August 2014
August 3, 2014
Come As You Are:
The Size of Your Soul
Rev. Mykal Slack
August 10, 2014
Robot Parrots at the
Statehouse
Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen
August 17, 2014
Archetypes and Symbols as Life Guides
Rev. Lilia Cuervo
August 24, 2014
The Air We Breathe
Rev. Mykal Slack
August 31, 2014
Labor in the Pulpit
Rev. Lilia Cuervo
& Paul Drake
Annual Reports due
September 15
All Committee chairs, Task
Force leaders and Program
Group leaders are asked to submit their Annual Report for 2013-2014 to Carol
Lewis no later than Noon on
Monday, September 15.
Email your report to Carol at office@firstparishcambridge.
org. Please send the report as an attachment to the email (preferably a Word document). Contact Carol with any questions.
1 Chester Middlebrook Pierce is Emeritus Professor of Education and
Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He was the first African-American full professor at Massachusetts General Hospital, and is past-president of the
American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and the American Orthopsychiatric
Association. He is a fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Science.
My last Newsletter contained a definition and some comments regarding cultural competency which elicited a flurry of affirming, emphatic, and otherwise-very-interesting comments.
To all of you who took the time to read my article, and to communicate your impressions either via email, phone or during social hour, I send my deepest gratitude.
Today, I am writing about a concept that is becoming increasingly current and which is a primary element in the understanding and practice of cultural competency. I am referring to Microaggression. The term was coined by Dr.
Chester M. Pierce.
1 According to Pierce, “the chief vehicles for proracist behaviors are microaggressions. These are subtle, stunning, often automatic, and nonverbal exchanges which are
‘put-downs’ of blacks by offenders.” However, as experience shows, microaggession is also common in interactions with all sorts of other traditionally marginalized people: women, LGBT persons, religious minorities, people with disabilities, multiracial persons, Little People, immigrants, and so on.
Microaggressions are difficult to detect and understand since they can sneak up on us, easily disguised as compliments, or as innocent comments, and even as jokes based usually on negative stereotypes. Take for example: a person of average stature patting a 40 year old Little Woman on the head and saying to her, “Oh, you are so cute, so adorable;” a Unitarian
Universalist man telling me: “My goodness, you must be so intelligent to be a UU minister. Isn’t this intellectual religion difficult to understand for Latinos?.” Our own Karin Lin was the object of a typical microaggression during GA 2011 when a vendor, noting Karin’s impressive mental arithmetic ability, said:
I don’t want to stereotype, but you’re some kind of Asian, right?
So, math is, like, in your DNA? (continued on pg. 2)

The Meetinghouse News
Associate Minister’s Reflections
(Continued from page 1)
In her beautiful article “How It Happens” 2 , where Karin narrates the whole episode and
July 2014 its consequences on her spirit, she writes,
We cannot simply ask people of color to be patient and understand when they encounter racial insensitivity. Such a request ignores our pain and leaves the burden of reconciliation where it has been for far too long, on the shoulders of the marginalized.
But neither can we label as fundamentally bad all those who inadvertently cause pain out of ignorance. To do so is to concede victory to the forces that seek to divide us.
We must harness the power of love and trust
in its ability to hold us. So very well put,
Karin!
By bringing the subject of microaggression to your attention, my intent is to make us
2
The shared offering recipient for August is
Food for Free. Based in Cambridge, Food for
Free rescues fresh food – food that might otherwise go to waste – and distributes it within the local emergency food system
(including our own Tuesday Meals Program) where it can reach those in need.
Through a combination of food rescue, farming, and transportation services, Food for Free gives food programs year round access to fresh fruits and vegetables, while their delivery program brings food directly to isolated seniors and people with disabilities.
Food for Free programs address not only short term hunger, but obesity, diet-related disease and other long term health effects of food insecurity and poor nutrition.
In addition, food rescue – also called salvage or gleaning – reduces food waste.
More information is available on their website, foodforfree.org
more comfortable with another aspect of multiculturalism within the context of our increasingly aware and caring congregation.
We do not need to try to be too careful or to be afraid to interact with those we perceive as different from us. Far from it! The sooner we learn where the main pitfalls in the work of multiculturalism lie, the sooner we can avoid them, and the easier it will be to practice our Seven Principles. We are not alone. Together, we will continue questing after the noble and compassionate ideal of becoming a truly multicultural beloved community. Don’t we, with great determination reaffirm every Sunday our covenant with one another and all we hold sacred to answer the call of love, welcoming
all people into the celebration of life …? Let us continue on our way, despite how difficult the journey might be at times and despite how far the goal might appear.
Let it be so
Lilia.
The Rev. Lilia Cuervo invites friends and acquaintances of Justin Koser to send a word of hope and encouragement to him at the following address:
Justin Koser #121987
Middlesex Sheriff’s Office
269 Treble Cove Rd.
Billerica, MA 01862
Please make sure you have placed a hand written return address on the top left corner of the envelope; stickers will be removed. You should not write or place anything else on the outside of the envelope.
Visitors are also welcome. If you want to visit Justin, please contact Jennie
Blodgett at 781-775-2567. Jennie is coordinating his visits
2 Quest. Vol. LXIX, No. 7. July/August 2014. Page 3. www.clfuu.org.

The Meetinghouse News July 2014
The possibilities for growth in our communities of faith are endless. This is true, not in spite of who we are and all we bring, but because of it…ALL OF IT! The key to growth begins with abiding relationships with each other and with the Holy, as well as a deeper understanding of the acceptance and encouragement articulated in our third principle. Taking a closer look at the themes of paradise and paradox that came out of the previous Sunday’s worshipful discussions,
Rev. Mykal Slack will preach the third and final part of this series.
Join in spirit-filled worship- we'll explore the gifts of whimsy, imagination and playfulness
- how they can nourish our spirits and strengthen our justice work. Worship will be led by First Parish Cambridge's
Affiliate Community Minister,
Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen.
Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen is a Midwesterner and
In his famous poem “The Guest House”,
Rumi advises to “Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond”. This Sunday I will share how, by adopting certain archetypes and some symbols from nature as my guides, I was able to negotiate drastic upheavals and even tragedy in my life, and turn them into welcome guests and sources of valuable experience. Rev. Lilia Cuervo preaches.
Worship means many things to many people and has been reconsidered and reimagined in many ways in the context of Unitarian
Universalism. Reflecting on his experiences and understanding of worship in our community and as a way of life, Rev. Mykal
Slack will preach his last sermon as a staffed worship leader at First Parish in
Cambridge.
3
lifelong Unitarian Universalist who gets excited about fresh produce, the Wisconsin
Badgers, and communities organizing.
Currently, she lives in Boston and serves in community ministry as the director of programs and inclusion at Boston
Mobilization, a nonprofit that supports youthled social justice work. She is a affiliated with First Parish in Cambridge. She is on the board of Unitarian Universalist Community
Cooperatives, the parent organization of the
Lucy Stone Cooperative, a UU affordable housing co-op in Roxbury’s Dudley Square and on the Massachusetts Bay District
Board.
This Sunday, First Parish will once again join hundreds of churches of all faiths across the country to honor workers and their labor.
Together with the Massachusetts Interfaith
Committee for Worker Justice (MICWJ) we will celebrate the recent victories for workers and will renew our commitment to continue striving for just compensation, dignity, and safety in the work place.
Rev. Lilia Cuervo and Paul Drake lead.

The Meetinghouse News July 2014
I’ll admit it, I am tired of hearing reports that religion is dead, that science is the only truth for this age, that the “nones,” those who have not claimed any religion on their surveys, are the wave of the future. I was glad to hear these images because they have a vision for our future as a religion.
Yeast and Fox Terriers are images of ones who cause change. They honor the people already in the room as scrappy, feisty, small but potent. Instead of urging us to grow, to fight the national trends of declining participation, or to become something we are not, they take who we currently are and illustrate our best possible potential.
Rev. Howard Dana calls us to accept ourselves as we are:
4
This past month I have been to General
Assembly and Ferry Beach RE Week, where
UUs from all over gather to share ideas and spark creativity in our movement. I heard several exciting new metaphors for Unitarian
Universalists. At General Assembly we were described as yeast. And at an ordination for a friend of mine, we were called to be like
Fox Terriers. These images caught me because they had something in common.
What I think they have in common is hope. rival the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the
Mormons. Our fierce tenacity would nip at the heels of anyone who threatened to take away another person’s dignity.
But even more important that all of this—if we decided we could be the
“Fox Terrier” of American religion, our sanctuaries would fill with people who wanted their lives to change. Tears and shouts of praise would burst out in worship. Brokenness and despair would find comfort within our walls. Wounds would heal. People would rely on one another. Greed and selfishness would vanish. Truth would trump posturing.
And love would put to flight all fears. If you want to see transformation, try this
in church.
I was so proud to hear this call, this urging for a powerful worship life, because I think we at First Parish are already moving in this direction. When we made the hard choice to include that phrase in our mission, “heals brokenness” – an image that, yes, calls us broken – we also made the choice to acknowledge that healing is possible inside our walls. Just a few years ago, we wrote ourselves into a new future, one that calls us
If we really decided to be the “Fox
Terrier” of American religion, there is not a congregation in this country— liberal or conservative, Jewish or
Christian or Muslim—that would not know our name. There would not be a city council chamber or a school board meeting or a zoning hearing in America that didn’t have at least one or two of us there to speak up for our values. No community of color would have to wonder if we were their friends or not.
No group of queer folks would ever need to question if the UU’s were going to show up to help them. If we were the “Fox Terrier” of American religion, our constant barking would to be like a Fox Terrier, or yeast. A future that holds this potent ability to change lives.
I am proud of our energetic, highly concentrated selves. The world is catching up with us, learning that in order to carry things further, you need to distill them down so you can carry their essence with you for the trip. You want to pack light when you’re camping, and we are indeed camping on this earth together. And we still have a ways to go. If we are Fox Terriers and yeast, thankfully, we will have plenty of energy for the long haul.
In faith,
Mandy

The Meetinghouse News July 2014 5
Mass Peace Action invites youth and families to
“Boston Remembers Hiroshima: Moving from Violence to Unity”
Wednesday, August 6, 3:00 – 5:00 PM
Remembrance and action to build a non-violent world free of the atrocities of nuclear weapons. 69 years later, it’s time to fund jobs in Boston’s communities — not militarism and violence
 Assembly and Invocation: First Church in Boston, Berkeley & Marlborough Streets
 Procession through Public Garden, Boston Common, past State House
 Ceremony at Boston City Hall: o o
Tina Chery, Louis D. Brown Peace Institute
“Soran Bushi” Japanese Dancers o Taiko Drumming ~ Music by Pat Scanlon
Sponsored by Massachusetts Peace Action, Dorchester People for Peace, Veterans for
Peace/Smedley Butler Brigade, Bikes Not Bombs, American Friends Service Committee.
Download and share the flyer: Boston Remembers Hiroshima
Contact: Massachusetts Peace Action, www.masspeaceaction.org
/ 617-354-2169
Religious Education Pool Party
Join us for the annual RE Pool Party at the home of Rev. Lilia
Cuervo on Saturday, August 16 at Noon.
Please bring: swimsuit, towel, music to share, and lunch.
Snacks and drinks will be provided.
For questions or directions, contact assocminister@firstparishcambridge.org
.
We offer our sincere condolences to our Sexton, Roland
Ellies, who has suffered two difficult personal losses this summer. Roland’s daughter, Aja was the victim of a domestic violence situation in June and his father, Ronald died on July 10.
Many people have asked how to support Roland through this difficult time. Of course, cards and other condolences messages are appreciated. Send them to Roland via the church address. In addition, we will be collecting donations, through the month of August, for Transition House, a local
Cambridge agency that offers care and support for those overcoming the trauma of family and partner violence.
Checks may be sent to Carol Lewis. Please make checks payable to First Parish an indicate Aja Robinson Memorial in the memo line. If you have any questions contact Carol at
617-876-7772 or office@firstparishcambridge.org.
Pastoral Care
The Pastoral Associates, supported by Circle of
Care volunteers, help to provide care to First
Parish members and friends during times of need by providing meals, rides, and other help.
The Pastoral
Associate in August is
Otto O’Connor.
You can contact Otto at pastoralcare@ firstparishcambridge.org.

The Meetinghouse News July 2014 6
From the Environmental Justice Task Force
The Unitarian Universalists are divesting!
Five official delegates and several other First
Parish members were at the UU General
Assembly in Providence on June 28 when the vote to divest from fossil fuels was taken. It was a landslide victory.
The victory was a culmination of the effort
First Parish undertook in 2013, when, following a series of meetings and coffee hour discussions, the congregation voted unanimously at the June 2, 2013 semiannual meeting to divest our church’s endowment. That vote influenced many other congregations, and in the year following, members of the Environmental
Justice Task Force spoke with people from a number of churches, by phone or at forums; strategized with other UU climate activists; and worked both to get divestment on the
GA ballot (Fred Small helped negotiate the
Nationally, the fossil fuel divestment movement is growing, and the faith community has taken the lead. Among others, the United Church of Christ, Union
Theological Seminary and the World Council of Churches have voted to divest, as have many Episcopal dioceses, Quaker yearly meetings, and Presbyterian churches.
Many municipal governments and foundations and eleven colleges and universities have also voted to divest.
There is still a lot we can and should do. We can work with others to persuade the
Massachusetts legislature to support divesting the state pension fund. We can join efforts at other colleges and pension plans, and we can reach out to other faith groups. As the divestment movement grows, so will our moral and political power to tackle the outsized influence of the fossil final wording) and to ensure its passage. We helped staff an information booth at GA, answering questions and urging a positive vote. All of that work paid off in a big way. fuel industry.
Even though we don't present public programs during the summer, Cambridge Forum is still busy. This is the time for the essential, but not flashy behind-the-scenes work that keeps an organization going.
So we survey our stake-holders. You can respond to the survey through the link on our website www.cambridgeforum.org
We plan for next season's programs. Our general program theme next year will look at the health of American democracy, especially the struggle to balance our strong strain of individualism with our traditional of community and communal action. You can add your suggestions for specific topics or speakers through the survey!
And we start fund-raising. Our programs are free, but they are not cheap—to borrow a phrase from public radio. And it is to you, our founding stake-holders, that we turn first for support. Cambridge Forum does not have a line-item in First Parish's budget. And we have seen revenue from sales of books, tapes, and CDs decline dramatically over the past five years as free on-line programming has grown. We love the extra reach that YouTube and podcasts give our message of social justice, and we hope that you do too.
Please consider translating that pride of ownership in Cambridge Forum into a gift of support.
Click here to use our secure Paypal link.
And look for your full schedule of fall programs at the end of the month!
Pat Suhrcke, Director
Pat Suhrcke
Director

The Meetinghouse News July 2014
7
Paine Senior Services is fortunate to have been chosen by the Cambridge Licensing Advisory Board (CLAB) as beneficiaries of the 2014 Taste of Cambridge. This means that we will receive some of the proceeds from this year’s event to fund our project entitled “Experience Recovery.”
The project provides intentional outreach to Cambridge seniors who are in recovery from substance use disorders to provide case management in areas of their life which are added stressors. To learn more about the project, contact
Executive Director, Liz Aguilo, at 617-864-2580. Thank you CLAB!
We thank our volunteers: Caitlin Healey, Helene Quinn, Annie
Fowler, Liz Seelman, Amy Bernstein, Cassie Cramer, Katie, Heather
Benjamin.
We also thank those who offered to help but couldn’t make the rain date: Laura Estan, Maureen Harty, Andrew Sabine, Elizabeth Kline, and Grace Hall.
If you would like more information about Paine Senior Services or are interested in supporting the work we do, please contact Executive Director Liz Aguilo, 617-864-2580.