COVID-19, the coronavirus, has arrived in Westchester County and with it comes our inability to predict how it may (or may not) spread into the communities where we live, work and worship. Nevertheless, we need to be prepared for the possibility of school, workplace and community closings and disruptions that affect us physically, mentally, economically and spiritually. I want to reiterate and update much of last week's message, and stress that balancing the need for both caution and for community requires our vigilance and best ongoing discernment.

First, a reminder that if you are over 70, have a suppressed immune system or have an underlying health condition that makes you susceptible to respiratory illnesses, you are the most vulnerable among us to this disease. Do what you need to do to protect your health and ask for the support you would like if you choose not to venture out to church or other gatherings.

Protect yourselves and each other by taking precautions, using common sense and keeping calm. We want to stay alert, not anxious.

Keep informed: Make sure you are getting reliable and up-to-date information from doctors and public health officials (like the CDC), and not from politicians or scaremongers on TV or online.
Westchester County resource: https://health.westchestergov.com/2019-novel-coronavirus.

Take precautions: follow these common sense tips from the CDC, also captured below:  

• If you are sick, stay home -- from work, from school, from Fourth UU. 
• Reach out by phone, or email, to let me or someone else know you are ill. 
• See a doctor if you have a fever.
• Wash your hands often and do it well! If soap and running water are not available, then use alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
• Sneeze and cough into tissues and flexed elbows rather than hands.
• Swap out handshakes for fist bumps!
• Maintain a social distance of three or more feet from someone who is coughing or showing other symptoms; check in with that person to see if they need help to ensure that are getting what they need to recover.
• Refrain from touching your eyes, nose, and mouth, transfer points for viruses. 
• Stock up, if you can, on groceries. Have a month’s supply of your regular medications. 

If you need financial assistance for food or medicine or to see a doctor, let me know. Making emergency funds available through our Ministerial Discretionary Fund is one way we take care of one another in difficult times! 

Lastly, I offer these words Rev. Michael Tino shared yesterday with members of the UU congregation in Mount Kisco: “Be vigilant about how a public health crisis such as this can stoke the flames of hatred, intolerance, and injustice in our society. We've already seen racist rhetoric aimed at China, Iran, and people of Asian descent; I fear the outbreak's location in Westchester County might stoke anti-Semitism as well. As a faith community dedicated to justice, we must speak up to oppose racism in all of its forms.”

If you haven't already done so, this is a good time to reach out to one or more of your neighbors, friends, or family members. Let's keep each other calm, informed and healthy!

With blessings for the journey,
Rev. Cindy

Recent news coverage of the novel corona virus (COVID-19/Coronavirus) confirms its rise and expanding reach. I'm seeing a lot of headlines along the order of "Not If, but When." We know this illness is likely to affect the US in the coming weeks and months with deaths in numbers that appear similar to a particularly bad flu. Although there is no confirmed case near us at this time, the documentation in California of a case of community transmission (not linked to foreign travel) is cause for concern, especially wherever people may gather.

Leaders of faith communities and community organizations around the country are reaching out to both educate and assure members of their communities. Shoring up our bonds of community and connection helps us respond with appropriate and compassionate care during challenges and foster resiliency.

As with any public health threat, our best response, individually and collectively, is to be informed, take precautions, use common sense and keep calm.

Some practical information:

• If you are sick, stay home -- from work, from school, from Fourth UU. Take care of yourself and think of others with whom you might come in contact. Remember, not everyone you come into contact with may have a strong immune system.
  
• Reach out by phone, or email, to let someone know you are ill. I am always reachable by email or phone.
  
• Wash your hands often, and do it well! If soap and running water are not available, then use alcohol-based hand sanitizer.... which we'll stock up on and keep available in our building.
  
• Sneeze and cough into flexed elbows rather than hands.
• Swap out hand-shakes for fist bumps!
• Maintain a social distance of three or more feet from someone who is coughing or showing other symptoms; check in with that person to see if they need help to ensure that are getting what they need to recover.
• Notice how often you touch your face -- we all touch our faces way more than you would ever think. Your awareness may help reduce this behavior, which is one of the ways any virus is spread.

There's more you can do: One piece of advice I have been reading consistently is stocking up, if you can, on your regular medications, should you not be able to get to the pharmacy for an extended period of time.

More practical information and rolling updates from the World Health Organization can be found here.
Or here, at a Washington Post article dated 2/26/20.

Lastly, I encourage you to take time to reach out to one or more of your neighbors, friends, or family members. Let's keep each other calm, informed and healthy.

With blessings for the journey,
Rev. Cindy

The stories we tell matter. The ones we tell about ourselves, this congregation, its history, and our yearnings and visions for its future. 

I've been reflecting on the stories I am discovering and hearing at Fourth UU as I read The Power of Stories: A Guide for Leading Multi-Racial and Multi-Cultural Congregations, by Rev. Jacqueline Lewis of Middle Collegiate Church. The author shares stories of ministers successfully leading radically inclusive congregations and lifts up the importance of storytelling in creating a unified community that embraces the multiple, complex stories within the whole.

Although the book is focused on larger congregational identity and leadership issues, I find my mind wandering to the importance of storytelling and the stories we tell our children. These stories, and the storytellers, have the power to shape our children's lives and our future.

We know stories told to children convey values, beliefs, attitudes and social norms, shape their perceptions of reality and influence their understanding of cultural and gender roles. Characters and dilemmas in stories help our children learn how to develop empathy and cultivate creative thinking about possibilities, ideas and solutions. Research is full of studies that show how stories have been used to build children's intercultural perspectives and influence how they choose to act in the world and engage in social action.

When we include storytelling and stories in our Sunday services, we have the opportunity to convey and amplify our liberal religious values, such as honoring the inherent worth and dignity of every person. We can counter negative narratives our children may be exposed to in the world at large and reinforce our UU principles and mission of Fourth UU.

We have the opportunity to paint a rich and varied picture of the world, one which recognizes and illustrates a range of individual experiences, and confirms the beauty found in diversity.

We have the opportunity to become storytellers -- of others' stories or our own. Our storytelling doesn't need to be perfect to be effective. A good story, a parable, or the tale of a quandary often carries itself.

Are you a storyteller? A Moth Radio Hour wannabe? Wouldn't you love to find a time and place that welcomes and honors this part of your being ... as yourself or your stage persona? Tell me about it, please, because I would love to welcome you to a storytellers' group that helps plan and participate in our Sunday services.

Remember, it's not just the children who benefit from storytelling and stories and mull them over throughout the days that follow!

With blessings for the journey,
Rev. Cindy

Rev. Elizabeth Lerner Maclay, who serves the First Unitarian Church of Providence and previously served our Mount Kisco neighbors, writes on the essential nature of love to the congregation in the 2010 collection of essays, The Growing Church: Keys to Congregational Vitality:

Reflecting on her own journey, she shares these thoughts which resonate deeply with me:
"[Y]ou shouldn't go into ministry unless you love it ... The ministry deserve only people who love it -- love ministry, love their congregations, love our movement, all of which deserve nothing less. Love is critical to growth. A congregation must love their minister enough to trust her and endure the challenges that will try their partnership, and a minister must love her congregation in order to serve it well enough to grow."

When I first read this, I doubted I could have said it better. But, actually, I might insert a "shared ministry" here and there! Or an "all ministers" to be inclusive of our entire community and our shared ministry model.

I suspect we share a deep, abiding love for our life-affirming, justice-seeking Unitarian Universalist movement and are equally committed to deepening our faith as we move through life. We are in this together: following our calls, small or large, to ministries of all sorts; creating trust and safety by building strong relationships of lovingkindness; committing to be in right relationship; and bearing witness, within and beyond our walls, to the truth that to side with love is to defeat hate.
 
So, if you were to put yourself in the writer's shoes as the "minister," and if you were to grab a pen, a stylus, or a paintbrush, what words and images would be in your Love Letters?
What do you love about Unitarian Universalism and Fourth UU?
How does your love move you to serve the movement and this congregation? 
What challenges do you see trying our partnership and shared ministry?
How do you respond, with love?

With blessings for the journey,
Rev. Cindy

This Sunday, I have the pleasure of introducing to you two new people:
 
The first is Mary Ellis, who will be volunteering at Fourth UU weekly through June and sharing fun and playful mindfulness lessons with our children. Mary, who attended Fourth UU briefly when her children were young, recently retired after a long career as a teacher and educational administrator in both Westchester and Putnam counties and since then has been pursuing studies in teaching mindfulness to children. As part of her coursework with Mindful Schools, she will be introducing our children to topics such as mindful breathing, mindful listening, mindful eating, body awareness and simple techniques for focusing attention and responding to emotions.
 
I am so pleased to welcome Mary and am really excited about this opportunity we are seizing to begin re-establishing our children’s religious education programming. We are turning our attention towards choosing lessons and activities from UUA curriculums and resources to complement Mary’s offerings AND recruiting adult volunteers to help lead sessions occasionally. Please let me know how you would like to be involved!
 
The second person to introduce to you is Paula Cole Jones, our congregation’s UUA primary contact person. She will be with us for our Sunday service, share her sermon, “A Year Made Better By Our Care,” and join us for our pot-luck lunch afterwards. We are fortunate to be one of the congregations in her care this year!
 
I have had the pleasure of coming to know and work a bit with Paula while wearing my other ministry hat, serving as Board Chair for the UU Ministry for Earth. She is the author of an essay on the history of the environmental justice movement in Justice on Earth, last year’s UUA Common Read. She is co-author, along with Bruce Pollack-Johnson of the proposed 8th Principle, which is being discussed by many UU congregations and has been adopted by some and the subject of my sermon next week. Most recently, Paula delivered the Sophia Fahs Lecture at General Assembly this past June, “Building A Community of Communities.”
 
Paula is a lifelong member of All Souls Church, Unitarian, in Washington, DC.  Her experience in this multicultural congregation led to involvement as a leader in anti-racism, anti-oppression, and multi-cultural training and consulting with the Unitarian Universalist Association. She has years of experience as a Management Consultant specializing in group facilitation and institutional change. In a previous career, she worked as a Natural Resource Manager with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and as an Environmental Specialist with the District of Columbia Government
 
Paula is a past president of Diverse & Revolutionary Unitarian Universalist Multicultural Ministries (DRUUMM), a UU People of Color ministry and anti-racist collective, and the founder of A Dialogue on Race& Ethnicity (ADORE). She is the author of “Reconciliation as a Spiritual Discipline,” which appeared in the UU World magazine in 2004; a contributing author to three books, A People So Bold: Theology and Ministry for Unitarian Universalists, Darkening the Doorways, and Justice on Earth; and the editor of Encounters: Poems about race, ethnicity and identity, published by Skinner House Books. 
 
Please join me in extending a warm welcome to Mary and Paula on Sunday!

With blessings for the journey,
Rev. Cindy