Month: February 2021 (Page 2 of 3)

Simple Rules

February 11, 2021 /

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] What simple rules do you have (or aspire to have) that help maintain a sense of order or purpose in your life?

  • Always choose kindness- to self, to others, to the planet.
  • Always make the bed – last one up has to make it.
  • Avoid arguments.
  • Be kind and look for ways to help others. And show up, even when you don’t feel like it.
  • Be patient with yourself and others.
  • Being of cheerful heart ❤️. No matter what happens in my life, that attitude has helped me get through. It helps me keep my mind in order.
  • Breathe!
  • Daily gratefulness and yoga to start most days.
  • Daily spiritual reading and mindfulness practices.
  • Daily walk or bike ride.
  • Don’t be lazy! Get up and make the cup of tea, wake up early for the ski trip, plan the exercise session beforehand and do it, register for that course, ink the appointment right now, buy the tickets. The answer for me is usually to do, not just be. Which means I’m not listening closely enough the sermons, right?
  • Exercise, get outdoors.
  • I hate it when people say exercise really helps. It’s so hard to get started when you’re depressed, anxious, out of shape. I have committed to walking and working out this quarantine and it helps me feel like I’ve accomplished something. On days I can’t work out, I take the FULL HOUR FOR LUNCH. It’s too easy to keep working so I set a timer.
  • First things first. Do what’s in front of you every day. Be kind whenever possible.
  • For order: Daily: Make the bed, feed and clean up after the cats, monitor laundry and food needs, take a walk or use equipment at the gym, read the newspaper.

For purpose: support FHN board and staff, lead my family’s new council and connect family members to our business. Plan family business retreat. Travel in our RV. Cook with my husband, play ping pong and laugh. Spend time with grandkids and learn from them. Avoid politics, encourage family empathy and unity.

  • Gratitude and deep breaths.
  • Hum, never really thought about this in a way of articulating it. Something to ponder.
  • I get up in the morning, meditate, do some yoga stretches and practice my French on Duo Lingo to start my say. I write in my gratitude app at the end of my day.
  • I have so much order and purpose in my life already it’s a little crazy. What I need to do is to let myself waste some time and just amble along for a bit. That’s the thing I suck at.
  • I know it’s kind of broad and can be applied to just about anything, but it’s “Think before you do things!” A quote from my Mom.

 

  • ..How will this impact others, the environment, me…

Are these words or actions: True? – as in facts, true to who I am, true to my values? Kind? – how will others feel once I have acted this way or said what I have to say? Necessary? – ultimately, is it something that has to be said and/or done & do the benefits outweigh anything negative that can come from this?

  • I make dresses for impoverished girls. I do aquatics. I’m isolated. And lonely.
  • Increased workouts. Opened more communication with my family.
  • Keep house neat as possible, eat three meals a day, make bed and get some sort of exercise.
  • Leave people better than you find them, if possible, whenever you interact with someone. Notice things like a child would. Change “”I have to” to “I get to”
  • Listen to what my body tells me.
  • Lots of self-care and healthy boundaries.
  • Maintain the same schedule every day.
  • Pray and send good thoughts to the universe.
  • Make at least some progress on my work and personal projects each day except on those days when something more critical or more fun intervenes.
  • Make my bed as soon as I get up, exercise, pray, gratitude & always look at the positive things in my life.
  • Make my bed!
  • Meditate every morning.
  • Menu planning, grocery list, shop once a week.
  • Toys get put away every day in the playroom.
  • My shopping list correlates with the path I take through the grocery store. Also, I have a “pantry list” to remember the things that didn’t get added to the shopping list.
  • My Wellspring group has provided a great sense of support and grounding during these uncommon and extremely stressful times. I aspire to continue my spiritual practices and meditation and be more mindful and thankful for my blessings! 🙂
  • Outer order helps inner calm. The more organized things are around me the better I feel.
  • Put it away as soon as you are finished!
  • Regular time to share breakfast and dinner daily with spouse.
  • Start the day with breakfast. Make sure it is heavy on protein.
  • Starting each day with a prayer of gratitude.
  • Stay informed and engaged in the world.
  • Stay out of trouble. Help others.    Vote.  Be thankful.
  • Take it easy when I need to.
  • The Golden Rule: Do onto others as you want them to do to you.
  • Tidy the table and counters before we leave or go to bed. Always kiss goodnight.
  • Treat others as I want to be treated.
  • Try and take a walk every day and to try not to sleep in late.
  • Try to ski the backs but stay out of the bumps!
  • Wash clothes on Monday, whoever cooks, the other one cleans up, Bob makes the bed, try to get in a daily walk after lunch, write first thing in the day, all else comes afterwards, no TV during the day (but still sucked into devices 🙁).
  • Which activity will have the most significant impact for reducing greenhouse gases in the future, including via sequestration?

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Notice of Congregational Meeting

February 10, 2021 /

NOTICE OF CONGREGATIONAL MEETING:

Foothills’ Board of Trustees will convene a congregational meeting online on Sunday, Feb. 21st at 10:15 am, to vote on the revised building expansion project and authorize the debt that will allow us to complete the project. The meeting will be held via Zoom in Zoom Room 7.

Unitarian Universalist churches are congregationally led – each church is self-governing, relying on democratic principles to make the major decisions that affect and guide our congregation.

In the fall and winter of 2019-2020, our congregation held a hugely successful Capital Campaign, raising $6 million to fund the sorely needed expansion of our physical campus. Two weeks after we voted to proceed with the final design on March 1, 2020, we went into pandemic lockdown.

Over the last 11 months, we have been tracking the pandemic and economic fallout on our congregation and the larger world. We have revisioned our project for a post-pandemic world. We have a less-expensive design that keeps nearly all of the key elements and a funding structure that we feel is fiscally responsible. We are excited about this revised design, which we feel meets the congregation’s long-term needs and allows us to continue expanding our mission of unleashing courageous love across Northern Colorado and beyond.

A detailed packet on the project will be released later this week. There will be an opportunity for questions and discussion of the revised project and financing on Wednesday, February 17th  from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm.

We welcome all interested Foothills participants at both the Feb. 17th Q&A session and the Feb. 21st congregational meeting.

Per our church bylaws, you must be on the membership rolls at least 30 days in advance of the meeting to vote. If you are unsure of your membership status or have not been on the official membership roll at previous congregational meetings, please contact the Foothills office at (970) 493-5906.

We look forward to seeing you at this important moment in the life of our congregation.

Sue Sullivan

President

Board of Trustees

Click here to view a detailed packet about the revised building expansion design
Click here to view the congregational meeting agenda

Rev. Bill Sinkford’s Sermon “Something Far More Deeply Interfused”

February 8, 2021 /

Blessed Spirit of My Life.  

Have you sensed that presence? Did you feel it in that beautiful hymn? 

A presence? Moving? 

An energy that is yours…but not yours alone?   

Spirit of Great Mystery.  

Have you felt that quality of presence before? Do you come here in search of it? 

Do you fell it now? 

We’ve been so happy to put the last year behind us…so happy to inaugurate new political leadership and even to believe that this time of anxiety and distancing might eventually come to an end.  

But what quality of presence are we called to embody as our spirits enter this time of opening? 

What quality of Presence?  

In progressive circles we talk about presence all the time: 

“being present” to another person, or an event in the world, or even being present to ourselves. About bringing OUR presence and attention, about a more intense focus WE CAN BRING. 

There is a different meaning for “presence” in theology. There the word points not to the attention WE can bring, but to a presence that is “other” or at least partially “other.”  

“Spirit of Life, come unto me.” Be present to us. 

Some of us think of a heightened human awareness. Some speak of the presence of God. 

There is in all of those meanings the moving beyond the ordinary self, …the self that gets us through the day…  

There is a connection to values and virtues that are held within us but also beyond us. There is a tethering, a connection to something larger. Something to which we are present. Or something that is present to us. 

William Wordsworth described it this way: 

And I have felt a presence that 

Disturbs me with the joy of  

Elevated thoughts, 

A sense sublime of something far 

More deeply interfused… 

A motion and a spirit, that… 

rolls through all things. 

…something far more deeply interfused… 

Whether we experience that presence in the measured meter of Wordsworth’s poetry, in the listening and laughter and tears of pastoral presence, in the cloud of witnesses we invoke in our public work for justice, or in song and the energy of gospel rhythms, there is an “otherness,” an almost mystical quality when we speak of presence in the religious sense. 

It is not comfortable for all of us to acknowledge…I am certain that some of us may be squirming even now. I know. 

But the acknowledgement that there is something beyond the individual consciousness…that human possibility is not confined to a linear world of algebra in which we can always solve for X, can always explain the mystery… 

Even if the most we can say is that there is a power of human possibility that is yet to be realized… 

Well, wrestling with that presence and that possibility is profoundly spiritual work. 

Author Brain Doyle recounts his own experience: 

“…I sat at the end of my bed at three in the morning, in tears, furious, frightened,… as drained and hopeless as I have ever been in this bruised and blessed world, at the very end of the end of my rope, and She spoke to me. I know it was Her…the Mother. …  

Let it go, She said. …The words were clear, unambiguous, … unadorned. … 

Let it go. … She knew how close I was to…utter despair…and She reached for me and cupped me in Her hand and spoke into the me of me and I will never forget her voice until the day I die.” 

She spoke into “the me of me,” …a presence so “other” but so intimate. 

We don’t talk easily about such experience. Doyle told no one for over a year, until two friends independently told him that they had been spoken to in hours of great need. 

I’ve shared my own experience before…of sitting by son’s hospital bed when he had overdosed…of praying that he would live… 

My own experience of being held and assured, somehow, that things would be alright in the morning, though the night might be long… 

It was not a promise of an outcome. It was assurance that both he and I were known and…somehow…held. 

That was years ago and he is fine and a father now soon to be teenagers himself. 

When I first shared that experience from the pulpit…I was surprised at the number of people who told me of their feeling such a presence…of being “visited.” And that language is not right…or not completely right…because the stories that were shared with me were varied… 

Perhaps “the presence,” whatever it may be, is shaped out of our own mind …to fit narratives we have been taught or told…for Doyle it was the Catholic Mother…for me simply hands holding me… 

Doris Grumbach, in her book, The Presence of Absence, describes her experience:” 

“I was filled with a unique feeling of peace, an impression so intense that it seemed to expand into ineffable joy. … It seemed to fill my entire body.” She knew it as the presence of God, though she describes herself as a Marxist with an opiate-of-the-people opinion about religion. 

And something changed for her…as it did for Doyle: 

Though the details of his life did not change, [I’m quoting again]“…it changed everything. Something broke and something healed, something so deep and joyous that I cannot find words for it, hard as I try.” 

A Presence. “…something so deep and joyous.” 

I did not give up rationalism. I still study history and psychology and economics.  

But I have come to know that similar experiences …are real for many of us…part of what William James called the Varieties of Religious Experience… that the community of the church is called to hold. 

And if our goal in the church is to welcome real lived experience…to create and sustain a spiritual community where we don’t have to check any part of ourselves at the door…a community whose hallmark is a quest for wholeness…accountable wholeness… 

Then we need to make a place for these experiences…just as much as we make space for intellectual engagement… and just as much as we feel the spirit when we sing or pray together and just as much as we celebrate with every movement toward equity and inclusion. 

In fact, I want to try to describe to you how I am increasingly seeing all of those “varieties of religious experience” as part of a whole…related…interconnected…deeply interfused…bound together and binding us together in this business of trying to live a faithful and an honest… and a joyful life. 

Some of this is not in focus yet…some of it I can only glimpse… 

But bear with me as I try. This year begins with some light at the end of the tunnel…with the vaccines…with the new administration in Washington… 

But that for me just heightens the need to get clear on how we want to live we begin to return…not to normal…but to a new, post-Covid reality. 

So bear with me… 

We have seen one approach to living taken to its tragic conclusion. Seen it in the public square. 

This is the approach of selfishness, of centering self above all else. Of using others. Of greed. And of an un–fill-able emptiness. 

We have seen what that looks like…and watched what that can cause. It has been embodied in a President but that way of being has been around for a long time. It is deeply a part of the DNA of this nation. Not the totality of our DNA, thankfully, but it is there in us. Make no mistake. 

We know what lies at the end of that path and it is not the Promised Land. It is emptiness that cannot be filled. 

We would pity those who follow that path if their actions did not harm so many of us. 

I need to be clear. I am not writing off the value of understanding how things work, nor of our skill at making them work for our benefit. 

But that manipulation…without a corresponding depth of gratitude and accountability to creation and to our neighbors… 

That leads to the abuse we have seen exemplified these last four years. 

There is another path…other paths…with different relationships to creation and to the Spirit of Life…to that presence within us and beyond us. 

Even if we don’t know and can’t know for certain what the presence we feel is or how it works. 

Not knowing does not need to leave us stuck…because our knowing, our certainty…and our control…are not the ultimate point. Creation…it turns out…is not all about us. 

Michael Himes, a former professor at Boston College reminds us that God is not anyone’s name. “There is not some person out there someplace, much older, much wiser, much more powerful than you or I whose name is ‘God’.” 

“[God] is the name of the mystery that lies at the root of all that exists. Never forget that we are talking about mystery…since our temptation is to natter on as though we know what we’re talking about.” 

[I love that attitude in this very Catholic priest] 

We don’t know…for certain… 

The mystery remains mystery. 

But…there are things that we do know. 

Himes tells the story of Father Zosima in The Brothers Karamozov. The Father is counseling “a woman who had ceased to believe in God.   

“Now everything is colorless, tasteless,” she tells the monk. “Nothing feels real, ‘save the weeds that grow on my grave.’” 

Zosima tells her that what she is experiencing is the worst thing that can happen to a human being, AND that he thinks he can help her. She must go home and every day, without fail, in the most concrete and practical way possible she must love the people around her. If she does that, Zosima says, then bit by bit she will come to the point at which she cannot but believe in God. ‘This way,’ he says, ‘has been tried; this way is certain.” 

Professor Himes concludes: “ … the only workable proof for the [presence]of God is an experience, and that experience arises out of the daily concrete and practical love for those around us.” 

In the Interfaith world, many people are impressed with UU commitment to social justice…our practice of “making love real by the living of our lives”… 

For our faith, direct engagement and support for justice-making and service, the living into our vision of Beloved Community is crucial to our spiritual development. Not incidental. Not a nice addition. Crucial. 

It is the process, and we have many ways that we embody it, of liberating ourselves and locating ourselves on a path leading toward hope…not emptiness. 

As Howard Thurman wrote: “The mystic’s concern with the imperative for social action is not merely … to relieve human suffering… If this were all, in and of itself, it would be important surely. But…the basic consideration has to do with the removal of all that prevents God from coming to [fullness] in the life of the individual. Whatever there is that blocks this, calls for action. 

The removal of all that prevents God from coming to fullness in our lives… 

Thurman’s language may require some translation for some. 

So try this: Whatever blocks that presence which brings both peace and joy to your life and to all of the other lives around you…whatever blocks that presence from “coming to fullness” … must be dismantled. 

We have been blocking too much of human potential…too much creativity and competence has been shut down…too much beauty and talent has been denied…too many, far too many of us have had the Spirit of Life stunted, stymied,…the breath pressed out of us…  

But despite all that, there is Good News here.  

Because all we have to do…is to stop blocking the talent and that presence that is waiting to emerge within us…stop pressing the breath out of so many…out of all of us really… 

What I am seeing…what I am sensing…is that the work of dismantling is where we must bring our presence first…that is where we will discover the Spirit of Life waiting to deepen our lives…where we will discover a wholeness and a joy. 

We are being called, I believe, to embody the hope we believe can be real…by removing everything that stands in its path. 

We need to ground ourselves as deeply as possible. Because there will be a pull to just return…to take the path of least resistance…to build back what we knew… 

We need to develop the spiritual muscle…a spiritual practice sufficiently  strong to resist that pull… 

But…but what I am sensing is that it will not feel like resisting a pull…the work of unblocking our lives will not feel like working against the spirit… 

It will feel like freedom. I think it will. 

Because whether it is the work, or our vision, or the Spirit of Life joining with us…or all three…we will be lifted…held up…as we liberate ourselves… 

It will feel like transcendence…moving beyond what we have known…toward a quality of wholeness that might justify the language of Beloved Community…might make that language live for us…and make that language live in us.  

At least that is what I glimpse…that is what I am willing to put my faith in…we need to be liberated out of those habits and those assumptions that have held us down…liberated out of our fear of each other, liberated out of our fear of our own power… 

The way we were willing to live…will not do. It won’t do. 

We need to inaugurate something far better. 

What I am glimpsing…sensing…is that is where the Spirit of Life will join us…will be present to us. 

Can you feel it…something more deeply interfused…something waiting to be born that will flow through all things…  

Something that calls us to finally begin living as we want to live and creating a world in which that is not only a possible future but a world in which that becomes so normal that it is the only possible future…

Can you feel it? 

Can we live it? 

Letter from the Nominating Committee

February 5, 2021 /

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The Nominating Committee (Nom Com) is made up of three church members and a Board liaison. Members serve for staggered three-year terms and are tasked with developing a slate of candidates for the elected positions at Foothills. The committee meets monthly starting in November to develop a slate of candidates for the annual Spring congregational meeting.

 The process (per our Governance policies) includes:

  • Identifying the number of openings that need to be filled for the Board of Trustees, Endowment Committee, and the Nom Com. 
  • Based upon openings, working with each entity to identify their current needs that will be met by the characteristics of the incoming candidates, and providing that information to the Leadership Development Team (LDT). 
  • After the LDT identifies qualified candidates for open positions, those names are passed to the Nom Com, whose members have the responsibility of contacting qualified congregants and assembling a final slate of candidates.
  • The Nom Com presents the slate for an up-or-down congregational vote at the spring meeting.  

If you are interested in serving in a leadership position at Foothills, please contact Jenn Powell or Rev. Sean. We look forward to presenting to you a group of qualified members committed to serving the mission of Foothills. 

Authors: 

Linda Kothera, Chair of Nominating Committee, lkothera@gmail.com 

Jenn Powell, Chair of Leadership Development, jennhawkpowell@gmail.com

Glenn Pearson, Board Member and Nom Com liaison, glenn80526@gmail.com[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Lowering Your Bar

February 4, 2021 /

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Where in your life would you like to “lower your bar”? Or, if you prefer, where have you already “lowered your bar” and felt OK about it?

  • A couple of years ago I found an Enneagram book by Fr. Richard Rohr. I began to read the 9 personality types.  Well, I didn’t get very far.  I am a number one.  “The Need to be Perfect”.    In my family, from my father, perfect rated as average.  Maybe. I’m so glad to have found this. Perfection, all the time and in everything, is just exhausting.  And, of course, I never make it.  So, I’m always angry at myself.  And others.  And the world.  Whew, it is such a relief to ‘lower this bar’.  Probably still too high.  But, a very good, very necessary start!!
  • Because of covid concerns, limits on getting involved due to age has made me lower the bar for activities and helping. Hard to accept age limits, but life made easier by accepting.
  • Busy work. I enjoy working from home and tackling what needs to be done and not worrying about “seeming” busy at my desk.
  • Focusing less on myself and more on my father.
  • Handling tech problems. Just joined Geek Squad. We had so many issues lately and we both get so frustrated Beothuk this.
  • Housekeeping (bar one inch from the ground now!)
  • I am more forgiving of my past failures
  • Particularly when i was young– grade school”
  • I don’t need to be “productive” all the time! It feels good – freeing.
  • I eat leftovers 4 days out of 5.
  • I feel like the only place I have lowered my bar is in my volunteering to help others. Besides that Covid hasn’t interfered in what I’ve been doing besides getting together with people in person and holding and hugging my grandchildren and daughter.  I truly have a lot of gratitude for my life, for the church and for zoom which keeps my connections going.
  • I had to lower the bar in my work life while my daughter was remote learning and I was working from home. I could not keep up with everything all the time and I had to give myself permission to lower my self-expectations. I have passed this message on to several working moms in my workplace and we all support each other with this message. It has already felt so good to get back to work with my daughter being in-person at school. We both are happier at the end of each day and that feels great!
  • I have lowered the bar in my thought process of this non socializing time and accept that it is what it is and I am okay with that
  • I obsess less over the news now that there are people in power who I perceive to be competent and concerned about our collective welfare. That is a huge relief.
  • I need to lower the bar on my expectation of moving up the corporate ladder. After seven years in the same industry with year after year great reviews, I have become very frustrated I can’t become a manager since I don’t have a lot of managerial experience. It’s a real Catch-22. My current boss had the same experience and just recently became a manager himself. He is looking at ways to get me that experience by possibly having an intern assigned to me in the future.
  • I think most of my bars are set just about right…😀
  • I would love to lower the bar in regards to my house cleaning- I embrace the dirty dishes!
  • Lowering the bar on getting help for what it means to support kids in school and at home this year.
  • Making people happy at my expense. I now put myself first & I’m ok with that
  • Meal prep and perfect veggies proportions
  • My bar is already pretty low.
  • Not being solely responsible for cleaning, having my family engage more on that.
  • Now, I only clean my home when company comes…😖
  • We have given up the requirement that our teenagers have to go outside once a day. Screen time limits have also gone by the wayside… Oh well…
  • Waiting for the vaccine. It will happen whenever it happens.
  • Where I’ve already lowered the bar during covid-times: Popcorn is an acceptable dinner sometimes. Yoga pants with pockets are suitable for all occasions. Wine is a food group.
  • With balancing distance learning for a 2nd grader, a 3 year old, seeing clients virtually from home, and caring for high risk parents, I have had to lower my bar of having it all together. My ability to plan and predict has been set aside and winging it has taken over. I’ve had to give myself grace for dropping balls and let things go that are not a priority. Not an easy feat for me! But I’m hoping to carry that grace to a post-Covid life.
  • Work
  • Work attire for sure! Without the possibility of surprise audits or client visits, we have kept it pretty casual. I choose sneakers over boots most days, and have bought about 8 extra pairs of black yoga pants because I wear them so much
  • Working on lowering my “I’m right” bar. It’s ok for me to be wrong…

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