by Rev. Bill Gupton

February is often the forgotten month. It’s shorter than the others, it’s usually colder and darker than the others – at least here in the Northern Hemisphere – and other than Valentine’s Day and (more recently) the Super Bowl, it doesn’t have much to offer in terms of holidays or cultural festivities. Yet this time of year gives us the opportunity, as does each and every day of our lives, to connect with others. To – in the words of our unofficial mission statement, words that are proudly painted in large letters on the wall in our kitchen – “create community.”

I know it has been hard to go back into a time of Zoom-only worship. Just when many of us were getting comfortable being back together in the sanctuary on Sundays, the Omicron variant threw a monkey wrench into what was starting to seem like a “new normal.” But just as the trees will bud and the flowers will bloom in just a few short months, so too will we, as a congregation, return to being together in larger and ever-larger groups in the months ahead. Of this, I am confident.

In the meantime, we are called to make the most of the current situation, perhaps learn a few things about ourselves as individuals and as a community, and most of all keep those hearth-fires of connection burning as brightly as possible. Call a friend and talk on the phone (how’s that for “old school”?). Write letters (even more old school!), whether to family members or representatives. Arrange small-group, safely-masked gatherings. Keep up with folks. Let them keep up with you.

Even as we approach two years of living in a pandemic, even with the majority of that time spent worshipping virtually rather than in-person, your support of Heritage Church remains remarkable. I want to personally thank you for your ongoing commitment to this unique and important community. In so many ways – both through your continuing financial contributions, and with so many cards and kind comments and simply staying in touch – you demonstrate how much this special place means to you. Heritage is in the heart, and that heart continues to beat strongly, through winters and pandemics and the coming and going of generations. What a blessing it is, to be part of this beloved community!

Stay warm! Stay safe!

Love,
Rev. Bill

February, 2022.

by Michael Wilhite

It is hard to believe that we have already started the process to shape next year’s budget for Heritage Church. We’ll be voting in our Annual Meeting in June for the approval of the budget as is our constitutional responsibility as members. So, many who have not been close to annual budget planning may be wondering why we need almost six months of lead time to accomplish this?

Let me help bring some transparency to our timetable. We can do so by backtracking from our immovable date for passing our budget in June. Before this, the Board has the responsibility to shape and affirm a proposed budget weeks in advance, so it can be shared with our Heritage members. This means that the Board has to have all of the budget numbers—with the tough choices on what is included or not—finalized in May. The most important input into this process is the output of our annual Stewardship Campaign, because the contributions of our members is the overwhelming source of our annual funding. How do we set a goal for the Stewardship Campaign that happens in March through April? We gather requests for budget funding in January and February to set this goal. So, you can see even though we are just over half way through the current church year, we already have to start thinking about our plans for next year.

Admittedly, supporting the budget planning process is not the most uplifting set of duties that we as Board members do, but it is such a critical role for the current and future health of Heritage. We have the responsibility to represent the members and understand the priorities of where people want to invest. This can sometimes lead to controversy. The need for increased funding inevitably leads us to ask for more donations from our families who may already be stretching across financial needs in an uncertain world. Eventually, it means making painfully tough choices on what we can afford or not after we understand our expected pledge income.

That is why I do love to revel in this current stage of the annual budget process when we can build our wish list for the church. We can liberate ourselves from the realities of limited funding and focus on what we want Heritage to become. It is a great strategy exercise to embrace the dream state – think about what you would do if you could. These are exciting conversations with our committees and teams to learn about their visions to create an even better Heritage. This is when we hear passionate pleas from members to persuade others to support their cause. This is Heritage at our best and reflects the love that we all have to help make our community stronger and better.

Our wish list for Heritage that we create as a community helps shape our future vision for the church. The reality is that not all of our dreams will be funded in a single budget year. We will eventually hit the reality of funding. But for this time of the season, I hope you all share your voice with the community through our committees or Town Hall forums on what your priorities are. I know for our Board, this input is highest on our wish list.

February 2022.

by Laci Lee Adams

One of the hardest lessons that I am still trying to learn as an activist and educator committed to racial and social justice is that advocacy, allyship, and most certainly, solidarity require live long learning. When I started to be politically engaged in my late teens and early twenties, I undeniably thought that I had “arrived” at some undeniably correct position from which I could stand and judge. It was not until seminary that I started to see that my prior “rightness” might blind me to other perspectives and created a level of entrenchment that stopped me from more expansive ways of seeing the world. I was profoundly impacted in my thinking and activism and organizing by teachers like Dr. Vincent Harding and Dr. Tink Tinker. Dr. Harding was a close friend, confidant, and non-violent practitioner along with Dr. King. Dr. Harding helped me learn that a keen mind must be partnered with a peaceful heart and a curious ear to really fuel the life of an activist. Dr. Tinker taught in a way that encouraged students to interrogate the assumptions that we bring to learning and organizing. It was his anti-colonial and indigenous analysis that really helped me expand the scope of what I even thought possible to dream.

After seminary, I found my way back to the South, where I continued faith-based organizing and working with college students through my work at the Georgia State University Multicultural Center. My years at GSU also profoundly shaped my activism because I was able to connect with such a diverse set of young adults. As they shared their lives and experiences, joys and struggles, really helped to cultivate a more nuanced understanding of intersectionality and sharpened my awareness of how injustice and racism shape the lives of those impacted.

Finding myself working at a UU church in Boston was an unexpected turn of events in my life, but one that helped me to crystalize all these related but distinct threads of my life. Becoming a UU religious educator was like building a house big enough for all of my experiences. I have taught workshops on the power of public storytelling for advocacy work, lead safe zone trainings and planned worship as public protest. I have led direct actions and written deep analysis of social movements. I have created banners to be dropped from the sides of buildings and lead crafting sessions to help young adult activists process their experiences of trauma. And all of these things have a place in my life and work as a UU religious educator. And there are still rooms to be explored in this house and space for the things that I have to learn!

We find ourselves as an association, as a people of faith, at an interesting moment in the history of movement. We are trying to grapple with our history and with our role in dismantling systems of oppression. Frankly, we don’t all agree about how to do that! It has been my experience as an activist that generally no one person or organization or perspective is able to completely engage the most complex problems that we face. It is when we are willing to be expansive – in our tactics, in our perspectives, and in our connections – that what is possible emerges! Personally, I am the most generative when I am the most willing to acknowledge what I still need to learn. What do you need to learn to meet this moment? When we ask this individually and together as a community, we can meet the challenge of the moment. I hope that you might share your learnings and your needs for learning with me, because I am confident that we can create learning opportunities that can deepen our collective bounds and our commitment to justice, equity and inclusion.

February 2022.

by Laci Lee Adams

“To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose, under heaven”

~ The Byrds by way of Pete Seeger by way of Ecclesiastes

During this time of the year, I often hear the words of “Turn! Turn! Turn!” in my head. It is a season full of furtive, silent possibility. A perfect time to become aware of every purpose under heaven. Although January welcomes more sunlight and lengthening days (we will have an hour more daylight by the middle of the month), winter maintains its cold grip with the coldest temperatures coming in January and February.

Becoming a mother has acutely taught me the lessons of January. Literally minutes before I went on parental leave for Benny, a cherished mother at the church told me, “Get ready! I absolutely love being a mother, but motherhood is a series of tiny losses.” It was a stunning statement, but the more Benny grows the more I appreciate her wisdom. Every gain is a kind of loss. As Benny learns new things or starts doing new things, the less he is just ours and the more he comes into his own. My tiny dependent newborn that squinted one eye when he needed to fart and that moved its hands like an orchestra conductor when he woke from naps has been replaced with a full-on, never-stops-moving, sensitive, big feeling toddler.

If every gain is a kind of loss, so too we might reason each loss has a kind of gain in it. Certainly, I see that every day when Ben learns new words or says three-word sentences or tells me that home makes him happy. This I think is the lesson of January. In the cold are the building blocks for Spring. In the still is a world of possibility. As we leave behind the last year, a new year opens in front of us. The power of the season is our ability to Turn! Turn! Turn!

12/25/2021.

by Rev. Bill Gupton

And so we move into the year known as 2022. I remember when I was in elementary school, just beginning to read and explore the world and be a consumer of popular culture. The “21st century” seemed so distant – literally, the stuff of science fiction (which just happened to be my favorite genre). I was profoundly affected by watching Stanley Kubrick’s epic film adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” in our small-town movie theater. At that moment, I never could have imagined being alive in the year 2022, much less what it would be like.

Some of what I – and we – now take for granted, was beyond the wildest dreams of that little boy. Being able to type a few strokes on a keyboard and have access to, essentially, all the knowledge in the world. And of course, the flip side: having to sort through the good and the bad, all the information and all the intentional misinformation. Routinely carrying around a telephone – my own, personal computer – in my hand, and being at a loss, if it wasn’t readily available to me. Having not just that tiny computer, but owning half a dozen other computers of various sorts. At the time, computers themselves were largely either the stuff of science fiction, or the domain of NASA.

And of course, I had no idea I would be a minister, much less the longest-serving minister of a Universalist congregation in Cincinnati, Ohio. I wanted, if I ever thought about such things, to be a writer – which, I suppose, I still am, in a way. Oh – and to be the father of a 25-year-old son, who is living in, of all places, Hawaii? No way.

But here it is, another New Year, and we naturally reflect on such things. We think of the past, and the future. The unexpected turns in the road. The changes. The losses and the loves. We take stock. Such is the nature of this time of year.

My prayer for all of us, in 2022, is that we can make peace, with where we are. Wherever that is. Be that the pandemic, be that in our family relationships, be that in our health, be that in our careers, be that in our radically altered society. Let me be clear. By “make peace” I do not mean that we should stop fighting the good fight. Far from it. Where we see injustice (and there is much to see), we must never give in. Where we find challenges, we are always called to bring our best selves to the work of making a better world, a better community, a better church, a better family, a better person to offer to the world. But imagine how different it might be if we could do so from a place of equanimity, compassion, and acceptance.

While I am not one for making New Year’s “resolutions,” I can’t help but think that if I am able to focus my energies from that place of inner peace, which I believe each of us has inside, things won’t be quite as hard. I will be much more effective. And I will be much happier. So that is what I am going to try to do, as we move into the year known as 2022. What are your thoughts and dreams, hopes and goals, for the year ahead?

See you in late January!

Blessings,
Rev. Bill

Rev. Bill Gupton will be taking his winter break beginning December 29, and will return to work on January 24. In case of emergency during that time, he may be reached via that miraculous science-fiction device, his cell phone. He will also likely be able to be found tending to the grounds and the graves at Heritage Acres Memorial Sanctuary.

12/23/2021.

by Michael Wilhite

Holidays this season focus much of our attention on recognizing and celebrating all that we should appreciate in our lives. I need to befriend an historian or anthropologist who could explain whether this is simply coincidence or predicted? Do their origins come from appreciation of the bountiful fall harvest in ancient agricultural societies? Did the dwindling sunlight and increasing darkness create the pause to reflect on the joys of our life? Did hunkering down together to escape falling temperatures help them appreciate the warmth and comfort of one another?

Our family’s time living in India solidified our cultural giving thanks traditions. Diwali has become the jump start to our parade of holidays. The Diwali celebration is about pure joy in the richness of all that we have and the optimism about what we hope for the future. We also enjoyed the universal connection among our expat friends to embrace our unique North American holidays of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving literally reminds us to count our blessings through a decadent feast of togetherness. Of course, as we move into December, we have a litany of celebrations from Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa that each help us celebrate the appreciation we have for each other.

This time last year, many of our holiday traditions were paused. Concerns for ourselves and others guided us to sacrifice celebrations for safety. Mostly, our typical gatherings with friends and family were trimmed or virtualized to compensate for the pandemic. While we are learning to exist in a world with COVID, many of us are giddy about the opportunity to return to some of our celebrations with loved ones. This year, I am finding that the particulars of the occasions matter little compared to the absolute joy of connecting with the most important people in my life.

When I thought about giving thanks in relation to our HUUC community this year, I immediately recalled my reflection on why I have chosen to serve the church. On so many occasions, I feel the pure gratitude that I have for our Heritage community. This includes the recognition of Heritage as a supportive and safe place filled with love and acceptance. I can also see the passion that we share to help make this world a better place for everyone. Most importantly, I appreciate the honest and genuine sharing of ideas and feelings that helps me grow spiritually.

This season of the year is a reminder for all of us to take stock of our blessings and the precious people in our lives. I am so thankful that I can count our Heritage community in my blessings. The joy that this special community of people in this world creates makes me want to give thanks all year round.

December 2021.

By Laci Lee Adams, Director of Lifespan Faith Development

Recently, I have been greeted at my front door with a plethora of boxes! Some of the boxes are notable – skinny boxes as tall as Benny or heavy boxes wider than my body. Some of the boxes are unremarkable, no more than padded envelopes, tightly taped shipping bags, or boxes smaller than a mouse. Many of the boxes are the all too familiar medium-sized Amazon boxes that have become common during the pandemic. What is impressive about the boxes is their sheer number and persistent arrival! The boxes are the byproduct of our interfaith family, having a December baby, and a slow-to-relent pandemic.

Navigating interfaith couple gift-giving required mild negotiation, but in the end was relatively straightforward. As a couple, if we were going to exchange a holiday gift with another couple or friend or member of a family, we gave that gift during whatever holiday they celebrated. So, Emily and I exchanged gifts with my best friend, his husband, and our godson around Christmas because that’s when they celebrate. We exchanged Christmas presents with my family and Hanukkah presents with her family, because that’s what they celebrated respectively. Whatever potential confusion could have been produced in the two families exchanging gifts was resolved when our mothers started to send cultural baskets during the month of December. My parents send Cajun staples like Konriko rice and Tabasco; while Emily’s parents send Junior’s cheesecakes or other New York food items! There was a low package volume balance to it all that was obliterated by having Ben.

In our home, I am outnumbered two-to-one as it is related to winter holidays that are celebrated! That is to say that as we are raising Ben Jewish, he and Emily and we by family extension celebrate Hanukkah. For adults, Hannukah does not have the same gift-giving drive that we might associate with Christmas (thought for American Jews there is certainly more Hanukkah gift-giving than you might see in other parts of the Jewish world). However, in America and in Emily’s family, children can and often do receive gifts for each of the eight, yes – EIGHT, nights of Hanukkah. Not only are we receiving multiple boxes of gifts that we have bought for Benny, but we are also receiving multiple Hanukkah gifts from Emily’s family. We attempted to celebrate only the coming of Papa Noel (the Cajun version of Santa!) with my family, but my mother was concerned that such a course of action might seem like they were not respecting our decision to raise Ben Jewish. Yes! You guessed it – my parents are also sending multiple Hanukkah gifts. To add more boxes to my porch, Benny is also a December baby! Last year, since we were separated from our families because of Covid, the volume of gifts seems to rise in proportion to the length of time we had been separated!

Now you might be wondering, why am I regaling you with the sordid tale of so many boxes! It certainly highlights a consumptive impulse that I wish we could curtail in our families and in ourselves. But more than that, the boxes remind me of all the beautiful and connective and complicated things that come from our interfaith family. Our families and friends are engaged in this beautiful dance of determining how to celebrate with us and celebrate us and celebrate the faiths that support and shape us. It’s not always an easy thing to be in an interfaith marriage – it has always required a high degree of transparency, communication, and willingness to find common ground. Emily and I are dedicated to the others’ free and responsible search for truth. It’s not always straightforward to support someone walking a path you cannot see or do not want to travel, but it is the bedrock of our marriage. As we are together committed to cultivating both Ben’s Jewishness and Cajunness, we are shepherding our families along that path with us. Since we know the difficulty of that interfaith work, it creates an awareness of the complexity we are inviting our friends and family and parents into. And I happily wade through a pile of packages to ensure that we can create a more just and expansive world for our child and all children! I hope that when you see packages on your front porch this holiday season, you will view it as an invitation to do something challenging or difficult or expansive.

December 2021.

by Rev. Bill Gupton

The holiday season is upon us. Jennifer and I enjoyed Thanksgiving with family and friends, resuming a beloved tradition that had to be put on hold last year due to the pandemic. We were very grateful for the opportunity to be with loved ones and thankful for the vaccines that made it possible. As we enter December, with Christmas and other holidays approaching, I am mindful of the blessing that scientists and medical professionals have given us – the ability to be together again safely. May we never again take that simple act – being with one another – for granted.

That of course applies to gathering in the warmth of our sanctuary this winter too – not only for Sunday morning services, but for evening Vespers services and – back this year – our popular Christmas Eve worship service. Make your plans now to bring your family, and join the Heritage family for a Christmas Eve of music, light – and of course, community. Please register early – space remains limited, although we will have an overflow area set up in the Great Hall.

As I begin anticipating how it might feel that night, at Heritage, I am aware of the fact that our traditional Christmas Eve service has become something akin to an anchor in my life, these past two decades. Through all the shifting tides of life, the ups and downs, it has been there, steady and consistent, offering familiarity and comfort. At the darkest time of the year, it lights up my heart. And while it won’t be exactly the same this year, what with seating configurations and the need to maintain minimum distancing, it will be such a joy simply to celebrate Christmas Eve, once again, with you and yours.

This holiday season, may you find comfort and joy, warmth and community, peace and contentment. Happy Holidays!

Blessings,
Rev. Bill

December 2021

by Laci Lee Adams

I have lived in five places (Shreveport, Denver, Atlanta, Boston, and now Cincinnati) since leaving home for college. My adventures far and wide away from home make me atypical of a Cajun person. Nearly 90% of my extended family on both my mother’s and my father’s side live within 50 miles of where I was born. And the two uncles (one brother of each of my parents) settled and made their lives within a four-hour radius of home. With the exception of the West Coast and the Southwest, I have lived in nearly every broad American geography from sea to shining sea.

All of these experiences have really helped to cultivate an awareness for how expansive and distinct the season of autumn can be. In Louisiana, autumn is marked by the lessening of heat and cautious optimism that we are exiting hurricane season and the exuberant welcoming of football. The Western Range and East Coast have the more classic picturesque autumn when green landscapes give way to fiery shades of red and yellow and orange. The changing colors bring with it a growing cold and a signal that winter is coming! I am not a fan of winter or more appropriately I am not a fan of the cold, so winter is the harbinger of unpleasant things in my mind. Cincinnati is somewhere in the middle of the autumn continuum. The leaves change and we are surrounded by a farm bringing us the cornucopia of apples and pumpkins and fall goodies, but the color show is not as emphatic, the cold is less bitter, and the snow accumulation is much less severe.

Though my second to least favorite season (especially away from the South), autumn is the season that makes me the most reflective of my life, of my physical and spiritual journey, and of the power of multiple perspectives. These places that I have lived are each a touchstone for my spiritual and career journeys. I know more about myself because of where I have journeyed. I have discovered what has delighted me and frustrated me along the way. And I know so much about my world because of these experiences.

We are often asked in chit chat questions like, “where are you from?” or “What brought you to Cincinnati?” These are sometimes treated like frivolous and easy questions, but given a season of reflection these can be eye-opening, reality elucidating, spiritually rich questions. We will be launching our adult Spiritual Autobiography class in the New Year, so if you are interested in your own journey and the journey of others, please consider joining us.

Best,
Laci Lee Adams

November 2021.

by Michael Wilhite

One of the most humbling aspects of serving as President of the HUUC Board is the visibility to the inner workings of the church and all of the big and little things that impact us day to day. We are all so appreciative of our talented and dedicated Minister and staff that make Heritage so special. They all play critical roles to create the experiences that keep us engaged and also provide the essential support to run the church. We are so lucky to have their talents enrich our lives.

However, the thing that may surprise many of us is how many responsibilities are owned by our volunteers at Heritage. There are more visible roles of those who serve on our Board and committees, organize our worship service, manage our tech, volunteer with our kids, or sing in our choir. There are also many behind-the-scenes roles for those who help organize fundraising, manage our communications, do building repairs, manage our bank accounts, or provide care in times of need. The key take-away is that Heritage would not be able to operate and our community would not be as special without the essential volunteers who do so much for us. I cannot thank all of them enough.

When each of us joined as members of Heritage Church, we pledged to share our gifts and talents to support our community. So, this is my direct plea for you to get involved. We all see the special Heritage people carrying such a heavy load, because we see them popping up everywhere. I cannot thank this dedicated group of volunteers enough. They literally keep Heritage running. Their examples may also be a bit intimidating, because it may appear that volunteering at Heritage requires a dedication of time that scares many of us away.

My plea for all of us to get involved is very intentional. “Involved” is a very meaningful, but also very ambiguous term. It reflects the promise of how your personal gifts can help uplift our community, because we get involved in things that match our passions and interests. However, it provides the needed flexibility to make it work with our other commitments. You can get deeply involved in things and be all in, or you may only involve yourself in helping with a single task. We have to change the model of volunteering at Heritage that you are either sitting off to the side or all in.

Please find your path to get involved in a way that helps you build connections and use your talents to contribute to our community. It is okay to explore, try things out, offer to take on some tasks, or just dabble. We know that many of us struggle to find free time in our stress-filled lives. We want volunteering at Heritage to be an enriching and joyful experience, not a burden. Yes, it does require time, but time well spent is very fulfilling. Reach out to committee members if you are interested in supporting their work. Our Board has a wish list of initiatives where our missing piece is the volunteers to bring these opportunities to life. Our community is special, and like all communities, we rely on one another for support. Please get involved.

November 2021.