February 5, 2025

Something For the Moment 

Support Circles for UUMA Member Parents/Caregivers of Trans/Non-Binary Children: As the new government in Washington targets our children, we offer these circles as spaces for support and collegial care. Please register by clicking the date and time here: Wednesday, February 12 at 7:30pm ET/ 6:30pm CT/ 5:30pm MT/ 4:30pm PT. These circles will last 90 minutes. Two sessions are available at the same time: CB Beal, M.Div., will facilitate a circle for trans/non-binary parents/caregivers and Rev. Mr. Barb Greve will facilitate a circle for cis parents/caregivers.

Board Meeting: Our Board is gathering tonight, Wednesday, February 5 for their first multi-platform meeting of 2025. We are sending them support and prayers as they do the good work of our association. Thank you to everyone who said yes to this vitally important work! To catch up with the board join our next Dialogue session on March 29, 2025 at 3:30-4:30pm ET/ 2:30-3:30pm CT/ 1:30-2:30pm MT/ 12:30-1:30pm PT.

Nominating Committee Message: Check your emails for an important message from the Nominating Committee and watch their invitation to answer the call here. 

Something for the Journey

From our staff who are currently parenting children and youth at home: Melissa Carvill Ziemer, Hannah Franco-Isaacs and Julica Hermann de la Fuente

At our recent staff meeting, those of us who are parenting children still at home recognized a common experience. In one of our congregations the embracing meditation includes the words “parents and teachers and all those whose primary spiritual practice is the caring for children.” If we expand those words to include all caregivers, how is your caregiving helping you stay grounded in these times? Taking care of the ones we love can be a burden and it can be one of life’s holiest gifts.

The gifts are abundant – love, connection, care, play, belonging, purpose, joy, shared history and memory, shared imaginations for the future, being known and being loved and knowing and loving in return. We hope you will add what is missing in your own mind as you read this. 

And the burdens – well, they can sometimes be abundant too. As ministers, it can be hard to feel like we are doing enough or attending to the thing that most needs our attention when so much needs to be done and so many people need us. If you are a caretaker of children or elders (or both – hello, sandwich generation!) or really anyone in your life, we are guessing you might know this feeling, too. 

Here is what we want you to know: you are doing the work of the resistance. You are doing an excellent and imperfect job, and that is how it always is, and how it should be. You are not alone in this work, even when it feels excruciatingly lonely, relentless, and seemingly impossible. As we continue to do the work of liberation and transformation in our own hearts and minds, may we bring the work of caretaking and healing to the center, where it belongs, where it will help us restore our faith in what is possible.

Something for Learning

Learning Together Continues! For the month of February, we will dig in deeper to our conversations about Sanctuary. You can catch recordings of earlier conversations on our webpage, and you will also find the zoom links to join the weekly conversation. Please note that I (Julica) will be out of town at the end of February, and we will NOT be meeting the last two weeks of February. Thanks!