Month: February 2021 (Page 1 of 3)

Heartfelt Moments

February 25, 2021 /

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou.

Share a moment when someone had a powerful and perhaps unexpected positive emotional impact on you.

  • A friend told me, years later, that I was the reason she didn’t kill herself in high school. She is now an amazing mom, happy married, with three kids.
  • A high school crush reached out to me after 53 years. A wonderful friendship has followed.
  • A senior manager told me that it was OK if I could not find anything in the defense budget to cut. We did not work on commission. Assuring Congress that something was necessary was just as important as assuring Congress something wasn’t necessary. Relieved a tremendous amount of stress and restored my objectivity.
  • Being in touch with an old family friend
  • Camp counselor consoled crying camper by telling him riddles c. 1959. Camper decides to become a geologist like his counselor.
  • I had an aunt that was so peaceful to be around. I especially noticed this as a young girl. And it wasn’t what she said or did. I just felt good around her.
  • I received a phone call from a man who I dated in college. He apologized for the way he broke up with me 40+ years ago. It was touching and a few years later I read that he had died.
  • I’ve gotten thank you cards from coworkers thanking me for things I’ve done that I felt were just part of the job but were in fact above and beyond. To be recognized in that way-knowing someone took the time to show their appreciation-brought me to tears.
  • In my 20’s a softball coach/friend advised me I could do anything I set my mind to do. It has inspired me throughout my life.
  • My book club here surprised me with a quick drop in with gifts-I will miss them terribly and appreciate their generosity!!
  • My brother who lives in Oregon has been a powerful support for me. I am so grateful for him.
  • My oldest son has always had a positive calmness about him. Last year I had applied to a job that I was really hopeful to get but didn’t and I was very discouraged and disappointed. My son sent me two long emails that said, in 23 year old vernacular, “you’re great, hang in there.” It was so buoying of my deflated spirit.
  • That was just last night when I received a beautiful handmade chalice from a fellow Circle 8 member! It was totally unexpected and beautiful!
  • When my husband passed, a co-worker, who is now my best friend, was super supportive. I will forever be grateful to her for love & kindness.

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Congregational Meeting Summary & How We’re Moving Forward

February 23, 2021 /

There was a moment in Architect Peter Ewer’s presentation at Sunday’s congregational meeting when he showed a rendering of the new sanctuary from the perspective of Drake Road. He said that the building during construction would draw attention from folks driving by and raise our profile.

I silently wondered if this was a benefit more noteworthy for the customer-driven businesses he designs than for a church like ours.

But then I thought about our large Black Lives Matter banners on our buildings and our Burma-shave-style signs of support for so many marginalized groups.

And I wondered, what does it say to passersby that our courageous-love-fueled congregation – which shares our plate each week and is so generous with our time and talent too in partnership with local groups – what does it mean to see a big new sanctuary going up at that church?

To me, it feels like a profoundly hopeful message to our larger community. We speak our truth of a morally interconnected world. And we are growing. Folks are drawn to our mission and vision and want to join us in living out our shared values.

On Sunday, Feb. 21st, the congregation met online and voted overwhelmingly (144-4) to proceed with a revised Phase 1 of our Building Expansion Project, a master plan for an eventual doubling of our campus.

You can watch the full congregational meeting in the video player below:

It was nearly a year ago that we celebrated our $6 million capital campaign success and voted to proceed to final design on a Phase 1 centered on a new sanctuary building. Two weeks later, the reality of the pandemic hit and sent us into a new world of online worship, lock-downs, social distancing, and mask-wearing.

The board felt it was profoundly fortunate that our timing allowed us to pause the project and assess this new reality.

Now we are moving forward with a revised Phase 1 that represents months of re-visioning work and new financial modeling from our Building Expansion Team, our Building Expansion Finance Team, our architect and general contractor, and our church staff.

This version retains our 400-seat sanctuary, includes a 4,000-square foot lower level of insulated, wired, climate-controlled space (that can later be subdivided), and connects the RE wing to the main buildings, with code upgrades, including installation of the elevator for universal access.

The new design is 1,000-square-feet smaller, $814,000 less expensive, and incorporates pandemic-informed health and safety modifications. 

The Board of Trustees was tremendously excited to see this new design emerge and to realize that we could retain nearly all of the features and functionality of the original design, as well as the option to add postponed segments of the project back in as fundraising allows.

Click Here to View a Detailed Packet on the Revised Building Expansion Plan

Sunday’s vote included authorizing the building teams and staff to acquire the short-term and long-term debt needed to finance the project fully. The plan includes no more than $1.5 million in long-term debt, with the expectation that we will reduce that amount significantly through what is traditionally known as the “close-the-gap” stage of our capital campaign. (Debt service on the full $1.5 million in long-term debt has been modeled and is serviceable within our current budget and growth projections.)

What’s next?

Ewers Architecture and the building teams will be holding virtual design input meetings next week. This will be the congregation’s chance to give direct input on the revised design.

In the interest of keeping the project moving forward on its most efficient timeline and limiting inflationary pressures, we are not planning to return to the congregation for another vote, unless the design or cost totals change materially. The goal is to break ground this fall and finish by the end of 2022.

We will be compiling an FAQ with answers to many of the questions the design teams, the architect, and Foothills staff have answered in recent weeks. If you would like to receive that FAQ along with other building expansion updates, please subscribe to the Building Expansion Team newsletter HERE.

 

We look forward to continuing forward in this impactful and exciting process!

Sue Sullivan
President
Board of Trustees

Heartfelt Messages

February 18, 2021 /

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]If we could make our own candy hearts for each other, here is what they would say:[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_gallery interval=”3″ images=”41156″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Embarking on a Common Conversation

February 18, 2021 /

When we talked earlier this year about what we wanted to hold on to from 2020, many of us noted our deeper understanding of racism and a growing commitment to dismantling white supremacy. This understanding and commitment was born of grief and outrage after seeing George Floyd and Breonna Taylor murdered. And then intensified when their killers were not held accountable.  

And yet, these incidents of 2020 were only the most recent examples of our country’s longstanding history of racial injustice. Despite what many of us learned in school or from our families of origin, racism has been built into our systems and culture right from the beginning – so much so that Pulitzer-Prize winning author Isabel Wilkerson started to think of it not just as a matter of race but as a matter of caste. 

As Wilkerson suggests, caste “is the term that is more precise [than race]; it is more comprehensive, and it gets at the underlying infrastructure that often we cannot see, but that is there undergirding much of the inequality and injustices and disparities that we live within this country…Caste focuses in on the infrastructure of our divisions and the rankings, whereas race is the metric that’s used to determine one’s place in that.” 

I have yet to meet someone who encounters Wilkerson’s book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents who doesn’t leave thinking, “Everyone should read this!” It’s such a helpful and insightful dive into the underlying structures that we need to address to make real progress on dismantling white supremacy and racism in our country.  

For these reasons, we are trying something new over the next few months. We are inviting what we’re calling a “Common Conversation” with Wilkerson’s ideas.    

Our goal is to have at least 50% of our congregation be familiar with Wilkerson’s concepts in the next three months – that’s quite a feat! But we’ve set the bar high because we’re confident in our community’s commitment not only to racial justice and healing but to growing our understanding of the systems that perpetuate inequity. Not only did you state that this was one thing you’d want to bring forward from 2020, it’s also a clear part of our Bold Vision (see statement 5!) and a core commitment of our Universalist faith. (Check out this great article from my colleague Nancy McDonald Ladd for a look at this commitment in practice.)

And there’s a reason we’re inviting this conversation now as we launch our series on Tough Love. Diving deeply into these difficult and even painful understandings as a way to bring greater justice and collective liberation is one example of love being tough, resilient, and transformative.  

There are many ways to participate in Common Conversation, including reading the book and many that don’t require you to read the full text! (Which is why we didn’t call it a “Common Read.” We want to make this conversation as accessible for as many people as possible!) There’s a lot more information on our Caste webpage – including a way to let us know you are joining the conversation.

Click here to join the conversation!

I am really looking forward to hearing what you think and considering how we can keep growing and doing better together.

In partnership,

Rev. Gretchen 

Turn to Gratefulness

February 11, 2021 /

There have been a few really hard moments in the last few weeks, pieces of news, and losses to bear. Some in the church, some things personally, and of course, some things nationally. If you’ve been watching the impeachment hearings, the footage is difficult to take in, to put it mildly. These challenges are why I’ve also been doubling down on my gratefulness practice lately.  

I’ve actually been linking my gratefulness to brushing my teeth. In the morning, as I brush my teeth, I try to tune in to something that connects me to life and the gifts of life. And before bed, I do it again. Because my teeth brushing habit is pretty solid, this little trick helps the gratefulness habit stick just a little more easily.  

I know it seems counter-intuitive that I’d be responding to all that’s happening with more gratitude. How does loss and struggle lead to gratefulness?!? 

But what I’ve found is that often, if I meet the grief with openness rather than resistance, I find myself also overwhelmed with love and gratitude. There’s something about recognizing just how fragile life is, how fragile we all are, that reminds me we can’t wait for joy. We need to feel the blessing now. Feel the gift now. Sometimes I even manage to feel connected to the ways that grief is only possible in the first place because of love, and so I start to feel connected to that love. Sometimes.  

To help you in your gratefulness practice, check out this video, which is a version of the practice we offer on Sundays:

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