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Reverend Dr. Susan Veronica Rak, UURMaPA Board President … March, 2025

Well, how are you all doing? We’ve been witnessing some pretty frightful things (life-destroying fires and floods, a season fraught with soul-draining, system-destroying and economic mayhem—at least here in the U.S.), and for each of us some personal struggles and triumphs.

However it is with your spirit at the moment, I do hope you are looking forward to joining your fellow UURMaPAns for the Spring Conference, coming up in just a couple of short months! It seems like it will be an opportunity to build resilience to face whatever besets us, and also to feel the joy of being together, even if it’s virtual.

Back in January, I did a guest preaching gig and was hard-pressed to conjure a suitable topic and service to meet their situation. I started with a general idea and went from there, choosing the title “Be the Blessing.”

The days before the service I wondered what I had gotten myself into. Me, a blessing? Bless who, or what … and when? Now, in this moment, we may not all feel particularly blessed or strong enough to take up the challenge of blessing anyone. So I’m just going to share a snippet of what I wrote; maybe it will spur some thoughts in you.

Episcopal priest and writer Barbara Brown Taylor wrote that the best way to discover what giving blessings or being a blessing is all about is to pronounce a few.

A blessing begins in noticing—seeing what is before us as it is…as hard as that may be at times. And this seeing, this noticing, should take us out of ourselves, shift our focus from our own navel, our own importance or centrality, and open ourselves to others.

“Start throwing blessings around,” Taylor continues, “and chances are you will start noticing all kinds of things you never noticed before.”

When you’re in line at the store, maybe impatiently tapping your foot or nudging your cart, try blessing the people around you. The person in front of you, the clerk at the register (if there is one) or the person trying to herd the crowds through the self-checkout lines; the increasing line of people behind you, the whining child and the fumbling adult juggling too many things.

Every one of them is dealing with something significant. We just don’t know for sure, but we can still care. They are heading somewhere, just as you are. And they are no more certain of what’s happening at the other end than you are.

To pronounce or offer a silent blessing is to offer attention and pay heed to what happens in the air between you and that other person—and all those other people. Something shifts. They may never notice you or feel that blessing directly, but something changes inside you. Something is pulling you into community, as we are drawn to one another by an invisible thread. And perhaps in this we gain more courage to find ways to protest and resist what is wrongful and corrupt.

We offer blessings, not because we are divine beings who have super powers that give people special things, but because we are human beings who can learn and appreciate what a blessing is and how to give them away.

To choose to bless the world, as Rev. Dr. Rebecca Ann Parker once advised us, brings us into community. And in it we become that blessing.

Friends, fellow UURMaPAns, it may not be much, but it’s what I can offer in this moment.

Peace and blessings, Susan

“Ministory” is a project in development by Wayne Walder. After a single session this spring, Wayne has plans for a larger presentation in the fall. 

Wayne has long been fascinated by the power of stories, especially those stories that we know from our time in ministry. He believes our stories deserve a degree of reverence and that they can teach us about our selves and our ministries. 

Strangely, though, Wayne found it difficult to coax us into telling our stories. He said, “I was surprised to notice some reluctance among us for telling our personal stories. I think I understand. We have been servants, and servants don’t tell stories. We don’t tell them because serving others, by its very definition, is not about us. We keep stories about our ministry to ourselves.”

But Wayne believes we are no longer servants, “Remembering our ministry and its stories, can help us remember the goodness of our lives, the goodness of our work, the love we shared, the confusion we experienced, the insight we felt and the pain we grieved.” 
 
Wayne found a few of us who were willing to share their story, so he recorded Jake Morrill, Jan Carlsson-Bull, Colleen McDonald and Jane Rzepka, and will present a segment on April 22nd, the second day of our conference.

He said, “We hunger for stories, even the telling of our own. They comfort us, remind us of our work, and they hold up the life we shared. Our work was, is, bigger than we remember.”

To register: uurmapa.churchcenter.com/registrations/events/2752248

Of course we’d love for you to attend every session, but if your time is limited, you can check out the schedule at our website, uurmapa.org/Activities. More information about the theme presentation, odysseys, the service of remembrance and a concert with Melanie DeMore is posted on our website, and on our Facebook page. 

The conference will Zoom right to your desktop computer, laptop, tablet, smartphone, or you can listen in with a cell phone or landine. Registration is $45, a bargain these days, and scholarships are readily available. To apply for a scholarship, send a message to treasurer@uurmapa.org but do this before you attempt to register.

In–person gatherings, AKA, pods, are organized in Wilmington DE and Kingston MA. Please indicate your desire to attend a pod when you register. Additional financial aid is available to cover pod costs, and you can apply for that after the conference with a message to treasurer@uurmapa.org

After you register, please send a selfie to jeffbriere@gmail.com for inclusion in the slide show.

March 2, 2025. The conference planning team recently received messages from members who were concerned that our conference theme did not seem to address current events in our country. They feared our conference might miss an opportunity to provide resources and support during this unprecedented time. 

We asked our theme presenter, Karen Hering, how her presentation might help our members navigate these strange and dangerous days. This is her reply:

“In the urgent crises unfolding in Washington DC and beyond, it is worth asking how the UURMaPA conference in April can equip and support us, as we each find our way forward.

“I have often been asked, having written a book titled Trusting Change, how can we trust change when it brings heartbreaking losses or even nightmarish realities? Surely both of these are true now, as we experience many seismic and unthinkable changes occurring at breakneck speed. What can be trustworthy with so much at stake and so much beyond our control?

“Tai ji teacher Chungliang Al-Huang has often advised his students, ‘First get centered; then explore your options.’ It is helpful wisdom not only when learning new tai ji forms but also when experiencing the loss of balance and direction caused by great change.

“And as we ask ourselves: what might be my next move, or what is my next right action? First get centered. Find the ground beneath your feet. Reconnect with your body, your balance, your surroundings and your communities. Reconnect with gravity itself. First get centered; then explore your options.

“This will be our focus in the URMaPA conference, ‘Called to Connect in Times of Great Change.’ When we are tossed about by change – in our nation, our world or our personal lives – how can we regain our balance to better respond to the threats and dangers now arising? What practices and understandings will connect us to our embodied wisdom and to the powers found in community and in solidarity with others?

“In the tumult and terrors of this time, each of us may be asking regularly, what is my role in the resistance and resilience needed now? Each of us must discern what that role is, and how it might change from day to day or month to month, as our own lives and the circumstances around us shift rapidly and wildly.

“Fortunately, in the UUA, we have many resources to aid our discernment, including webinars and resources prepared by the Side with Love campaign, and books like Social Change Now, by Deepa Iyer, published by Skinner House. 

“Our time together at the UURMaPA conference will explore how, in the changes unfolding today, we can find enough trustworthy ground from which to choose our own way forward in meeting this moment. We’ll be using embodied practices, poetry and music as well as reflection through writing and conversation. This is a session intended to both comfort and challenge us, as we consider what we are each called to be and to do now.

“I look forward to our time together in April. Until then, I share this December post from my Substack as a further reflection on how we find trustworthy ground in times of frightening change. I also offer this music video ‘We Choose,‘ by Lea Morris, created in an earlier year and relevant still today, and shared with her permission.

“Wishing you both inspiration and support for your own grounding and discernment in this time.” 

Karen Hering, author, Trusting Change

karenhering.substack.com

Preview YouTube video We Choose

The UURMaPA spring conference features two odysseys, one with Phyllis Morales and one with Scotty McLennan. The conference begins Monday, April 21 and the odysseys are scheduled on the first day and the last day (Wednesday, April 23). 

Phyllis calls her odyssey, “The U-Haul Chronicles: An Illustrated Odyssey.” Married to the Rev. Peter Morales for 58 years, her odyssey recounts in photographs, 79 years, 2 children, 4 careers, 28 moves through 4 countries and 7 states. Fasten your seatbelt! She began her odyssey as a special education teacher, then moved into journalism and desktop publishing. She taught herself Spanish in her 40s and founded a scholarship program for Mayan youth in Guatemala. Her connection to Guatemala is strong, as she sheltered a Guatemalan family for 10 years. She is a leader in Community Search and Rescue.

Scotty McLennan wonders how to age gracefully in a way that might be helpful to all of us as retired UU ministers and partners. He was raised on Chicago’s north shore as a conservative Presbyterian Republican, but rebelled as a teenager and became a liberal UU Democrat. He graduated from Harvard divinity and law schools to become an inner-city minister-at-law for 10 years with the UU Urban Ministry in Boston. He turned to academia, where he spent 30 years as the university chaplain at Tufts and Stanford. He now teaches ethics part-time at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He married Ellen 44 years ago and has two children and three grandchildren. He loves traveling, spending time in California’s wine country, and asking existential questions like “Why are we here?” He wonders how a conservative Protestant Republican from the Midwest became Garry Trudeau’s “Rev. Scot Sloan” in Doonesbury – “the fighting young priest who can talk to the young.” 

“Called to Connect in the Midst of Change” is our theme and presenting it is Karen Hering, author of the book, Trusting Change: Finding Our Way through Personal and Global Transformation. If you wish to purchase Karen Hering’s book, Trusting Change, you will enjoy a discount when using the code HERING at inSpirit, uuabookstore.org when you buy the book.

Registration for the conference is now open. Follow this link to register: uurmapa.churchcenter.com/registrations/events/2752248 Or follow the news for the conference link on our home page. Tuition is $45.00, a bargain these days. Financial aid is available and you can apply for that by sending a message to treasurer@uurmapa.org If this is your first UURMaPA conference, use code FIRSTTIMER when you register and we’ll waive the fee. 

This conference will be mediated through Zoom, but two in-person pods will be organized, in Wilmington DE and in Kingston MA. If you wish to attend either of these pods, you can indicate that when you register. More news about pods will be forthcoming.

For more information about these features of the conference, please make sure your contact information is updated at our website and watch for email from us. Our FaceBook page will also be updated with conference news.

The conference planning team is excited to welcome Melanie DeMore for a concert as part of the spring conference, April 21 through 23. Melanie will appear in the third session on the first day of the conference. 

Singer-songwriter Melanie DeMore has a remarkable voice, weaving the fibers of African American folk music with soulful ballads, spirituals and her own original music. DeMore artfully brings her audience together through her music and commentary. She has toured extensively, singing at festivals, universities, in coffee houses and concert halls. Her recordings “Share My Song” and “Come Follow Me” are heartfelt collections of her music.

In addition to her solo work, DeMore facilitates vocal workshops for professional and community-based choral groups and has taught her program called “Sound Awareness” in schools, prisons, and youth organizations in the US, Canada, Cuba and New Zealand.

DeMore was a California Artist in Residence with the Oakland Youth Chorus for 10 years and has received an award from the Music Educators National Conference for her work with young singers and artists. She is on the music faculty at St. Paul’s School in Oakland CA where she teaches a cappella singing. DeMore is also a founding member of the Grammy nominated, critically-acclaimed vocal ensemble “Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir,” a group that tours extensively in this country and abroad.

DeMore traces her interest in music to her parents who started one of the first Black theater groups in Alaska in the early 60’s. DeMore majored in music at Incarnate Word University in San Antonio, Texas, and later worked as a studio musician, was a member of a melodrama company, sang in the black women’s a cappella group Scintilla, sang for commercials and wrote music for the theater.

DeMore describes her music as “in the African-American folk tradition of Odetta,” to whom she has often been compared, noting, “I have a very, very, very low voice.” She has shared the stage with numerous artists including Buffy Saint Marie, John Prine, Josh White, Jr., Laura Nyro, Sweet Honey in the Rock and Pete Seeger. 

Known to the mothers of screaming babies as a human pacifier. Known to the parents of difficult children as the child whisperer, she transforms the raw energy of human beings into flowing rhythms, self empowering awareness, with a sweet top note of humor and not taking oneself too seriously. An admitted kid at heart, Melanie loves to inject her effervescent playfulness into traditionally serious forums and gatherings, reminding us to lighten up, step “out the way” and let our spirits do their dance.

In her own words: “A song can hold you up when there’s no ground beneath you.”

Other features of this conference will be Odysseys with Scotty McLennan and Phyllis Morales, and a service of remembrance honoring those we’ve lost. We’ll also have the chance to meet our colleagues in Connecting Rooms and worship services. For more information about these features of the conference, please make sure your contact information is updated at our website and watch for email from us. Our FaceBook page will also be updated with conference news.

Registration for the conference is now open. Go here to register:
https://uurmapa.churchcenter.com/registrations/events/2752248
Tuition is $45.00, a bargain these days. Financial aid is available and you can apply for that by sending a message to [treasurer@uurmapa.org].

This conference will be Zoomed, but two in-person pods will be organized, in Wilmington DE and in Kingston MA. If you wish to attend either of these pods, you can indicate that when you register. More news about pods will be forthcoming.