Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto

Always Learning

One way we can understand our identity and shape a bright future, says Alban Institute consultant Larry Peers, is to lift up the “sparkling moments” that show the best of who we are. Then we can string these moments together into a constellation which illuminates the church we are becoming.

In my Annual Report I offered some of my favorite sparkling moments from the 2006-7. Since our newsletter has a wider readership, I thought I would also share them here in greater detail.

1. Coming of Age: Our congregation participates in a bi-annual yearlong program of retreats, service, reflection and friendship for 8–10 graders. I co-lead the UUCPA component with Susan Plass and had the privilege of meeting with the initiates to talk about theology and what life means to them. Once again we have an amazing group of teens, and it has been a joy to get to know them more deeply.

2. Youth Art Day: Last August Rev. Morgenstern and Lynn Grant led our teens in a day-long retreat which resulted in those colorful life-sized silhouettes of our youth that were displayed all around the campus before the rains began. What color and life they added to hour church home!

3. Spirit Play: For nine years I have worked to formulate a philosophy of Religious Education and to imagine pedagogy based on those ideas. After taking a training in Spirit Play, which is a Montessori-based classroom style encouraging children to work with religious language, I felt I had found something that most closely reflected that philosophy. This summer I offered a special 4-session class outside the bounds of our usual Sunday school. I do not get to teach children as often as I like, because I am needed to support all the various classes on Sunday mornings, so it was exciting to gather in a circle each Sunday this summer with Preschool to 4^th grade children and try this experiment together of wondering about stories and then working out our wondering through art.

4. The Enthusiastic, Creative Caring feeling I notice among the families and volunteers who participate in the Children’s Religious Education Program. I am grateful to all the CRE Committee members, teachers and families who cultivate this special feeling.

5. Theme Days are an opportunity for vertical integration among generations including Main Hall Worship, Family Chapel and CRE Classes. This means that on Earth Day, Yom Kippur and several other Sundays, all the diverse groups that meet on Sunday Morning had a chance to think about the same important ideas and feel the connection of that shared learning and experience.

6. Family Chapel: With an average attendance of 20+ children and 20+ adults each week, this short informal worship is full of energy and life. I love learning new stories to tell, and leading this special congregation in song. I also love the enthusiasm of all the volunteers who help make Family Chapel so special.

7. UUCPA’s 60^th anniversary: It was a wonderful weekend of celebrating our congregation’s roots and our future. (I particularly liked swapping stories with founding minister Rev. Dan Lion.)

8. Our new Covenant of Sustainable Purchasing and Use, passed by the Board of Trustees on March 20, 2007.

9. Having a CRE Coordinator: It sure is nice to know that in the midst of the complexities of our Sunday morning Religious Education classes, families need not feel lost. Maureen is there at the CRE table on the patio to greet them and help get them going in the right direction. More than one new family has remarked how welcoming they found us their first weeks at UUCPA.

10. Small group discussions about ministerial transition: During the anticipation of my departure and the questions about what should come next, I am so glad members had a chance to talk about the issues at hand and voice their opinions and feelings in an intimate setting. These discussions were led by the transition team, Committee on Ministry and the Conflict Resolution Team with much forethought and planning.

I was not trying to be systematic in the creation of this list, only to name some of the moments from this past year that brought me joy, so I imagine you have other sparkling moments that will appear in your own list. Please share your own sparkling moments with our church community writing or conversation. Let us draw our vision of the future from whatever sparkles in our own spirits.