Helping out during the Holidays

Religious Education is collecting gifts, thru December 23, for the moms and children at Sojourn House during Christmas. Sojourn House is a homeless shelter for women and children, located nearby on Union St. Families stay for differing amounts of time and receive help finding permanent housing. Many are women escaping domestic violence and so they arrive with nothing.

Because of the nature of the shelter and the differing situations of the women and children who arrive, there is no way to know exactly which families will be there over Christmas. So we ask for an array of gifts for different ages. These are families that are not connected to any holiday adopt a family programs. so our gifts really do matter.

Most of the children who stay with their moms at Sojourn House are young. But occasionally there are older children and teens. I do check with Sojourn House staff a few days before Christmas just to see if there are any older children. When there are, I make an extra effort to see that there are appropriate gifts for them too.

Since this coming Sunday is Revels, we will have a basket, located near the church office, for donations. It is there all week so people can drop off donations any time the church is open.

The last Sunday we collect, December 23, we will have a table at the back of the Great Hall.

Gift Ideas for Sojourn House: 

For Babies: onesies, sleepers, baby lotions, baby body wash, baby powder,  rattles, teething and soft toys, sippy cups, clothing.

For Children: trucks, matchbox cars, dinosaur/animal figures, baby dolls in strollers, blocks/building sets, play dough, crayons, coloring books, magnetic letters, Puzzles, Books, non-toxic arts and craft supplies, board games, craft kits (bracelet making, mosaics etc), playing cards

For Moms: comforter sets/blankets, bathrobes, slippers, body wash/lotion sets, (no candles or anything that burns). gift cards to Price Chopper and Walmart, children’s dvds, notepad & pen sets, alarm clocks or regular wall clocks. Things moms spend a lot of money on: diapers (mostly size 4 and 5), wipes, bus passes for transportation, and snacks. Things to start up an apartment: Tupperware, pots/pans, dish towels/cloths, shower curtain...

Holiday Presence: the gifts of spiritual practice

For the past two weeks in religious education we have explored spiritual practices with our elementary- aged children. We practiced yoga with postures, breathing and meditation. We worked with labyrinths and snow globes! Last Sunday the children heard a story for Advent and created Advent wreaths to bring home. They learned a song to sing as they light a candle each week.

Spiritual practice take time. And the beauty is, when we slow down, when we practice slowing down, other things in our lives become more manageable. Time becomes a little more spacious. Spiritual practices can help to anchor us in trying times. They can help us slow down and focus on what is truly important. Spiritual practices center us and allow us to be of greater service to the world. They allow us to better live out our values.  

Practicing with your child/children can be a way to build and sustain a life-affirming habit. Make a habit of it when things are going well and it will be there for you when things are not. Cultivating spiritual practices with children can be a simple as practicing gratitude daily. Or pausing once during the day, maybe at the end of they day, to consciously breath. The practices and value of breath awareness are well- documented. Simple breathing practices can lead to meditation practices.

Many of us have some time off during this holiday season. Consider making mindful presence, starting a spiritual practice, a present of this season.

Here are some resources if you are interested in reading more. But the most important part is making time for a practice.

Playful Family Yoga, by Teressa Asencia
Planting Seeds: Practicing Mindfulness With Children, by Thich Nhat Hahn.
Anh's Anger, by Gail Silver

RE-thinking Thanksgiving

As Unitarian Universalists we are called by our theology and our history to create beloved community. The work of creating community includes deep, deliberate and thoughtful consideration of the traditions and practices we teach and pass on. Re-thinking Thanksgiving, and the stories that are taught along with it, is an opportunity to consider some of these stories.

With Columbus Day and Thanksgiving, we have a strong cultural narrative repeated in many places. It goes something like this:  Columbus discovered America. Eventually, white Europeans settled here in what we know as the Northeast, aided  by Native Americans, who were acknowledged in the first Thanksgiving celebration.

For children, these stories are often the first stories they learn about encounters between different cultures and races. These stories are, by and large, narratives of “progress” and the “manifest destiny” of white Europeans to inhabit this space.  They are full of inaccurate, racial stereotypes that do a great disservice to Native peoples and to the actual stories.

Columbus did not discover a land any more than Romans discovered the lands they conquered. He committed genocide of the entire native population he first came into contact with. Based on the stories by historians and biographers who admired him, Columbus was brutal and cruel. Do we really want to celebrate this story in this way? Around the United States, many communities have begun celebrating Indigenous People's Day instead of Columbus Day.

The stories of European conquest and Native American resistance are far more complex and relevant to our lives today.  They are stories of resistance and endurance and connection.

There are stories of the Iroquois League of Nations as one of the first examples of democracy. The peoples who became known as the Iroquois united under a man called the Peacemaker. They continue even today to teach these stories that speak to peace as a way to resolve conflict and support the health of the earth and the next seven generations of humans to come.

We can acknowledge a troubling past as way to move forward. We can also acknowledge that Native peoples are still here, living in towns and cities, as well as some of their ancient ancestral lands.

In upstate New York we have a rich heritage, thanks in part to the Iroquois, of democracy and peacemaking. These are stories full of gratitude for the earth, the air, the water, animals and humans. 

2013 marks the 400^th anniversary of the first agreement between Europeans and American Indian Nations of Turtle Island (North America.) Recorded on the Two Row Wampum belt, is a covenental agreement that the peoples live in friendship, peace and in parallel, “as long as the grass is green, as long as the rivers flow downhill and as long as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.”

FUSS Religious education will be participating in the Two Row WampumRenewal Campaign: Honoring Native Treaties/ Protecting the Earth. We can learn the stories from this land and be grateful for all that we have here.

All Hallow's Eve Party Sunday 10:30 -11:30 AM

It's that time again! Dangerous Dangling Doughnuts returns at our annual All Hallow's Eve party this Sunday. The children in grades preK-6 will be at Waters House and rotate thru party stations. They are welcome to come in costume. There will be snacks and crafts, stories and education. At the end, the children will parade over to the Great Hall and meet parents there.

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. As part of RE and our party, children will have the opportunity to learn about trick or treating for UNICEF. They'll also learn about fair trade chocolate.

As I've written around this holiday.........

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.

Enjoy your special celebrations!

Religious Education October 14 and 21

SEVENTH PRINCIPLE PROJECT: COMPOSTING: Religious Education can be a messy endeavor! Sunday October 14 and October 21,  preK thru grade 4 will help build a composting system for FUSS! We will be outside, so please have children dressed for the weather. They will be building and learning about composting as well. They are being led in this project by Gary Feinland and FUSS Master Composters: Nancy Benz, Nancy Peterson and Robin Schnell. This is a combined effort on the part of RE, Buildings  and Grounds, and Green Sanctuary.

RIDDLE and MYSTERY: Grades 5/6 will continue their exploration of "big" questions while they begin filming in their newly created "news studio."

POPCORN THEOLOGY: 10:30 -11:45 AM. Over the next two Sundays Grades 7/8 will watch the movie, Bruce, the Almighty, and have a chance to think about and discus prayer and "Who has the power?"

SENIOR YOUTH: Grades 9 -12 meet in the senior youth lounge.

Sacred Land at Cohoes Falls Returned to Iroquois

Today's local paper, the Times Union, has  piece on the sacred land at Cohoes Falls where the world's oldest united nations began. This is a story some of our children at FUSS learned in RE and a site they visited last June. It is part of the story of the Peacemaker.

THIS SATURDAY, October 6, you can be part of the RETURN of this sacred land to the Iroquois by Brookfield Renewable Energy Company!

• At 10 AM you can hear a traditional Thanksgiving Address

• At 10:15AM hear the story of the Mohawks in Cohoes by Akwesasne Mohawk Doug George Kanentiio.

And more!

Its all at Cohoes Music Hall, 58 Remsen St, Cohoes, NY 12047

Check out the Hiawatha Institute for Indigenous Knowledge for more info.

Compost Happens at FUSS!

Starting this Sunday, Master Composters from FUSS will lead a three- week project with our PreK thru 4th graders. The children will learn about and BUILD a composting system for FUSS. The compost bins will be built near the parking lot. Classroom teachers will be there to assist and other adults are welcome. Compost building days are Sunday: September 30, October 14 and October 21. Please have your child dress for the weather. We will be outside.