June 2020 The Unicorn Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Boca Raton Newsletter

Free in Faith Diverse in Thought United in Caring Committed to Action

Page 2 Board Corner

Page 3 Board of Trustees, Email Link

From Donna Musial, UUFBR Past President

Page 4 From Scott Theodore Mulder, UUFBR Intern Minister

Page 5 From Amy Wright Glenn, UUFBR Director of Religious Education

Page 6 Healing Justice

Page 7 Cary Bayer Workshop

Page 8 From Stephanie Nixdorf, UUFBR Music Director

Page 9 Connected Across the Distance

June 2020 2

At Harris’ suggestion, your Board has approved the formation of a task force to consider all that must be done in order to reopen UUFBR’s building eventually in as safe a manner as feasible. Harris and the task force will study CDC recommendations about reopening facilities and those of other health care agencies and organizations, Florida’s governor, local county and city officials, the UUA, other congregations and such other sources as may be useful.

Issues concerning social distancing, the use of face masks and gloves, disinfecting surfaces and providing hand sanitizers, and wiring and equipment for continuing virtual services must be addressed. The use of rest rooms, the kitchen and the choir loft present other concerns. The task force will provide you with updates as it evaluates all of this. Any suggestions you may have would be welcome; please send them to Harris or Sandy Troiano or Patrick Larson, your Board’s representatives on the task force. At some point Sunday services will resume in our Sanctuary. They will also continue to be offered virtually on Zoom and Facebook. Many people who live distantly from UUFBR now attend our service, and some congregants will be reluctant to return to our Sanctuary after it is reopened until there is either a proven treatment or vaccine for the Covid-19 disease. Your Board has approved Harris’s recommendation that, for now, Sunday services remain solely virtual until the Labor Day weekend at the earliest. Summer services will be conducted by visiting ministers and members of our congregation, some of whom may find it difficult to conduct both a Sanctuary and virtual service. Remaining closed for now will give the task force time to deal with the myriad of issues that must be addressed before our building can be reopened in a manner the task force would consider to be sufficiently safe. Your Board appreciates your support in this regard. While we all miss the comfort and camaraderie of being together physically, our virtual experience has opened other doors for us. People who couldn’t attend the Forum early on Sunday now participate with ease on Saturday mornings. The Movie Discussion Group soars on Saturday afternoons and the new Laff Group roars on Tuesday evenings. Friends who moved away now join us once again. This experience, while difficult in so many ways, has actually helped us grow. For that, your Board thanks you very much. Stay well for us.

UUFBR BOARD OF TRUSTEES CORNER

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UUFBR Board of Trustees Ron Lovell, Co-President

Sandy Troiano, Co-PresidentPatrick Larson, Vice-President

Paul Libert, TreasurerBarb Jensen, Secretary

Carlton Devot, Trustee at LargeLouis Merlin, Trustee at LargeBetty Tilton, Trustee at LargeCarrie Viles, Trustee at Large

You can contact the UUFBR Board of Trustees by email: uufbr-board@googlegroups.com.

From Donna Musial, Past UUFBR President

I want to express how proud I am of our UUFBR, our minister, our intern, our Board and our members. These are very grave times and we step up, voice our opinions, share our anger appropriately and seek real ways to acknowledge each other and to reach out to help and, equally important, to ask for help. I am grateful for each and everyone of you, no matter how small or big your involvement. Your thoughts go out to the Universe for healing and love.  And the world is better because all of you, UUFBR, exists.

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Hello my friends, The time has come to say goodbye. This June will likely mark my final service with you, and the end of our time together as your ministerial intern.I write you with a bittersweet heart bolstered by a profound sense of gratitude for our time together. As many of you know this has been a very hard year for me; between the death of my father, my divorce, my parting from the UUA and then the Covid-19 situation, I cannot leave here feeling that I've done all that I could, and I do not leave here feeling that I've learned all that can. Even still, our time together has been an incredible experience. You embraced the wholeness of me with open arms and open hearts, and I could not have asked for a better internship experience---even amid all these other factors. With you I have discovered within myself the minister who I wish to become, and through you, I have discerned my path forward in life from here. As I go on to establish my own Humanist ministry and to develop my own leadership consultancy, I will carry our time together with me for all the days to come.With UUFBR I found a family, and I will hold each and every one of you close to my heart. Should you need me for anything I am only an email, facebook message or text away. Should you ask anything of me in the future say the word and I will be here.I may have returned home to Buffalo, New York, but a part of me will always be in Boca Raton, Florida.As we part ways, I ask you to always remember that the good in our world is realized through compassion, through justice, and through beauty. This is my final prayer to you: that you may let the world know who you are by how you love, for our covenant is not for ourselves alone. Yours in faith, Yours always,Dr. Scott Theodore MulderIntern Minister, UUFBR

Dr. Scott Theodore Mulder Intern Minister

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Dear UUFBR,May this find you all healthy and hopeful, especially at this time. We enter the summer months and the shift is a precarious one. For many working parents, they wonder how they will navigate child care, the potential of summer camps, and the need for safety and connection during a global pandemic. My heart is heavy some days as I reflect on all that parents are carrying right now. Whew!And yes, we can do hard things, especially as we lean into quality and loving support. I'm committed to making our UUFBR Religious Education program one of quality support for the parents involved. So please check out the UU Parent Support Videos that are created weekly. If you'd like to be on a UU Parent email list to receive weekly video links, let me know. Email :dreuufbr@gmail.com.And also... drum roll... I'm happy to announce that we now have TWO RE classes on Zoom through the summer. The 11:30am EST class is geared for our younger ones, ages 5-9. Directly following that, our noon class is for our older children, 10-14. Both classes are 30-minutes in length and parents are always welcome to join or listen in. To receive the zoom link, please email me at: dreuufbr@gmail.com.In fact, parents and all UUFBR adults are always welcome to volunteer to teach as well. I plan to be present for all Zoom classes this summer but that doesn't mean I have to teach them all, though I am willing and able to do so. Yet, if you feel called to connect to RE this summer and offer a story, lesson, song, message of inspiration to our children, please reach out to me. Also, if you would like to be even more involved with RE, there is a new RE Counsel that has formed, led by member Katie Sorokas. She's amazing! Should you want to join the group, let me know. You are most welcome.Peace,Amy

Amy Wright Glenn Director of Religious Education

Calling all UU teens!On Tuesday, June 16th UNICEF is hosting a "World's Largest Lesson" to reimagine a

fairer and more sustainable world. Use the link to participate.

https://worldslargestlesson.globalgoals.org/worlds-largest-lesson-live-follow-up-activities/

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Healing Justice. What are we all about now? It feels as though the world has upended yet again, and yet....We persevere.

The murder of George Floyd along with so many others who are black has awakened all of us to racism in our structures and systems and in ourselves; to what has led to the Black Lives Matter protests across this nation and in our own backyard; AND across the world on all continents are marching to support the BLM movement. Protestors heighten our awareness and call for change. We have had enough of living in a world structured by racism. What to do?

As a congregation UUFBR is holding meetings to decide," What Next!" UUFBR and Healing Justice also have a history related to the cataclysmic events of today. As a congregation and as individuals, as we gather, we need to examine our core beliefs to see whether or not they are congruent with our actions. As we share our thoughts I have become more aware that our congregation is much like the nation... We know that something is radically wrong but we do not know what to do about it much less how we feel. We who are white like me have lived in a state of somnolence, or even worse, complicity, in ignoring the needs of those who are black. Our fear was probably what kept us from allowing the hanging of the Black Lives Matter banner so many years ago; a banner that now hangs proudly outside our UUFBR building professing that Black Lives Matter. Quietly, after 6 years it appeared again after we, or about half of us who were members at that time said "No, we will not hang it." This refusal after Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, and Corey Jones was murdered by an off duty police officer, After this, we at UUFBR and the nation went back to "normal". We began not seeing fully. We did not hear the agony of those who are black, people who have lived for so many years under the yoke of racism. Killings went on with so many names I cannot even recall them. As a nation, we "fixed" things so that we could live in blind peace.

I recall when Krystena Castro, a young black woman who was part of our congregation a few years back, read her poignant poetry expressing from the depth of her soul the joys and sorrows of being black. She just republished it on Facebook if you would like to read the whole poem. (https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10101295449940065&id=33405753.) We gave her a standing ovation but did still did not hang the banner professing that Black Lives Matter. Somehow, we still needed to learn how to hear, deeply hear what racism is and how it tears us apart; Not just put a Band-Aid on the immediate wounds and go back to "normal". We still need to hear that black lives deeply matter and must be included in all of our structures and institutions in real ways, not just token ways. We need not seek our old normal. We need a new normal, to fix our structures and institutions. To begin to heal. To that end, we, each individual Unitarian Universalist person, will find our own way. But we will also act as a congregation, a unit under the umbrella of our principles and the UUA. Healing Justice plans to help in the process of changing some of our structures and institutions by

May 2020 7

continuing to highlight racism issues, working to get out the vote for this upcoming election and moving us toward consideration of the proposed 8th Principle. All of these are ways to move us toward structural and institutional change, one step at a time.

Healing Justice invites you to continue planning for our next steps at our regular meeting June 18, 2020 by way of ZOOM. Watch for the email blast about this meeting and join us if you can.

If you want to learn more about UU the Vote, go to https://www.uuthevote.org/ Be patient with the video "How We Thrive". It takes a minute or so to start up.

Cary Bayer Workshop COVID: 19 LESSONS FOR GROWTH

Sunday, July 5

The Bubonic Plague (aka the Black Death) ravaged Europe and Asia from 1347-1350.  Many historians cite the decline it caused in the power of orthodoxy for awakening the growth of reason and man’s reliance on his own inner lights. Those same historians also cite the pandemic as a major cause of the Renaissance that transformed Europe for three hundred years not long after.    Covid-19 has created nothing less than a global timeout, virtually a worldwide ceasing of human activity. A novel virus, it requires a novel response, an opportunity to awaken qualities in yourself that can make you a bigger and better person. This can enable you to enjoy your own individual renaissance, a word that means rebirth. When many people do just that we could create a renaissance across the planet.     

How can you create this renaissance in yourself? This workshop will present a variety of techniques as well as 19 lessons you can take away from this pandemic lockdown.  These techniques can help you create  ongoing inner and outer transformations in your life.

Life Coach Cary Bayer is the author of a pair of 48-page mini-books: Covid: 19 Lessons for Growth and Covid Comedy: When Laughter is the Best Medicine, as well as the just published full-length humor book, Trump Off the Wall (That Mexico's Gonna Pay For).

June 2020 8

Well, it’s June 2020. Usually at this time of year, I am settling in at my summer cottage in upstate New York for 8 or 9 weeks of cooler weather and summertime adventures. This June feels different, however, as I like many of you have been working from home for weeks. March came and went, and we all were reeling with our new reality. During April we began to get our sea-legs with this whole remote learning, working, teaching thing. We have had more quality time with our family members than we ever bargained for, and sadly, some of us have experienced tremendous isolation and loneliness. My own mother has been isolated in her room at the Assisted Living Center right here in Boca Raton. We call on the phone, wave outside the window and drop off treats and supplies, but it’s hard. Hard on her, hard on us......still, what choice do we have? right? So yes, we have all had to endure many changes, inconveniences, and in some cases, loss of employment and the increase of mental health problems within our own family units.

This brings me to the very point of this conversation: singing. Singing has now become a very risky endeavor, if you’re reading any of the 24/7 Covid news. By now, you have probably heard of the Skagat Valley Chorale in Mount Vernon, Washington. For 3 hours, the choir members rehearsed. They rehearsed together, in small groups, used hand sanitizer and avoided the usual handshakes and hugs. Fast forward 3 weeks and at least 45 members had Covid, and 2 of the Choir Members were dead. This is not a good development for any of us who work in the Choral field, or for those among us who derive great pleasure from singing. Singing in a group has so many benefits, both physical and psychological, as has been researched and shared over and over again.

So where do we go from here? Do we slowly start to meet as a choir? Do we put together Virtual

Choir Anthems to share with our congregation, which often take hours of editing and rehearsing? Do we put together some sort of hybrid type of online meetings, virtual choir pieces and leave it at that?

To be honest, I don’t know. I’m still figuring this thing out myself. I know that nothing is the same anymore, and that there are so many things that we took for granted for so long that are just gone. The simple joy of choir practice is lost for now. How nice it would be if I could pull up to the building and see the familiar faces of my choir members trickling in. We make jokes, we laugh a lot, we tease each other.....I miss that. It isn’t even so much about the singing sometimes: it’s about the community. Our little community that we have shared and watched grow through these many years of my tenure as music director at UUFBR.

We sing, we laugh, we cry, we worship, we check on each other....I miss these things. So for now, we will have our ZOOM Meets, we will participate in online worship and fellowship, we will learn tracks and rely on our tech savvy friends to put it all together in something that looks and sounds beautiful. We will do all these things because we have to do something!

Hopefully, we will be able to meet again and sing with abandon, but for now we must strive to take care of ourselves, our families and each other. Whatever platform you can find to keep music in your life, I encourage you to use it. I have been doing a lot of listening of music, and planning for future singing events. This cataclysmic event in our lives won’t go on forever, and perhaps there are some valuable lessons to be learned from the experience. Patience for the return of normalcy to our lives, gratitude for what we had before and what we will have again, and hope for the future of our communities and ourselves.

Stephanie Nixdorf Music Director

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Connected Across the Distance at UUFBR Stay connected and up to date with 3 weekly emails in your inbox:

Tuesday evenings Thursdays evenings Sunday mornings

Look for these and additional Zoom links in the weekly emails. Also, on the UUBR Website calendar. Click on the event to see Zoom information.

Sunday 10:30am 11:30am 12:00pm 4:00pm

WEEKLY Worship Service

WEEKLY Religious Education Ages 5-9

WEEKLY Religious Education Ages 10-13

WEEKLY Where Do We Go From Here? A conversation with Rev. Harris

about how we can join the forces healing America's

racism.

Tuesday 10:00am 7:00pm

WEEKLY A Time to Talk

Share your thoughts with the Minister

WEEKLY Laff Hour

A fun hour of laughs. Come with a

joke or two.

Wednesday 7:00pm

JUNE 17 Book Club

A Land Remembered by Patrick D. Smith

Thursday 7:00pm 7:00pm 7:00pm

WEEKLY A Time to Talk

Share your thoughts with the Minister

JUNE 18 Healing Justice

Working for justicein our

communities

JUNE 25 Board of Trustees

Meeting All UUFBR

members are welcome to attend

Saturday 10:00am 3:00pm

WEEKLY The Forum

Engage in spirited group discussions

of social and political issues.

WEEKLY Movie Discussion Group Watch the movie at your convenience prior to the

3:00pm Discussion Group.

Time Dated Material–Please Expedite Change Service Requested

The Unicorn June 2020

BOARD OF TRUSTEES Ron Lovell, Co-President

Sandy Troiano, Co-PresidentPatrick Larson, Vice-President

Paul Libert, TreasurerBarb Jensen, Secretary

Carlton Devot, Trustee at LargeLouis Merlin, Trustee at LargeBetty Tilton, Trustee at LargeCarrie Viles, Trustee at Large

UUFBR Board of Trustees email: uufbr-board@googlegroups.com.

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Boca Raton 2601 St. Andrews Boulevard

Boca Raton, FL 33434 561-482-2001

www.uufbr.org email: admin@uufbr.org

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Boca Raton 2601 St. Andrews Boulevard Boca Raton, FL 33434

STAFF The Reverend Ms. Harris Riordan, Minister

Dr. Scott Mulder, Intern MinisterAmy Wright Glenn, Director of Religious Education

Stephanie Monsour-Nixdorf, Music Director Robert Duchemin, Bookkeeper

Gail Larkin, Administrative Assistant

Ellen CormierDirector of Religious Education Emerita