Volume 2018 Number 5
Kukui Lamalama
The Annual Meeting - A Summary
The annual meeting may not have been as exciting as the academy awards but it was well-attended by almost half of our membership wearing clean and tasteful clothing. The emcee for the afternoon was Nancy Schildt, president, with Martina Queenth recording the event and Jim Cooper on Sound. David Hafner should have gotten an Emmy award for his parliamentarian skills. Many others counted and commented. Gourmet sandwiches were provided by Safeway. Our body and soul and executive function were nourished. Thank you to the Board and everyone who helped make this meeting worthy of an award for JOB WELL DONE. Summary of what passed; Bylaws changes: Membership requires a pledge of record, Terms of elected President and Vice-President max. 2 years Endowment Funds no longer require an annual audit We voted to change the Social Justice Council by-laws so that renewal of existing resolutions only require consensus of the Council (not the congregation). We voted to rejoin FACE: Faith and Action for Community Equity. This is a coalition of churches working together on local social justice issues. This group would like to know all our top priority issues so they can create a force in numbers. You will all be contacted individually about your priority issue. Catherine Graham is our liaison. Mahalo Catherine and all who attended the FACE workshop last month. The Budget was passed. Thanks especially to Sue Yamane Carpenter and Mike Mottl for many hours of work on this. Elections were done by “secret” ballot and everyone on the slate was elected. Thanks to the nominating committee for working diligently on this. Please read the Annual Report for a summary of all Committee/Team reports for 2017/18 and detailed budget. A copy is on our website as well as in a red binder in the Fred Harper (leather couch area) room at church. - Nancy Schildt, President
The Magazine of the First Unitarian Church of Honolulu May 2018
If you would like to help with the next Work Party, it is scheduled for Saturday, June 2 from 1:00 - 5:00 p.m. and you would be welcome. The Young Families regular potluck supper will follow the Work Party.
New Church Banner
On Wednesday, May 2nd 2018 at 7:00 pm Fred Harper Room, we discussed Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann. Upcoming: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Outgoing Banner
Articles (from members or other UU leaders) submitted to the church magazine will be selected on the basis of their informative and/or inspirational nature or value to the life and ministry of this congregation. The editor has the authority to make the decision to not include a submission. Print versions of the magazine will be limited to selected 4 (or 8 back to back) pages.
If you are ready to experience being listened to and connecting with others in a way you may yet to have experienced in your life, join a Chalice Circle. For further information, contact Carla Allison: cbm@hawaii.rr.com or 396-1488. Locations, Dates and Times: Hawaii Kai: 2nd & 4th Mondays @6:30 - 8:30 p.m. Nu'uanu: 1st & 3rd Tuesdays @10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Kailua: 2nd & 4th Saturdays @3:00 - 5:00 p.m. Kaka'ako: 2nd & 4th Mondays @6:30 - 8:30 p.m. Lower Manoa: 1st & 3rd Mondays @6:30 - 8:30 p.m. Mililani: 1st & 3rd Mondays @6:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Chalice Circles
Index
Annual Meeting 1 New Church Banner 2 Book Club News 2 Work Party 3 Chalice Circles 3 May Services 4 A.D.O.R.E. 5 Workshop Summary 5 T.J.'s Message 6 Gallery on the Pali 7 Art News 7
Editorial Policy
Book Club News
The new banner reflects our mission. The reverse side states our mission in ‘olelo Hawai’i. The new design is based on Jonipher Kwong’s and Brennon Simcock’s t-shirt design for our church. Quilt artist Margaret Teruya and member Nancy Schildt created this new banner. It will be displayed in our sanctuary when it is not being taken to the UU General Assembly every year in June.
Our Home Needs Your Help!
May 20th - Ka'ahumanu The Worship Team Our worship team presented an original dramatic work by local playwright, Carol Polcovar: In the time before foreign merchants and determined missionaries arrived in great numbers, Hawaiians developed their own culture and history. Contact with the outside world brought deep changes in the lives of the Hawaiian people. This play was about one of these changes. After the death of Kamehameha, two powerful and very different Hawaiian Queens, Ka’ ahumanu and Keopuolani, met and discussed the future of their nation. This is a piece of history that focuses on culture, power and feminism. It is a history that should not be lost.
Rev. Christian's Workshop
May 27th - The Beginning of Love Rev. Jan Christian In 2005, an email connected Rev. Christian to Marines who served with her brother, who was killed in Vietnam. Her subsequent journey with them has taken her to Marine Corps reunions, to her childhood home, and to rice paddies in Vietnam. In honor of Memorial Day, she explored some of the lessons she learned along the way.
May 6th: Tell the Story - Part 1 May 13th: Tell the Story - Part 2 After sharing his personal story with the congregation, Rev. T.J. Fitzgerald closed the second service with the following: "When I closed my eyes and peered into the valley of the shadow of death, I could not ever have known we would be together today. When I saw the words of the prophetic people set forth together, bound in moral fusion, in a new vision for loving one another better, I could not ever have known we would be together today. And as we look together upon this day, as we hold our past, what brought us here today, and as we glimpse the future, where we may go, may we all stop asking, “Why not me?” May we cease from wondering, “Why not you?” And may we answer the only question that matters, “Why not us?” And that is the story we must tell. "
On May 27, 11:30-2:30, the A.D.O.R.E. (A Dialogue on Race and Ethnicity) group viewed and discussed the powerful film, “Mudbound.” The film depicts the lives of two families, black and white, living in the Mississippi Delta during WWII, and how the odious effects of systemic racism pervades every aspect of their daily lives, including their relationship with each other. The new, more progressive views of race that the young soldiers bring back from their wartime experiences abroad, bring love and danger in the Jim Crow South. For our July 22nd and August 26th A.D.O.R.E. meetings, we will discuss the book, "So You Want To Talk About Race," by Ijeoma Oluo. Ms. Oluo, gives honest and powerful insights, along with practical advice regarding building bridges with real communication. She brings the reader to a whole new level of crucial understanding, an understanding that will help us to move forward in fixing our broken country. We encourage you to get this book and read it carefully, so that we will be able to engage in meaningful discussions about its various insights and ideas. - Jill Rabinov
May Services
A.D.O.R.E.
On May 26th, a small group of members gathered for a potluck dinner followed by a fun , interactive workshop with Rev. Jan Christian. Participants experienced "voting with our feet" and a "fishbowl" technique for sharing and listening to one another. Key points that were shared included information adapted from the work of the Center for Courage and Renewal, which is based on the work of Parker Palmer: Let us practice a holy or glad curiosity. When the going gets rough, turn to wonder. Ask openhearted questions aimed at increasing understanding and honoring the inner wisdom of the other person. Listen to understand rather than to form a response. Seek right-relationship over being right. Rev. Christian also shared: "Notes on Dialogue (from Essential Partners): Behind every belief is a person with a story. What's yours?" She then shared the following thoughts: Stuck conversations result in stuck stories which result in stuck relationships. Opening up new ways to be in conversation helps us become unstuck. Skillful questions invite stories, hear, and complexity.
Dennis Daniel
An exhibition of batik art, O'ahu panorama photography, and digital designs by Marshall Heaney is now showing from May 15, 2018, through June 9, 2018, at Kalapawai Cafe, 750 Kailua Road, Kailua. Kalapawai Cafe is open 7 days a week from 7 AM to 9 pm. Marshall's work features abstract and stylized batiks in vibrant colors along with panorama photographs of Kailua Beach, Waimanalo, and Sandy Beach. For more information call Marshall at 951-788-8327 or visit the artist's website: www.hawaiilovesart.com
Waimanalo Cliffs
T.J.'s Message: Short Days Ago
2018 marks a century since the end of the first World War, the Great War, The War to End All Wars. This last moniker, The War to End All Wars, is today often used as an indictment of the state of militarism around the globe. What stood once as the hopeful message to those suffering the trauma of ongoing bloodshed has now fallen into line as yet another example of what should rightly be called a tragedy. And though we will rightly hold dear to us the sacred trust and actions of those who so selflessly gave entirely of themselves in the passing days, we should also remember the separate tragedy of this unmet hope, this yet unanswered prayer. For this year marks the centennial of another, more humble passing. It was on January 28, 1918 when a little-known Canadian physician succumbed to pneumonia amid the battlefields where so many of those he cared for had passed. Our doctor saw a lot in his day. Once on the battlefield, as the highest-ranking officer in a camp, he was obliged to preside over a funeral rite for fallen soldiers, including his close friend and confidant Alexis Helmer. And it was for that funeral rite that our doctor, Dr. John McCrae, wrote this: In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the dead, short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields. Our island holds so many reminders of how a nation might come to be involved in global warfare: the buzzing of aircraft unlike any a civilian will ever occupy, signs and gates marking the guarded entry to military fortresses, the presence of once mighty ships sunken in shallow waters holding still the bodies of too many souls. But more powerful than any of these reminders are the faces set below the brim of a uniform hat. Short days ago, these were children. To me many of them still are. They are all, indeed, someone’s child. It is this week perhaps when I notice all the more the bloom of youth around this island dressed in the trappings of war. It is this week perhaps when I listen all the more to those I love who were lost to raging battles. And it is this week perhaps when I am dedicated all the more to the unfinished work of peacemakers. I pray all the more, I plead all the more, in the sight of a century’s lost children, that we take up the torch from failing hands, that we fulfill the faith of those who died, that we together, one day and forever, might lay down every sword and every shield, and study war no more. - Rev. T. J.
Gallery Hours: Tuesday through Friday 9 am - 2 pm, and Sundays 9 am to 1 pm. (Closed Monday and Saturday) For more information, please call the First Unitarian Church Office at (808) 595-4047 or e-mail Gallery@UnitariansofHI.org
Impressions of Paradise celebrates the Hawai'i 'aina with paintings created by Dennis Daniel through his vision, interpretation and artistic expression. Daniel says "My paintings of paradise are sometimes idealistic, but always show an honest respect for this land that is Hawai'i." The exhibition ran from April 15, 2018 through May 31, 2018.
Art by Marshall
Gallery on the Pali - Impressions of Paradise
First Unitarian Church of Honolulu A Welcoming Unitarian Universalist Church
Submission Deadline: The deadline for both hard and electronic copy for the Magazine is noon on the third Sunday of the month. Bring hard copy submissions to the church office; email electronic copy to: Magazine@unitariansofhi.org Section Word Limits: Please limit your copy to 100 - 200 words. N.B. The editors may edit any submission for content, length, and/or clarity. Mailing Policy: All members and friends with email addresses registered on our website will receive an email notification when the newsletter is uploaded and ready to view. If a member does not have an email address, paper copies of the Magazine are available at the church for Oahu-based members. The Magazine will be mailed to any member or friend upon request and following payment of the subscription fee. Mail Subscriptions: The Magazine subscription fee is $20.00 per year payable in advance . The subscription year runs January to December. New subscriptions will be prorated on a quarterly basis. Publisher: Nancy Schildt Editor and Composition: Jane Raissle Distribution: Suzette Tom
Publication Information
Return Service Requested 2500 Pali Highway Honolulu, HI 96817 Phone: (808) 595-4047 Office Hours: Tuesday - Friday 9:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Web: www.unitariansofhi.org Twitter: UUHonolulu Facebook: First Unitarian Church of Honolulu
