RE at the UUSB November 2010 The religious education program of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Bangor inspires all participants to grow spiritually, develop a sense of personal and social responsibility, and experience joy in a loving Unitarian Universalist community. It s November Already! November sneaks up on me every year. It is a roll down hill after school starts, the air crisps, the leaves turn, the apples are picked, the pumpkin patch visited, the costumes are decided, and then BOOM! Daylight savings ends and there you are in November on a dark afternoon wondering what happened? And then the back peddling begins because, shhhh, December is next. We can t stop time, can t even really slow it down, or can we? Going into to the moment, being fully present is the only way to slow down and live. I d like to tell you that I am terrifically good at this, I m not. Which is perhaps why I m so drawn to the idea, I have to remember it, a jewel in the case, it gleams at me. Around my house are Tibetan prayer flags, Buddhas, circles, they all try to remind me to s l o w d o w n. I however grew up outside of Boston where faster is better, and doing it smartly, efficiently, and did I mention Now, was a must. Fourteen years in the desert did help, but I could use some Buddha wall paper because really, there are never enough reminders. In this Issue: A Letter from our DRE! A Letter from Rev. Becky Dreaming about the Fuuture of our RE Program Ask the Elders Taking it Home- UU Parenting Caption describing The Month Ahead picture or graphic. Announcing the Family Choir! There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children." ~Nelson Mandela This is the month to slow down. To be with the grace that gratitude is. Thankful for so many things, and applying the wisdom to stop and enjoy those many things. we hurry from the moment s wealth for fear it will be taken. Anne Pitkin pin points it, just where are we going that is somehow better? Why can t we enjoy what we have? Believe me I know it can be arguable, the part about enjoying everything, but I think that is where plain old humor comes in. In that glass box that you break in case of emergency should be a belly laugh. When you stop to appreciate what you have you can see the moment s wealth and orient yourself in time and space and gratitude for what is. May we each find time in each day to count our blessings, and not allow them to go unseen simply because they are there all the time. Our brains are so incorrigible, trained only to notice what is new or different. They don t get excited when WOW there is enough food to eat, or many of the other miracles that happen each day. This definitely simplifies life you can t be excited about everything all the time, but you can appreciate what ever abundance is yours today. Today, this day, this hour, this moment here and gone, celebrate in gratitude what is. Many blessings to each of you and yours, In Gratitude, Diane 2010 Volume 1, Issue 2 Jill Packard, Editor jillpackard@gmail.com, 207.992.3822
COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS Happy Thanksgiving for a Year: A Letter from Reverend Becky This month we celebrate Thanksgiving as a country and at church. Some of the first people who came to this country were helped by the native people here and this holiday honors those who helped. I think observing Thanksgiving is a good idea because we can remember that we needed other people to be able to make our homes here. I think, however, that we should not just celebrate being grateful one day a year. I believe it is important to think of all of the people, places, things, animals and foods that we have in our lives the things that make us happy and full and joyful. It is a good practice to say thank you for all these wonderful things in our lives and they don t have to be special things, they can just be ordinary things. When I was a little girl I often did not listen to my grandmother s stories because I had heard them so often I thought they were boring. But, today, I wish that I had listened and had thanked her for all of her stories and her hugs. Her hugs were always there and I just never thought to say, Thanks Grandma! I know that would have felt very good to her. "A person's a person, no matter how small." ~Dr. Seuss Are there people in your lives that are just there and do ordinary things for you, but when you think about it, those ordinary things are very special? What about places? Are there parks or playgrounds that are fantastic? Have you thought to be thankful for those places? Who cooks your dinner? That s pretty great to have someone do that for you. Consider thanking them. Every day just before I go to bed, I try to think of some things for which I am grateful. Today I am grateful that I have a chance to be the minister of our church; I am thankful for all those who listen when I tell stories; I am thankful for the beautiful sky and all the different colors of leaves. I have so much to be thankful for. What are you thankful for? Happy Thanksgiving month (year), Rev. Becky ASK THE ELDERS Marge Lawrence said last month, Find something to be grateful for. That seemed most auspicious as we flow into the season of thankfulness. Marcia Jordan wrote in, expanded on Marge s sage words, and I believe has begun an insightful dialogue. Marcia writes, "I believe that when we think of what we are grateful for it places us in the spirit of prayer, and can be used as a tool for meditating. I also believe that it is an experience that makes us more humble. The word humility is not used as much in today's society as we seem to be so consumed with ego and self image, and the business of doing. I believe the Divine, however we perceive it, is all around and within each of us. The challenge as I see it, is to slow down and listen to the still small voice." Page 2
COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS - CONTINUED What is going on Downstairs? The teachers tell us PreK K: We are having a wonderful time with our great group of children. They each add so much to our group. We have been working on a theme of "Nature Gives Us Gifts, Nature Needs Our Care" in recent weeks. We have talked about being friends to trees and how we need the rain. In November, we will be focusing on themes of Thankfulness for ourselves, friends, family, animals, and the earth. We will be adding the ritual of saying something we are thankful for to our chalice lighting. Some families enjoy this ritual at mealtimes. We are thankful for all the children who come to share our RE time. K-1: In October, we read books about our unique identities and how those can be part of the communities we build. In November we will learn about important UU s like Fannie Farmer and will talk about being grateful. Each week we speak about things we are thankful for and sometimes things we are not so thankful for. It s been a wonderful time sharing with each other! The 2nd to 5th grade is traveling together in their curriculum, The Spirit of Adventure, and it has been a great group to adventure with. The focus is on teaching the UU principles through experiencing activities from everyday life. October's theme was medicine and the children identified many UU principles that come into play in medicine. On October 24th, first time UU guest, Susan Staples responded to our last minute request and taught us to take pulses and bandage wounds and we practiced 911 calls. On Oct 31st, Diane's husband, Frank MacClellan, came in dressed in flight suit to tell us about his exciting and important work as a paramedic on Life Flight. The children's comments and questions were so numerous that it was impossible for Frank to respond to them all. November is all about food - its healthfulness and its nurturing powers. We have decided to try doing some activities as a big group and then breaking into a younger and older age group for some of the discussion and activity time. Our intent is to allow for some age differentiation and some smaller group time. We'll try it out. The middle school + 9 th grade group is off and running with the Neighboring Faiths curriculum! We began our exploration with Paganism (Neopaganism) where we learned about the cyclical nature of time, goddess worship, and the underlying faith behind our 7 th principle. We had a wonderful guest speaker, UUSB member and priestess from the Temple of the Feminine Divine Michelle Strout. Michelle introduced our class to the rituals and beliefs of their church, set up an altar in our classroom and captivated the kids with palmistry and rune casting. In November we continue our journey with explorations of Judaism and Christianity. A visit to the Temple Beth El is planned for next month. The Senior High youth will continues their exciting new curriculum through November!! Rachel Case, co-teacher for the group recently attended HayStack Mountain School of Crafts where she did workshops about the fine art of collage. She is sharing her new knowledge with the Senior High youth and the will be getting creative with collage for the next couple of Sundays. For Samhain, the group made delicious, traditional Soul Cakes for coffee hour. In November, the youth will be doing dramatic skits and exercises and playing bonding games and working on building a strong foundation. Page 3
Take it Home With You Make Unitarian Universalism an Integrated part of your family s daily life!!! Spiritual practices for children and youth: Part 3 Final Installment For, although children naturally express their spirituality through physical movement and teens often prefer creative expression, that doesn t mean their spiritual practices need to be limited to those pursuits any more than an adult must feel limited to intellectual pursuits that expand the mind. In the East, children often learn meditation as soon as they are able to sit upright, and for centuries, Native American children have been engaging in vision quests or sitting still and silent for an hour or more while experiencing the wonder of the natural world around them. While this may seem amazing and even preposterous to those of us who are dominated by a culture of busy-ness and multitasking that equates stillness with lethargy, these children have seen this behavior modeled by adults and older children. Since a child s attitude toward spirituality is derived for the most part from his or her parents, the spiritual practices we engage in or introduce to our children will have an impact on their lifelong view of spiritual expression. Therefore, it only makes sense to honor our yearnings by pursuing those practices that give us the most meaning. And while our children may not ultimately choose to express their spirituality in exactly the same way we do, they will feel the freedom to explore and engage in spiritual practices that provide meaning and enrich their lives. What spiritual practices do you find meaningful? Do you share them with your children? Why or why not? Do your children and youth engage in spiritual practices that you don t share? Reprinted with permission by author, Michelle Richards available at http://blogs.uuworld.org/parenting/2010/04/26/spiritualpractices-for-children-and-youth/ ANNOUNCMENT! The UUSB Youth Choir Will now be known as the Family Choir! Choir will continue on Sundays at 11:30 in the 2-5grade Classroom. We learn simple songs and sing for about 20 minutes. This change occurred because we noticed that there are some kids who don t want to sing without their parents singing, and there are some parents who want to sing, but their kids would rather not, but still need their supervision, and hopefully can, through example, encourage kids to share their voice!!! (What a great idea! Thanks Sarah!!!) You need not be able to read words or read music to attend! We encourage all to come. Please contact Jill Packard at jillpackard@gmail.com 992-3822 if you have any questions Page 4
Director of Religious Education Diane D Amour McClellan Phone: 947-7009 Email: uubangorre@gmail.com Editor - 2010: Jill Packard Phone: (207) 512-4796 E-Mail: jillpackard@gmail.com "Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see." John W. Whitehead, Founder, Rutherford Institute Dreaming What do you want your kids to walk away with from the RE program? Why are they in the program and what do you want them to get from it? Big ideas, specific facts, basic understandings community. There are so many things to think about. The RE committee is looking at creating the curriculum map for our youth, and a good map keeps in mind the destination. So, I d like each of you to come up with a wish list for your/ your children s RE experience. At this point this a back burner topic, but if you could just let it simmer, later in the year I would like to have a meeting of sorts to discuss this and bring all the flavors and ideas out. You are welcome to email, call, or talk to me in person about this if your ideas are already formed. I d like to together form a clear vision of what we want to offer our children and why we want to offer it to them. I look forward to hearing from you! Diane McClellan DRE Coming Up: Would You Like to Hold the Baby?...is the title of our pageant this year. The pageant will be December 19th and rehearsals will start on Sunday November 28th during RE time. The theme is that of the nativity scene. We are looking for someone willing to video tape the performance. The mission of RE at the UUSB: To inform and enrich the lives of the children, parents, and families of the youth enrolled in the UUSB RE program; To make the RE Program more visible in the UUSB community; To make intergenerational connections within the UUSB community. Please Send Submissions! If you have something you d like to share with the Religious Education community, or have a topic of interest that would be for the benefit of the congregation that relates to the mission of the Religious Education program here at the UUSB, please forward your ideas or written work to jillpackard@gmail.com The RE Program would not be the same without the dedication and hard work of the RE Committee. Karen Childs karenchilds75@gmail.com Laura Santilli - Laurabngr@aol.com Sueann Gaitings - sagaitings@toast.net Maureen Smith -maureens@maine.edu Susan MacKay -smackay@zmtrx.com Nancy Jacobson - njandjj@myfairpoint.net Page 5