and 20% bolstered our Endowment Fund.

Each of these pools of monies serves our congregation today even as it helps to ensure UUCC’s long-term continuance. In tending to ourselves and to our wider community we honor our spiritual ancestors while preparing the ground for our spiritual descendants who may need this shared space at least as much, perhaps even more, than we need it now.

With gratitude
Kim Wade
2025-26 President

Rev. Dr. Molly Housh Gordon

This month’s worship theme is: Survival is not a promise. It is a memory.

Dear UU Churchers,

“Have we learned nothing?” I asked James recently, as he read me a news article about tech companies swooping up vast swathes of farmland to build data centers and ruining the topsoil in the process. It was that last part — about topsoil — that snagged my memory.

When I was growing up, we visited my grandparents most weekends, and I would help set the table for dinner. I remember in my early childhood wondering why we always set the table with the cups drinking side down. One day I asked my grandmother, and she laughed ruefully, “Oh, we had to do it that way when I was a child, or the cups would be filled with grit by the time we drank from them. The habit stuck.”

My grandmother was a child of the Depression, but more than that, she was a child of the Dust Bowl. She grew up in rural Oklahoma during a time when the farming “technologies” of the era had caused wide and deep damage to the topsoil of America’s heartland, generating a climate catastrophe centered over Oklahoma — great storms of dust, of ruined topsoil, flooding on the plains.

Have we learned nothing? As a nation, we have not grappled with our history and its harms and our grief well enough to avoid repeating a whole array of terrible mistakes.

But the truth is, we have each and all learned a lot — across generations — about survival under empire. We have received entire legacies of survival strategy and wisdom (and hard lessons of failure and shame) from our ancestors, who survived so much to give us our lives in this time and place.

The future is not promised to us, but the past is right here with us, nearer than breath. This is both gift and curse, but one thing it means is this: Survival is a memory we inherit, if we will faithfully grapple with all that came before. This month, let’s join to remember our way forward into the best of those legacies.

See you in church!
Rev. Molly

Intern Minister Monica Clark-Robinson

Dear UUCC:

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been doing a lot more protesting of all forms this year—largely because there’s a constant barrage of things that need protesting. I’ve enjoyed seeing the creative signs, the waving toddlers riding on their parents’ shoulders, and the elders with funny t-shirts that say things like, “This Nana knows how to vote” or “Old Farts for Democracy,” or my personal favorite, “Grantifa.” I have found delight in the activists around the country who are bringing their joy to join in with their rage.

In Portland, activists protesting treatment of immigrants wore frog suits and faced off against National Guard troops, calling themselves the “Frog Brigade.” This type of protest is called “tactical frivolity,” and it uses joy and silliness and humor to deflate the narratives used for oppression. Who knew that FROGS would be such important tools of anti-fascist resistance? I may have immediately gone to Etsy to purchase a Portland frog t-shirt with the words “rage against the machine” written under a picture of the froggy resister.

The truth is, we need silliness and humor in order to make it through times like these. I believe that every act of tactical frivolity helps negate the harm of the narratives of hate and fear in our country. They want us to be scared and beaten down and resigned. We’re easier to control that way. They want us to match hate for hate, but what if we meet them instead with defiant silliness and joy and humor? What if we don’t let empire control the narrative?

How can you bring tactical frivolity into play in your life?

– Monica

Jamila Batchelder, Director of Religious Education

November is a month that begins with All Souls Day and ends with Thanksgiving, and all between is filled with the wistfully beautiful changing of the season.

November is a time to sit with family, memory, and beloved ancestors. I find children often love to know the old family stories, to know those who came before us (while eating food passed down through the generations!).

‘Remembering roots us, and it also gives us courage. Our ancestors’ trials and tribulations are a reminder that we come from a long line of people who found the strength to go on, even in the hardest times – through courage, persistence, a sense of humor, and with family and community.
What stories can you share with your family this season to remind all of you that you have within you the capacity to face even the hardest season?

– Jamila

Violet Vonder Haar, Director of Music Ministry

Our final singing session of 2025 at worship on Dec. 21 will begin with a potluck and rehearsal on Wednesday, Nov. 12. If you’d like to join us, please sign up.

Are you musical and interested in offering your gifts for Sunday morning services? Let’s connect! I’d love to hear from you! Send me an email.

We need singers for Christmas Eve services. If you’re looking for a meaningful way to spend your Christmas Eve, consider joining me in song. Expect simple, familiar seasonal songs with only two Sunday rehearsal commitments on Sunday, Dec. 14 and 21 from 2 to 3:30 p.m. Click here to sign up and learn more.

A group of singers holding hands in the dark around a fire pit at the weekly Sacred Song Circle. Violet stands in the middle in a yellow long sleeve shirt and smiles.

Join us for Sacred Songs in Sacred Spaces. This October has been full of meaningful moments spent in sacred circle together and singing sacred songs. You can now return to the songs being introduced each in the circles, by following my new Sacred Songs SoundCloud. At this link, you can find practice tracks, lyrics and inspiration behind the songs.

Here’s what to expect at the Sacred Song Circles: Simple songs taught on the spot, intended to open the heart and deepen into our humanity and inter-connectedness. No singing experience is necessary. If you are at all interested in participating, please sign up for the weekly email list.

– Violet Vonder Haar