From the Desk of Rev. Karen Gustafson
From Rev. Karen Gustafson: November 20, 2020
Dear ones, Next week we will find new ways to join in Thanksgiving. We may also find new reasons to be grateful. While accounts of this time in history are emerging with threads from many voices, I have found myself curiously wordless as I search for my own voice in this unfolding story. In my place of privilege where I am sheltered and well fed in a place of beauty and peace, from which I can view the real events in the real world on a screen with an off-switch, I can tell myself that I am doing my part by not putting a strain on medical resources and risking pain and grief for my loved ones by avoiding un-due exposure to the Corona Virus. And so the place I begin to look for an on ramp into the flow of this story is an examination of the assumptions embedded in the language I choose and language I passively accept from others. I have used the phrase “challenging and uncertain times” to point to the dis-ease that I and others are experiencing in the face of the virus, the racial crisis and the seeming dissolution of democracy as I have known it. What is occurring to me is that the idea of certainty itself is an illusion that is an artifact of white privileged culture. Furthermore, I wonder if even the concept of “challenging times” is a reaction to the violation of the conditioned expectation of control through accumulated resources. The loss of certainty implies to me that certainty is a thing that can be had and therefore can be lost. A lack of certainty and the presence of challenge is a constant in many, many lives. Uncertainty, it would seem, is the steady state of people of all races and colors and creeds who lack accumulated resources denied them by white supremacy. COVID 19 with its insidious death threat and the increased attention by white people elicited by the murder of George Floyd has not created for these humans a state of uncertainty. It has only increased its magnitude as it adds to the accumulated uncertainty of how to meet the needs of basic survival and human dignity. It has, in fact, not created the uncertainty that we white people of privilege are experiencing either. Maybe what we are experiencing is unwelcome exposure to all of our denied vulnerability to inevitable uncertainty. Even in the best of times under the best of circumstances - even those times and circumstances that have been sustained by privilege for decades, there is the specter of unchosen change - death of loved one, sudden explained or unexplainable illness, economic miscalculation, natural disaster, random violence, and even the consequences of unguarded passion and risk that lurk at the edges of our awareness. It occurs to me that I and other people of privilege are ensconced in an economic system that is based on the production and accumulation of more. This is fueled by the [...]
From Rev. Karen Gustafson: October 16, 2020
For as long as I can remember, I have had a curiosity about the complexity of things. Not just exotic things like works of art or airplanes or chocolate eclair and bone china, but ordinary, everyday things like screws and pencils and traffic signs. When my children were just into their double digit ages, we used to play a game in the car on road trips. We would pick something, like the knobs on the car radio (this was in the days of knobs - look it up) and we would try to name everything that went into the creation and production of that particular object. It started with a perceived need. Cars need radios. There needs to be a way to turn them on, etc. Then we might turn to that particular knob and all of the processes and decisions, designers and workers and decision makers that went into making it and getting it into our particular car. A designer, a design; decisions about color and size and materials and how it fit into the dashboard design. Someone designed and made a machine that would produce that very knob and install it in a factory where workers were employed etc., etc., etc. I think about that game whenever I hear someone say something akin to, “I HATE the radio knobs on my car dash…” Where, I wonder, did the piece of the process that made that knob become the source of someone’s dissatisfaction? How is it that the outcome of a process so complex and in some way so miraculous become the object of judgment and critical reaction? What complex process has led any of us to the impression that our judgments and our dissatisfaction should somehow become the rallying point for how something is understood? My interest in such things extends into how I understand my ministry at UCE. For the past year, I have been engaged in looking at the complex and often miraculous processes by which the staff, the elected leadership, the lay leadership and all of the other kinds of stake holders at UCE engage in the process of “making church”. Unlike the production of a radio knob, there is no concrete and single outcome. The moving parts are not, in fact, made of metal and plastic but of hopes and dreams and mission and hundreds and hundreds of human connections and isolated and shared decisions. My job has been to look with you at the ways you organize those parts to fill the needs for which they were intended; to hold up a mirror and to provide and encourage constructive feedback that might make the systems more accessible and inviting and the perceived outcomes more understandable. In a few weeks, I will be meeting with the Ministerial Search Committee to share my observations. By next week, there will be an updated interim report available on the UCE website detailing the “progress” we have made together in addressing some of the observed challenges and the [...]
From Karen Gustafson: August 7, 2020
Dear ones, As your interim minister I take seriously my charge to help you to identify your strengths and your challenges in ways that will help you to thrive during this time of preparation for your next covenant of settled ministry. I also support the Ministerial Search Committee in presenting a clear and honest profile of the congregation to prospective candidates. In the weeks since my last message in which I summarized the interim work going forward, I have been invited in a variety of ways into a new urgency of consciousness about white supremacy culture and systemic racism. At the UUA General Assembly the UCE delegates were present at the unveiling of the Report of the UUA Commission on Institutional Change entitled Widening the Circle of Concern. This document is an in depth report on the state of our association of congregations and our Unitarian Universalist faith regarding our understanding of racial justice and systems of oppression. It is a call to self examination and a call to meaningful action. Clearly this awareness has been underway at UCE as reflected in the leadership of the REAL Team, the participation of a number of members of UCE in Beloved Conversations and classes on racism and the initiative that put the Black Lives Matter sign on the lawn. Now you are being encouraged by your General Assembly delegates and others to go deeper and wider in the cause of dismantling oppression in the many places that it is hard wired into a system that is built on white cultural values. You will need to be prepared to be in conversation about all of this with anyone interested in assuming the position of Senior Minister at UCE. Among the many efforts to “widen the circle of concern” at UCE, I will be engaging you over the next year in conversations that will help you look at where systemic racism and white supremacy culture has become embedded at UCE. What then might it look like to make more real and visible a fuller embrace of Unitarian Universalist values and principles? These conversations are beginning in August with elected and lay leaders and staff. They will be suspended in September and October to allow for a full focus on the Congregational Survey and the Cottage Meetings conducted by the Ministerial Search Committee. No doubt these issues will come up in these places as well. In November we will open the conversations again and hope to involve everyone in one way or another. We will continue to work on other areas of UCE governance and structure as identified in the Interim Report. If you have questions or concerns about any of this, please feel free to contact me by e-mail at kgustafson@ucevanston.org. In love and gratitude, Karen
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: Rev. Karen Mooney here. It is with regret and real sadness that I announce my resignation as Director of Congregational Life at the Unitarian Church of Evanston. Any significant move deserves some explanation and here is mine. As many of you know I have been juggling my work here at UCE working with the UU Advocacy Network of IL. I had thought that role there would end this month. Sadly my position as the Sabbatical Minister for the UU Advocacy Network of IL is being extended to the end of year as Rev. Scott Aaseng continues to care for a family medical crisis. I cannot do both jobs well in the longer term and feel an obligation to UUANI and Rev. Aaseng on his journey. UUANI has unique work that they do within the state as an organization working with congregations. I will continue to work through the end of July when a familiar face will be coming back into this role. Thank you for your warm welcome. I have enjoyed working and getting to know [...]
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 [...]
From Rev. Karen Gustafson: May 29, 2020
Dear ones, In August of 2019, I was invited by the UCE Board to serve as Interim Minister, completing the second of an anticipated two year interim period between the departure of Bret Lortie and a new Settled Minister. In October, after many conversations and retreats and meetings of many kinds, the UCE Leadership presented to you, the Congregation, a compelling assessment of the desirability of an additional year of Interim. This assessment included an invitation to all of you to engage in a process of looking at the systems and programs, expectations, hopes, vision and ultimately the Mission of UCE so that your Search process could provide a clear and compelling picture of who you are and who you want to be as a Unitarian Universalist congregation. In the months following this difficult decision, many of you responded with candor and diligence and generosity and love. The rededication to your Mission of “Nurturing the human spirit for a world made whole” at the Sunday service on February 23 was inspiring. Kathy Underwood and others were in the midst of beginning to take on the tasks of revisioning your Religious Education for Children. The Board had taken up providing a more accessible understanding of Policy Governance and I was focused on a more sustainable approach to organization and volunteer leadership. The process resulting in hiring of the Rev Karen Mooney as Director of Membership and Social Justice was well underway. Anticipation of the all music Sunday lead by Vicki Hellyer was being felt by all. And then, so it seemed, COVID 19 changed everything. Yes. And No. It is June and, though some things have been put on hold, many have continued in a different form, thanks to the great efforts of the UCE Staff. All that we set out to do in preparation for the settlement of the next Senior Minister remains possible. I will be with you for another year. I am grateful for all of the ways that any of you have engaged in this process and promise that there will be more opportunities beginning in July. The interim work will recede a bit in late August, September and October as the Search Committee will be ramping up its work. Throughout this time, I remain committed to nurturing the seeds that we have planted together and supporting the healthy growth that is deep in the DNA of UCE. I look forward to another year with you all beginning July 1. In love and gratitude, Karen (she, her, hers)
