[printprofilepic]“If Candlemas Day is clear and bright, Winter will have another bite. If Candlemas Day brings cloud and rain, Winter is gone and will not come again.“
February 2 is Candlemas, the day when Jesus was presented at the temple as a “light to the Gentiles.” (It is also Groundhog Day!)
I sometimes envy those religious communities whose yearly calendars celebrate events that express or reflect the communities’ values and beliefs. If an outsider attended a Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, Islam, or even a pagan community it might be very clear what the their values are. Their daily, weekly or yearly events and rituals express sacred time.
If an outsider attended a Unitarian Universalist congregation, would that person have a difficult time determining our values and beliefs?
Are we doing any kind of liturgy, a communal response to the sacred through activity reflecting praise, thanksgiving, supplication, or repentance? Does it matter if we do or don’t? What might a UU liturgical year look like and feel like?
Yes—it does matter what we do—the children and youth and newcomers/visitors are watching and listening. Within any Sunday worship service here we gather ourselves, connect, explore and return. Children and others can see from the order of service what those words denote and connote. During the gathering time, we welcome, we inform, we open our hearts/minds/souls, we sing. When we connect we affirm our purposes and values, we offer to others, we pray, we listen. Exploring, we learn, we challenge, we imagine. When we return we listen again, we resolve to care for each other and to work for justice and peace. Our chalice flame shines through all of this, as do the candles of community.
As I watched some of the kids one Sunday working on a puzzle, struggling to see the whole from the parts, I wondered if our congregations also struggle. Where are the templates, the framing or the liturgically clear calendars that suggest, ‘this is who we are, this is what we value, this is the work we do’.
Children and youth (and I think adults too) need some measure of predictability and constancy in their lives. A faith community is one of the rare places that can offer that. What if this church were to plan its yearly calendar to reflect the Sunday liturgy?
For instance:
August/September: Gathering in the New Year
Water Communion, All church picnic, the start of RE, the forming of Covenant Circles, celebrating the Fall Equinox, and honoring the need for balance in the coming church year.
October/November: Connecting and Expanding
Harvesting the powers of community to do good…with the Crop Walk and Guest at Your Table; expressing gratitude for life while honoring those who’ve come before with a Day of the Dead or All Souls or Samhain ceremony.
December/January/February: Exploring our lives, our commitments, our intentions
Planting seeds for the future; become inspired by prophetic voices of Jesus at Christmas and Martin Luther King, Jr. in January; sharing our stories and those of the season; reflecting on the past and planning for the future at the Winter Solstice; reaffirming intergenerational bonding and support with Secret Friends.
March/April/May: Returning
A time to nurture and grow…a time at Easter to recognize that all life dies, but with the promise of resurrection/resurgence/revitaliza-tion; dedication of our new babies and children; blessing of the animals and the earth on Earth Day; winding our intentions together on May Day with a Maypole Celebration; the Flower Communion.
This church, as in many other UU communities, plans some of these events depending on the energy of volunteers and staff, and resources available. What might happen if firm commitments were made to ensure most of these events happened—for the genuine and authentic reasons of community building, justice making and spiritual deepening? Would members, children and youth and newcomers/visitors see how these parts fit to make a whole that defines who they are and what they value?
Benette Sherman
Interim DRE
DATES TO REMEMBER
February 6: Empty Bowls painting from 10-11 in Assembly Room and RE classrooms. Parents are welcome to attend with their children.
February 13: Secret Friends party from 10-11 a.m. in Robinson Hall
February 20: No RE classes; childcare activities provided.
February 27: RE committee retreat at 12:30 p.m.
