Hello from your acting Director of Religious Education! 

I’ll be playing fake-Catherine while she’s on leave this summer with her newborn son, and I’m so happy that their family’s joy gave me the opportunity to be a part of your congregational life over the coming months!  If I haven’t met you yet, I look forward to it — please don’t hesitate to introduce yourself on a Sunday morning. I will do my best to remember your name, but I must tell you truthfully that names are not exactly my strong suit — so, an extra thank you to people who wear their name tags.

Getting to know the culture and patterns of a different church is always fascinating, and I’m already excited for all the new ideas and fun possibilities I’ll be able to take back to my congregation in Canoga Park in September. And I hope to bring my gifts and experiences to making UUCCSM an even richer faith home for you and your family. Connecting with UUs from other congregations helps me remember that my religion is much bigger than just the place I spend my Sunday mornings; I look forward to sharing both that religion, and that place with all of you over the coming months!

Yours in Faith,
Emmalinda MacLean
EmmalindaDRE@gmail.com

CHILDREN

In case you missed Lifespan RE Sunday on June 2, here are some highlights. In addition to recognizing the dozens of people who volunteered in all levels of our program, Sabina Mayo-Smith paid special tribute to Beverly Alison who has been a stalwart member of our teaching teams for an uninterrupted 36 years!  Beverly has been presented with a cement paving stone for her garden made by the children of UUSM. Sabina's moving tribute to Beverly is as follows.

“I want to take a moment to honor a specific member of our Religious Education community, Beverly Alison. Now Beverly could be honored (and may have been) for so many roles in this church, that I feel lucky to get in here with this RE salute. Why are we saluting her today?  Because she has been a member of the RE teaching community for thirty-six years!

“My friendship and admiration for Beverly have taken a wonderful, winding garden path, which I would like to share with you, because my guess is that I’m not the only one in this church who has had this experience.

“It started when I first came to this church a number of years ago. I remember being greeted outside the church on one of those early days—with two kids who were unsure why they were there, and me with bits of Sunday breakfast stuck to my clothes--by a very stylish, friendly person who welcomed both my children and me individually and with a big smile. As we continued coming to church, I was drawn to this “greeter” by her warm presence and her cool, one might say, artistic, sense of style. She told me her name was Beverly.

“Then, the first turn on the path, one year, she was my daughter’s RE teacher. My daughter was at that time, some of you might find it amazing to hear, extremely shy and loathe to talk. Beverly Alison took my daughter Katie under her wing and was quick to tell her that she had been shy too and that it was fine not to talk.  

“The next turn on the path was when I became an RE teacher. I heard Beverly share her tips for teaching as part of a training panel for new RE teachers. My favorite tip was what to do with—and this is an RE secret—the dreaded class full of young rambunctious boys who didn’t feel like singing “love surrounds me.”  Beverly’s tip: Announce to the children in a respectful and confident tone that ‘Now we have the very important job of going out into the courtyard and taking care of our church by collecting pieces of trash.’

“Never one to be hemmed in by the curriculum, Beverly responds to every group of children in what I consider to be the quintessential UU way. She accepts each child for whom he or she is, and encourages the individual and collective spiritual growth of the members of the classroom. She also encourages our children to make their own free and responsible search for truth and meaning. She shows respect for each child in this search and helps him or her with the tools to meaningfully do so.

“She also has been one of the most creative teachers I have had the privilege of observing. Last year, my path with Beverly took another turn when we taught in classrooms right across from each other. You may remember that one month last year, our congregational theme was “broken.”  Wow, broken.  With 2nd and 3rd graders. And here’s where another of her many talents, her artistry, joined with her master teaching.

“At the beginning of the month, I saw Beverly bring a whole bunch of appliances to her classroom. For the next hour, as I was doing spirit plays with K to 1st graders, I heard from across the way, hammers hitting rice cookers, computer keyboards, the bottom of a blender, clock/radios, etc. Wow!  Second and 3rd graders with hammers. For the next two weeks, I saw her bring the boxes of these broken parts into her classroom, and by the end of the month, each of her kids left with an amazing sculpture made out of broken appliance bits. What a lesson!

“This year, I have been so fortunate because my path has joined hers. I have been fortunate enough to be on a teaching team with Beverly. I have gotten to watch her teach. I have seen her preparation. And I have been dazzled. For the lesson on Sacred Spaces, I came in to find our classroom transformed with dream catchers hanging from the ceiling, and different colored cloth draped over the windows, among other things. She had transformed our classroom into a sacred space with forethought, artistry, and time.

“But, aside from this effort, thoughtfulness, and sense of fun, here is the profound gift that Beverly has given to all of our children and us. When she and I spoke a number of months ago of her dedication to UUCCSM’s children’s religious education program, she told me the following: that her goal with each class is to build a community of young people. She wants each child in this church to find his or her community and to experience and be supported by that community throughout his or her time here. She said nothing makes her feel more fulfilled than to see these groups of children become groups of UU young people who seek each other out in friendship and community. And she has made this happen and seen this for the last thirty-six years.

“With all our thanks and admiration we want to present Beverly Alison with this gift from the grateful children and other members of our UU community. It is a stepping-stone for your garden covered with a mandala, signifying all the ways you have influenced the steps your students have taken in their building both a UU community and an understanding of Unitarian Universalism.”

— Sabina Mayo-Smith

YOUTH

We also celebrated our graduating high school seniors at LRE Sunday, and one of them, Olivia Legan, read an article she had written for the SAMOHI news magazine of which she is editor. We reprint it here with Olivia's picture and permission because so many people have asked for it:

“The majority of my friends are Atheist and I can sympathize with their exasperation with religious institutions, which they see as hateful and hypocritical. However, it makes me sad that flaws in modern religious establishments are turning my generation away from spirituality and a religious community. I was not the most receptive to church at first either. I’ll admit that I was dragged, kicking and screaming, to the Unitarian Universalist (UU) Community Church of Santa Monica. As a cranky eleven-year-old, I was not thrilled to get up at eight on a Sunday. Nevertheless, my resilient mother somehow managed to get me into the adobe building on the corner of 18th and Arizona Ave, and my life was forever changed.

“My first day, children in the pews around me rushed to the front of the chapel with cans of food for the homeless before filtering into youth groups. I was in Religious Education. As I learned long division in school, I gained a well-rounded view of every significant religion in the world, from Hinduism to Wicca at the Unitarian Church. We visited synagogues, temples and churches around Los Angeles. Over the next two years, we tackled the big questions concerning life and death to form an individual sense of meaning.

“Religious Education culminated with my Coming of Age ceremony. Everyone in my class wrote their own credo explaining their beliefs, a hefty task for awkward adolescents. This daunting mission made my youth group incredibly close. We traveled to New York City for a UU United Nations Spring Seminar on climate change, where we stayed in a 200-year-old church with 60 other teen UUs. We drove the eight hours to San Francisco with the Pasadena congregation to work with a street ministry in the Tenderloin ghetto. Every Sunday we discussed our lives, planned community service trips, taught the younger youth groups and more. 

“There is also the pleasant surprise of meeting Unitarians in random places. The glimpse of a UU chalice necklace or tattoo is followed by excited shrieks and hugs. It is rare that I meet a UU who is not a warm, genuinely interesting person.

“About a year ago I attended a service at the church, where our minister recited a section of one of my favorite Allen Ginsberg poems:

“Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! Holy the cafeterias filled with the millions! Holy the mysterious rivers of tears under the streets!”

“Suddenly I realized that this was what my community at UUCCSM had done for me. Because of my UU family, I see the holiness and pure beauty in nearly everything. It was through the church that my eyes were opened to human rights issues. From the Unitarian Universalist (UU) principles and my youth group’s volunteer efforts, I learned that all human beings deserve respect. It may be clear at this point that Unitarian Universalism is not your standard religion. It is devoid of discrimination and judgment. I find it to have the pure goodness that is at the core of every world religion. Tragically, in many modern religious institutions, this kernel of kindness and acceptance is surrounded by scandal, worship through fear and antiquated oppression of minorities and women. Unitarian Universalism is the polar opposite — I even interned at their office at the United Nations where they battle for women's rights, LGBT rights and awareness of climate change. I feel so lucky to have found the Unitarian church, because without it, I probably would have been too repulsed by the hypocrisy of many religions to welcome the beauty at their center. I get upset when people are ignorant and hide their hate behind the Bible. They give religion a bad name and are scaring progressive, open-minded young people away from spirituality and a potential religious community. My plea is this: even if you are sick of the polluted religious establishments of our modern world, read up on the history of Buddhism or think about what Jesus Christ really would do or watch a video on mystical Judaism. Find the truth and "Love thy neighbor as thyself" at the core of every belief system and integrate that into your daily life. Then again, maybe we are just particles randomly colliding, but it's nice to believe in something larger than ourselves.”

— Olivia Legan

ADDITIONAL YOUTH NEWS

 Members of YRUU Travel to New Orleans for Social Justice Work Projects

On June 29, twelve youth from UUCCSM’s YRUU (Young Religious Unitarian Universalists) group traveled to New Orleans, along with six adult chaperones for a weeklong series of social justice projects. The group was hosted by The Center of Ethical Living and Social Justice Renewal, which is located at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans (FUUNO).

The trip had been in the planning stages for almost a year, with the group hosting fundraising events such as the popular t-shirt sale and selling sack lunches at our annual meeting. Donations were also made from generous anonymous angels.

The Center for Ethical Living and Social Justice Renewal (CELSJR) promotes social, racial and economic justice and acts as a catalyst in the region for cultivating a sustainable, equitable and inclusive community. The CELSJR connects volunteers with opportunities provided by community partners and addresses the needs of people most affected by the floods caused by Hurricane Katrina.

The trip incorporated four (4) key components:

— An opportunity to take a self-guided tour of the devastated areas of New Orleans

— An orientation of the New Orleans area (history and geography), the history of Hurricane Katrina, levee breaches, the current situation in the New Orleans as well work safety issues.

— A Dialogue, New Orleans Now: Race, Culture and Rebuilding, that facilitates a discussion of the inequalities in the region’s rebuilding and recovery process, followed by a traditional New Orleans-style dinner hosted by CELSJR.

— Reflection and evaluation.

In preparation for their journey, the group screened the documentary, Trouble the Water, which was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. According to the film’s website:  “This astonishingly powerful documentary takes you inside Hurricane Katrina in a way never before seen on screen. Incorporating remarkable home footage shot by Kimberly Rivers Roberts—an aspiring rap artist trapped with her husband in the 9th ward — directors/producers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal (producers of Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine) weave this insider’s view of Katrina with a devastating portrait of the hurricane’s aftermath. As seen on HBO, Trouble the Water takes audiences on a journey that is by turns heart-stopping, infuriating, inspiring and empowering. It’s not only about the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, but about the underlying issues that remained when the floodwaters receded—failing public schools, record high levels of incarceration, poverty, structural racism and lack of government accountability.”

A slide show presentation and recap of the trip is planned for later this year.

— Liza Cranis

July Ministerial Theme: VISION

Bettye Barclay has provided this list of daily thoughts about our ministerial theme for July.

July 1. The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. Albert Einstein

July 2. While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see. Dorothea Lange

July 3. He who looks through an open window sees fewer things than he who looks through a closed window. Charles Baudelaire

July 4. If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is — infinite. William Blake

July 5. Nothing is more imminent than the impossible … what we must always foresee is the unforeseen. Victor Hugo  in “Les Miserables”

July 6. The only thing worse than being blind is having sight and no vision. Helen Keller

July 7. It is a commonplace of all religious thought, even the most primitive, that the man seeking visions and insight must go apart from his fellows and love for a time in the wilderness. Loren Eiseley

July 8. A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future. You must break out of your current comfort zone and become comfortable with the unfamiliar and the unknown. Dennis Waitley

July 9. The person who sees the difficulties so clearly that he does not discern the possibilities cannot inspire a vision in others. J. Oswald Sanders

July 10. Prophets are those who take life as it is and expand it. They refuse to shrink a vision of tomorrow to the boundaries of yesterday. Joan Chittister OSB

July 11. Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world. Edward Hopper

July 12. I think the mystery of art lies in this, that artists’ relationship is essentially with their work — not with power, not with profit, not with themselves, not even with their audience. Ursula K. Le Guin

July 13. It seems an odd idea to my students that poetry, like all art, leads us away from itself, back to the world in which we live. It furnishes the vision. It shows with intense clarity what is already there. Helen Bevington

July 14. Too often our visions of the future are dull and impotent like a hammer beating the water. Harley King

July 15. The common eye sees only the outside of things, and judges by that, but the seeing eye pierces through and reads the heart and the soul. Mark Twain

July 16. A vision without a task is but a dream. A task without a vision is drudgery. A vision and a task are the hope of the world. Inscription on a church wall in Sussex England c. 1730

July 17. In order to carry a positive action we must develop here a positive vision. Dalai Lama

July 18. Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. Carl Jung

July 19. Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others. Jonathan Swift

July 20. Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision. Ayn Rand

July 21. Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision. Aldous Huxley

July 22. Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world. Arthur Schopenhauer

July 23. The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it. Thucydides

July 24. Imagination gives you the picture. Vision gives you the impulse to make the picture your own. Robert Collier

July 25. Give to us clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for - because unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything. Peter Marshall

July 26. We lift ourselves by our thought. We climb upon our vision of ourselves. If you want to enlarge your life, you must first enlarge your thought of it and of yourself. Hold the ideal of yourself as you long to be, always everywhere. Orison Swett Marden

July 27. It takes someone with a vision of the possibilities to attain new levels of experience. Someone with the courage to live his dreams. Les Brown

July 28. We go where our vision is. Joseph Edward Murphy

July 29. The wisest keeps something of the vision of a child. Though he may understand a thousand things that a child could not understand, he is always a beginner, close to the original meaning of life. John Macy

July 30. I would give all the wealth of the world, and all the deeds of all the heroes, for one true vision. Henry David Thoreau

July 31. Where there is no vision, there is no hope. George Washington Carver

As we move into May, I find myself following both familiar patterns as preparing for summer programs and wrapping up the church year as well as marveling at how different this spring is for me than the many that have preceded it. After
nearly 10 years as UUCCSM’s Director of Religious Education, I am finally following in the footsteps of all of our RE parents as Eric and I prepare for the
arrival of our first child in a few weeks. I am overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity you have all shown me during these months of anticipation, and I am so grateful for the gift of this loving religious community’s presence in our kid’s life.

My last Sunday prior to my leave, unless the baby has other plans, will be on May 19, when we’ll celebrate the Coming of Age of this year’s crop of 8th grade youth and will come together for our annual Congregational Meeting. My leave will begin on May 23, and I’ll be returning to UUCCSM on August 15. This time away will be spent getting to know our child and ourselves as a family of three, and I am very thankful for your support and understanding. My time away will truly be time away
— I will not be taking calls or checking emails during my leave, but will be reachable by church staff if a need arises. I look forward to returning to work as clearheaded and refreshed as possible (parents, feel free to
chuckle at my naiveté), and will be back in plenty of time for a strong launch to our 2013-14 Lifespan RE program in September.

And do not fear — our programs will be in extremely capable hands in my absence, with the help of many UUCCSM volunteers for our summer programs, the Lifespan RE Committee, as well as the professional support of Emmalinda MacLean, who I am extremely pleased to announce will be serving as Acting Director of Religious Education for the 12 weeks of my leave.

Emmalinda is a lifelong UU and currently serves as DRE at Emerson UU Church in Canoga Park. She is very excited to join our staff this summer, and we are very lucky to have her. She brings a wealth of experience and enthusiasm for teaching, games, storytelling, and sharing UU values. She is proud to facilitate the Our Whole Lives and Coming of Age programs with her congregation, and to volunteer as a youth advisor at district YRUU events, having been through and benefited from these programs herself as a teen.

After receiving her degree in theater from UCLA, Emmalinda served as the education director for a small theater company where she trained, performed, and taught with their resident clown troupe. Since trading in her theater company for a church, she has enjoyed sharing her love of theater, improvisation, and clowning at Camp de Benneville Pines, leading clown workshops for all ages over the past two summers. Emmalinda looks forward to supporting our Religious Education program in the coming months, nurturing the spiritual growth of our children and youth, and sharing in our beautiful UUCCSM faith community.

Emmalinda will begin working weekday hours at the beginning of my leave, and her first Sunday at UUCCSM will be on June 16 for the kickoff of our summer RE programs. Not only will she provide support and continuity for our programs, but it is also a great opportunity for our congregation — and Emmalinda herself — to experience new ideas, explore different styles of leadership, and create connections with our UU neighbors. I hope you will welcome her warmly; I know that you’ll have a fantastic summer together.

— Catherine Farmer Loya

LRE This Month:

Children:

This month in the children’s RE program, preschoolers will wrap up the program year with a special “Teddy Bear Month” series of lessons. Early elementary participants will engage this month’s theme of COVENANT through stories and special class activities that help us think about the promises we make to one another that help us create beloved community in our congregation and elsewhere in our lives. Upper elementary children in the UUniverse Story program will continue to explore the origins of life, and will conclude with a wrap-up of our two-year program focused on the overarching question: “How do we know what we know?”

Middle-schoolers in the Compass Points classes will take a look at our place in the universe, as well as what we have faith in, as individuals and collectively as Unitarian Universalists. And in the midst of it all, each class will be preparing to help put on a fabulous Lifespan RE Sunday service for the congregation at the beginning of June! 

Youth:

Please join our youth this month as we celebrate the coming of age of our 8th graders, and continue fundraising efforts to send nearly a dozen of our high school youth to New Orleans this summer for a service-learning trip.

On Sunday, May 12, at 6 p.m., all UUCCSM members and friends are invited by the Coming of Age class to attend our monthly Second Sunday Supper, which will include the launch of a new UU holiday they’ve developed. This weeklong holiday celebrates our seven UU principles and encourages participants to spend the time engaging in acts of self-discovery and spiritual growth. Then on the following Sunday, May 19, our congregation will celebrate Coming of Age Sunday, with services at 9 and 11 a.m. planned and led entirely by our 8th grade Coming of Age youth, including the sharing of credo statements that they’ve written, articulating who they are and what they believe at this point in their lives. Don’t miss these wonderful events!

Also of note in May is the culmination of this year’s 8th to 9th grade Our Whole Lives sexuality education class, with a graduation ceremony for the 14 youth participating in this year’s class on the afternoon of May 5.

Hiking to New Heights — UU Youth Explore Santa Monica Mountains. Join the adventure on Saturday, May 11 to explore the Santa Monica Mountains with the UU Youth (ages 13 to 18). We’ll meet at the church at 10 a.m., then carpool to Bayside Deli to pick up some delicious picnic items. Then, we’ll arrive at our hike starting point and
moderately hike for about two to three hours. We expect to return to the church by around 3:30 p.m. We hope you can join us. For further information contact Teri Bond.

Adults:

Bible Discussion Dates Changed - In deference to the Gay Pride Parade on June 9, our discussions of “Understanding the Bible: An Introduction for Skeptics, Seekers, and Religious Liberals” by former UUA President John Buehrens will be changed to June 2 and 16 at 12:45 p.m. in the Cottage. The book is still available at the book table or you can purchase it when you sign up for the workshop at the Lifespan table in Forbes Hall. James Witker will facilitate the discussion.

Continuing
• Small Group Ministry — days and times vary
• Wednesday Night Writers Group — second and fourth Wednesday of each month in Forbes Hall, 7:30 p.m. Contact Emmy Cresciman for more information 
• Empty Nesters — third Sunday of each month after the last service, except that May 19 we’ll
meet at 10 a.m. Contact Linda Marten for additional information.

— Emmy Cresciman

Patio Chat

Monthly UUCCSM Theme Discussion with Leon HendersonMacLennan
10:10 a.m. on the Patio
Sunday, May 19
This month's theme: COVENANT

Baby Shower for Catherine and Eric Loya

Sunday, May 5, 1 p.m. in Forbes Hall - It’s a potluck lunch so bring something yummy to share. Catherine and Eric are registered at BabiesRUs.com if you need some gift ideas. You can also make a financial donation toward a larger gift from the congregation. Sign up at the Lifespan Table so we will know how many folks
to expect. If you need additional information, contact Liza Cranis.

May Minesterial Theme:  Covenant

Bettye Barclay has provided this list of daily thoughts about our ministerial theme for May.

May 1. What is a covenant? Here’s a definition that I learned years ago while training to be a New Congregation start-up minister. “Covenant is the central unifying promise or commitment that binds a religious community together in voluntary loyalty. It grows from an affirmation of shared needs, values, purposes, and principles. As such it is rooted in the past, in the tradition of the
congregation, and reflects the embodiment of the promise through history. It is a promise made in the present, with implications for the future.” Rev. Roberta Finkelstein 

May 2. The most glorious moments in your life are not the socalled days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments. Gustave Flaubert 

May 3. Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. A.A. Milne

May 4. Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so you shall become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil. James Allen

May 5. I can promise you that women working together — linked, informed and educated — can bring peace and prosperity  to this forsaken planet. Isabel Allende

May 6. Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.
Martin Luther

May 7. Ultimately, a UU community exists as an open laboratory for spiritual exploration. We covenant to support each other with loving feedback and cheerful encouragement in the ongoing search for depth of understanding
and happiness. Rev. Dr. Michael A. Schule

May 8. Love always creates, it never destroys. In this lies man’s only promise. Leo Buscaglia

May 9. A promise made is a debt unpaid. Robert W. Service

May 10. Your ordinary acts of love and hope point to the extraordinary promise that every human life is of inestimable value. Desmond Tutu

May 11. Science reckons many prophets, but there is not even a promise of a Messiah. Thomas Huxley

May 12. Those that are most slow in making a promise are the most faithful in the performance of it. Jean-Jacques Rousseau

May 13. Success is full of promise till one gets it, and then it seems like a nest from which the bird has flown. Henry Ward Beecher

May 14. Please give me some good advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it. Edna St. Vincent Millay

May 15. Dr. King’s leadership reaffirmed the promise of our democracy: that everyday people, working together, have the power to change our government and our institutions for the better. Maria Cantwell

May 16. A vow is a purely religious act which cannot be taken in a fit of passion. It can be taken only with a mind purified and composed and with God as witness. Mahatma Gandhi

May 17. One may preach a covenant of grace more clearly than another … But when they preach a covenant of works for salvation, that is not truth. Anne Hutchinson

May 18. Covenants are the glue for our Unitarian Universalist congregations. We are not held together by creed or dogma. The Common Cause of belief does not bind us together, rather it is the promises we make to each
other about how to be together that keep us together. Covenants are powerful and we make light of them and stray from them at our peril. Tony Lorenzen

May 19. Put more trust in nobility of character than in an oath. Solon May 20. Science is bound, by the everlasting vow of honour, to face fearlessly every problem which can be fairly presented to it. Lord Kelvin

May 21. Creation implies authority in the sense of originator. The possibility of a ‘Fall’ is implied in a Covenant insofar as the idea of a Covenant implies the possibility of its being violated. Kenneth Burke

May 22. The deepest depth of vulgarism is that of setting up money as the ark of the covenant. Thomas Carlyle

May 23. Justice … is a kind of compact not to harm or be harmed. Epicurus

May 24. The biblical idea of covenant is what I call a covenant of being. That is, the Old Testament asserts that the people’s covenant is a covenant with the essential character and intention of reality. It is not merely a covenant between human beings; it is a covenant between human beings in the face of reality. James Luther
Adams, UU theologian

May 25. It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath. Aeschylus

May 26. But then, so far as I know, I am the only performer who ever pledged his assistants to secrecy, honor, and allegiance under a notarial oath. Harry Houdini

May 27. Put plainly, covenant already exists; it began with your creation, with all of Creation, and it binds you to all else that is, and was. It is bigger — so much bigger! — than an agreement between people (e.g., a contract). We must relate. We must keep it real. Such is our nature. Such is our bond. Jason Seymour

May 28. I call that church free which enters into the covenant with the ultimate source of existence. It binds together families and generations, protecting against the idolatry of any human claim to absolute truth or authority. James Luther Adams

May 29. Mindful of truth ever exceeding our knowledge, of love and compassion ever exceeding our practice, reverently we covenant together, beginning with ourselves as we are, to share the strength of integrity and the heritage of the spirit, in humanity’s unending quest for reality and love. Walter Royal Jones

May 30. Covenant begins in longing. There, where the heart calls up our origins and oldest memories of oneness and belonging, we find a taproot that grows into covenant if given the right conditions, including our own willingness to acknowledge and oblige it. When we feel that tug beckoning us from our individual isolation into relationship with others, there is the germ of covenant already taken root. Karen Hering

May 31. Love is the doctrine of this church, the quest of truth is its sacrament and service is its prayer . To dwell together in peace; to seek knowledge in freedom; to serve humankind in fellowship; thus do we covenant with each other . UUCCSM covenant

From Our DRE:

As spring approaches, thoughts turn naturally toward renewal, new warmth, new life
— even here in Southern California, where flowers bloom year-round. As I write, little taps and thumps keep me mindful of the new life that will be joining my family in just a few short months, so it’s perhaps no surprise that these reflections on the imminence of springtime — and all that it brings — strike me as especially poignant this year. I am
so grateful to all in our UUCCSM community for the care and support and excitement you’ve shown me already as I begin this journey toward parenthood.

And lest you feel any anxiety about what is to come, let me do some reassuring of my own: I will indeed be taking a period of leave to welcome this new member of my family, but our LRE programs will be well-shepherded in my absence. I am working with the Lifespan RE Committee, the Personnel Committee, the Board, and church staff to craft a plan for my time away, which will begin in late May and last until mid-August. If this little one proves amenable to arriving more or less as scheduled, my final Sunday at UUCCSM will be May 19, Coming of Age Sunday, and the day of our Annual Meeting.

Springtime is also when the LRE Committee and I always begin planning for the summer and the next year’s programs, but we’re getting an extraearly start this time around so we can be sure to be fully prepared in plenty of time for my leave. And we’ll be calling on all of you — the members and friends of UUCCSM — to join us in our eagerness to prepare.

First up is summer: this year we’ll be reprising a beloved program in our preschool-Kindergarten class, The Senses. We’ll kick off on June 16 with an introduction to the five senses, and then will spend two weeks  exploring each one. For the “elementary and up” class, we’re trying out a brand new program that I think will be great fun for participants and leaders alike — we’re importing summer camp right here to our church, with a special Sunday Chalice Camp program. Each week we’ll have a tactile camp-style craft or activity that helps our kids develop their UU identity. Tie-dye chalice shirts, prayer flags, and outdoor games, oh my! In both of our classes, we invite UUCCSM members to volunteer to lead or assist for one Sunday. In the Senses program, leaders are encouraged to come up with their own plans for engaging young children in exploring their senses — perhaps a mini-cooking lesson for taste, a music-making extravaganza for hearing, experiments with mixing paints for sight — what would you most enjoy sharing with our younglings? In the Sunday Chalice Camp program, all projects are scheduled ahead of time and all supplies will be provided, so all our volunteer leaders
will have to do is choose their Sunday and show up ready to have fun. We’ll be starting sign-ups soon, so take a look at your calendars and consider spending a morning celebrating “being you and being UU” with the younger members of our faith community.

— Catherine Farmer Loya

Evil

Bettye Barclay, with assistance of Kathy Cook, has provided this list of daily thoughts about our ministerial theme for March.

March 1. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Edmund Burke

March 2. The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the
people who don’t do anything about it. Albert Einstein

March 3. I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is
permanent. Mahatma Gandhi

March 4. If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing
good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own
heart? Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

March 5. If you try to cure evil with evil you will add more pain to your fate. Sophocles 

March 6. Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating. Simone Weil

March 7. Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it. Baltasar Gracián 

March 8. Remember that all through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always. Mahatma Gandhi

March 9. When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad. Lao-Tzu

March 10. Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil. Thomas Mann

March 11. The reason for evil in the world is that people are not able to tell their stories. C.G. Jung

March 12. There is an old illusion. It is called good and evil. Friedrich Nietzsche

March 13. When we forgive evil we do not excuse it, we do not tolerate it, we do not smother it. We look the evil full in the face, call it what it is, let its horror shock and stun and enrage us, and only then do we forgive it. Lewis B. Smedes

March 14. When one with honeyed words but evil mind persuades the mob, great woes befall the state. Euripides

March 15. War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn to live together in peace by killing each other’s children. Jimmy Carter

March 16. Ultimately evil is done not so much by evil people, but by good people who do not know themselves
and who do not probe deeply. Reinhold Niebuhr

March 17. I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation
with good. Martin Luther King, Jr.

March 18. An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind. Buddha

March 19. We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies. Martin Luther King, Jr.

March 20. False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. Socrates

March 21. There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root. Henry David Thoreau 

March 22. Boredom is the root of all evil — the despairing refusal to be oneself. Søren Kierkegaard

March 23. Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil. Friedrich Nietzsche

March 24. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant. Martin Luther King, Jr.

March 25. It is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways. Buddha

March 26. Apathy is the glove into which evil slips its hand. Anonymous

March 27. The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding. Albert Camus,“The Plague”

March 28. Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction. Blaise Pascal

March 29. It is much easier at all times to prevent an evil than to rectify mistakes. George Washington

March 30. I happen to think that the singular evil of our time is prejudice.  It is from this evil that all other evils
grow and multiply. In almost everything I’ve written there is a thread of this: a man’s seemingly palpable need to dislike someone other than himself. Rod Serling

March 31. Evil lurks in the heart of man, and anonymity tends to bring it out. Internet flamers would never say the jagged things they do if they had to sign their names. Garrison Keillor

From Our DRE:

As spring approaches, thoughts turn naturally toward renewal, new warmth, new life
— even here in Southern California, where flowers bloom year-round. As I write, little taps and thumps keep me mindful of the new life that will be joining my family in just a few short months, so it’s perhaps no surprise that these reflections on the imminence of springtime — and all that it brings — strike me as especially poignant this year. I am
so grateful to all in our UUCCSM community for the care and support and excitement you’ve shown me already as I begin this journey toward parenthood.

And lest you feel any anxiety about what is to come, let me do some reassuring of my own: I will indeed be taking a period of leave to welcome this new member of my family, but our LRE programs will be well-shepherded in my absence. I am working with the Lifespan RE Committee, the Personnel Committee, the Board, and church staff to craft a plan for my time away, which will begin in late May and last until mid-August. If this little one proves amenable to arriving more or less as scheduled, my final Sunday at UUCCSM will be May 19, Coming of Age Sunday, and the day of our Annual Meeting.

Springtime is also when the LRE Committee and I always begin planning for the summer and the next year’s programs, but we’re getting an extraearly start this time around so we can be sure to be fully prepared in plenty of time for my leave. And we’ll be calling on all of you — the members and friends of UUCCSM — to join us in our eagerness to prepare.

First up is summer: this year we’ll be reprising a beloved program in our preschool-Kindergarten class, The Senses. We’ll kick off on June 16 with an introduction to the five senses, and then will spend two weeks  exploring each one. For the “elementary and up” class, we’re trying out a brand new program that I think will be great fun for participants and leaders alike — we’re importing summer camp right here to our church, with a special Sunday Chalice Camp program. Each week we’ll have a tactile camp-style craft or activity that helps our kids develop their UU identity. Tie-dye chalice shirts, prayer flags, and outdoor games, oh my! In both of our classes, we invite UUCCSM members to volunteer to lead or assist for one Sunday. In the Senses program, leaders are encouraged to come up with their own plans for engaging young children in exploring their senses — perhaps a mini-cooking lesson for taste, a music-making extravaganza for hearing, experiments with mixing paints for sight — what would you most enjoy sharing with our younglings? In the Sunday Chalice Camp program, all projects are scheduled ahead of time and all supplies will be provided, so all our volunteer leaders
will have to do is choose their Sunday and show up ready to have fun. We’ll be starting sign-ups soon, so take a look at your calendars and consider spending a morning celebrating “being you and being UU” with the younger members of our faith community.

— Catherine Farmer Loya

Evil

Bettye Barclay, with assistance of Kathy Cook, has provided this list of daily thoughts about our ministerial theme for March.

March 1. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Edmund Burke

March 2. The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the
people who don’t do anything about it. Albert Einstein

March 3. I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is
permanent. Mahatma Gandhi

March 4. If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing
good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own
heart? Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

March 5. If you try to cure evil with evil you will add more pain to your fate. Sophocles 

March 6. Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating. Simone Weil

March 7. Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it. Baltasar Gracián 

March 8. Remember that all through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always. Mahatma Gandhi

March 9. When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad. Lao-Tzu

March 10. Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil. Thomas Mann

March 11. The reason for evil in the world is that people are not able to tell their stories. C.G. Jung

March 12. There is an old illusion. It is called good and evil. Friedrich Nietzsche

March 13. When we forgive evil we do not excuse it, we do not tolerate it, we do not smother it. We look the evil full in the face, call it what it is, let its horror shock and stun and enrage us, and only then do we forgive it. Lewis B. Smedes

March 14. When one with honeyed words but evil mind persuades the mob, great woes befall the state. Euripides

March 15. War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn to live together in peace by killing each other’s children. Jimmy Carter

March 16. Ultimately evil is done not so much by evil people, but by good people who do not know themselves
and who do not probe deeply. Reinhold Niebuhr

March 17. I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation
with good. Martin Luther King, Jr.

March 18. An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind. Buddha

March 19. We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies. Martin Luther King, Jr.

March 20. False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. Socrates

March 21. There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root. Henry David Thoreau 

March 22. Boredom is the root of all evil — the despairing refusal to be oneself. Søren Kierkegaard

March 23. Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil. Friedrich Nietzsche

March 24. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant. Martin Luther King, Jr.

March 25. It is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways. Buddha

March 26. Apathy is the glove into which evil slips its hand. Anonymous

March 27. The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding. Albert Camus,“The Plague”

March 28. Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction. Blaise Pascal

March 29. It is much easier at all times to prevent an evil than to rectify mistakes. George Washington

March 30. I happen to think that the singular evil of our time is prejudice.  It is from this evil that all other evils
grow and multiply. In almost everything I’ve written there is a thread of this: a man’s seemingly palpable need to dislike someone other than himself. Rod Serling

March 31. Evil lurks in the heart of man, and anonymity tends to bring it out. Internet flamers would never say the jagged things they do if they had to sign their names. Garrison Keillor

Lifespan Religious Education

Children:
This month in the children’s RE program, preschoolers will continue to explore the wonderful world we share, focusing on rainbows and some of the special aspects of winter and then springtime. 

Early elementary participants will engage this month’s theme of EVIL through stories and special class activities that help us think about how we can choose to respond when bad things happen or people around us make bad choices, and we will also learn about the history of our own UU flaming chalice symbol.

Upper elementary children in the UUniverse Story program, after time spent last month learning about our solar system, will come closer to home as we explore early Earth, including a virtual visit from a geology professor as well as lots of hands-on activities to help participants learn about our home planet. Middle-schoolers in the Compass Points classes will take a look at our Unitarian and Universalist history, with visits with some of our tradition’s early martyrs as well as an exploration of the religious democracy created by our Unitarian ancestors and the commitment to social justice and love for all people that comes to us from the Universalist tradition. We also take part in this month’s Faith in Action project on March 24 with a visit to the beach for a special clean-up day with Heal the Bay.

Youth:
This month in Coming of Age, youth will wrap up their exploration of some of the “big questions” of faith, and will move into crafting their credo statements and the May 19 Coming of Age service.

This month for 10th to 12th graders is the launch of the Our Whole Lives class with parent orientation on March 3, and the first day of class for the youth on March 10. Be on the lookout, too, for lots of information coming this month about the YRUU service trip to New Orleans being planned for June 29 to July 6.

Adults:
Book Study and Discussion: “Understanding the Bible: An Introduction for Skeptics, Seekers, and Religious Liberals” UUs sometimes have a tenuous, even difficult, relationship with our Judeo-Christian heritage and its source material, but the Bible remains both the most important text in Western Civilization and a powerful icon in modern American culture. The Rev. John Buehrens, former UUA president, argues in his “Understanding the Bible” that religious liberals should not cede interpretation of The Good Book to literalists and fundamentalists and their political ends. Rather, we should seek to better understand it as a human text, with all its  contradictions, complexity, and richness. From the publisher’s description: “This warm, straightforward guide invites readers to rediscover our culture’s central religious text and makes accessible some of the best contemporary historical, political, and feminist readings of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures.” We will read and discuss the book, with an emphasis on our own backgrounds and spiritual/ personal growth.

Start reading now — the book is available at the book table in Forbes Hall. Our discussion will begin in April led by James Witker.

Neighboring Faiths for Adults
For years the adults in our church have expressed a desire to visit area worship services of different faiths, much as our children do when we are presenting the Neighboring Faiths curriculum. A date is currently being arranged for adult members of our congregation to visit a local Sikh Temple on a Sunday for a short lecture introducing Sikhism, a worship service, and a lunch following the service. There will be a limited number of
spaces for this field trip so be sure to check in regularly at the Lifespan table in Forbes Hall for additional
information and sign up opportunities.

Patio Chat

Monthly UUCCSM Theme Discussion with Leon Henderson-MacLennan
10:10 a.m. on the Patio
Sunday, March 24

Theme: Evil

New Jim Crow Discussion Group Motivates Action

Michelle Alexander’s book “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness” drew a group
of over 20 church members and friends to the church in January and February to discuss the social and political implications of the U.S. growing prison population.

On one of those occasions we watched ”The House I Live In” by Eugene Jarecki, and spent our spaghetti dinner talking about the implications of the War on Drugs on our society.

Ms. Alexander’s book is the current Common Read of the Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Church of Christ. The interest in her book has led to increased awareness in opposing harsh sentencing and re-entry laws nationwide. 

Her thesis is that mass incarceration in the United States — over 2 million inmates in the penal system  — disproportionally affects young Black men and guarantees their post-imprisonment second-class status, leading to a new racial caste system comparable to the Jim Crow era before the 1960s. The effects of mass incarceration on African-Americans, and additionally on Latinos and poor whites are chilling. Although the struggle against mass incarceration has grown steadily over the last 10 years, Ms. Alexander’s book has galvanized many social and religious communities, including the UUA.

The group that met at our church has made plans to increase our understanding of the issues, including the lengthy sentences for minor drug offenses, prison conditions, the lack of rehabilitation, the growth of for-profit prisons, and the devastating restrictions on prisoners who have served their sentences and are trying to rebuild their lives. We are seeking liaisons with other social and religious groups to build a larger movement to change the laws and practices, such as the War on Drugs, that are creating this societal catastrophe.

Life Span Religious Education will sponsor another discussion of this book March 24 and 31, and April 7. Watch for an announcement in the Order of Service and check out the RE table in Forbes Hall for specific dates and to sign up.

— Peggy Rhoads

Continuing:

• Small Group Ministry — days and times vary
• Wednesday Night Writers Group — Fourth Wednesday of each month in Forbes Hall at 7 p.m.
• Empty Nesters — Third Sunday of each month upstairs in Forbes Hall at 12:30 p.m.