Sunday Service: In-person and Online Sunday at 10:30am

Board of Trustees Update, December 2025

Ugly Crying, with Dignity

by Ally Hunter

Thus begins this month’s Board of Trustees offering:

What a minefield life is.

One day you’re taking a stroll in the sun,

the next your arms and legs are all over the hedge.

There’s no dignity in it.

—Christopher Fry, from A Yard of Sun

 

We lost our wise and beloved UCE board member Melanie Kitchner to cancer on November 28. Days ago, and rather suddenly. A lost voice, a precious legacy.

You’ll find us working together to attach our limbs, hearts and inspiration to her memory, and to honor the commitment she modeled in so many spheres of our congregational life.

And now, Holidays! Always great timing. One day you’re taking a stroll in the snow, twinkling lights in the hedges, giddy anticipation. Or at least a day or two off from work. And then paralyzing emptiness— longing for what was, or what might be in a broken world. An epic mash-up. With tinsel.

It’s a sacred time of reflection and repair. Ugly crying or silent grief. Yet there’s dignity in being present in the world’s sorrow, and our own. Then just as forcefully the noise of a gathering congregation in unapologetically cumbersome winter gear rumbles through our doors. Our reclaimed arms circle for a healing hug, or link to face injustice. And, oh, the music!

In the coming days you’ll hear about upcoming events for creative and happy connection. There’s a lot of winter left, and a lot of care needed for ourselves and our neighbors. A new year approaches, minefields and all.

I stick up for the holidays—through crunchy headaches or sadness. So what if I play the Charlie Brown Christmas album A LOT, and dance like Frieda (near Pigpen and his upright bass). Hot!

You can ugly cry in joy and gratitude as well. I’ve got photos.

May you have peace and as much joy as you can muster. In addition to the Ministers and Pastoral Care Team, the Board of Trustees is within reach for any support you need.

Dear Melanie, good journey to you. Love lights the way.

Board of Trustees Update, December 20252025-12-10T20:48:51+00:00

Sunday, December 14, 2025

Lighting Our Way

In these times of growing darkness, we search together for sources of light to guide us on our collective journey toward hope. Our annual music service lifts our spirits and fortifies our hearts. The UCE choir and soloists led by Music Director, Vickie Hellyer, accompanied by Gregory Shifrin on piano, Kevin Barrow on clarinet, and Nadav Simon on percussion. Kristee Boehm, Ellie Feddersen, Sarah Vanderwicken, Andy Fisher, and Rev. Eileen will be our Worship Associates.

Today’s offering will be shared with FORA, which works to ensure that refugee families are provided access to an education sufficient to prepare them to become economically self sufficient and robustly engaged in American civic life.

Upcoming Services

December 21st – Pageant Sunday – Kathy Underwood

December 24th – Christmas Eve Service (7pm)

December 28th – Living Faithfully – Dr. Emma Farrell

January 4th – Fire Communion – Rev. Susan

January 11th – Love Resists – Revs. Eileen and Susan and the Catalyst Team

 

Sunday, December 14, 20252025-12-08T17:27:36+00:00

Update from Rev. Susan – 12/5/2025

Hi Friends,

One of my new spiritual practices is finding local outdoor places to explore. This summer I randomly received in a mailing solicitation a map of “100 Spots to Explore the Chicago Lakefront” from Openlands, an organization doing good work “conserving nature for life.” I love the snow, so I’ve continued to be out for snowy walks and the photo is of me recently exploring the Rogers Park Beach, one of the spots on the Openlands’ map.

During this holiday season, one of my renewed spiritual practices is being purposely present wherever I am. With the political and geopolitical worlds weighing heavy on my heart and my mind, I am intentionally making time to tend to my body and my spirit this winter. I’m seeking to find the balance of nurturing my whole being so that I may have the capacity to continue to engage in the world. I’m seeking to find the balance of holding the grief of death and the challenges of preserving our democracy alongside embracing the joy of celebrating my personal holidays and the holidays of those I cherish.

Our large congregation has members with many theological traditions and religious backgrounds and as we move through this winter holiday season, we celebrate different traditions. On December 8, we celebrate Bodhi Day, which commemorates the day Siddhartha Gautama achieved enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, becoming the Buddha. 

December 14-22, we celebrate Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, which commemorates the struggle for religious freedom through the Maccabean Revolt and celebrates the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the miraculous relighting of the temple’s menorah for eight days with a single jar of oil.

For decades I have spent the winter holidays celebrating with various Pagan communities. The winter solstice on December 21 marks the longest night of the year. It is a time of rest and renewal, when animals hibernate and plants decompose to replenish the soil. As humans in modern society, we have to make the choice to rest and renew. It is in this spirit of caring for yourself that I invite you to figure out how you might make time for rest and renewal in the weeks ahead. 

I am trying to have daily spiritual practices of mindfulness, prayer, and planning. As I travel to and from UCE during the week, I set an intention to appreciate the beauty of the brilliant snow during the day and the twinkling holiday lights at night. As I end each day, I make time for prayer that includes lament for the day’s events and gratitude for the day’s gifts. As I make plans for the holidays, I set an intention to be fully present with family and friends. Mickey and I planned a weeklong Thanksgiving celebration, being with my parents on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, spending time with a dear friend on Monday, being at home just the two of us for most of Thanksgiving Day, and spending the Saturday after Thanksgiving with Mickey’s family. 

As fresh grief and the grief of marking the anniversaries of missed loved ones is upon us this holiday season, I invite you to join us for a Blue Holiday Service in the sanctuary from 5:30-6:30 pm on Wednesday, December 10. If the weight of what is happening with our country or around the world is weighing on you, please join us for this service when we honor the challenges that do not go away, and sometimes intensify, during the winter holidays. If you need, or someone you know needs, some support right now, please fill out a Request for Care form or email me, Rev. Eileen, or Rev. Elizabeth. 

You are also invited to join in the festivities of celebrating our Christian heritage in a UU way with our tree ornament making Sunday on December 7, our Holiday Music Sunday on December 14, our Christmas Pageant on December 21, and our Christmas Eve Candlelight Service on December 24. The list of events is located on the Home page of our website and in this newsletter. Come craft and sing and laugh and be comforted! 

In this snowy winter wonder land, take care of yourself and join us! You are not alone. You are valued within our faith tradition. You are loved this holiday season for exactly who you are.

Yours in wintry rest and renewal,

Rev. Susan

Update from Rev. Susan – 12/5/20252025-12-05T16:21:20+00:00

Sunday, December 7, 2025

What Might Rise?

In uncertain times, as all times are, choosing hope is an act of courageous defiance. In community we practice choosing hope and planting seeds of what might emerge from the soil of creative resistance. Rev. Eileen leads this service with Charles M. Anderson as our Hymn Leader and Gregory Shifrin on piano.

Today’s offering will be shared with FORA, which works to ensure that refugee families are provided access to an education sufficient to prepare them to become economically self sufficient and robustly engaged in American civic life.

Upcoming services:

December 14th – Music Sunday – UCE Choir led by Vickie Hellyer

December 21st – Pageant Sunday – Kathy Underwood

December 24th – Christmas Eve Service (7pm)

December 28th – Living Faithfully – Dr. Emma Farrell

January 4th – Fire Communion – Rev. Susan

Sunday, December 7, 20252025-11-28T15:05:20+00:00

Mitten Tree Update – 11/28/2025

For Friday, 11/28

MITTEN TREE 2025

Deadlines are This Week

 

Mitten Tree gifts are due this SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30, for sorting and wrapping. Did you miss the chance to shop? It’s not too late to donate money and the mitten tree elves will shop for the remaining gifts –you may Zelle or Venmo Jenny Walsh, jmw99free at gmail dot com or 847-309-3648, or write a check to UCE with Mitten Tree in the memo.

 

Sign up to help with organizing/shopping/wrapping HERE. 

 

This longstanding tradition is a beautiful snapshot of our community’s shared values. Read on below about where your gifts will go this year, AND MAY WHAT YOU GIVE BRING YOU JOY!

 

In addition to providing gifts for two of the asylum-seeking families whom our congregation is supporting, we are partnering with three organizations this year:  

 

Lydia Home (formerly Rice Child & Family Center) is located just down Ridge from UCE and is a safe home with wrap-around services for children with post-traumatic behavioral dysregulation making traditional foster care inaccessible to them. The facility includes a medical clinic, group therapy classrooms, special education facilities, art therapy and maintains a goal of helping children return to a loving family environment. UCE has supported residents of the center for a number of years as our own Mitten Tree founder, Carol Nielsen is a long-committed volunteer.  

 

Connections for the Homeless is an organization near and dear to our UCE community. Whether through shared plate, Mitten Trees past, Our Giving House donations, or supporting affordable housing programs, Connections has and will continue to be a meaningful partnership for us. Connections supports more than 1500 people a year – preventing homelessness, sheltering those in crisis, providing advocacy services, and fostering development of job and educational skills. 

 

Family Focus Evanston began in 1976 as the original drop-in center for parents in Evanston, Illinois. Forty years later, Family Focus continues to serve the Evanston community. Services available include early childhood home visiting, Family Advocacy Center, after school, Grandparents raising Grandchildren, and community partnership initiatives such as the Foster Street Urban Agriculture program. Family Focus, Inc. offers innovative, community-based programs that help parents, grandparents, and foster and adoptive parents gain confidence and competence as the primary educators of their children. 

Mitten Tree Update – 11/28/20252025-11-25T17:29:38+00:00

DLFF Newsletter – December 2025

DLFF Newsletter – December 2025 

Gratitude and Hope

As we end this month and our Soul Matter’s theme of Nurturing Gratitude, I am reflecting on the many things and people I am grateful for this year. My family and friends are the first that come to mind – both those alive and those who have died. They have helped make me who I am today with many lessons learned along the way. I also find myself grateful for little things each day, such as a tree with its crimson leaves still clinging to the branches, or a hot cup of chai on a chilly morning.

At UCE, there are so many people I’m grateful for! The staff, or course, is the best. They’re not only good at their jobs, they’re passionate, respectful, and joyful as they work with each other and the congregation. And in my little corner of it all, I have some dedicated people who care about our young people and make them feel welcomed and a part of UCE life. 

As we celebrate friends and family and all we’re grateful for, I invite you to add to our gratitude tree in the lobby if you haven’t yet done so. You can find a basket of paper leaves to write your gratitude on and then hang them on the tree in the corner of the reading nook.

As we look to a new month starting next week, our Soul Matters theme is Choosing Hope. With all that is going on in our area, the country, and the world, it is hard to feel any hope at all. The cold and dreary days certainly don’t help either. UCE, on the other hand, helps so much! I have heard many stories in the past couple of weeks when someone shared how meaningful our community is and how it gives them hope. 

Christmas is certainly a time of hope for many with the promise of the shining star and the baby in the manger to bring peace and joy to all. As you can see in this newsletter, there is much happening at UCE to be grateful and hopeful for; Cocoa, Carols, and Community, Ornament Sunday, the Christmas Pageant, Christmas Eve worship, and many ways to make a difference in the world through our committees and community partnerships.

In closing, I wish to share this poem from our Soul Matters Sharing Circle by Julián Jamaica Soto:

We Hold Hope Close 

In this community, we hold hope close. We don’t
always know what comes next, but that cannot dissuade us.
We don’t always know just what to do, but that will not mean
that we are lost in the wilderness. We rely on the certainty
beneath, the foundation of our values and ethics. We
are the people who return to love like a North Star and to
the truth that we are greater together than we are alone.
Our hope does not live in some glimmer of an indistinct future.
Rather, we know the way to the world of which we dream,
and by covenant and the movement forward of one right action
and the next, we know that one day we will arrive at home.

With Gratitude,

Kathy

DLFF Newsletter – December 20252025-11-25T16:46:46+00:00

Sunday, November 30, 2025

Until We Are All Free

This Sunday’s service is a haunting meditation on what happens to the human soul when it is caged. Keith Talley with the Unitarian Universalist Prison Ministry of Illinois (UUPMI) leads our service this Sunday with Rev. Susan Frances, worship associate Sally Parsons, and pianist Gregory Shifrin.

Keith Talley (him/him) is a system-impacted Muslim leader working at the crossroads of reentry, faith, and narrative justice. He serves as Prison Solidarity Specialist with the Unitarian Universalist Prison Ministry of IL, Reentry Program Coordinator at Phalanx Family Services, and Founder & CEO of Revolutionary Reentry Hub. Introduced to UUPMI through the Pen Pal Program while caged, Keith found not a call to conversion, but a deep alignment of values. Today, he works to build bridges between spiritual traditions and to transform how we see and stand with those returning from prison.

MASKS ARE REQUIRED AT THIS SERVICE to create space for in-person community time with our immunocompromised members and friends.

Today’s offering will be shared with the Unitarian Universalist Prison Ministry of Illinois in its effort to equip UU’s in Illinois to ​transform institutions and partner with people harmed by the prison industrial complex. 

Upcoming Services

December 7th – Hope in the Darkness – Rev. Eileen

December 14th – Music Sunday – UCE Choir led by Vickie Hellyer

December 21st – Pageant Sunday – Kathy Underwood

December 28th – Living Faithfully – Dr. Emma Farrell

 

Sunday, November 30, 20252025-11-26T18:52:14+00:00

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Evanston

1330 Ridge Ave
Evanston, IL 60201
Directions

(847) 864-1330
uce@ucevanston.org

UCE’s office hours:

Monday: CLOSED
Tuesday: 10 AM – 12:30 PM, 1:30 PM – 4 PM
Wednesday: 10 AM – 1 PM
Thursday: 10 AM – 12:30 PM, 1:30 PM – 4 PM
Friday: 10 AM – 1 PM
Saturday: CLOSED
Sunday: 10 AM – 1 PM

In-person and Virtual Sunday Service is held at 10:30 am.

Become A Member

Member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association covenant to affirm and promote the Seven Principles of Unitarian Universalism.

The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Evanston is recognized by the Unitarian Universalist Association as a Welcoming Congregation, a Peace Advocate Congregation, and a Green Sanctuary.

E-mail Newsletter Sign-Up

Connect

Go to Top