From Kathy Underwood: June 24, 2022

On the Cusp 

In case you haven’t heard, since my last article Todd and I have officially become grandparents. We welcomed Clementine Jennifer Underwood (CJ for short) on May 25. Mom Michelle is struggling a bit but is slowly adjusting to the many unusual sounds of a newborn.  

And I am carefully balancing on the cusp between being a supportive mother-in-law and an over-bearing one. I keep offering to help in any way I can no matter how small and have only been asked once to stay with the baby so Michelle could sleep. I know they need to find a new rhythm to their family life though, and so I continue to offer my help and wait to be asked. 

As I write this on the Summer Solstice, I can’t help but notice how today is also a day of being on the cusp: the cusp of summer. While our culture celebrates the solstice as the beginning of summer, it is seen as the middle of summer, or midsummer, in many other cultures such as Scandinavia as well as in the Wiccan tradition. From this day until the Winter Solstice, our time of daylight is gradually decreasing with each passing day. We are on the cusp and at the peak of our time with the sun. And while this may seem a bit depressing, we manage to make it a time worth celebrating with joy and gratitude for all the sun and earth provide us.  

We are collectively on another cusp at UCE: hopefully coming out of a pandemic. We adapted quickly in 2020 to virtual worship and groups, and from there we explored other ways of doing things as we slowly returned to in-person gatherings. We had many events and groups outside – even OWL, the sex ed program for youth! We needed to discern what was meaningful in the past and what we could let go of in the future. We dared to be brave and tried something new with the faith formation hour. 

Being on a cusp gives us a new perspective. It offers us the opportunity to see that we have many paths to choose from and to forge ahead and boldly go wherever it takes us. We will continue needing to ask ourselves, “How much of the past do we continue to uphold and how much do we let go of to leave space for the new? How do we continue to minister in all the ways we want to minister to each other when many of us are still recovering from the past two years?” 

I believe we still need to nurture ourselves and each other as we continue on the path to a “new normal”.  We need to gather in as many different ways as possible, whether in person or virtually: covenant groups, committee efforts, worship, social action, and faith formation (which includes all of these). And so this summer the Faith Formation Council continues the Wednesdays on the Lawn program and is coordinating local meetups at outdoor concerts around Evanston. The Family Ministry Team is also doing monthly gatherings outdoors. Our first one was geocaching at Emily Oaks, which was a bit challenging and lots of fun. Look for details in the newsletter to see what all we have going on this summer. 

As we head into the new church year this fall, our plan is to continue with a variety of ways for you to connect with others, such as potlucks, game nights, holiday rituals and celebrations, campfires, etc. We are also looking at how we can tweak the worship and faith formation schedule based on the feedback we have gotten so far and are reaching out to leadership for their thoughts as well.  

We won’t be on this cusp for long – might as well enjoy the view while we can. 

In Faith, 

Kathy Underwood