February 2012
At Your Service
Many folks started the new year at a party at the Westfalls’ Alpine house. I hear that a good time was had by all; this reporter had to stay home with a head cold. That head cold is getting around; try to stay clear of those germs.
Coming Attractions Dept: Four of our talented friends have created the Big Bend Jazz Consort; it includes Robin Campbell on vocals, Peter Westfall on guitar and vocals, Dan Kirwan on bass guitar, and Marilyne Dieckert on flute. They will be playing a FREE Valentines Day concert at the Blue Water Cafe on S. Hwy 118 on Saturday, Feb. 11, at 7:30 p.m. Be there or be square!
Mark Hannan of Nectar Computers, has helped us a great deal with our website, www.uubb.org, over the years. Most recently he re-built the website for us in a way that he could hand over to us to maintain. That transition is complete and it’s in our hands now. Please check it out. If you have suggestions, please give them to Chris Muller or Cynthia McAlister. And we say a big THANK YOU to Mark Hannan.
We are lucky to have Carolyn Ripper lead R.E. for children on the first and third Sundays each month.
We had an interesting guest speaker this past month, Marilyn Westfall’s friend Sylvia Ashby, from the UU church in Lubbock. Ms. Ashby spoke on Montaigne who was a progressive thinker during dark times of religious persecution.
There was a good UUBB turn-out for Joselyn Fenstermacher’s talk regarding life in Antarctica. She spoke on Jan. 24 at the Front Street Books Annex to a full house of interested folks. Joselyn has spent several seasons in Antarctica, working logistics for the scientists that are based there. Her most recent job was in waste management (a challenge in that extreme environment), and she is going back this time to work in the greenhouse at the South Pole Station. Her talk was moved up a couple of days as her departure time moved up. The presentation was enjoyable and informative.
The responsibility for writing this column has been shared by different board members. I think this makes a better and more rounded representation of our views, as does having different folks give sermons every week. We hope you enjoy your newsletter.
See you at potluck!
Chris Muller
Next Board Meeting
February 19th 9:30 AM
CALENDAR
Sunday worship services – 11:00 AM, with coffee and conversation to follow.
Religious Education
Children’s RE classes are scheduled for the first and third Sunday.
For more info contact: Children’s RE administrator, Carolyn Ripper 432-837-5597.
Social Action Donation
UUBB 2nd quarter Social Action donation, $250.00, has been made to the Family Crisis Center of the Big Bend.
ZEN MEDITATION GROUP
Meets at Mondays at 6:00-7:30 PM. The building will be open before 6:00 pm for those who can come early to help set up. If you are new, you are welcome to attend to get an overview. A small donation for the use of the facilities is appreciated. Please call Rev. Jean O’Cuilinn (432) 364-2462, if you are coming for the first time and have questions.
OUR LEADERSHIP
We are a Lay Led Fellowship.
BOARD
President, Cynthia McAlister
Vice-President, Jill Goodwin
Secretary, Kris Jorgensen
Treasurer, Chris Muller
Board Member, D.J. Angrist
Board Member, Marc Goff
Messenger Editor, Alex Patnode
Member Submissions
UUSC JUSTICE SUNDAY Scheduled for March 25, 2012
It isn’t a matter of jumping the gun to announce that this year’s Justice Sunday highlights the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee’s WORLD WATER DAY – THE HUMAN RIGHT to WATER Program, http://www.uusc.org/justicesunday/2012. I’ll have more information about the UUSC and Justice Sunday, 2012 throughout February and March. For those unfamiliar with the UUSC, http://www.uusc.org/about_UUSC, please look at their web site.
Justice Sunday dovetails with an international event called World Water Day, http://waterday.org/. Using a unique eye-to-eye partnership model, UUSC delivers aid with dignity, affirming and upholding the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Grounded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and UU principles, UUSC works every day to advance human
rights around the world.
Also, I thought the following on the Alpine Daily Planet, http://alpinedailyplanet.typepad.com/alpinedaily-planet/, was also worthy of inclusion.
Paper by Sul Ross faculty member accepted
A paper written by Sul Ross State University faculty member Dr. Donald Callen Freed has been selected for inclusion in an international publication. Freed’s paper, “Stroke and Voice Therapy: One Singer-Conductor’s Own Journey and Recovery,” will be included in a book, “Visual and Performing Arts,” edited by Stephen Andrew Arbury and Aikaterini Georgoulia. The book will be released by the Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER). The third annual international Conference on Visual and Performing Arts will be held June 4-7 in Athens, Greece. Freed is an associate professor of Music at Sul Ross. For more information, contact Freed, (432) 837-8216 or
dfreed@sulross.edu.
Submitted by Rev. Barry Zavah
January 2012
Happy New Year Everyone!
When I was a child, I believed that making Resolutions at the New Year held special power and magic. The energy of the fresh New Year invigorated me and I really thought that this time I would make these changes. After many years of making the same resolutions over and over, my perceived failures depressed me. I began telling my friends “if I want to make some changes in my life, I will just do it, and not stress myself out making Resolutions I repeatedly fail to keep.” At that time, I could only see success or failure, and anything that was not 100% success was failure. Therefore, I did not even want to keep trying. And with that sort of unrealistic expectation, who wouldn’t do the same?
Now I see things differently. Now I see how big changes take time. After all, we’ve spent most of our lives practicing to be the way we are. If these changes were easy, we’d have already made them and moved on. Patience is required and not a little courage. Generally we take two steps forward and one back. Change is work; it’s much easier to just stay the same, and to forget the Resolutions quickly after they are made. These days I am willing to make New Year’s Resolutions. I still make them at any time of the year when I am setting out on a self-improvement project, and I make them on New Year’s Day too. My renewed willingness to make Resolutions is bolstered with a release of the guilt and the perception of failure that follows broken and forgotten Resolutions. My understanding of the right to be free of the condemning inner voices comes from the revolutionary Buddhist practice of Maitri (My Tree). Maitri is unconditional friendliness, for ourselves, and for all living things. For our friends that we love and care about, who are enmeshed in guilt, sadness, and self-loathing because they have broken their New Year’s Resolutions, perhaps again, we wish for them to be free from suffering. And we wish for them Compassion and Loving Kindness for themselves. And it is these same feelings that Maitri calls for us to have for ourselves. I still struggle to believe that I deserve such good treatment and regard. So this is my New Year’s Resolution for 2012: I aspire to strengthen my Maitri practice, that I might increase the Compassion and Loving Kindness I have for myself and in that way increase the positive energy in the world and help others.
In that vein, may we all remember that there are many in our own communities that struggle for enough bodily nourishment. In a spontaneous burst of love and creativity our own Larry Ebmeier created what I feel sure is the loveliest bin for the Food Pantry collection anywhere. Usually it’s just a cardboard box, but Larry’s container is a work of art. Let’s put it to good use as we work to carry out our mission of social action. Each month several people from our church work hard transporting our food donations to the Food Pantry of Alpine, and then spend two days packaging the food for distribution and interacting one on one with Food Pantry clients, helping them through the veritable grocery store of items. That is not to say that more donations and volunteers are not needed. Please talk to Chris Muller or Deb Bloomer, or go to foodpantryofalpine.org for more information about how you can help. My second New Year’s Resolution is to prepare to make a Food Pantry donation at the same time as I am planning for our First Sunday Potluck. In that way I know I will make a donation at least once a month.
Shades of Summer — Hovering around fires and heaters, shivering with frost-nipped fingertips, our scarves, gloves, and bulky coats piled up in chairs near the door, barely ten hours of sunlight a day, we are in the thick of Winter now. But I’m remembering a warm sunny day at the opposite end of the Season. It was a day in High Summer when Marc Goff invited us to visit his Garden after Services. There we found tall Sunflowers ten feet tall and covered with beautiful terracotta and velvety-black Monarch butterflies. Maybe twenty or more at a time rested on the flowers sipping nectar. When they’d had their fill they lifted
effortlessly into the blue west Texas sky and sailed away. In the midst our unusually harsh summer it was amazing to see these graceful Wind Gods (and Goddesses) looking so fit. Watching the butterflies, I thought about their journey, from a tiny egg on a milkweed leaf, to caterpillar, to chrysalis and complete metamorphosis into this heart-breakingly beautiful creature, on its way to winter in the mountains in Mexico, a land where it had never been and it is easy to see how butterflies have come to symbolize rebirth.
May we all feel something of a rebirth this season as we inexorably move toward Spring, and may we find within ourselves the Courage to truly have Unconditional Friendliness for ourselves and for all living beings.
Cynthia McAlister