2021-05-27

Religious Education: May 27, 2021

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Religious Education & Faith Development
Community Unitarian Universalist Congregation at White Plains
May 27, 2021
2020-2021 Religious Education (RE) theme: JUSTICE & EQUITY
Supporting our young people in understanding justice issues, articulating their values, and engaging in faith in action with CUUC Social Justice teams. Also, supporting youth in developing healthy self-esteem and relationships. 
Sunday, May 30th
Worship 10:00am  

Rev. Meredith Garmon, “Why Remember?" 
100 years have passed since the Tulsa Massacre of 1921. We remember atrocities -- even if we feel in little danger of repeating them -- for many reasons. Because there is celebration amidst the grieving: that we, as a people, have survived even this. Because the seeds that produced past wrong are ever within the human breast and must be continually recognized and not ignored. Because the honoring of the lives lost, and their accomplishments, assures evil's triumph is not final. Click here for additional resources shared by our In the Spirit of Truth/Racial Justice Team.
Note for Parents & Caregivers

The Time for All Ages story in worship this Sunday is Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Floyd Cooper. Amy Nathan reads it for us. This picture book sensitively introduces young readers to the tragedy and concludes with a call for a better future. It is a telling of what happened in Tulsa on Black Wall Street in 1921 in a way that is appropriate for children. 

There are some words you might need to explain to young children. One passage reads, “Fearing the man would be lynched - killed by a mob...” For young children who ask what “lynched” means, explaining that as hurting someone very badly or killing them is probably sufficient. There is also reference to reconciliation and terms of the time like “soda fountain,” “pool hall,” and women getting their hair “coiffed.” 

In current times, when we see some states trying to limit teaching about this country’s history of slavery and the systems that were created to perpetuate ongoing oppression of people of color, it is important that we are voices of truth. For many years, many children did not learn this part of history in school. An excerpt from the NBC News story below describes the attitudes of some education officials: 

"The curriculum was never designed to be anything other than white supremacist," Julian Hayter, a historian and an associate professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia, said, "and it has been very difficult to convince people that other versions of history are not only worth telling. They’re absolutely essential for us as a country to move closer to something that might reflect reconciliation but even more importantly, the truth."

Ask what questions your children have and let that lead your discussion. Approach conversations in age appropriate ways and follow your children’s lead. You might find these resources helpful: 

The CUUC In The Spirit of Truth/Racial Justice Team shared additional resources here

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Phone in (audio only): 646-876-9923 · Webinar: 761 321 991 · Passcode: 468468

Join Virtual Coffee Hour after worship, 
Meeting: 336 956 2210 · Passcode: 468468

No Classes

Religious Education (RE) classes do
not meet this Sunday. 

Connecting in Community
Announcements and Resources
for Children, Youth, Young Adults, CUUC, LGBTQIA+ 
& BIPOC & Our Local Communities, Plus Summer Camps

Click Here for All Announcements & Resources

A Few Highlights Listed Below

How to De-Escalate Situations and Be a Better Bystander/Upstander
NPR Life Kit offers these resources for how to intervene when someone is harassed or attacked. The resource is presented like a graphic novel and include a recorded segment. Parents/caregivers might want to listen to the recorded segment first or read the transcript, then decide if it's appropriate for your child's age and stage. 

FREE Hollaback! Bystander Intervention Resources

 

Knowing how to safely intervene when you see harassment is a valuable skill. Hollaback! trainings offer methodologies in the areas of bystander intervention, conflict de-escalation, harassment prevention, and resilience. We encourage you to attend their FREE online trainings, listed on their website.  Trainings are great for all ages (your whole family can listen in together) and include Bystander Intervention 2.0: Conflict De-Escalation, How to Respond to Harassment for People Experiencing Anti-Asian/American Harassment, Bystander Intervention to Stop Anti-Asian/American Harassment and Xenophobia, Bystander Intervention to Stop Anti-Asian/American Harassment and Xenophobia, Stand Up Against Street Harassment.  Visit these great resources from Hollaback!

Countering Bias

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) Learning for Justice project (formerly Teaching for Tolerance) released a new short video designed to offer an age-appropriate way to talk with young people about what countering bias looks like in practice. The video, made for children, is great for all ages.

An original children’s story from author, educator and LFJ awardee Elizabeth Kleinrock, Min Jee’s Lunchwas published in the fall of 2020 in response to increased reports of racism around the coronavirus. You can watch Min Jee’s Lunch here [4:32]. Accompanying reader questions can be found here. In the story, a classmate announces that Min Jee’s Korean lunch is “how everyone got sick.” Min Jee and her friends must decide how to respond. We know young people face decisions like this every day. The organization Stop AAPI Hate recently announced that reports of hate incidents targeting Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have increased dramatically this spring—including in schools. SPLC developed this short video, beautifully illustrated by Janice Chang and read by Kleinrock, to help start conversations about ways to push back against hate and speak up for what is right.

Community Unitarian Universalist Congregation at White Plains  
468 Rosedale Ave · White Plains, NY 10605-5419







Minister's Post, Fri May 28

Covid Review

Worldwide.
The Worldwide numbers are not reliable, and likely are greatly underestimating the actual prevalence of Covid-19. These numbers may nevertheless give us an indication of trends.

7DMA of new cases per day, worldwide, as of:
May 13: 733,224. One-week change, May 6 to May 13: -7.6%
May 20: 624,690. One-week change, May 13 to May 20: -15%
May 27: 538,292. One-week change, May 20 to May 27: -14%

7DMA of deaths per day, worldwide, as of:
May 13: 12,665. One-week change, May 6 to May 13: -2.1%
May 20: 12,329. One-week change, May 13 to May 20: -2.7%
May 27: 11,280. One-week change, May 20 to May 27: -8.5%

United States.
7DMA of new cases per day, US, as of:
May 13: 36,598. One-week change, May 6 to May 13: -21%
May 20: 28,833. One-week change, May 13 to May 20: -21%
May 27: 23,060. One-week change, May 20 to May 27: -20%

New cases per day are now at the lowest they have been since Jun 15, 2020.

7DMA of deaths per day, US, as of:
May 13: 635. One-week change, May 6 to May 13: -8.2%
May 20: 593. One-week change, May 13 to May 20: -6.6%
May 27: 526. One-week change, May 20 to May 27: -11%

Deaths per day are now at the lowest they have been since Jul 6, 2020. We seem to be headed out of the woods, but do remember that people are still dying from this.

ICYMI ("In Case You Missed It")

Here's the May 23 service, "Flowers!"



Practice of the Week

Do What You Can. That’s a slogan you probably already employ: a double reminder to act as you’re able and not worry about what you can’t change. But there’s a psychological phenomenon called learned helplessness. Learned helplessness can be powerful. Elephants can be induced to stay tied with a rope they could easily break. Google it: learned helplessness.

The flip side is to let go of what you can’t change. Focus on what you can do: for yourself, to bring more joy and compassion into your life and less reactivity – and for the world, such as bearing witness to the suffering of others and letting it move your heart, staying informed, and looking for opportunities to make a material difference, such as helping at a homeless shelter.

So ask yourself: How could I pull my time, money, energy, attention, or worry away from stones that will never give blood or houses built on sand — and instead, shift these resources to where they will actually make a difference? Challenge assumptions, like: "Oh, I just couldn't do that" Are you sure?

Nkosi Johnson, a child in South Africa, was born with HIV, and died when he was twelve. Yet before his death, he was a nationally known advocate for people with AIDS. His "mantra," as he called it, was:
"Do all you can, with what you have, in the time you have, in the place where you are."
For more about this, see the post, Do What You Can.

See also our SPIRITUAL PRACTICE DIRECTORY

2021-05-25

Music: Sun May 30

 

It's often been conjectured that jealousy--the natural complement to entitlement--was one of the driving forces behind the destruction of the largely African-American community of Greenwood, Tulsa. The community was professionally accomplished and highly educated. This morning's Gathering Music includes recordings by the legendary contralto Marian Anderson as well as an excerpt from Duke Ellington's "Black, Brown, and Beige."  Anderson would become the first Black singer to perform at the Metropolitan Opera, and Ellington's work is essentially a symphonic tone poem by a composer yearning for access to the white-dominated world of art music.  Read on for programming details, and stay tuned for spoken introductions.


Gathering Music:
"Black, Brown, and Beige" Part 3

                                    Duke Ellington

Marion Anderson, contralto

"America" (recorded live at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday, 1939)

"He's Got the Whole World in his Hands"

                                    Traditional Spiritual

 

Centering Music: Adam Kent, piano

Tangamerican

                                    Margaret Bonds


Anthem: CUUC Choir and Friends, directed by Lisa N. Meyer and accompanied by Georgianna Pappas

"You Will Be Found" from Dear Evan Hansen

                                                Benj Pasek & Justin Paul

 

Musical Meditation:
Cinnamon Grove No. 2

                                                R. Nathaniel Dett

 

Interlude:
"Momentum"

                                                Tania León

 

Parting Music:
"The Monk"

                                                Valerie Capers

 

 

Do What You Can (Unlearn Helplessness)

Practice of the Week
Do What You Can (Unlearn Helplessness)

Category: SLOGANS THAT HELP: Advertisers know that slogans work! So let's put them to a positive use. Adopting these slogans as your personal guides and reminders will help bring more peace and more joy into your life. Journaling about how you're trying to implement a given slogan will help integrate it into your life.
“Do all you can, with what you have, in the time you have, in the place where you are." (Nkosi Johnson)

The elephant is restrained not by the puny rope
but by learned helplessness
Researchers have shown that it is remarkably easy to produce "learned helplessness" in dogs, whose neural circuitry for motivation and emotion is quite similar to ours. Then it takes much, much more training to get the dogs to unlearn their helpless passivity (Seligman 1972).

People are much the same. We, too, can be easily trained in learned helplessness, which can be tough to undo. Think about some of the ways you've felt pushed around by external forces, and how that's affected you. Learned helplessness fosters depression, anxiety, pessimism, low self-worth, and less effort toward goals.

As a human being like any other, your biological vulnerability to learned helplessness makes it very important that you recognize where you do in fact have some power, and that you take the actions that are available to you — even if they must be only inside your own head.

How

Begin by considering a useful idea from Stephen Covey's book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Imagine a circle containing the things you have influence over, and another circle containing the things you're concerned about. Where those circles overlap is the sweet spot where you can actually make a difference in the things that matter to you.

To be sure, sometimes there are things we care about but can't change personally, like people going hungry. I'm not saying just ignore those things or be indifferent to them. We should focus on what we can do, such as bearing witness to the suffering of others and letting it move our hearts, staying informed, and looking for opportunities to make a material difference, such as helping at a homeless shelter.

But trying to control things that are out of your hands will plant seeds of helplessness, make you suffer, and undermine your capacity to exercise the influence you do have.

Ask yourself: How could I pull my time, money, energy, attention, or worry away from stones that will never give blood or houses built on sand — and instead, shift these resources to where they will actually make a difference?

Then take an inventory of the key strengths and other resources you do have. Your circle of influence is probably a lot bigger than you think it is!

Consider how you could draw on some of those resources to take beneficial actions in ways you haven't ever done, or have never sustained.

Challenge assumptions, like: "Oh, I just couldn't do that" Are you sure? Bring to mind someone you know who is very self-confident, and then ask yourself: "If I were that confident, what new things would I do?"

In particular, think about actions you could take inside your own mind. Compared to trying to change the world or your body, usually your mind is where you have the most influence, where the results are most enduring and consequential, and where you have the greatest opportunity for a sense of efficacy and a chance to undo feelings of helplessness. For example, how could you nudge your emotional reactions in a better direction over time, or develop more mindfulness or warm-heartedness? These are all within your reach.

When I don't know what to do about some difficulty, sometimes I think of a saying from a boy named Nkosi Johnson, who lived in South Africa. Like many children there, Nkosi was born with HIV, and he died when he was twelve. Before that happened, he became a nationally known advocate for people with AIDS. His "mantra," as he called it, always touches my heart: "Do all you can, with what you have, in the time you have, in the place where you are."

That's all anyone can ever do.

For Journaling

Reflect on the question: How could you nudge your emotional reactions in a better direction over time, or develop more mindfulness or warm-heartedness? In what ways would you like your emotional reactions to move in a better direction? How can you make that happen? Remember, forming a resolve is a good start -- but resolve fades. How can you train yourself to develop new habits of emotional reaction? Any ideas? What would you suggest for yourself?

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Lance Luria on learned helplessness vs. learned optimism:


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