From the minister

Take Action with Many Voices

At a meeting I attended last month, we ventured onto the subject of politics during check-in. This subject arose out of concerns for world events-and there are plenty of events to be concerned about! War on multiple fronts, disruptions in the oil pipelines that might lead to even higher gas prices, continued evidence that the Earth is heating up, and fears about political corruption all have our attention. Each attempt to steer the conversation away from the gloom-and-doom prognosis resulted in another example of how bad things are. I felt the mood in the room move toward hopelessness and despair.

It's easy to give in to the awful state of the world. Several times during the last month, the news of the day has left me yearning to head back into the mountains where we spent our summer vacation and just float in the beauty of those peaks that seem untouched by the human folly around the world. But, of course, I know that even at those heights, the impact of our activity in the world is felt. Retreating from the world is always an option; however, it's not a particularly creative one.

Instead of giving in, I suggest we take action where we can. That opportunity is before us this very month. On Aug. 27, AMOS kicked off local house meetings. These meetings are an opportunity for all of us to gather in small groups and discuss the issues that we believe are important to our community. The information gathered at these meetings will be consolidated with information from other groups in our region. All of this will become a platform that AMOS will present to candidates for governor and others running for elected office. We will be lifting up issues important to our community and asking the candidates to respond.

This is a chance for us to engage in creative political action. When many voices join together, we can have the same power as big money. These are the options in our current political system: either money or the masses. But to become the masses, we need to show up. Our UUFA AMOS team continues to have sign-up sheets in the Fireside Room on Sunday mornings. If you haven't yet signed up, look for one of those lists. If you have any questions, please contact me, Benette Sherman, or Tammi Martin.

In other Fellowship goings-on ... Our intern, Dawn Cooley, began working with us on Aug. 15. Dawn's office is in the southeast corner of the Youth Room. Please take the time to welcome Dawn and to introduce yourself.

Along with working with Dawn, I have a couple of other tasks ahead of me this year that will require your help. One is to revamp our Committee Council. This group, involving representatives from all of our committees, should be the main place at which the day-to-day business of the Fellowship is decided. We need to establish that focus and make this council a priority if it is going to be effective. The meeting of the Council will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 26, in the Fireside Room. At that meeting, we'll be discussing how we can implement the findings of last year's ministry review. I really hope that we can make use of all the hard work that went into that review. Please join in this process. This Fellowship is something that we create, something that is both a vision and a reality. Both of these constructs require our conversation and attention so that we are helping to be an active presence in the lives of our congregation and in our community. Thanks to all of you, that presence is often felt. Let us join in deepening this vision.

See you on Sundays,

– Brian

From the director of youth and children's ministries:

2006-07 Religious Ed Starts 9/10

Although parents may want their children to become strong, mature people of faith, they may not know where to turn for the support and structure they need. Faith communities must bear some responsibility for this. Many parents carry a childhood image of religious training that is outdated, irrelevant to daily life, poorly designed or taught, sometimes even damaging to the emotional well-being of children. It sometimes seems a well-kept secret that there are other kinds of religious growth and learning available-vital, relevant and addressing the realities of life...

from The Gift of Faith by the Rev. Jeanne Nieuwejaar

Here at the Fellowship, we hope our religious education is not a secret, and we strive to keep it relevant, creative, meaningful, and dynamic. Sept. 10 is the official start of religious education classes for preschool through 12th grade! All children should sit with their families for this ingathering/water communion service. We'll recognize and dedicate our RE teachers at this time, and, after that, the children will go with their teachers for approximately 20 minutes of RE time.

We have 120 children and youth in our program, which is wonderful! We welcome the new and returning families to the RE program, whose theme is Peace, Justice, and Friendship. Isn't this the perfect time for us to focus on these issues when the world around us grows more complicated and contentious?

The RE table is in the Fireside Room for new registrants and for returning parents to make sure they've reviewed and updated registrations. All children (including nursery kids) and youth must be registered.

Activities that are offered each year include a kick-off swim party for the elementary grades, a holiday play, Secret Friends, the Sacred Space Awareness program, and our summer day camp. Middle-schoolers will have some social events offered, and many of them are in the Coming of Age program. High school youth can attend Wednesday night youth groups for fun and games, can attend youth cons in our district, and can plan and attend overnights or retreats. To keep up to date with events and activities offered, you can consult the UUFA Web site, read the newsletters and Sunday bulletin announcements, read emails from me, and read notes to parents from me, the RE committee, or your RE teachers.

Rev. Nieuwejaar continues, "It is a truism of child rearing, especially during the teenage years, that young people need adults other than their parents to know and accept and guide them. One may relate to a coach for a season or a teacher for a year, but to know someone over years of change and growth is a special kind of knowing, and it is common in religious community."

I hope many of you find this rich experience-of laughing, traveling, playing, discussing ideas, crying, and exploring life with our children and teens.

— Benette

ART COMMITTEE

Summer of 2007 will be for Fellowship Collectors... Members who wants to show some of their collection may do so. Consider how you will display it so it is safe and secure.

- Jean Hagert Dow

CARING MINISTRY COUNCIL

The Caring Ministry Council is holding their quarterly meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 6, at 4:30 p.m. in the Youth Room. The point people for all of our caring areas are invited to give a report on their area's activity, joys, and concerns. After almost a year of operation, we will discuss how the council structure is working and what we can do to improve it. If you're unable to attend, or if you're not a point person but have some feedback, feel free to contact Lynne with your joys and concerns.

- Lynne Van Valin

CONSCIENTIOUS KNITTERS

The knitters (or other crafters) will meet at their usual time and date (4 p.m. on the second Sunday, so this month on Sept. 10) and place (the Tower Room). We'll be talking about what we want to do for the year: field trips, possible items for the auction, setting up a beginner's workshop, etc. Bring your current project and join us! All ages and skill levels and both genders are welcome.

- Marty Helland

DAYTIME CIRCLE

The Daytime Circle meets in the Tower Room at 1:30 p.m. every other Monday. This month, we meet on Sept. 4 (Labor Day) and Sept. 18. We are an open circle, including new members as they come, but we maintain confidentiality to encourage people to share what is of deepest concern to them. If you have questions, please call Lotus for more information.

- Lotus Miller

DENOMINATIONAL CONNECTIONS

On Wednesday, Oct. 4, during Wellspring Wednesday, General Assembly (GA) attendees from the UUFA will share their experiences, insights, resources, and calls for action. Come learn more about GA and the important issues up for discussion this year.

- Kitty Fisher

DUSTIN BERGER MEMORIAL LIBRARY

The Library Committee is glad to consider donations of books or other materials for the Dustin Berger Memorial Library. If requested, we will put a customized book plate in the front of the item, honoring or remembering someone of your choosing. All donations will be considered using the Materials Selection Policy developed in Sept. 2005. This and all library policies are on file in the office.

-Barb Abbott

FINANCE COMMITTEE

End-of-the-fiscal-year (July 1, 2005, to June 30, 2006) pledge statements are available to be picked up in the UUFA office through September 30. Please let Becca know if you would like to have your statement mailed to you. Any statements not retrieved will be shredded.

- Doug Marek

MUSIC COMMITTEE

Are there piano players among us whom we haven't identified? Would you contribute to our group by playing for Sunday morning programs? This is a shared responsibility that usually happens about once every six weeks or so. (Less often if there are more of us.) It involves playing the hymns on Sunday and often playing some special music for offering, although the latter task is certainly negotiable. Please contact Ginny if you can help us out and identify someone.

- Ginny Molgaard

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY & ACTION: TRADITIONAL

Half of the September undesignated collection will go to the Good Neighbor Emergency Assistance (GNEA) fund. GNEA is a faith-based organization that helps to alleviate poverty in Story County by offering rental, utility, food, and other assistance to the impoverished. One of new duties of our ministerial intern, Dawn Cooley, will be to serve as the UUFA liaison to the GNEA Committee. Dawn reminds us that the 7th annual Share the Harvest meal, which is a fundraiser for GNEA's Healthy Food Voucher program, will be Tuesday, Oct. 3, at Lucullan's. There will be a 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. social hour with live music. The dinner and program will begin at 6:30 p.m. Reservations and donations may be made through the Good Neighbor office at 508 Kellogg Ave (515-296-1449). Also, GNEA will be having an open house in their new location during the Octagon Art Walk, which will be on Sunday, Sept. 24, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

- Alissa Stoehr

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY & ACTION: COMMUNITY ORGANIZING

The Fellowship's AMOS committee invites everyone to sign up for house meetings (sign up sheets in the Fireside Room). House meetings are a place to tell your story of living in mid-Iowa. Perhaps there will be common stories, common concerns, common pleasures. After the house meetings, the Fellowship's team will collaborate with other faith communities in Ames to determine issues to act upon and present to the candidates for governor and the legislature in late October. Telling your story helps to determine these issues. Anyone who is interested in grass-roots, broad-based organizing and want to actively reclaim their role in the political process is welcome to join the Ames committee.

- Marcia Brink and Benette Sherman

STEWARDSHIP COMMITTEE

Thank you to the 61 Fellowship members and friends that attended the UUFA fundraiser at Lucullan’s on Aug. 8. What a spectacular turnout, meal, and opportunity to meet our new intern, Dawn, and her husband, John. We are happy to report that we raised $1555 at the event. And huge thanks go to Terry Lowman and Mark Kassis, our hosts for the event

- Shaun Keister

Green Corner Book Review

Life Stories: World-Renowned Scientists Reflect on their Lives and the Future of Life on Earth

by Erv Klaas

My reading this summer included Life Stories: World-Renowned Scientists Reflect on their Lives and the Future of Life on Earth, edited by Heather Newbold and published by the University of California Press. The stories are written by renowned scientists who reflect on their lives and the future of life on earth. I have known a couple of these people personally and am acquainted with many others through their writings. They include such names as Lester Brown, Tom Lovejoy (with whom I shared a tent in Yucatán in the summer of 1962 when he was a student at Yale), Elliot Norse, George Woodwell, Ruth Patrick, Peter Raven, Paul Ehrlich, and Norman Myers. The latter two presented Errington lectures at ISU.

One of the better tales is by David Susuki, a Japanese-Canadian who became a prominent geneticist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and later championed environmental causes as a radio and television personality. In 1989, his five-part CBC radio series about the global environment, It's a Matter of Survival, brought such an impassioned response that he started the David Susuki Foundation to find solutions and create sustainable communities. His life story is the least ego-centric of any of the accounts and is centered on how he came to understand the earth as a spiritual experience. Here is one of his paragraphs:

Since 1970, per capita consumption in the United States has increased by nearly 50 percent. During that time, the United Nations indicators of quality of life in the United States have dropped by over 50 percent. Americans have bought the idea that having things makes them happy. Our addiction to consumption is like a drug, a need that we have to satisfy. We always need another fix because nothing fulfills us. We have this vacuum, this empty hole inside us, and we think stuffing things into it will fill it up, but it does not. We just go on and on trying to fill what is fundamentally a spiritual need.

Life Stories is available in the ISU Library.

Opportunities Coming to the UUFA from Local Buddhist Nun

Hong Yang Shi, a Buddhist nun, is offering the following from her traditions:

Sept. 7, 2006, 7 to 10 p.m.: The Ullambana/Oban Festival with Refuge Ceremony

The Ullambana is the traditional end of the three-months-long Rains Retreat (Vassa). It is celebrated as a festival with donations of flowers, fruit, and sweets. The refuge is given to those who ask for it. It is refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha (fully ordained Bhikkus, Bhikkunis). Those seeking refuge will be able to say they are Buddhists and be given a Buddhist name. Ancestors may be given refuge. Refuge may be given for those not able to be present.

October 7, 2006, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.: Meditation Retreat

Meditation instruction will be given in the Buddhist tradition. Participants will be introduced to sitting, movement, and chanting meditation within the Mahayana tradition. Keep clothing loose and modest. Bring a large towel or light blanket throw. All are welcome; you need not be Buddhist to come. This instruction is for adults and children able to follow detailed instructions and keep quiet.

From the president

Fellowship:
It's More Than Just A Name

Last month this column was all about the anticipation and excitement of greeting our New Year, and now that beginning point is upon us. It's a good time to reflect why we are what we are as a group and to choose the attitudes and activities that will help us both grow that group identity and avoid those attitudes and activities that detract from it.

One thing we can be sure of is finding new members in our group "extended family." That carries with it the possibilities of making new friends and benefiting from new ideas and new energy. The benefits do not come without difficulties, and I have some specific examples. (I'm sure you knew this was leading somewhere.)

If you are one of the newcomers, there will be the difficulties of "settling in" to this new community. It takes a great deal of emotional energy to create new connections with strangers, but here you can begin with the knowledge that you will find like-minded people ready to welcome you. If you've been here for a while there will be the difficulties of changing relationships-missing folks who have moved on and making time in your life to welcome those who have moved here. This creation of new relationships will be facilitated by our dedicated Membership Committee, but it can't really happen unless we all are open to new relationships and actively work to create them.

For all of us, a new start to a new year brings the pleasures of taking up familiar patterns, much as we unpack and put on favorite and comfortable clothes with the change of seasons. But taking up old habits carries the inherent difficulties of seeing new possibilities and of changing the habits that are destructive or unproductive.

For example: the reappearance of Prairie Flower Preschool as a weekday tenant of our space has highlighted a long-time issue of being good neighbors. Over the years we've tended to access our property at our convenience-such as that path worn between the upper parking lot and our Fellowship play area-and without thinking about the rights or concerns of the intervening property owner "up the hill." Now a fence will be installed that cuts off that path, and everyone (old and young) is urged to respect its being there.

This year you will hear a great deal about an impending celebration: the 60th Anniversary of the founding of this Fellowship, back at the beginning of the fellowship movement in the Unitarian Association. The name was a natural back then and aptly described our organization plan: everybody pitched in to accomplish every aspect of the group's program. Leaders and followers, committees and chairs, we were all in this together, making group decisions for the group and taking turns at different responsibilities. As the Fellowship grew and prospered we quite naturally reached the stage where we needed paid staff-office help, first, and then the momentous decision to hire a minister.

At the time of calling our first minister we made the conscious decision to retain "Fellowship" in our name, not so much as a nod to tradition but as a statement that the group as a whole wished to retain a role in the continued creation and co-creation of this community. Our present minister, Brian Eslinger, wrote a whole column on this concept of "shared ministry" just three months ago, in June. That column is worth repeating, but I won't except to quote Brian's description of this shared ministry:

We do not look to a single, central authority to set the direction of the congregation. Instead we choose a path of shared creation, co-creation of this community. This is a more difficult task, but it embodies the theological ideas of valuing every voice and the necessity of every person being part of the creation.

So there you have it. This year your task, should you choose to accept it, is to find that niche where you can add your creative energies. Peruse the newsletter. Find a group activity (or activities) that fits your desires and talents. Join a committee. Sign up for a one-time event. (The auction comes to mind.) Teach an RE class. Sing in the choir. Be a part of the continuing co-creation of this community. Welcome to the New Year!

- Mary