Celebrating All Hallow's Eve

This Sunday is our annual All Hallow's Eve party!  As has been our tradition, children in our youngest classes rotate by class to different activities: games, stories, crafts and food.  This year our 6th and 7th grade class asked to lead an activity for the children in their classroom.

As I have already written about here, as a liberal religion, we are very deliberate about how we celebrate and share together in celebration. Halloween is a cultural holiday in the United States.  Where the candy that many of us hand out comes from is problematic because it involves child slavery in attaining the raw ingredients.

In pagan celebrations going back many, many years, Halloween, Samhain to the Celts, is an agricultural festival. It is a time when the veil between the living and dead is the thinnest. It is a time to honor our ancestors. Making an Ancestor Altar would be both appropriate to this holiday and important in acknowledging and discussing these big questions about life and death. We are all here only because of those who have come before us. An excellent resource on this holiday and other that I have found is Waverly Fitzgerald's, e-magazine, Living in Season.

A UU response to 9/11: Think Interfaith

“We need not think alike to love alike.” -Francis David, Transylvanian minister and early Unitarian.

This Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on this country. "Standing on the Side of Love," a UU public advocacy campaign that seeks to harness love’s power to stop oppression is asking UU's to Think Interfaith this Sunday.

Most elementary-aged children were not yet born when 9/11 happened. Yet, older children may hear about it in school. To discus the attacks with older children, a book recommended by a number of religious educators is, 14 Cows for America. It is a true story of the heartfelt response by the Maasai people to the attacks.

Religious Education in September

Our religious education programming for fall starts September 18! We will all gather in the Great Hall for worship. After the teacher dedication, children ages 4 thru grade 5 will go to children's chapel, and grades six and up will go to their programs. September 25 all our religious education classes meet in their rooms beginning at 10:30.

Guatemala: A brief photo essay

 July 22- August 1, 2011, 19 FUSS youth and 6 adults traveled to Guatemala to work with an organization called Safe Passage. Guatemala is a country of great beauty and great poverty.

 Our youth worked with children who live with their families around the garbage dump. The garbage dump in Guatemala City is the biggest garbage dump in Central America. Safe Passage provides support for the children in their school work, healthy meals, medical assistance. Most importantly they provide hope and opportunity to families living in extreme poverty. They serve over 500 children in over 300 families.

Our youth and adult chaperones worked all year to be able to make the trip. The money they raised also paid for a Quinceanera, a celebration for girls who were 15 years old. While we were there,  practiced waltzing and took the Quinceanera girls bowling. We also decorated for the celebration. When the day arrived, the 21 girls, their family and friends (170 people in all!) celebrated.

It was a beautiful ceremony and party.

We'll lead a worship service October 16 and share more about our experiences in Guatemala and with Safe Passage.

Guatemala

I am posting this from Antigua, Guatemala. I am here with 19 UU youth  and 6 adults participating as support team members for Safe Passage. The days have been busy and full. If I could post pictures now I would.
The pictures would included our youth learning how to waltz in preparation for the Quinceneras, then learning a contemporay dance from the 15 -year old girls for whom we are here hosting this celebration.
There would be picture of smiling children hugging our youth who are working with them in English classes, playing games and reading stories. There would be pictures of our youth smiling too, while they taught second graders origami, lanyard making, mask making and beading.
There would be pictures depicting great poverty against a backdrop of beautiful, green mountains. Mayan women walking with great loads on their backs. Women older and stronger then me. Children carried close in colorful cloth slings. Spanish style buildings and squatter communities with homes built of whatever matierial they can gather from the nearby garbage dump.
Our youth have been spectacular here. We are a large group and have worked long and hard to be an intentional community together. We  worship together each night and different groups of youth lead.
As I work and play and learn and get very very tired, I keep hearing the words of an Aboriginal Activist float through my mind, "If you are here to help, you are wasting your time. But if you are here because your libreration is bound up with mine, let us work together." I think that's what we are doing as we see ourselves as global citizens.

General Assembly in North Carolina, next, Phoenix!

Charlotte, NC

"We are not a religious tradition with a creed, but a religious movement that has always wedded social justice work to theology."—James Luther Adams

 

Over 4000 UU's came to GA in North Carolina this past June.  It seemed to me to represent the best of what Unitarian Universalism offers this world: radical self- awareness and questioning, spiritual practice, beloved community, all in the spirit of creating a world with more equity, justice and more joy. The local paper, wrote an interesting piece that made the front page. It was a tremendous experience and I am looking forward to sharing some of what I learned.
Next year, June 20 -24, 2012, GA is in Phoenix, AZ and it's a special "Justice" GA. You''ll hear lots about it in the year to come.

Celebrating May!

Sometimes, gathering together with all ages just to celebrate our community and the space we occupy can be an invaluable religious education experience. 

Last time we gathered for RE.. .

 Together we raked and weeded our space.

We prepared a yummy feast. While we ate we shared some of our memories from the past year in RE.

 We cleaned up our labyrinth and offered a bubble blessing!

If you were not there, we missed you! Hope to see you at RE Games day this Sunday our traditional all-ages extra fun celebration!