Kim Wade – 2025-26 President

Dear UU folks,

During Missouri’s big January snowfall, my spouse and I were driving (yes, slowly . . . cautiously) home from Michigan. We arrived back in Columbia after midnight, our car’s headlights illuminating snow-mounded tree branches, electric wires, sidewalks, driveways.

We woke the next morning to a brightly reflective, white-drenched landscape. My spouse stood at a window, then started in surprise, pointing: “Oh wow!” Splayed across the entire iced-over surface of our pond were glittering letters, twelve feet long and illuminated by the sunrise, spelling “Welcome Home.” The snowboot-inscribed letters, written by walking, were accompanied by snow-track outlines of people, a cat, and a dog and surrounded by a snow-track outline of a house.

We learned that our adult son had stopped by to do the walking-writing while we’d been en route home. It was a gesture at once grand and sweet and utterly delightful.

The gradual melting of the words into the pond lasted for days. In fact, the icy letters shimmered on, implausibly, long after the shoreline had become bare of snow. Long after the pond itself had mostly thawed. Welcome, the pond sparkled. Home, it shined. “How can it do that?” we asked one another. “I don’t know . . . science?!”

In this ephemeral, shapeshifting gift, something more substantial was also being spelled out. The snow art was so fleeting, so lovely and generative, that it made one thing crystal clear to me: this is a vital way forward. By this, I mean art-making and art-giving as a form of relational care. Creative gestures as a way to live in this world. And it is a way that has been with us and accessible to us – as a church, as a people – all along.

Creative, craft-as-care gestures are everywhere in our church. We (dare I say artfully and magnificently?!) surprise and delight one another weekly. We are, in fact, quite rich in this. Witness the coffee filters turned into chancel art flowers by the children. Witness potluck dishes outnumbering the available oven spaces. Witness our December Board of Trustees meeting when we “toasted” one another with hand-written notes on pictures of . . . toast. Witness Reverend Molly’s prime-time worthy performance of Bad Bunny’s lyrics from the pulpit. What else can we notice?

These creative moves – some silly, some genuine and guileless, some trickstery – all enact and enfold us into a life together that can be at turns sweet or raucous or wickedly pranky. And we are not alone. Hello, and deep bow, Portland Frog. Hello, and deep bow, Minnesota protesters whose slices of bologna and certain, anatomically-inspired objects (batteries optional) bounced off the sides of departing ICE vehicles.

Here’s why this matters. A lot. We are showing one another how creativity can thrive in the cracks. This is craft as care. Art as active, joyous, and deadly-serious resistance. These are our creative impulses at work, able to spark a block party on one day and a coordinated response to shield neighbors from cruelty on another.

The power and the glory of these creative gestures is that they are also forms of spiritual sustenance. These artful acts of making and giving and receiving can and do take place alongside immense uncertainty, anger, and fear. I am learning not to wait for certainty or sunshine to make art in the snow, to experiment, create, dance, and play with others, even or especially if our efforts might seem on the surface to be fruitless or fleeting.

I am so moved by these words from Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama, who calls us to this communal and spiritual work of creative, care-infused meaning making when he says: “Let us pick up the stones over which we stumble, friends, and build altars.”

Kim Wade
2025-26 President

Rev. Dr. Molly Housh Gordon – Minister

The March s worship theme is: “Survival is not a tank. It is a potluck.”

Dear UU Churchers,

One of the images burned in my mind forever by video dispatches from friends and colleagues resisting the ICE occupation of Minnesota is an armored vehicle at a street corner surrounded by masked, armed federal agents. On the very next block near the makeshift memorial to Renee Good is a cluster of tailgate tents full of those flimsy aluminum trays, full of steaming food, and surrounded by neighbors in their big puffy coats, feeding each other.

The wildly disparate display of force and obvious lack of any threat are striking, but what is more compelling to me is the stark difference in visions of what it takes to survive. Is it tanks and guns, threat and control? Or is it aluminum trays of tater tot casseroles and sambusas, connection and care?

I know which future I want to be a part of. And I know that we live in a culture that pushes us away from each other as neighbors. I know that I’ve never met the person who lives two doors down from me, and therefore I’m not yet prepared to build the vision I prefer.

This month, I’m going to be spending some time meeting more of my neighbors. I’m going to ask how we can feed each other, literally and metaphorically, and I’m going to bring those wonderings… and that challenge… with me to church. I hope to see you there.

See you in church!
Rev. Molly

Monica Clark-Robinson, Intern Minister

Dear UUCC:

About 26 years ago, when I was still a fairly new Unitarian Universalist, someone at my home congregation (which was then UUCC!) approached me about the possibility of doing a sermon during the summer. “You’d be great at it, I bet!” they said. I wish I could remember who that was, but alas, I can no longer remember their name or face.

I was nervous about saying yes, even though I generally liked both writing and public speaking. I came from a Southern Missionary Baptist background where women NEVER were allowed to preach or speak from the pulpit. In fact, I don’t remember anyone but the lead minister or the youth minister ever preaching. I was worried that maybe my thoughts or my perspective wouldn’t be good enough or smart enough or deep enough or…simply enough. Who would want to hear me? I thought.

As UUs though, we value the wisdom and voice and perspective of everyone. Part of why we have such a strong lay preaching tradition as a faith movement is that we believe in that old “inherent worthiness and dignity” principle. Our unique voices are needed, and our individual wisdoms are an important part of who we are as a congregation. Here, we are all enough.

Though I was pretty nervous, I loved the experience of preaching my first sermon on that summer Sunday back in 2000. It set me on a path to lay leadership that eventually would lead to seminary. My wife and daughters, too, have all given sermons over the years, at our various home congregations.

Of course, not everyone feels called to this kind of lay leadership—we all have our own unique interests and skills to offer. But if you were that kid who didn’t hate doing school presentations, or that kid who really liked to share the poem or story you wrote, or even that kid who was simply liked to ponder and philosophize, sermon writing and preaching might be for you!

So consider this your invitation to join me for “That’ll Preach!” – a three-session Sermon Writing Workshop Series in March. Read the details here. Hope to see you there!

Monica

Jamila Batchelder – Director of Religious Education

Spring is in the air, and many new and exciting things are springing up at UUCC!

Our Our Whole Lives (OWL) Program for K-2nd graders will be starting soon! If you would like child to be in involved in this eight-week program that will be meeting during worship time (10:30-11:30), please contact me.

We will be completing work on the playground! See the calendar for many work days you can help out on. We will also be having the kids involved in helping out, with a Service Sunday on March 29.

You can also help sponsor the playground with our hand-print fundraiser!

Last, I encourage you to check out our family-friendly art nights that take place on the first Friday of each month (this month on March 6 from 6:30 to 7:30), that explore our monthly theme through fun creative practices.

Looking forward to a great spring!

Jamila