REV-elations: a column from your minister

Men's Book Club
The Men's Book Club will meet  September 17, at 7:00 PM at Redge Campbell's home to discuss the book Seabiscuit. For information contact Redge or Jim Chapin.

Spiritual Book Discussion Groups
No meetings are scheduled for August.  Beginning in September the weekday group and the Sunday group will be merged and rescheduled. Contact Bob Trainer .

Women’s Book Club
The women’s Book Club will meet August 25, the fourth Monday of the month, at Phyllis Millard’s home in Bremerton.  Club members met in June and selected the books for the upcoming year.  (The first title was The Deepest Water by Kate Wilhelm which was discussed in July.)  The August selection is Blessings by Anna Quindlen. Call Anne Stout or Lene Hajek for more information.

PRESIDENT’S CORNER

     July 13 was our minister’s, Suzelle’s, last sermon at KUUF.  We had a grand celebration during and after the service.  Many stories and tears were shared marking the end of an eight-year period of growth and strengthening of our Fellowship.  Suzelle asked us for forgiveness for the times when she did not rise to meet our expectations.  In turn, she offered us to be forgiven for those times we had not met our individual commitments or obligations.  As Kay Morgan said, it was a time of endings and new beginnings.  It was also a time to remember those that have passed our way before and have left their indelible print upon our lives.  It was good to see Donna Noonan who returned to say goodby.

     Elsewhere please note the welcoming announcement for our Interim Minister, Reverend Margaret Keip.  She will be with us as of August 15.  If you have needs that would be best served by a minister’s touch before that time, please contact me or the Fellowship office and we will make arrangements for one of several local contacts that have consented to be called upon in these few short weeks until Rev.Margaret gets to town.  Thanks to Suzelle for making these arrangements and caring for us still.

     As many of our members have stated recently, it may have been the minister that caught our interest on that first Sunday visit, but it is the rest of the Fellowship that holds our interest and keeps us coming.  That’s the way it is for me, how about you?  Maybe you have been one who has taken time off for the summer.  Vicki and I will have adventured to the San Juan’s by boat for two weeks by the time you read this.  But now we’re back and still trying to squeeze out the last weeks of summer enjoyment in the Puget Sound area boating scene.  But we’ll be glad to be among our friends at KUUF and to renew ties there as summer winds down and Rev. Margaret helps us move in new directions.  We look forward to the journey with you.
                                               Paul

KUUF & UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST
ANNOUNCEMENTS

Hank Cramer's Coming Back  - Save the Date!
     Those of us who were lucky enough to hear the incredibly talented and entertaining Hank Cramer last fall will have the chance to share the experience with friends and family who missed it. Hank has agreed to be our" opening act" for this year's live concert series at the fellowship. The show will be 7:30 pm on Saturday, September 6. Prices about $10. What a great way to ease back into the routines of post-summer life. Hank has a booming bass voice that he puts to wonderful use in interpreting cowboy, hobo, sea and train songs, both traditional and contemporary. We're hoping to pack the house - please spread the word to your non-fellowship friends and neighbors! It'll be a great evening! For more information, call Claire Favro.

KUUF MEMBER ART EXHIBIT   KUUF member Alan Newberg will be showing his painting series "Microcredit in El Salvador" in the Gilmartin Gallery, which is a part of the University Unitarian Church in Seattle. The exhibition which features 15 large paintings in a visual narrative dealing with issues of economic justice, women and microcredit as found in El Salvador, will open on Sunday, August 17th and close on September 25. A reception will be held on a yet to be determined Sunday in September. The University Unitarian Church is located at 6556 35th Avenue NE in Seattle. The exhibit can be view during the church business hours. Interested individuals should call 206 525 8400 for details about opening hours.

Don’t Forget Your Water for Homecoming Sunday Sept. 7^th!  Last year we re-started the tradition of “Gathering the Waters” for Homecoming Sunday, our first two-service Sunday in September.  So please tuck a tiny bottle in your bag or backpack when you wander out into the world these summer months and bring home a bit of water from wherever you went for our Homecoming service on Sunday, September 7.

Buildings and Grounds Committee  The Buildings and Grounds Committee is delighted with the return of Jay Fisher.  He loves to cut lawn!!!

A FEW HELPING HANDS NEEDED IN THE KUUF OFFICE
Can you help prepare our newsletter, The Candle, for mailing?  If you have an hour or two once a month this summer to help with folding, taping, and labeling, e-mail Alex: alex@kuuf.org or call the office: 377-4724. "Candle Helpers" work on Thursday after the 4^th Sunday in the Admin Meeting Room at 10am.  We also need volunteers to fold the Sunday Order of Service and Announcements.  This task needs to be done on Fridays, any time during the day, and takes only about an hour.  Please call Alex and tell her you'll come!

Volunteers Needed for Kitsap County Aids Foundation
Natalie Bryson, Chair of the Board of the Kitsap County Aids Foundation needs help in two areas of the Foundation. 
     1.The Board has several vacancies and would like to fill them with compassionate people who can give of their time and energy to build the Foundation. The work the Foundation has done in Kitsap County is legendary. They provide transportation, food, support and referrals to many clients in the county as well as families of clients.
     2. The Board also needs volunteer drivers for Kitsap Transit Vans to take clients to medical and other appointments. Kitsap Transit will certify drivers.
     If you can give time to either of these needs, please call Natalie Bryson, 692-2020.

2004 PNWD Annual Meeting

Yes, UUs, there is a 2004 PNWD Annual Meeting!   —and the Cascadia Conference in Victoria, BC is it!  Write it in your book!  Enter it in your Palm Pilot!

Key it into your computer calendar!  February 13th to 15th at the Fairmont Empress Hotel and the adjacent Victoria Conference Centre.

Keynote speakers:
The Rev. Bill Sinkford, President of the UUA and The Rev. Dr. Phillip Hewett, Minister Emeritus, Unitarian Church of Vancouver talking about  "Living our UU Principles in 2004"

A wonderful PNWD Annual Meeting and a wonderful event for us all -- on both sides of the border.  Registration forms will be on-line and in the November issue of Changes.

Workshop proposals are being accepted through September 15.  a proposal form wil soon be available on websites of both the {MWD (above)and Canadian Unitarian Council ; (http://www.cuc.ca)  Workshop questions? Contact workshop coordinator Margo Lods: mlods@shaw.ca. 

PFLAG state conference

We are hosting a conference at Bellevue Community College, Sept 6th. We have 27 workshops, most chosen with an eye for the greater GLBT community, and I'm sure many would be of interest to people you know. 

We have four on religion, including Moving Religious Communities Towards an Inclusive Stance, a panel of representatives from different religious communities that have gone through a process that led to a definite stance; How Did A Nice Mormon Boy Turn Out Gay?; Clergy Open the Closet Door, a panel of out clergy from several faith communities; Dealing With Religion When You've Tried Everything and Nothing Seems to Work: Strategies That Move Us Forward, presented by Dr. Robert Minor, our keynote speaker who is a professor of Religious Studies at the Univ. of Kansas and author of Scared Straight. We have four workshops on politics including Jamie Pedersen of Lambda, who attended the Supreme Court to hear the Lawrence case argued. 

The information on the conference and keynote speaker is available at www.pflagwashingtonstate.org. Cost for 4 workshops, lunch and keynote is $50 before Aug. 1. 

An additional event, the evening of Sept. 6th, is a buffet dinner and an hour of entertainment by Captain Smartypants, an ensemble of the Seattle Men's Chorus. Cost for this is $20.

GETTING HELP FROM THE KUUF OFFICE WHO YOU GONNA CALL?!

 360-377-4724

OFFICE CHANGES

Dear KUUF Board members, Committee Chairs, other leaders, and Staff:

We've changed the way we are working in your KUUF Administrative Office! Sherry Attaway, our Office Manager/Bookkeeper, is taking on the role of "lead" in the office. This means that she is directing the flow tasks and assignments that come into the office.

Our Office Assistant, Alex Miller, has a full plate with her responsibilities for:
1. Sunday Order of Service and Announcements
2. Room Scheduling
3. Name Badges
4. Ordering Supplies
5. Production of the Candle

KUUF Ministerial Search Committee  
     The Ministerial Search Committee has meet twice in July as of July 20^th  (the Candle deadline).  On July 10^th we reported back on tasks we each had taken on, worked on the Congregational Record that is posted online for prospective ministers to review, and worked on the search process timeline.  We’ve agreed to keep records of all our meetings, open a two-signature checking account to make the confidential parts of our work easier to accomplish, and revisited the question of who will be chair of the MSC.  Beth Wilson will be Chair and Ginger Younie will be Vice-Chair.
     Rev. Nan Geer, minister of the Free Church Unitarian in Blaine, Washington, facilitated our retreat, held on Monday, July 14th at KUUF.  Nan proved to be an excellent facilitator, helping us identify our individual and group strengths and challenges.
     We have decided to ask each Neighborhood Group to meet once between now and the end of September.  A member of the Search Committee will attend each meeting and assist the members in completing the Congregational Survey.  Staff of the UUA Settlement Office has told us that the results are always better when people talk together about the survey before they fill it out.  Folks who miss their Neighborhood Group meeting will be mailed a survey and asked to return it by the middle of October.  
     If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please feel free to contact any one of us.   

Leif Bentsen, Diane Boatwright-Frost, Marlene DiMauro, Linda Gabriel, Dick Norton, Beth Wilson, and Ginger Younie.

   
Letter to the KUUF Candle                        

I am resubmitting my letter due to a significant error that occurred when it was printed.  The children are not hiding from what happened, they are healing.  Suzanne

I've been writing this thank you in my head for months since lighting candles of thank you did not seem adequate.

Our family has been in trauma for months now and it is the help and support of friends like you all that is helping us get through.  Some people have worried that bringing us dinner would prevent us from moving on and believe me it is the opposite.  Knowing we have friends who remember that we are still healing and who care, helps more than you know.  I want to thank you for so many things you have done; the many dinners, food, recipes, organizing the food, delivering the food, cleaning police print dust, washing walls, sending stuffed animals, organizing work parties, organizing food for work parties, hauling things to the dump, ripping out the rug, mowing lawns, trimming bushes, packing up books and assorted junk, moving furniture, painting, washing dishes, wiping shelves, disconnecting and reconnecting the computer, taking wheel barrows of yard waste away, helping Meghan pick paint colors for her room, driving lessons for Meghan, massages, saving newspaper articles, storing stuff too full of memories, loaning us extra mattresses, putting on door locks, ripping out the banister, bringing us books to help us heal and managing the fund.

And we have loved all the beautiful and wonderful cards with so many heartfelt worlds of caring and love.  We have saved them all.

The children are doing awesome work at facing the pain and trauma and not hiding from it.  We still have a ways to go but we have come a long way already and it helps immensely to know that your love is with us.

With gratitude for this amazing community,  

Suzanne Rowley & Sam Stephens

Editor’s Note.  I want to apologize for this mistake made in the last newsletter.  I make every effort to present correct information and hope it did not cause any harm.

 
Rainbow World
A Column on the issues of Racism, Diversity and Multiculturalism
Provided by the KUUF Anti-Racism Committee

Body and Soul—Finding A Fit:  Part II
by Alex Miller, MA, CMHC

Alex Miller, KUUF member and staff member, is a psychotherapist in private practice. One of her specialties is gender identity issues. 

        In continuing a reflection on transgender, I’d like to recall from Part I that the key issue is integrity of the Self.  And what do we most often do when a thing is finished, whole,  complete -- especially if it is new?  We give a name.  The medieval scholastics saw naming as a function of understanding the essence of a thing and the name itself as a particular reflection of what a thing really is.  This is related to the modern school of psychology referred to in Part I, which holds that identity arises and continues to develop through one’s experience of relationship to others. In our first significant relationship we are named.  Ever after, when anyone inquires “Who are you?” or “Who is that?” the answer is usually one’s name.  Or, perhaps more to the point, if not your name, then a statement about your relationship  to someone else.  “That’s John’s daughter.”  “That’s Tasha’s mother.”  

            Occasionally in a person’s life some personal change occurs that is so profound and affecting that her naming no longer feels appropriate, no longer really tells the truth about who she is.  In other cases, someone may set out deliberately to recreate himself and claim the prerogative of new-naming. As with original identity, life changes that give a new identity give also a place in society. Some “places” are neutral; others imply or impose “position,” or rank.  For better or for worse, individuals in most cultures are assigned worth according to where they stand—or are allowed to stand—in relation to others.  Since minority people, particularly, tend to internalize the value accorded them by the dominant majority, social context has profound effect on their self-acceptance and life-fulfillment.

            It is a great sadness that for some transsexual persons, the longed-for and hard-won transition to the sex or gender they identify with does not mark an end to the pain of their existence.  Even after years of living a new life and bearing a new name—a true name—many still find life unsustainable, largely because they never find a “place” among us where they are recognized and called by name. 

            I propose that it is a fundamental human right to define and name oneself.  It takes courage, even daring, to exercise that right in the face of prejudice (others’ non-knowing) and contradiction.  Because many people deal poorly with ambiguity and suffer a certain anxiety when confronted with what can’t be pigeon-holed, they deny apparent reality.  If whom you say you are challenges my preconceived notions of what you should be, I negate your reality in order to resolve my sense of dissonance.  To give a place of respect and due value to “aliens” among us, we must challenge ourselves to put our arms around what we feel we cannot get our heads around.  This theme has been explored so many times in science fiction: the possible enrichment and enlightenment we forfeit when our fear or aversion, or just plain “hardheadedness” says, No.  No, I won’t believe you’re good, because you’re ugly.  No, you can’t be smart, because you talk funny. No, you aren’t clean because your skin is not white.  No, you aren’t a man because you were born a girl.

            Here is a guide to how we may say Yes to transfolk, in spite of any discomfort they may provoke in us, or any confusion, because we thought we knew what was a man and what was a woman.   By this we may give welcome and place and value to “new men” and “new women.”  Call it a Bill of Rights. 

I HAVE THE RIGHT

Not to have to justify my existence in the world

Not to keep the genders separate and polarized within me

Not be responsible for your discomfort with my physical ambiguity.

I HAVE THE RIGHT

To identify myself differently than you expect me to identify

To identify myself differently from other transsexuals

To identify myself differently in different situations.

I HAVE THE RIGHT

To create a vocabulary to communicate about who I am

To change my identity over my lifetime—and perhaps more than once

To have loyalties and identification with more than one group of peers

To freely choose whom I befriend and love.

 Adapted from “Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People,” copyright Maria P. P. Root, PhD, 1993, 1994, 1996, THE MULTIRACIAL EXPERIENCE: RACIAL BORDERS AS THE NEW FRONTIER.  Sage Publications.

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION for CHILDREN & YOUTH

AUGUST 2003  

Summer Schedule
Teachers are still needed!!!

August 3-Gertrude McFuzz: pin the tail on Gertrude and make Gertrudes
August 10-The Lorax: Make the interdependent web and pick up around the Fellowship
August 17-Oh the Places You’ll Go: Make a me map
August 24-Dr. Seuss Party: More info to come
August 31-Potluck Sunday: no class today

How Can You Get Involved?
There is a place for everyone in the Fellowships Religious Education Program. 
          One of the ways you can get involved is to teach. The Religious Education Committee and the Director of Religious Education are currently recruiting teachers for next year. Teachers are asked to make at least a 6-week commitment. During these 6 weeks 3 are spent as the lead teacher and 3 as the assistant. In order for the program to run smoothly, with each teacher making a 6 week commitment, 48 teachers are needed. 
          Teaching is a wonderful experience. An orientation will be provided at the end of August for those teaching September through January and in the beginning of January for those teaching January through May. At these orientations teachers schedule which 6 weeks they would like to teach/assist, look through the curriculum and pick up the lessons they will be teaching. 
          If you have any questions please contact a member of the Religious Education Committee, their names are listed on the Religious Education bulletin board, or Melinda L. Hughes, Director of Religious Education, at 360-377-4724 or by email at dre@kuuf.org.

Fun with Dr. Seuss   
Children will learn more about our Unitarian Universalist principles this summer in a program called Fun with Dr. Seuss. Each Sunday this summer (potluck Sundays excluded) children will listen to a Dr. Seuss story, do an activity, and discuss our principles.

WANTED: A few good Unitarians to work with young adults (ages 14-18) as Youth Coordinators. QUALIFICATIONS: Over age 25 but under 125; good humor and patience; tolerant yet not childish; willing to teach as well as learn; flexible schedule (Sunday mornings, sleepovers, regional conferences). Highly rewarding work requiring a serious com-mitment to escorting our youth to adulthood. For further information contact Melinda Hughes, Director of Religious Education, Jim Chapin, youth advisor or Mariam Akgar, Youth/Adult Committee Chair.

IT’S ALMOST HERE    As you can see from the previous two articles, the RE program is gearing up for the 2003-2004 RE year. This year’s theme is Unitarian Universalism. Registration packets and volunteer forms will be handed out at the end of August. Watch the RE board, weekly announcements, the Candle and your mail for information regarding the coming year.

The Kitsap Unitarian Universalist Fellowship affirms and promotes the inherent worth and dignity of all persons, without regard to faith, creed, race, color, ethnic or national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical ability, economic status, or political affiliation.

4418 Perry Ave NE
PO Box 2015
Bremerton, Washington
98310
360.377.4724
admin@kuuf.org

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