From Rev. Susan Frances 11/22/2024

Dear Friends,

This is my last newsletter column before I leave for a three-month sabbatical. I will be away from UCE from December 10, 2024 through March 10, 2025. I am grateful to be able to take this sabbatical time. I will be spending part of my sabbatical learning about meditation in the Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian traditions and look forward to sharing my experiences with you in the spring.

This past week, I’ve talked with several of you who were not able to attend one of our post-election gatherings on Wednesday, November 6th, and know many of you are still processing an array of feelings, including sadness, anger, fear, and disbelief, at the outcome of the national election. You are not alone. You are not alone in how you feel. You are not alone in being able to face what will come after the inauguration in January. We will continue to be a community that centers love and relationship in all that we do, from welcoming visitors on Sunday mornings to showing up when needed to protect and expand our civil liberties.

If you are in need of talking with someone, please contact Rev. Eileen at ewiviott@ucevanston.org or Rev. Elizabeth at eharding@ucevanston.org. If you or someone you know are feeling an intense sense of despair, please call 988 for the national suicide and mental health lifeline or call 800-322-8400 for the Trilogy Crisis Response in Evanston. Now is the time to care for ourselves and support each other.

Now is also the time for us to deepen our relationships with people and communities who share our values. That is not to say that we need to cut off people in our lives who have prioritized other values in how they voted, but it is to say that to move forward with shaping our society in a way that reflects our values that we will need to lean into our relationships with people and organizations that share and prioritize our values.

I was at a Post-Election Town Hall put on by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois (ACLU-IL) on November 13th and one thing that Collen Connell, the Executive Director, said that brought me some comfort was essentially that the ACLU will not be responding to every announcement made by the next presidential administration. They will be responding when action is needed. And it gave me great comfort to know that an organization with a brilliant staff dedicated to preserving our democratic civil liberties will help me navigate whatever comes from the next federal administration. UCE already has great community partners, such as the Unitarian Universalist Advocacy Network of Illinois (UUANI), Community Renewal Society (CRS), Faith in Place (FIP), and the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR), who will help us know when and what action to take.

Part of being ready and able to act when called upon by our community partners is making sure that we are taking time away from the news cycle and the constant barrage of announcements for

our lives – our inner lives and our personal relationships. On the day of the election, my stepdad sent me an article published in The New York Times on November 3rd that has helped me through the past few weeks. The article, titled Free Your Mind. The Election Will Follow., by Oliver Burkeman, reminded me that “the total colonization of inner life by politics is a traditional hallmark of totalitarianism. … the attempt to care about everything impedes taking concrete action on anything. The admonishment that if you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention belongs to an era when attention was abundant. What our current era demands, by contrast, is often a willingness to withhold attention, even from some causes and stories that matter, and to be willing to pick battles. Doing so will make you more effective as a volunteer, activist or donor in whatever battles you do pick while retaining your ability to assert primacy over your own mind.”

I invite you in the weeks ahead to make time to care for yourself, so that you have the energy and interest in being engaged when we are called upon to join our community partners in action. If you are wanting to know how to be engaged through UCE in the months ahead, here are a few suggestions:

· Keep reading this weekly newsletter.

· Connect with our Legislative Action Team

· To be informed of more time sensitive matters, sign up for our Local Response Network, which is designed to send out communications about actions, demonstrations, city council meetings, etc. when folks are needed to show up. Sign up by clicking here.

We are on this journey together. I look forward to rejoining you in March to live out our values in the world for years to come.

Yours always,

Rev. Susan