Common but beautiful… Red Wing Blackbird.

How is your spirit?

This week, as we trudge into the third month of this time of isolation and global health crisis, I’m hearing and reading more and more about how challenging this time is for relationships, for parenting, for teens, and for elderly people.

These are challenges that go beyond the obvious ones of unemployment, financial insecurity, food shortages, and illness.

Those of us who have been marginally affected but mostly inconvenienced may feel guilty if we complain. But feeling that we don’t have the right to sadness, even despair, adds another layer to a complex and even convoluted emotional terrain. We may feel that we don’t deserve to be depressed: after all, we have food, shelter and adequate protection.

Dear friends, loved ones, in this time, we all must grieve.

Those of us who are older may be grieving the loss of precious time with grandchildren, times of connection and creativity, travel that nourishes and inspires us, freedom to move about in this elegant unfolding of spring and summer.

In the congregation I served in New Jersey, a couple in their early eighties were birders who shared their knowledge with me and others. Our church was near the Forsythe National Wildlife Area, and we met there in early mornings so they could teach me how to spot, identify and learn the calls of the shorebirds that lived there as well as the thousands who migrated through each year. They were “life-listers” and had traveled the world, even leaving their jobs for a year to journey to remote vistas to “collect” sightings of rare and hard-to-spot species. One Spring they’d planned a trip when our church was having an event, and they were telling me how sorry they’d be to miss it.

“I don’t know how many springs I have remaining,” the man said to me. He meant both how many, and how few he imagined he’d be able to see, hear and hike to the birds.

I think this is the kind of grief I feel and maybe some of you do, as well. We don’t know how many seasons we have left, and we must properly grieve all that we have lost and will lose. It’s not wrong or bad to feel sad for yourself. It’s a way of letting go.

You will return to life again.

And, it’s fine to be frustrated, discouraged, even depressed. If the low feelings last for weeks and you are having trouble sleeping, eating, or functioning, please reach out to a counselor or health care provider for help. Let us know, if you can, so we can help you weather these actual and metaphorical storms. We need you, not just in your joy, but in your sorrow. Just as joy and sorrow are interwoven in each of us, and make us whole, so it is with community.

You are not alone. You are loved. You are precious to me and to one another.

Hang on, reach out, be gentle with one another and with yourself.

Love, Cynthia

The Atlantic City, NJ skyline, seen from the Edwin B. Forsythe Wildlife Refuge. Osprey in nest. This and the Cape May refuge are two of the top bird migration spots in the world.

Whenever Eric runs a quick (and protected) errand to the pharmacy or grocery, he comes back and says It’s so strange out there. I haven’t been far from my house and it’s easy for me to see, on our 26-acre property that spring 2020 did not get the memo about hiding, stopping, or wearing a mask. She has revealed herself in the usual glorious unfolding, and the difference is that many of us have the time and the inclination to watch more closely.

We have a hidden clearing in our woods where, always on May 1st, an array of irises bloom each year. They aren’t your typical irises, though. They are dwarf irises, tiny but complete. I always think of them as the kids of the grown-up irises that grow elsewhere.

We’ve owned our farm for almost 15 years, but I’ve missed the bloom numerous times. I may have been traveling, or, like last year, unable to hike into the woods to find them because I was having a hip replacement May 1st. But other times I was just too busy.

It seems to me completely incredible that I could have been too busy! But there you have it. And yet, I know the irises were still blooming even with no appreciative onlooker. I think our faith is like this. Whether you believe in the God of your understanding; the goodness of your fellow humans; or just the inevitable unfolding of time in eternity, you must not miss being surprised by the gifts of this Universe. I love seeing Lillie and Alice popping in and out of our Zoom services. I treasure the little piece of art Sandy sent me with some homemade masks. I’ve received some emails and notes from you that are precious to me.

I hope (and intend) that when I return in the flesh (no I am not Jesus), I can express more adequately how grateful I am to work and play with you, and I encourage you to take a moment each day to express your gratitude for the little surprises of life and our faith community that may be hidden from us in our busyness but revealed in the spaciousness that is now our reality.

I’m not able to make as many calls as I’d like to. But please text me or email me if you need to talk and we shall set something up. For other needs, remember that our Pastoral Care team is still active and will be available as they are able with restrictions in place.

And, finally, I am so grateful to GNUUC for acting quickly to ensure that our Staff will continue to be compensated as we work for you from a distance. Please know that maintaining or increasing your pledge now will ensure that our physical plant and your sanctuary of place and faces shall be there for you, as soon as it is safe!

Love and gratitude to all,

Cynthia

Happy Earth Day!

Not only is today earth day; it’s the 50th anniversary of earth day! Do you recall the first one? I was 15, so I’m sure I was aware of it, but I didn’t feel like it really affected me. From where I lived and moved, the earth looked fine. Even years later, when I was in my early thirties and took an 8 week trip around the USA with my two (then young) sons, I clearly recall feeling so reassured by the vast and beautiful land, and I remember thinking that with all this wilderness, surely the earth could survive and thrive.

I never read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. I started recycling when it became mandatory. I wasn’t at all alarmed when the beaches I spent every summer enjoying would have clumps of oil and trash wash up some days. To me, there was pollution, but it was far off and couldn’t affect me.

This was my denial. I avoided things that were too fatalistic and grim about pollution and the consequences of overpopulation and climate change. But as I learned more, grew in wisdom and understanding, and widened my horizons beyond my own limited perspective, I could no longer stay in the safe but artificial harbor.

We know so much more now, and we also know that climate change affects those who are underprivileged and disenfranchised the most. And that’s true here in the good old USA, too. Like the recent tornado in our city, like this pandemic, it is the homeless, the poor, and people of color who are being most affected, who do not have the resources to change things.

We must be the ones who help move the needle for those who can not. “There is no hierarchy of oppressions,” Audre Lorde taught us. People of color, immigrants, those with mental illness, and homeless people are feeling the trickle-down effects of our lust, greed, and willful ignorance.

It’s painful and frightening to face the worst effects and the potential destruction of climate change. Part of that pain comes from our despair at how little we can help. May this time of radically slowed commerce and movement be a lesson that helps us change.

Click here for a wonderful piece by a UU minister

Love and hope to you on Earth Day. Yours, Cynthia

Dear Friends,

I spoke in my weekly video about a meeting I’ve been attending with local clergy and faith leaders and shared a question that we contemplated today.

Here’s the question:

Some have made reference to the city of Venice, Italy where the canals appear clean and free of pollution because the lack of travel on the waterways has allowed the silt to settle to the bottom.  The water is clear and some claim they have actually seen fish for the first time in many years.  So here’s the question, “What moments of clarity have you discovered over the past few weeks as you allow the murky, cloudy silt of every-day life to drain away?  What do you now see more clearly?  What daily complications have been removed that allow you to think and respond to others with greater insight?”

I would love to hear your responses! Reach me by email at cyncain@gnuuc.org or text me at 859 221 3034.

A group of us have been reading and discussing short stories. It started with the women’s covenant group, and let me tell you, there are some wise and thoughtful women in that group! I am learning as much as I’m teaching (but that’s nearly always the way).

Would you like to join in? We meet for about 45 minutes on Friday at noon CT. If you send me a text or an email, I will send you this week’s story, which is called Short Friday, and was written by Isaac Bashevis Singer. We welcome all GNUUC members who’d like to join!

This Sunday, I will begin by sharing some philosophical ideas about education. Even though I have aversion to much of what’s called “public education,” all four of my kids went to public school and I myself taught in a public high school for 5 years, and in a community college for about 3 years. In Kentucky I served on a “No Child Left Behind” initiative for years, and worked closely with statewide educators and superintendents… Please don’t think this is a reflection upon teachers! It is indeed the brilliant and devoted teachers who made public education worthwhile for my kids, two of whom were aces at that type of learning, and the oldest and youngest who are atypical. (Casey was never diagnosed, but he hated to read and couldn’t spell, and had anxiety about tests, so I suspect some learning disability was there.) It’s really the philosophy that undergirds the American education system that I find harmful. I believe kids can benefit from public school so long as they are also homeschooled and unschooled. I’ll say more about that on Sunday, as well as a bit about education in the time of pandemic.

Then I will move to how this philosophy can apply to our situation today. What can be learned and how best can we learn?

One thing I deeply believe in is that being part of a congregation, especially a UU congregation, is vital for kids. The ability to interact across generations, and the way our RE programs encourage questioning and individuality have made all the difference in so many lives. I’ll say more about that, too.

I also want to tell you how much your leaders at GNUUC are doing! From getting the Sunday service online to taking care of the financial business to helping one another to stay in contact and have needs met, these folks are keeping the spirit and the presence of your congregation alive and well. You know who they are! Thank them and reward them by attending the service so they can see your face and hear your concerns. You can also make their hard work a bit lighter by contacting Jesse Spencer-Smith to renew and maybe even increase your annual pledge. We are entering the annual pledge campaign and it will be a bit more challenging than usual!

One thing I see clearly in these translucent waters i how incredibly fortunate I am to be serving this congregation.

Thank You & Love,

Cynthia

Greetings from Innisfree (that’s the name of my farm).

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

By William Butler Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

We called this place Innisfree because I’ve always loved the poet WB Yeats. When I went to Ireland, about eight years ago, I had hoped to visit the real Lake Isle of Innisfree. There were other places in Ireland that I’d dreamed about and imagined, primarily from literature. One was the Blasket Islands off the west coast. I made it to Dingle during my month’s time there, and I saw them from the mainland, but there were no regular transports to the Islands as it was still late winter. Nor could I get to the Aran Islands in Galway Bay, another place I’d come to love through words. The weather forbade it.

I did take a trip to Sligo by bus before I rented a car, and I stayed at a quiet and lovely Catholic retreat center. While there I was given a ticket for a play that some of the residents went to. I tried taking public transportation to Innisfree the following day, but there were no cars or taxis or buses going that way. I soon learned that Innisfree was a small, uninhabited island and that Yeats had never actually lived there.

Life is filled with disappointments and disillusionment. Yet it is also replete with grace-filled moments and unexpected delights, unearned good fortune.

I believe that there are forces for good as well as for depravity. Although this time of separation, fear, and loss can be seen as a dreadful time, there have been and will be moments of joy, humor, and resplendence. We are the fortunate ones who have the luxury of enough: enough to eat, enough shelter, and enough resources to weather these weeks and months. We even have the honor of being able to consider others and extend our love and care.

Try not to make assumptions about how things will be in the future. Stay with the not-knowing, the “beginner’s mind,” the quiet wondering and waiting. This can be our forty days (likely more) of wandering in the proverbial desert. This can be a time we shall recall with fond delight.

We can acknowledge that we don’t know what’s next, even though that is always true, and we try to deny it with our busyness and our compulsive planning.

As Easter approaches, I invite you to look back upon your life experiences and try to recall something special about Easters past. (Or about Passover, if that was or is your tradition.) Please drop me a note, via email or text, and tell me what you recall. Even better, dig out a photo that reminds you of a particular Easter. As a child, my family celebrated Easter in a secular way, with baskets, candy, dipped eggs, and egg and candy hunts. My brother hated the smell of vinegar and of hard-cooked eggs and he hid in his room. He hated candy, too, and we all lobbied to get some of his. My father (I now know!) wrote a note from the “Easter Bunny” in a cryptic hand. I remember sort of knowing that it was he who wrote it but trying to convince myself otherwise. As I get old(er) these snippets of pleasure come back to me, and I cherish them.

My kids have come to expect a bunny-shaped coconut cake that I’ve been making for at least 30 years. We also use the hard-boiled eggs to make a breakfast or creamed eggs over toast (no recipe, just make a white sauce and mix in the sliced eggs and add some salt and pepper).

Maybe you can leave a surprise on the porch of someone who is housebound? Maybe you can send a note or a card? Reach back in time or reach out in space to create a world of kindness and compassion.

I never got to Innisfree and I really don’t care anymore. In fact, it was not even what I thought it might be. Let life surprise and delight you, even as it undoes your careful planning.

My love to you all,

Cynthia

Dear GNUUC folks,

Here’s the poem I shared on the video:

“This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.

Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.

If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.”

― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

 In a Zoom meeting with about 14 Nashville religious leaders and a few professors, I listened as clergy, Jewish, Baptist and Methodist, shared from the heart about how they find faith in the time of travail. I wasn’t surprised, because I’ve long done Interfaith work (that’s how I met Dan Rosemergy almost 20 years ago), that most did not have absolute certainty about where or what God is, nor did they have answers to the deep and pressing questions of humanity. One pastor spoke about how he saw God in evolution and that he had in trust in humanity continuing to evolve and learn. Another shared that he was growing tired of the platitudes and aphorisms he was seeing on social media touting literal faith, getting likes for God or expressing certainty that if everyone prays at a certain time, the pandemic will be gone.

Another spoke about history, and was reflecting upon times of war (he’d been a chaplain in two wars) and suggested that the Army teaches soldiers to care about their fellow service people as much as about themselves. A fourth mentioned that some of the most fear-based responses he saw were coming from Christians.

I decided not to speak today, but if I’d shared, I would have said that even theistic UUs tend not to worship Jesus or to claim a personal God. However, I’d have told them, we have faith in humanity; we believe there is at least as much potential for good as for evil, and that we trust in reason, tolerance and freedom. We’re not people of the Book but we are people of all the books.

I’ve been percolating on some meaningful ways we at GNUUC can get together outside Sunday mornings and Zoom meetings. If I were to offer a Zoom discussion on some short stories and maybe later a novel, would you like to join in? We’d be discussing these works as literature but also our response to them as UUs.

If you’re interested let me know via email cyncain@gnuuc.org or text at 859 221 3034.

For now these will be GNUUC members only.

I miss you all greatly and look forward to being with you again!

With Love,

Cynthia

Before you read further, a note: An e-mail went to some of the GNUUC leadership and membership that was not from either of my email addresses but was pretending to be me. I will NEVER e-mail you to ask for money or anything else. Please do NOT open any emails from me or anyone in the congregation that does not have a gnuuc.org address!

Felicitations!

I decided to use an old-fashioned greeting since in some ways, we feel time has stopped and even gone backwards. I remember my mother’s siblings telling me about how they made it through the Great Depression. They moved from Nashville to Philadelphia in 1929. All the extended family lived in one row house (the six surviving siblings… the oldest, Maura, had died by then) and the wives and children of those who had spouses. The ones who could get work supported the rest of the family. And sometimes, when they’d tell me about this, they would sound nostalgic.

It hit me yesterday when my daughter, who had a very good salary running the events and visitor center for a small batch distillery, was laid off. She has a relatively expensive apartment (which would be cheap in Nashville!), a car payment, student loans and other expenses. Of course, we told her that we’d help but that if it got worse, she could move here to the farm with us. She and most American young adults have been able to live without the fear or anxiety that were very real a few generations ago. Despite my persistent efforts, I haven’t been able to get my adult children to start 401k accounts or to have an emergency fund. It’s too soon to tell whether Marjorie will emerge wiser for having faced adversity. I hope so.

Meanwhile, I am remembering the stories of my elders, the times in life when I was poor, lonesome, or frustrated, and I can think if the ways they made me more resilient and wiser, even when I couldn’t have known that at the time. Our parents called it building character. Maybe they were right!

All of this is to say that there are many ways of looking at the current situation, and they are largely determined by your experiences, your age, gender, nationality/culture, and your overall outlook on life. If you are chronically anxious, critical, or pessimistic, you will see the more dire scenarios. If you’re optimistic, self-aware, and reasonably often experience equanimity, you’ll be less distressed. None of these ways of being are exclusive of others, and none are inherently bad or wrong! Nor is it true that we can do nothing to change our outlook. We can, and I’ll be speaking with you about the wisdom that comes from creativity this Sunday.

To prepare for Sunday’s service, please take this survey:  ARE YOU A CULTURAL CREATIVE?

Meanwhile, know that I am here for and with you, and look forward to seeing everyone together as soon as it’s wise!

Love & Thanks,

Cynthia

The path to my hoped-for building site.

Hello from my isolation to yours!

 I am here in Kentucky at my farm. Seth is watching Monty Python and laughing. Eric is busy building porches and renovating our tiny house. We had planned to use some inheritance funds to build a house on the ridge of our land, but we decided it would be more sustainable to fix this one up. At first, I was disappointed, because since we bought this 25-acre farm, I’ve planned and expected to move out to the lower acreage, where it’s breezy even in hot weather and where the view is gorgeous year-round. I pictured spending my older years there, at least until it becomes impractical.

 But that particular dream is not to be. Losing something that you never had is nonetheless a trigger for grief. I went through a deep depression after my divorce thirty years ago, even though I was the one who left. It took me many years and much internal work to understand that I was grieving the loss of a future with my family intact. It doesn’t matter whether the loss was expected, celebrated, or sudden and devastating. The effects are much the same. Grief is different than depression. It’s necessary, and it ultimately makes us free. 

Is there a dream or a future you hoped or worked for, but must let go? It could be dancing, writing, travel, having a happy marriage or a big family. It could be a healthy old age or a good relationship with your grown children. Your deepest Wisdom will tell you, through your dreams, your health, and finally, if you don’t grieve, through depression. Isolation makes depression worse. If you notice signs of clinical depression worsening, please reach out. There are resources out there for everyone. What we can do for one another right now, when isolation is mandatory, when we cannot go to our exercise classes, our book groups, or our church services, is to keep our GNUUC community alive in spirit as well as body.

I’m working with your leaders and we all desperately want each of you to know we are here for you. If needed, I can be in Nashville in under 3 hours. There are younger, healthier members who can bring you things you may need. There is money that we can use to help you if you are out of work or financially challenged. We can also help you find the resources you may need.

Finally, as I’ve told you, my son Colin likes to tell the rest of us when we are gloomy, “Go help someone!” It’s annoying, but he’s right. It always works. If we can reach out, even in small ways, to others, we will feel better!

So, what I ask for you today is to help me and help one another. It’s difficult for me to make calls here because our cell connection is iffy. I will be calling a few people a day, but you can serve by calling one other person a day. If you aren’t comfortable calling, look at your GNUUC Directory and send someone that you don’t know well a note or card. Introduce yourself and tell them about you. Maybe they will write back!

If you find that the isolation is too much, if there are things you need or need help with, you can contact me by e-mail or by text or call (brief calls work fine) at cyncain@gnuuc.org OR (859) 221-3034.

I love you and I know we will get through this! We can do it with fear or love. Choose love.

Cynthia

Here are a few resources I recommend!

Calm is a meditation app that usually has a fee, but is providing music, stories (they are wonderful!), sleep and many other guided meditations. Click here for their free resources

If you’d like to try Zen practice or listen to a Dharma talk, check out Upaya Zen Center here.

The view from our yard out to the ridge and forests. Innisfree Farm