Emerson Unitarian Universalist Church

Tag: RE Matters

  • RE Matters: Stay Connected

    By Emmalinda MacLean

    Director of Religious Education

    emmalindadre@gmail.com

    Spring always seems to offer a wealth of opportunities for children and families to connect and grow relationships at Emerson—in the next two months we have Easter Sunday, Earth Day, a garden to be planted, and a Children’s Naming and Dedication ceremony on Mother’s Day! And that’s not even counting our Coming of Age youth’s adventures, or the weekly crafts, games, discussion, and exploration in our Religious Education program. We are truly a community of abundance.

    I hope you will join us for as many of these activities as you are able; mark your calendars, stay tuned to the Emerson weekly email and the “Emersonians” Facebook group for more details, and feel free to contact me with any questions. (EmmalindaDRE@gmail.com, or Emmalinda MacLean on Facebook. If you’re not in the Emersonians Facebook group, ask me how to join!)

    RE ACTIVITIES IN APRIL, MAY, and JUNE

     

    Saturday, April 8, Planting Party!

    Join us to bring Emerson’s garden back to life! On March 12th, children and youth planted seeds—some of which have already begun to sprout—and on April 8th we’ll transplant these seedlings into the planter boxes outside the church kitchen. I’ve never seen the magic of gardening fail to get children excited: look how much fun they had planting in class!

     

     

     

     

    Planting Day at Emerson

     

    DONATIONS NEEDED BY APRIL 16

    Can you help by donating recyclables?

    We’ll be making truffula trees for the set from recycled materials. If you have any of the items below, please bring them in by Easter Sunday, April 16:

    • Cardboard tubes (wrapping paper, toilet paper, or paper towels)
    • Plastic bottles (12 oz through 2 liters)

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Sunday, April 16, Easter!

    Let’s celebrate the Earth’s re-awakening from winter with our cherished annual “Easter Egg” hunt—a fun and festive occasion built around generosity, teamwork, and service. Rather than hunting for plastic eggs filled with candy, teams of children collect non-perishable food items to be donated to the West Valley Food Pantry. Everyone’s a winner!Sunday, April 23, Multigenerational Earth Day Service!

     

    Emerson has a long tradition of celebrating Earth Day as a joyful, uplifting, participatory worship service that includes all ages, reminding us that we do not inherit the earth from our ancestors—we borrow it from our children. This years’ service will feature a pageant based on Dr. Seuss’s beloved classic,The Lorax, with lots of opportunities for involvement by attendees both young and old!

     

    Mother’s Day, May 14, Children’s Naming and Dedication

    Rev. Matthew and I are planning a special ritual to honor the journey of motherhood by inviting all mothers who wish to participate to tell the story of their children’s names in the service. Our names are the first in a lifetime of gifts we receive from our parents, and on Mother’s Day we will celebrate them all. Please contact me if you would like to be a part of this ceremony by telling the congregation how you chose your child’s name.

     

    Sunday, June 11, Coming of Age

    From celebrating the gift of life and a name, to embracing the transformation from childhood to adulthood, Emerson nurtures our children and youth in a multitude of ways. Our Coming of Age class continues to go boldly in the direction of their unfolding futures, exploring their beliefs about the world, their goals for the future, and their connections to Unitarian Universalism.

     

    On Sunday, June 11th they will present an entire worship service that they have planned and organized themselves, featuring their own personal belief (or credo) statements. Many congregants consider the Coming of Age service to be one of the highlights of the church year, and so I encourage you to mark your calendars now and plan on being there to support and affirm these youth on their journey.

     

    Recently, COA youth adventured outside their comfort zones and tested their physical limits by learning to fly with the circus arts educational organization, FocusFish.com. Sore muscles recover, but empowering experiences last a lifetime!

     

    Activities at FocusFish

     

  • RE MATTERS: Raising Children in the Resistance

    By Emmalinda MacLean

    Director of Religious Education

    emmalindadre@gmail.com

    Well, we are certainly alive in interesting times. This isn’t a reality any of us saw coming, and it’s frightening, especially to those of us struggling with how to explain to children—if at all—what’s going on in the world around them, and why people in power right now are taking actions so contrary to the values we try to teach them.

    I know that many of you have leaned in to having these hard conversations with your children, and I commend you for it; I hope that you feel your faith community supports you in providing language and resources for talking about your values, and describing what justice looks like in action. But I also want to celebrate the gifts that children bring to a resistance movement: they can recognize right from wrong, and they can stand up to a system of authority that does not represent their beliefs, sometimes with clearer eyes than adults who have been conditioned to regard authority with greater deference. It takes a child to say that the emperor has no clothes. Children are much better rebels than they often get (positive) credit for; it is in some ways a rite of passage, a coming of age ritual, to arrive at the age where you recognize that those voices in power may not be acting for good.

    Youth also have plenty of role models for standing up to unjust authority figures; it’s a very popular theme in adolescent fiction. It’s the story of the brave and defiant Hogwarts students who practice Defense Against the Dark Arts in secret, under the name Dumbledore’s Army, when the Ministry of Magic and then the school administration can no longer be trusted. It’s part of what made the wildly popular new Star Wars movie, Rogue One, so moving for so many people—the heroine sees how much her parents sacrifice to raise her according to their values, in the face of an oppressive regime, and it inspires her to carry on the fight against the evil empire. It’s a major theme in the Netflix show I’m enjoying a lot right now, “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” a show about brave, intelligent children who are constantly having to save themselves from horrible situations that the adults in their lives refuse to believe are really happening.

     

    Photo from “A Series of Unfortunate Events” in the Netflix series

    It is perfectly natural for children to want to believe themselves more powerful and capable than adults often give them credit for, and at this point in history, I think the world needs a generation with that kind of confidence. I hope that you and your family find some of that confidence, that hope, within our church community; our Unitarian Universalist faith continues to inspire me to do the work of being an active resister of injustice, and I hope it does for you, too. It’s a process, not a panacea, but adults and children alike need a community of support, to be reminded that we’re not the only ones who feel this way. We all need a sense of connection and belonging. We need a group that will invite us to get involved, when we might not go to the protest alone. Staying connected and staying in community matters, now more than ever.