From Our Minister Archive
One of my colleagues signs his emails “caught in the web,” reminding me of how we are all bound up together in the interdependent web of life. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday we celebrate as a national holiday this month, called it “an inescapable network of mutuality” and “a single garment of destiny.”
One of my hopes as your minister is to uncover those ties, and strengthen those connections, both among members of this church and with the wider world. This is one reason why I encourage you to participate in Small Group Ministry this year.
Starting this February, Small Groups will meet monthly at church to offer you a place to listen, be heard, share your life, and deepen your faith. This is a yearlong program, and each group of six to ten people is led by a trained facilitator or co-facilitator team. Each Small Group also participates in two service activities each year, one serving the church, such as ushering or hosting a Second-Sunday Supper, and one serving the wider community, such as serving a meal at Step Up on Second.
Small Groups are a wonderful way for newcomers to get to know people at our church, and they are highly recommended for longtime members who want to strengthen their connections to our community. Small Groups encourage people in their spiritual growth and help them develop relationships of substance and depth.
Each month, your Small Group Ministry Facilitators meet with me to prepare to lead that month’s session. As part of our training over the past four months, I have led sessions on Letting Go, Gratitude, and Listening.
Again and again, I have been heartened and humbled by your facilitators’ faith in our Small Group Ministry
circle — the circle of community we build together.
I hope you will “come into the circle” of Small Group Ministry.
Interdependently yours,
Rev. Rebecca
Message About Generosity
One of the most important roles of this church is to be a place where we practice generosity. One of the most powerful practices of generosity I know is the spiritual art of giving. This is why I love that we have an offering — two of them — every week in worship. We give to the Westside Food Bank, teaching our children by our example what it means to be a good neighbor to those in need, and we give financially to this church and to good work in the world.
Of course a great deal of generosity takes place outside the offering: Many of you now give electronically, or through the web. You give your time and talent. You give to this congregation and to other causes that claim your heart. Thank you. Thank you for all that you give, for the way you challenge one another to give meaningfully, give intentionally, give — not until it hurts, but until it feels really good.
The Christian Bible suggests that we return 10% of what we receive, and this practice is known as tithing. My family and I are tithers. This year we are giving 6% of our income to this church, and 4% to the global poor. That’s a full 10% tithe, and it feels… pretty scary. And… it feels pretty good.
For my family, the decision to become percentage givers came after about five years of conversations about what it would mean for us to be more intentional about our financial footprint in the world, including conversations about debt, student loans, saving for our children’s education, and living within our means.
During that time, I heard a Stewardship Announcement at a UU church where a woman talked about the practice of giving away a percentage of her income. And I thought, “UUs can do that?”
It planted a seed for me, and for my family, and when this congregation called me as your minister, I finally was able to say, this is what I want to do with our money. I want to save it. I want to spend it. And I want, very deeply, to share it with something that is hopeful. Something that is life-changing. Something that sings. Somewhere that comforts. Someplace that is wise.
Something that is lasting. Someplace that will still be here after we are gone. For my family, that means sharing with our church.
I hope you will join me in increasing your pledge and giving generously to this congregation during our fundraising drive this year.
Gratefully,
Rev. Rebecca
FYI. Your minister will be on vacation from December 26 to January 9, visiting family on the East Coast. During that time our Committee on Ministry (Dan Patterson, Kris Langabeer, Gerrie Lambson, Alan Brunell) and Pastoral Care Team (Ron Crane, Michael Eselun, Bronwen Jones) will be on call for urgent pastoral needs. The Committee on Ministry will also be checking messages left on the minister’s voice mail. Thank you all for the gift of this time with my family.
From Our Minister and President:
Unitarian Universalists are united not by belief but by covenant: the promises we make about how we treat one another and our world. The Rev. Erika Hewitt, as a parting gift to us, left us some observations about our congregation’s strengths and also areas where she saw room for growth. She strongly recommended that we initiate a month-long process to have a congregational conversation about good relationships and to establish a congregational covenant. When your board met in retreat last month, we committed to this process as our number one goal for the year.
In the spirit of modeling good relationships, and of walking our talk, your minister and your board president decided to try out the covenanting process for ourselves. At our retreat we found the process energizing and deeply satisfying. Having just been through an exhaustive evaluation process, we are aware that we don’t always agree 100% on how to address issues of goal-setting, consensus-building, and decision-making facing the church. And we don’t immediately agree 100% on many topics, and we each find the need to explain and then reconsider our ideas; when we realize our goal of good communication, the ideas evolving from this process are better than the ideas we started with.
We are discovering that we work better together when:
We communicate frequently, and more often in person or by phone than via email. We support one another in courageous honesty, which calls us to share what we really think and feel.
We clarify our expectations for one another.
We honor confidentiality.
We work toward deep trust of one another, our staff, and our fellow leaders and community members.
We choose to publicly model respect and care as we navigate congregational conflict.
We avoid relationship triangles by encouraging one another to deal directly with the person with whom we
disagree.
We celebrate and enjoy our unique gifts as leaders and learners in this church.
We remain loyal to the bond of human connection that unites us, and to the guiding principles of our faith.
In future months you will hear more from your minister, your board, and other congregational leaders about the congregational covenanting process, when congregations as a whole affirm their commitment to navigating conflict with love and care. If we can do this, and do this together, we can do really big things for this community and the wider world.
In your corner,
Rev. Rebecca Benefiel Bijur, Minister
Cynthia Cottam, President
From Our Minister and Our DRE
As we move into October, we turn to the theme of Letting Go. Like September’s theme of Forgiveness, “letting go” is not something Unitarian Universalists have tended to focus on as much as other religious traditions have. The very idea of “letting go” can seem patronizing or even coercive; in our culture it is so often externally focused. How many of us have bristled at the suggestion that we should “just move on” when we’re angry about something that has hurt us, or that “it’s time” to be done with our grief following a loss? That’s not the kind of “letting go” we’re talking about this month. Letting go, in the spiritual life, is not about forcing yourself to release things that you’re not ready to give away yet. And letting go is not about pretending to be OK when you’re really not. Rather, letting go is often about releasing yourself from unreasonable expectations — your own or those of others — about the way you should be living your life.
Sometimes things are hard. Sometimes, as we noted in the Ingathering Sunday service in September, we are faced with real pain and fear and challenges we don’t know how to surmount. And church is a place where we can bring those challenges and lay them down in the chalice of our community, at least for a few moments, until we feel able to shoulder them again. On Ingathering Sunday, those present were invited to write on small flame shapes about the darkness they bring with them to church, as well as the light. And taken all together, the responses of the members of our congregation paint a picture of fearful struggle, but also great hope and steadfast love. Oh friends, in this community we share anxiety about finances, grief following or anticipating the loss of loved ones, fear of illness, physical pain, worry about the future for ourselves and people we care about, loneliness, confusion, frustration, alienation from family members, exhaustion and stress, feelings of inadequacy, addictions, sorrow about life- changing events that we did not choose — and more. But we are also bolstered by the love of friends and family, find solace in music, rejoice in the birth and growth of family members, appreciate the support of siblings and partners and mentors, feel gratitude for good health and good experiences, feel fulfilled in our work or our spiritual lives or our connections with others — and so very much more.
A fellow religious professional once shared a story about a young boy who said to her one Sunday morning: “I like this church because it’s OK to be sad here. At school they make fun of tears.” It’s OK to be sad here, friends. It’s OK to bring your whole self here, to let go, even if only for one hour on Sunday morning, of whatever walls you
have built up around the tender places in your heart. What are you holding onto too tightly? What are you carrying
with you every day that you want to learn to release? What gives you the strength and knowledge to let go, when it is time? And how can our UUCCSM community help you in your struggle?
-- Catherine Farmer Loya, Director of Religious Education
and Rev. Rebecca Benefiel Bijur
Dear ones,
At the beginning of August, a white supremacist murdered six members of a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin. Three others were injured that Sunday morning, including a police officer. And as soon as they heard the news, members of our church were looking for ways to express solidarity with our Sikh sisters and brothers.
It turns out our Neighboring Faiths religious education class of 6th and 7th grade students had visited Guru Ram Das Ashram in West Los Angeles earlier in the spring. When Catherine contacted the ashram’s community coordinator to ask how we could help, here is what she said:
The outpouring of support and solidarity is absolutely amazing. I had to sit and cry for a while yesterday — those good deep cleansing tears, the kind that just well up from that deep deep space inside, leaving you clear and ready for more. I need another term for the kind of thanks I want to express, but I haven't found it yet in a dictionary.
Our national UU community reached out as well, as over 1,800 of us wrote messages of love via www.standingonthesideoflove.org, and addressed them to the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin. My parents, members of UU congregations in Washington DC, spent a Sunday morning sitting with dozens of other volunteers at tables in coffee hour, copying the emailed messages onto handwritten cards. The cards will be strung together in a “love” chain and hand-delivered to the temple.
Reading the SSL blog, I learned that the notes, cards, and artwork of love sent to the Tennessee Valley UU church after the 2008 shooting are still on display in their congregation. For as long as they choose to display it, I hope our love chain will remind the Sikh community in Oak Creek they are not alone.
One of the gifts our community offers to the world, and to one another, is to respond to senseless tragedy and violence with meaningful love and support. This is a place of sanctuary and hope in hard times, a place of spiritual deepening and grounding in confusing times, and a place where we can put our faith into action to build a better world.
Until I see you back at 18th and Arizona this fall, I’ll keep looking in the dictionary for a term for the kind of thanks and love I want to express.
Much heart,
Rev. Rebecca
Dear friends,
The summer months are often a time of rest, renewal, and re-creation — taking time out from work or school to connect with family, friends, and nature. Because I have just returned from my family leave, I’m turning this notion a bit on its head this year, and diving back into church life during our slower season. Though, to look at it, you might not realize it’s a slow season. Here are a few highlights:
• The roof project is moving forward, thanks to your generosity, and we’ll start to see results as early as this fall.
• From a regular Sunday morning to Christmas Eve, from traditional choral repertoire to folk and jazz, and contemporary music, from trained professionals to regular folk who just love to sing and play, music in all its forms is vital to the ministry of this congregation. Over the past few months and weeks, your Music Director search committee has been hard at work narrowing our focus to a handful of top candidates who will help us continue
to provide the ministry of music in our community. More about music from Cynthia Cottam, Board President, and from Rob Briner, Chair of the Search Committee, elswhere in this month's newsletter.
• Also in the works: a rekindling of Small Group Ministry (Covenant Groups), to debut in 2013; a Board retreat to focus on your leaders’ goals for the year; and a new approach to the contemplative evening Vespers service, to
begin in September. Sunday mornings are crowded, coffee hour is humming, and your leaders are trying to
pace themselves in tackling each of these exciting projects in turn. It is a good time to be at 18th and Arizona.
See you at church,
Rev. Rebecca
Dear friends,
It has been a wonder to welcome my son to the world over these past few months. It didn’t take him long to get involved in church and community life — see if you can spot him, his big sister, and his Grandpa Michael with the UUCCSM contingent at a CLUE-LA action in support of Santa Monica carwash workers [see photo page X].
Many thanks go to our able volunteers and staff for your support during my family leave. I’m particularly grateful to our outgoing and incoming board presidents, Bronwen Jones and Cynthia Cottam, and our Acting Minister, the Rev. Erika Hewitt, for their leadership and care.
If I haven’t run into you at the library, the farmer’s market, or on the streets of Santa Monica recently, I’m looking forward to seeing you on Sunday morning. Please catch me up on the news with you and your families.
See you at church,
Rev. Rebecca
Our Theme for November is Service
And Service is OurPrayer...
Our worship is ended, our service begins. Thesewords provide the coda closing our worship services,reminding us of our call to work and serve inthe world. Our ministry theme this month is Service.Here are a few other resonances that echofrom that theme:
Service... to our country. This month VeteransDay falls on 11-11-11. What does this day ofremembrance mean to you, and to veterans in ourliberal faith?
Service... to the vulnerable. On the fourth Saturdayof every month, volunteers from our churchserve a meal at Step Up on Second, a social serviceagency serving the mentally ill in our community.What a difference that service makes in their lives- and in ours.
Service... of worship. Every Sunday, we gatherfor worship at 9 and 11 a.m. This month we willcontinue to offer, in addition to Sunday worship,an evening Vespers service, on the third Thursdayof the month at 7 p.m. I hope to see you there.
Our community depends on the dedicated serviceof our volunteers and staff. It is hard to say"thank you" enough for the gifts of service theygive, but I consider this month another opportunityto try: thank you, thank you, thank you.
Your minister,
Rev. Rebecca Benefiel Bijur
Dear friends,"This morning has other things to give you." It is aline I wrote down once in one of my notebooks in seminary, and I'm tempted to repeat it just about every Sunday morning - or maybe every morning.
After all, it can be tempting to decide that this morning will only be about absorbing the shocks and aftershocks of the latest disaster, on a global or personalscale. I can even get a strange sense of pleasure fromthinking like the child Alexander that today will be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. It seems like thereis plenty of bad news to go around: earthquakes andtsunamis, nuclear meltdowns, job losses, economicupheavals, crisis headlines, climate change.
That's when I have to go back to those school notebooks, go back to those lines I've worn out with repeating, and say to myself: Yes, and ... this morning has otherthings to give you.
In the coming weeks we will join our Christian andJewish sisters and brothers around the world in tellingand retelling ancient stories. We will sound the trumpetsof hope and proclaim that the struggle for liberation isnot yet over: unexpected joy is possible. What youthought was dead can yet have new life. What youthought was stopped might be moving in new directions.
This morning has other gifts to give you.
Gratefully,
- Rebecca
P.S. Please join me and worship leader Amy Brunellthis month for our Vespers service of evening worship, tobe held at 7 p.m. on April 21 in the sanctuary. This special Maundy Thursday service will include the retellingof the story of Jesus' last supper with his disciples andcommunion, the ritual sharing of bread and juice.
Dear friends,
On February 13 we celebrated together.Thank you to all those who made our serviceof installation such a great day. I think especially of the hard work that happens behind thescenes, in planning meetings, in the kitchen,with traveling, preparing for a speaking role,moving furniture, setting up speakers, designing invitations, arranging flowers, and coordinating rides and childcare, and I extend oncemore my deepest gratitude to all our staff andvolunteer leaders. Many thanks to Rhonda Peacock for her work in designing the installationinvitations and printed program. It looked tome like the setting sun was giving that deepblue chalice a big hug. My gratitude also goesto Steven DePaul for coordinating our outdoorsound system, and to our Sunday Sexton TomAhern for preparing the sanctuary and cleaningup after a standing-room-only crowd.
As the memory of February's pomp andcircumstance begins to fade, including thatvision of robed ministers processing on a sunnySunday afternoon that graces the front of thisnewsletter, I invite you to join us back in thesanctuary at 18th and Arizona this spring to experience a quieter and more contemplative sideof worship and community. In March, April,and May, I will co-lead a monthly Vespersservice of evening worship. Our first service willbe on Thursday, March 24 at 7 p.m. Vespers is ashorter service (about half an hour) that offersspace for silence, readings, candle-lighting, andmusic. It is a way to nurture your spirit, listento your heart, and end your day with soul-care.I hope to see you there.
Much heart,
Rebecca