Year: 2019 (Page 5 of 20)

I drained my sprinkler pipes and brought in all the tomatoes and peppers tonight – snow is coming! Wherever you are, I hope you’re staying warm and feeling connected to life and its many gifts.  

The last two Sundays we’ve talked a lot about discomfort and harm in relationships. But it’s important to consider how these aren’t the same thing.  

In Conflict is Not Abuse, Sarah Schulman says discomfort is a regular, normal, and even healthy part of all relationships – something that should not require apology or meaningful recovery. But harm is none of these.  Harm requires healing and deserves apology and repair.  

Healing asks us all to get more honest about the experience we’ve had – more real, more specific. Was it discomfort? Was it harm? How so? We shouldn’t understate the harm – or overstate it, either.  

Schulman doesn’t mean to say that discomfort shouldn’t invoke compassion – the opposite, really. She says we’d all do a lot better by lowering the threshold at which we offer each other compassion, so that we don’t have to get to the point of significant harm or abuse before we hear each other for our needs, our struggles, and our dreams. 

I appreciate her insights so much, because they help us claim greater agency in our response to the more challenging moments of our relationships – to pause and discern what’s really going on in ourselves, in the other, and between us –  before seeking blame, or even repair, and to learn to ask for what we need more directly.  

Which would mean that we could take the ideas I shared about recovery – being honest, being heard, and being here – and apply them not just as ways to get over pain, but as practices for the ongoing health of all our relationships.  

The question of our agency – as in, the degree of choice we have our lives as both sinners and saints – is what Rev. Sean is taking up this Sunday when he’s back in the pulpit after a few Sundays away.  

I know I’m looking forward to leading worship with Sean again, and I look forward to seeing you all soon – 8:30, 10, or 11:30 – as well.

See you Sunday,
Rev. Gretchen

P.S. Speaking of Choices! Update from our Congregational meeting Sunday afternoon: After nearly 12 years of talking about it, and the last four weeks filled with 280 of us “focused” on it, the congregation voted unanimously to proceed with a capital campaign. Check out these smiling faces caught making a choice! 

Notes from Sinners & Saints: Week 3 – Over It. 

• Listen to the message 

Text / Readings 

• Hauling Out Stones by Nancy Schaffer
• The 10:30 used this call to worship I wrote (with a few small edits about fall!)

Music

• At the first two services, Foothills member Herb Orrell sang Bob Dylan’s A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall – check out this raw rendition from Patti Smith at the 2016 Nobel Peace Award Ceremony (I feel like it really gets good after she asks to start over at about 2:00)
• In all three services, Chris and Kara led us in Emma’s Revolution’s Swimming to the Other Side

Practices 

1. Lovingkindness Meditation. Here’s the lovingkindness meditation we offered in our third service.  If you’re looking for a meditative community of practice, join us on Monday nights.  
2. Soul Collage. Still time to sign up for our Soul Collage Workshop on October 12th – go here.  

Resources

1.  I first learned about the practices in Sierra Leone from this Hidden Brain podcast.
2. Find out more about the healing ceremonies and practices here.
3. I didn’t get to it but I was very moved by the stories shared in this TED Radio Hour episode about forgiveness. 

Welcome to October! And welcome to all the many gifts of fall. It is so good to be on this journey together.    

Since Kristen’s message on Sunday, I keep thinking about blame, and how often I’ve tried to shift my own discomfort on to someone else, including those I love the most.  A lot of what she said reminded me of this video animating a talk Brené Brown gave on blame.

If you’re like me, this whole question around blame brings up a lot of really challenging feelings, and some big questions.  Because, while I don’t want to simply blame another person, I do believe we need to hold each other accountable for real wrongdoing.  And, I don’t think our good news that all of us are inherently worthy of love means that we should immediately or easily forgive every broken promise we come across.

Beyond blame or brushing aside, there is work for us to take up.  Work that helps us genuinely move through pain, and brokenness – to recovery and beginning again. 

This is what we’ll be exploring this Sunday in a service called “Over It,” as in, how do we get – or do we? ….get over pain and loss in relationships. 

We’ll consider where real healing and recovery come from after brokenness, loss, or pain, and the tools that help us move forward, and return to life in its fullness.  Especially as we near Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, we want to ask:  across all of our differences, what allows us to return to a deeper wholeness, and a more authentic unity?

I hope you’ll join us this Sunday as we continue to explore these questions, together. 

And, I hope you’ll stay (or return) for our 1:00 congregational meeting. 

We’ll be voting on moving forward with a capital campaign-  a topic that our religious ancestors would’ve imagined as directly related to the themes of Sinners and Saints…. The fact that we are democratically organized is an affirmation of humanity’s direct and equal access to Truth, and to the Good.  

Come continue the tradition – service at 8:30, 10, or 11:30 – and meeting at 1 pm.  See you then!

In partnership,
Rev. Gretchen 

PS Just one more chance to join a Focus Group! Tonight (Wednesday) at 6 pm.  In person – or! Join online by clicking this link and following the instructions. Hope to see you there.

PPS If you tried to join us online last Sunday – for the lack of sound!! We’ve been having some issues and are trying to get it back and running by next Sunday.  

Notes from Sinners & Saints: Week 2 – Blame Game 

• Listen to the message 

 
Text / Readings 

• In all three services, we offered “god is no noun” by Dr. Glen Thomas Rideout
• In the 8:30 we shared a prayer from Nancy Schaffer

 
Music

• At all three services, Foothills community member James Mitchell offered Satsang’s “I AM”
• And Christopher and James led us in Emma’s Revolution’s Swimming to the Other Side

 
Practices 

1. Lovingkindness Meditation. Here’s the lovingkindness meditation we offered in our third service.  If you’re looking for a meditative community of practice, join us on Monday nights.  
2. Soul Collage. If you’re new to this practice, we’re offering a Soul Collage Workshop on October 12th – sign up here.  

 
Resources

1. Foothills Covenant of Right Relations
2. Brene Brown’s advice on Blame
3. The 17^th century families who practiced covenant (instead of blame)

Last Sunday we launched our series Sinners and Saints, and for the next 4 weeks we’ll be talking about the bigger questions that come up after things get personal – when we start dealing with the challenges of getting real with real human beings.

In my sermon, I talked about Esther Perel’s book The State of Affairs and how it breaks open the conversation on broken trust. There’s one moment Perel talks about that I keep thinking about – the moment when everything changes. The moment we discover that someone we love has broken our trust.

Like, the moment I described on Sunday when I overheard my friend talking about me…..or, the moment we discover alcohol in our sober parent’s cup, or that our child has been skipping school, or, the text on our partner’s phone that is too intimate. The moment when the hero we held up as a model for our lives does something – despicable.  

In these sorts of moments, not only do we lose trust in a person we love, but we lose trust in ourselves. We feel foolish, like we should’ve seen it. 

But what Perel reminds us is that actually – we couldn’t have seen it.  Our brains won’t let us. It’s a “sophisticated self-protective mechanism known as trauma denial – a type of self-delusion that we employ when too much is at stake and we have too much to lose.”

I find this so helpful.  It reminds us that there’s no way to see what we cannot see.  We can’t be more alert to it, or somehow “sufficiently” suspicious.  We can only see what we can see – knowing that there’s a lot we can’t see.  And it’s not defective that we can’t see everything – it’s protective.  
To live and to love is to risk trust being broken – it’s a part of the deal.  And yet choosing to trust, to lean in, to believe that even if/when trust is broken, it need not be the end of the story – it’s worth it.  It’s what makes life LIFE.  

I hope you’ll join us this Sunday when REV(!) Kristen keeps the conversation going this Sunday with a service on blame and responsibility.  

The Tao says, “if you don’t trust the people, they become untrustworthy.” Usually from this, we lean into the corollary – when you trust people they become trustworthy. But adrienne maree brown invites instead, is the realization that when we trust the people WE become trustworthy. This week, lean into this awareness – and the power that comes when choosing to trust.
 
In partnership,
Rev. Gretchen 
Senior Minister
Foothills Unitarian Church
Unleashing Courageous Love 
 
P.S. Since some of you have asked….I can’t remember if I won that 7th Grade election! Isn’t that funny – I remember the fight, but I can’t at all remember the result of the thing we were technically fighting about….hmmmm…

Notes from Sinners & Saints: Week 1 – Trust Me 

• Listen to the message 

Text / Readings 

• In the 8:30, we read Trust by Thomas R. Smith 
• In the 11:30, we read the poem Good Bones by Maggie Smith

Practices 

1. Lovingkindness Meditation. Here’s the lovingkindness meditation we offered in our third service.  If you’re looking for a meditative community of practice, join us on Monday nights.  
2. Soul Collage. If you’re new to this practice, we’re offering a Soul Collage Workshop on October 12th – sign up here.  

Resources 

• The State of Affairs by Esther Perel
• Brene Brown’s Anatomy of Trust 
• Dear White People on Netflix 
• How to Build Trust in Your Relationship by John Gottman 

Terms like sinner or saint tend to make us uncomfortable. Instead of original sin, we prefer original blessing. Inherent worth and dignity. We want to talk about complexity, shades of gray.

But then — like our last series said it: it gets personal. Someone we trust betrays us, or lies to us. Someone shares their ideas that violate our sense of goodness, equality, justice. Someone we admire acts selfishly, says something racist, sexist — hateful — sometimes even on purpose.

In these moments, we often feel caught. Caught in simplified ideas about other people — who to trust, when and how to forgive, and who deserves what in life. And, caught in an old binary of either judgment, or boundary-less compassion. Either we let it go, tell them “I love you anyway,” or “you’re still a good person;” or, we end the relationship. Sometimes passively, sometimes urgently. We think: we can’t engage with someone so unhealthy, wrong, even — evil.

But the core of our faith says there’s another way. One that doesn’t divide the whole world up into heroes and villains — and instead says: none of us is ever reducible to our best, or our worst acts. One that embraces the reality that we are all sinners, and saints fully, and always. We can and do harm each other, and ourselves. And, we are capable of generosity, selflessness, beauty.

Whatever is true in this moment, and wherever any of us are in our lives, or where Life is now, it’s not the end of the story. When we open ourselves to this truth, we make room for grace, and real healing to show up.

It’s this path that we invite you to explore with us in the coming weeks in our series, Sinners and Saints. We’ll be delving into what happens after things get personal — and the practices that help us break free from the binary, and commit ourselves to a vision of humanity that is grounded in courageous love, and the (risky, often-painful) choice we have to trust each other, and the larger universe — through it all.

Rev. Gretchen

Series Spiritual Practices

Lovingkindness Meditation
This Buddhist practice is a practice of developing compassion and connection with all of life. It invites us to first practice compassion for ourselves, then for others, then, for all of life, in an ever-increasing circle of connection and love. You can find many examples online, and we’ll be practicing this throughout the series in our 11:30 service.

Sinners & Saints Soul Collage
SoulCollage® is a method of self-discovery through the creation and intuitive analysis of collaged cards. More information at soulcollage.com and look for a workshop at Foothills the morning of Saturday, Oct. 12. More info at foothillsuu.org/signup

CJM helps lead spontaneous participation of eco-groups
to grab control of fracking in our community. 

Right here, right now. This is what I need to be doing, I thought as I pep talked myself to the podium this past Friday.  In five minutes, to three people representing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, I introduced myself from Climate Justice Ministry of Foothills Unitarian Church and described our work. It was a public hearing on whether or not to downgrade Colorado’s air quality to “serious.”

This moment in state history is part of Gov. Polis’ strategy — our previous Governor asked for an 18-month suspension to federal intervention for our state’s unhealthy air, with the idea that we might reverse course and avoid the trouble. But, with the growing number of wells, no amount of industry tweaks would make this situation winnable. So, Polis actually asked to rescind the request for extension. Flunk us now. Tell us what to do. Help. 

Perhaps you or someone near you has a persistent “summer cold”? Or you suffer asthma and are acutely aware of the many “Stay indoors” warnings we now get. Our state has fallen from grace regarding its once blue sky reputation. The poison we inhale from thousands of oil and gas wells east of us makes us sick in more ways than most of us realize — and science now has proof. 

The good news? Colorado Senate Bill 181 recently passed to give us local control of oil and gas development — and super important — to insist that the regulation of oil & gas PRIORITIZE Health, Safety & the Environment. Formerly, it was weighed against industry profit. How much of a hit to our health were we willing to take for the money? Well, it’s a lot of money (for Weld County), and those many debilitating symptoms are anecdotal, so they said. 

When SB-181 passed, local leaders sprung up, banded together to make a plan. We’re hopeful that we can now legally stop wells from being next to schools and homes, from hogging millions of gallons of precious water to frack. Now we’re rolling like a snowball downhill. We are banded as the Larimer Alliance for Health, Safety & the Environment. 

Our pace must keep us abreast of Larimer County, which selected a 15-member task force of which 2/3 have industry ties. The county’s aim is to roll out its rules for local control as soon as October. Applications are pending for about 40 wells, some by bad actors — companies known for accidents, mistakes, and failure to prepare or mitigate. Some are very near neighborhoods. Bethke Elementary School in Timnath now has a well. Terry Lake has one coming. Loveland is an easy target because fewer of its citizens are opposed. 

We’re uncertain why our county managers insist on rushing, since stalled profit is no longer a lead consideration. We’ve asked that they slow down until the new Colorado Oil and Gas Commission has had the time to announce new rules for the state, based on the new criteria. We are bracing for what we’ve been told will be a formal NO at this week’s commissioner meeting. 

It’s far easier to stop bad laws or influence their making than to reverse, amend or repeal. This is our moment. 

Larimer Alliance is preparing our next requests for rules to ensure the safest development. We are calling all support to make the groundswell of concerned citizens obvious. We consistently appear and comment at Tuesday morning commissioner meetings, we intend to fill the room at Task Force meetings, canvas neighborhoods, write press releases, host educational events, walk in parades… and anything else we can think of to show we are united and strong in our determination to protect OUR community. If you’ve wondered how to fight climate change in a way that matters — start with your home. 

I told the EPA on behalf of CJM and the Larimer Alliance: The terrible air we breathe cannot stand more; scientific instruments show Larimer County residents are breathing a lot of poison from the nation’s most fracked county, just across the road from us. We’d like to talk to Weld County about all the money it enjoys while all we get is sick, but we’ve been advised to not engage — because Weld Commissioners are in a legal thicket trying to convince the state that “local control” should also allow FEWER rules. So, I said to the EPA, please downgrade our state to Serious bad ozone. HELP US with pressure from the Fed to recognize our right to BREATHABLE AIR. 

Air is just one of many issues surrounding oil and gas development. We’ve so much to cover. Can you help? Your presence is needed. Here’s some dates and events where you can stand up for the climate justice in your own backyard:

1. Every Tuesday 9 am, County Courthouse: just listen, or speak. If uncertain on speaking, Larimer Alliance can offer what you might say. 
   
2. Monday, 9/16 6:30 p.m., General meeting of all groups strategizing for Larimer Alliance (you’ll have to ask in person for the place).
   
3. Friday, Sept. 27, 5:30 p.m. Old Town Square Climate Action Strike by Defend Our Future.
   
4. Friday, Oct. 4, 4 p.m. Canvas Stadium, CSU Homecoming Parade

For more information, visit LarimerAlliance.org, check out the Climate Justice Ministry calendar of events and join our group at Foothills. 

I invite you to feel the energy of this diverse group of people making things up as we go towards goals that are quite measurable, all the more possible, and unflinchingly necessary.

Kristen Psaki,
Assistant Minister for Beloved Community