Letter to the Congregation: June 26, 2020
It is with a mix of regret and appreciation that we share the news that Rev. Karen Mooney will be leaving the position of Congregational Life Director at the end of July to continue her work as the (Sabbatical) Executive Director for UUANI until the end of the year.
This change was not anticipated when Karen was hired but the life events that brought Karen into that Sabbatical Ministry have worsened requiring her leadership for a longer period of time. Karen has been holding two half-time positions within our Unitarian Universalist faith since March – as the Executive Director of the Unitarian Universalist Advocacy Network of Illinois (UUANI) and as Congregational Life Director of UCE. The leadership at UCE has worked to ensure a smooth transition from Karen’s ministry. As hard as it is to see Karen go, we trust you will be reassured to know that Susan Frances, our former ministerial intern, will be returning to UCE as our part time Congregational Life Director beginning August 3rd. There will be more details on that soon.
We have benefitted from Karen’s presence in all ways. We are grateful for her wisdom, competence, and compassion in this role and we also understand and support her need to move on. As you will remember, Karen began her role with us on March 10th, the very day the pandemic impacted our community in such a profound and personal way. It has been an extraordinary time of upheaval and challenge to carry forth ministry, let alone to begin a new position. Yet, Karen proved to be a tremendous asset from the very beginning, managing our caring response to members and friends, launching Proximity Partners, steering the Social Justice Council, orienting and welcoming new members, leading powerful and beautiful worship, and much more.
We will miss you, Karen, and know that our work together will carry on, through our partnership with UUANI and other shared justice efforts. Please read Karen’s statement of thanks and regret here:
From your UCE Ministers: June 5, 2020
Beloveds,
We’re running out of ways to express our weariness and outrage. Words are not enough. Like you, we are sickened by the ongoing killing of Black People by police officers who are shielded in a system designed to murder and oppress, rather than protect, Black life. We are working to stay in the discomfort and pain necessary to be in the struggle without succumbing to fragility. Dismantling white supremacy, so clearly on display in every single facet of our society, is ALL of ours to struggle with.
We, your ministers, are working to contribute our voices and bodies and minds to this struggle in the ways we can. This struggle cannot wait another single minute. It cannot wait for another precious life to be snuffed out by abusive power without rebuke. We know that you are in the struggle too, each in your own way. We see you and we love you.
We say enough is enough. We say white silence equals white violence. We say Black Lives Matter. We say all of their names and hold space in between for the thousands whose names we do not know. We hold silence for the millions who have not died but have been subjected to our racist systems. We hold space for the countless who have asked and even screamed over time for help, who we could not see or actively ignored. We say no more. You are our people. We are outraged and grieve with you. When George cried for his mother, all mothers heard his voice. When he said he could not breath, he demanded that all who breathe hear and be held to task.
Some have asked if there will be a vigil in Evanston to honor the lives of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and countless others. Our answer is this: we will go, as we are able, where we are asked to go by our kin who are suffering most at the hands of white supremacy in all the forms it takes – the neglect of our healthcare system, the indifference of our economic system, the bias of our education system, the cruelty of our prison system, and the grotesque abuse with impunity of our policing system. We will go where we are asked to go by organizations like Black Lives Matter, Color of Change, and leaders in the Black communities around us. We will show up with our bodies in solidarity with Black bodies who are valued less in every aspect of our shared society.
We will show up with you even when it is hard and may cost us. We show up with you as we struggle to do it right. We show up with you as you once again put your trust in our working to dismantle the systems built to bring safety only to a segment of us. We see you. We will show up with you.
We have a responsibility, in our mostly white progressive congregation, to stay in the struggle in whatever ways we can. Not everyone can go to a protest or a march. We want you to hear us: You do not have to put your life at risk to be in the struggle. You do not need to contribute money if you do not have money to give. But there are many ways to stay in the struggle, to not let up, to not let a fascist and cowardly dictator silence our constitutional right to protest abusive power. We will not be silent.
We will work to engage our own racism, so People of Color do not need to lead in that fight as well. We will work to follow the lead of the communities most impacted and we will listen and give preference to their needs. We will call one another out and in, educate ourselves, and honor the life-giving resources People of Color have made available in abundance.
There are many ways to contribute and participate. Here are some:
Activate: Chicago March for Justice for George Floyd
Saturday, June 6th at 11 a.m.
Where: TBD
Please wear masks
This march will be peaceful
We will march to end Police Brutality
We will march because #blacklivesmatter
We march for justice for George Floyd and his Family
This march will be peaceful
Evanston United Black Men Rally to Support Black Lives
Sunday, June 7th at 2pm at Fountain Square (downtown Evanston)
Meet in the UCE parking lot at 1:30 to walk over together
To volunteer contact:
Omar Brown (312) 339 – 4537
Jared Davis (847) 708 – 0426
Jude Laude (708) 833 – 3017
Go to the Movement for Black Lives. They have posted a week of action with understanding and appreciation for all the levels of risk people are willing and able to take: https://m4bl.org/week-of-action/
Contribute to the Chicago Area Bond Fund to help those who are detained as victims of structural violence. Many have been arrested unfairly during the extreme and militarized response to largely peaceful protests in the city and around the country. It is important that we not let people languish in jail.
Display a BACK LIVES MATTER! Sign in your yard:
REAL Message: Signs are now available for UCE members and friends and neighbors.
- Black Lives Matter signs may be purchased and picked up between 1pm and 6pm at Annette Wallace’s home.
- Call Annette Wallace 847-826-6825 to assure a pickup time and for address and parking instructions.
- Bring $10 cash per sign (you can donate more if you wish). You may also pay by check made out to UCE with BLM in memo line.
- Contribution goes to Chicago Community Bond Fund www.chicagobond.org, The Moran Center www.moran-center.org, and the purchase of additional signs.
- Safety measures are being followed. We ask that you wear a mask and keep at least 6 feet distance during pickup and payment.
- We recommend that you display a sign, and that you take some additional antiracist action. Need some ideas? Check out the UCE home page “Take Action”: www.ucevanston.org.
Read this article on Performative Allyship and how to engage in powerful activism beyond social media.
This has been and will continue to be a long struggle. We will only be able to stay in it and recognize and dismantle the systems of oppression that are rampant all around us by being in community with one another and partners to our siblings at the front lines.
With love and in our shared faith,
Rev. Eileen Wiviott
Rev. Karen Mooney
Rev. Karen Gustafson
From Rev. Karen Mooney: May 1, 2020
Do you remember the first time you joined this congregation in worship? Remember the feeling of hearing words that sparked inspiration or deliberation? Remember the person sitting next to you who laughed at the same time or simply said hello? Do you remember what it felt like to read a comment you agreed with or one that invited you to ask what if? Remember? Remember the time you felt welcomed? I remember every time I felt truly welcomed into a community of people. It might not have happened in the first moments of meeting, but I remember every time I have felt welcomed into a community. There was always an invitation or a conversation or a comment that made me know there would be a space made for me and suddenly I knew I could belong.
Being able to extend ourselves in welcome is an important part of being a religious community- one that people here at the Unitarian Church of Evanston do with great care and style. The word religion is thought by some to have its root source (etymology) from the Latin religare – to bind fast by acknowledging the bonds of humans to something greater than ourselves. For Unitarian Universalists that something greater may be termed many things including humankind, the great ground of all being, or even G-d. Whatever term is used to describe, this binding only happens if someone is first welcomed into our midst. Today I wonder what does binding into our midst mean when there is no midst to bind within.
As we find ourselves in this new place of welcoming one another through words on a screen and two-dimensional electronic waves, I am reminded that we are still welcoming and creating space for each other in all our actions. Everyone wants to be seen and reminded that there is a place. Everyone wants their post responded to, their thoughts acknowledged, their smile seen. It can seem overwhelming to try to see everyone in this fashion. While it remains a task for all of us to welcome and build a community of care, there may be specific roles that some of us can take on that will help. What is the virtual equivalent of offering a hymnal or letting someone know where their name tag lives? Together we will explore what welcome might look like in this time of COVID-19.
We are still here, as a church, to be bound with those who would join in nurturing the human spirit to make the world whole; with those who seek to create a world filled with justice and mercy for all. We are here to remember the commitments of our seven principles – including acknowledging the worth and dignity of every person and our participation in an interdependent web of being. In living out those ideals, with style and generosity. We are each made the richer by the things we share with one another.
-Rev. Karen Mooney, Director of Congregational Life
From Rev. Karen Mooney: March 27, 2020
There is an old saying that has been floating through my conversations of late – “may you live in interesting times.” Oft ascribed to Chinese origin, this innocuous saying is offered as a curse. A curse, because interesting times are those when we find ourselves devoid of peace and embattled by a calamity which demands some change. It can feel accursed to experience the change that has claimed the lives of beloved friends and family; to know the fierce accounting of how we show compassion and care as we struggle to keep everyone safe. This change has asked communities to be still. We do live in interesting times but we know that calamity can be also a source of transformative opportunity. A positive amidst this change is the the space that has been bought for our earth to breath, with the carbon emissions down world wide.
I invite us all to reflect on how, what we do and how we respond, will impact the transformation occurring around us. If things are going to change, let’s embrace that change and make the losses bend toward being worthy of what we can gain. What if we take this calamity to reach out and rebuild relationships that were soured? What if we grasp hold of this change and demand the web include those on the margins within our sights for care? What if we see the bonds built by our grief and anxiety as an opportunity to build a resilient community within our midst. While not replacing beloved people or familiar patterns of behavior, we can hold onto those things which do not serve us.
What will come of this time of silent calamity? Maybe generosity, compassion, a greater sense of the whole that has been we can now see and observe clearly? Looking outside my window the world appears so, well, normal(ish). But it is different. Though the flowers are finding their way to the sun, we each have a choice in how we respond. Let us respond with the generosity of spirit that will change this world and bend the arc toward justice. In this newsletter you will find an article by Susan Carlton talking about a new grouping of folks based on location (proximity partners). Click here for ways UCE has responded with compassion and how you can respond in turn during this time. Join me, won’t you, join me in bringing a new world into being?
Rev. Karen Mooney, Congregational Life Director
Proximity Partners
In this bewildering and anxious time we are witnessing and experiencing an amazing pulling together and reaching out to connect and sustain one another. Going forward we can use the lessons we are learning about how to stay connected to inform our future planning and to strengthen our web of connection and caring.
In this bewildering and anxious time we are witnessing and experiencing an amazing pulling together and reaching out to connect and sustain one another. Going forward we can use the lessons we are learning about how to stay connected to inform our future planning and to strengthen our web of connection and caring.
One idea our ministers and church leadership have been exploring for some time is the formation of neighborhood groups – proximity partners. These groups would be composed of members who live close to one another geographically and would be an ongoing source of support, connection and mutual care for one another. A few “test” groups had already been formed well before the spread of COVID-19 (novel Coronavirus).
Please click on the button below and take a few minutes to complete a brief survey designed to gauge the interest of the congregation in forming neighborhood groups.