by Rev. Bill Gupton

We have arrived at what, for me, is the most exciting time of the church year. Our annual Ingathering / Homecoming Sunday on the last Sunday in August marks a new season in the life of our congregation – a busy season indeed, which is replete with choices, options and opportunities to meet and connect with others, and with this very special and unique religious community we call Heritage.

In just the next few weeks, there will be shared meals (our monthly second-Sunday potluck lunch, our monthly first-Wednesday evening potluck dinner, Tuesday healthy lunches, and a new addition to our offerings: a monthly fundraising dinner, in September to be held at the Ciolinos’ home on the evening of September 10!). There will be music (the return of our Choir, joined by new Music Director Sherry McCamley, as well as a special wine-and-cheese piano concert of original music put on by our own Bruce Bowdon on September 16). Women of the church can gather for singing (Sing Out Sisters on the second Tuesday evening of the month), books and conversation (the Women’s Book Club on the third Wednesday of the month), and culminating with the perennially popular Women’s Retreat (September 22-24 at Hope Springs).

Our Board has initiated a year of more focused and intentional fundraising – but that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun doing it! In addition to Bruce Bowdon’s concert and the aforementioned monthly fundraising dinner, if you like pizza (and who doesn’t!), Heritage will receive 20% of your purchase price when you get a slice or a pie at Lucy Blue Pizza (near the church on Clough Pike) on either September 13 or 14, between 4 and 8 p.m., if you simply mention “Heritage Church.”

But wait, there’s more! On the last night of September – Saturday, September 30, to be exact – it’s the Return to Fall of our wonderful Church Auction and Fall Festival. This is a fun-filled night for all ages that is not to be missed. Oh, and did we mention it’s to benefit the church operating budget?

By my count, including Sunday worship services and other ongoing events, you can connect, in person, with your Heritage friends, new and old, at least 21 of the 30 days of September. And in these times in which we live, might that not be just what your heart and soul need? Huzzah!

See you at church!

Rev. Bill

September 2023.

by Jaime Castle

It’s the end of August, the beginning of September and for many families, that means it’s another start of the school year. Fun fact: there are special calendars called “Academic Year Calendars” that go from July –> July that teachers are very fond of. I am a teacher and I have kids in school, so this is an important time of year for me! There is so much to prepare and so much anticipation that goes along with this time of year. This got me to thinking about all of the different kinds of ways that new beginnings are celebrated and all of the different times of year that can be considered the beginning of a new year! We have our traditional New Year’s Day on January 1st full of new resolutions and good intentions and full of leaving behind the past in a way that embraces the joys and lets go of the sorrows. The Lunar New Year lasts for weeks and falls between January and February and is a huge deal for eastern cultures celebrating family and setting the tone for the year to come. Different religions also can have their own new year’s celebrations falling on different dates. Rosh Hashanah, for example, is celebrated solemnly in Judaism in late summer/early autumn. If you ask any of the Pagan folks here at Heritage about Samhain, celebrated at the end of October, they will tell you about how it can also be known as the Celtic New Year and even the Witches’ New Year!

How do you mark a new beginning? Do you wait for a new beginning to try new resolutions and leave certain things behind? I definitely feel excited and ready for “new!” What that looks like, I’m not sure, but just being open to opportunity, experiences, and connections is important.

But lately I’ve been feeling pretty cynical and misanthropic. I have been finding humanity, in general, severely lacking “goodness” and I’ve been worried that I’m heading into a bitter mental place.

One activity that always seems to put me in a bad mood is driving. People can be so rude when they drive, or they can come off as very incompetent drivers that can inconvenience us. The other day, driving home along Red Bank Road, a seemingly incompetent driver was ahead of me. They were a good amount of car lengths ahead, but I could blatantly see that they were incompetent from a distance! It was a small, four-door white sedan and the driver was going way too slow and taking way too long to turn. As I caught up to him and was right behind his car, I then noticed what the issue was. There was a Great Dane in the back seat! The big dog was standing and trying to keep its balance. This poor driver was trying to navigate this car with care due to the passenger on board! They probably were coming from one of the veterinary offices on Red Bank. I immediately backed-off, giving this driver in front of me more space and less anxiety that a car on his tail would’ve given him.

This autumn, this New Year for me, one resolution that I have is to give people more grace, more space! I will try to believe in and see the best in people because you never really know, unless you are close enough to really see, what people are carrying! It could be they are driving a small sedan with a big ole Great Dane in the back?!

Happy New Year Friends!

September 2023.

by Jaime Castle

In the spring of 2020, when the pandemic first hit Ohio and things started closing down, an interesting thing happened. People were home more and depending on your home situation, that meant different things. Those in bad home situations did not fare well and many came to realize the crucial role that schools played in our society. I noticed that many people that I knew, middle-aged moms mainly, were staying home with their kids, and trying to find silver linings. Many women left the workforce at that time. Grocery stores were running out of yeast as many were rediscovering the art of baking. Closets were being cleaned out and organized and donation drop-off locations were filling up. People were discovering their local parks and trails as being outdoors was still allowed and folks were getting cabin fever. We were anxious, fearful, and it was a big election year on top of it all.

In the fall of 2019, surprising everyone including myself, I became a U.S. Congressional candidate, and I stepped down from the Board of Trustees here at Heritage. I had completed my church presidency that July and things were left in a good place with the only tricky thing to navigate being Rev. Bill’s sabbatical on the horizon. It was thought best that I should step away so as to not worry about church vs. state conflicts. NO ONE could have predicted that things would turn so upside down in a matter of months!

We know the story of what came next, and the story is told a little differently from each of our points of views. For me, I completed my campaign, having had it change me in so many ways. Having had run during a pandemic was a strange and lonely thing.

Since my time away from Heritage leadership, I returned to teaching English as well. This coming school year, I will find myself at a new school and have been given the freedom to design my classes to my liking. This is exciting but also overwhelming in that there is so much content to choose from. I am at my best when I can be creative, but I find it hard to be able to focus sometimes on one thing.

Having been awakened to the world of politics and activism, it is hard to not want to spend all of my time wanting to fix the world. But I have to balance that with being a mom and wife and sister and daughter and now a teacher again. I am also at my best when I have much to do and feel like I am a part of something.

This summer I am finding the time to do the things that a lot of my mom friends did in 2020, finally cleaning out things and organizing. Doors have been closing and doors have been opening. This summer a cousin invited us along with her to Grace Bay in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands. I really wanted the kids to experience this. But I was also forced to stop and rest and reset. It gave me a chance to process a lot of these last years and to focus on what is next. I had to give myself grace and take a step back. I didn’t realize how much I needed this pause and was grateful.

I have been here at church in person on occasion, but mostly have been utilizing the zoom option – which allowed me to multi-task my Sunday mornings. Going forward my plan for home, and work, and church is to slow down. I will be present and mindful and enjoy the journey and the little things and keep breathing….

I am glad to be here, and I am excited to be serving in this leadership space again.

August 2023.

by Laci Lee Adams

I had the wonderful opportunity to discuss hermit crabs in worship on July 9th! And I haven’t been able to get them out of my mind since.

If you weren’t in worship on that day and haven’t seen this mind-blowing BBC Earth Kids feature on hermit crab, stop reading and watch this video: https://youtu.be/zpjklLt1qWk. If you are able to keep on reading without watching the video, I understand that impulse (I really do!), but I promise the video is worth your time and it will make the rest of this column make a whole lot more sense.

The hermit crabs are trying to teach me (and maybe us?) two very important lessons: (1) We are not alone and (2) We are still growing!

It is profoundly easy in our culture to believe that we are in it (whatever “it” might be to you in this moment) alone and that whatever happens next is completely up to us and us alone. WOW – that is an isolating place to be! No wonder as a country we are suffering (even before COVID-19) from a pandemic of loneliness (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-americans-are-lonelier-and-its-effects-on-our-health). But the hermit crabs remind us that we don’t have to go it alone. There are others ready to line up next to us, to support our growth, to offer us shelter (in the form of a shell!).

Likewise, we often imagine adulthood or parenting or retirement or name your favorite life milestone as a destination of completion. Places that, once we arrive there, signal that we are DONE! The race is won! Here too the hermit crabs beg to differ. They are constantly growing. And the search for a new shell is a reminder of that growth. I keep wondering about how different I would feel if I was comfortable being constantly reminded that I was growing and changing? What would I stop grasping for? What could I let go of or lay down so I could reach for the next shell? How might I treat people differently if I really accepted and engaged with my own growth and the growing and changing around me?

These crabs keep asking me to ask more questions while I stand in line for my next shell! In this way, I am becoming convinced that these hermit crabs are a near perfect analogy for this thing we call “Lifespan Faith Development.”

August 2023.

Good morning. My name is Antonio Ciolino; I’ve been a member of Heritage for six years.

Barack Obama once said: “I didn’t always know about Juneteenth… It wasn’t taught in my school. But over time, I came to know its story… and how it represents a journey: a journey from hurt to healing, from a painful past toward a more hopeful future. It’s a reminder of where we come from and the progress we’ve made.”

I, like Barack Obama, didn’t know about Juneteenth. It wasn’t taught in my school. And similarly, as I’ve learned more about it, I learned that it is the start of a long journey, a journey still in progress.

Juneteenth is not only a celebration of freedom, but a testament to the resilience, strength, and unyielding spirit of countless individuals.

Juneteenth is on June 19th. The name is a blend of “June” and “nineteenth.” It was on this day in 1865 that the last enslaved African Americans in the Southern United States were informed of their freedom in Galveston, Texas, more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

But this day is about so much more than the overdue delivery of a message in the farthest reaches of our country.

Juneteenth is the story of courage, of struggle, and ultimately, of liberation.

It’s a story that we continue to tell as we strive to realize the promise of freedom in its fullest sense.

It is a day to honor the bravery, the resilience, and the spirit that fought for and secured freedom for Black Americans.

My own discovery of Juneteenth came relatively late in life, about five years ago. As my childhood family didn’t have roots in the rich soil of Black American history, my learning about Juneteenth was like finding a missing piece of my cultural identity in our country.

I see Juneteenth as both a historical marker and a celebration. Juneteenth is like a separate Independence Day celebration from enslavement, and also a reminder that freedom and equal treatment are still very separate.

It signifies the end of a horrific era of abuse and trauma for a collective portion of our American society.

It represents the struggle to challenge and expose the systemic injustices, the inequality, and the cultural biases toward other human beings.

And it is an opportunity for renewed hope beyond the “color” that is used to divide us as a shared people in America.

Frederick Douglass once said, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress…. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

So, while legal slavery ended over 150 years ago, systemic racism and discrimination persist. Black people are still unsafe in areas of our country.

Cultural programming of society has promoted and benefitted from the negative treatment of Black Americans.

The minimization and degradation of the humanity of Black people is still active in society in many systems today. There may not be physical chains, but in its place other challenges and restrictions exist.

Juneteenth is not just a day on the calendar, but a call for Black voices to persistently challenge systems of power.

It is a testament to our unyielding commitment to raise awareness, dismantle oppressive structures, and affirm the inherent worth and dignity of Black individuals.

This commemoration is not only about acknowledging the strength we’ve forged from our past but also about harnessing this resilience to shape our collective future.

Juneteenth stands as a beacon, illuminating the path towards a more just and inclusive tomorrow. It’s a rally cry for Black Americans, a symbol of our past struggles and a torch lighting the way to our future victories.

by Laci Lee Adams, Director of Lifespan Faith Development

Spring and Summer are growing seasons. We can see that growth everywhere, in our gardens outside, in the trees around us, in crowds at outdoor events!

We can even see all that growth in our church. When I started at HUUC almost two years ago, we averaged about 4 kids in weekly RE programs. During the month of April, we had TRIPLE the number of kids EVERY Sunday! Wow – that is growth!

I have also been experiencing a bit of personal and familial growth. Emily and I are so excited to share that we are actually expecting our SECOND CHILD, due in late August/early September. As of writing this article, I am 23 weeks pregnant and excited for the growth that awaits over the summer and early Fall.

Expecting while overseeing an RE program is a special treat because the wild possibilities in my personal life are supremely exciting and inspire such creativity. Rev. Bill and I, along with the RE committee and a host of co-collaborators are spinning up plans for the Fall while I am on parental leave. It will be a time full of connection, fun, and deepening ties both for my family and for all of our young people in the congregation. I am looking forward to planning and creating and wondering with all you as we anticipate another new addition to our broader HUUC community!

Best,
Laci

June 2023.

by Rev. Bill Gupton

All spring, Heritage Church has been growing again, just like the grass outside my window. New members are joining; meanwhile, even more visitors continue to come through our doors and find a warm and welcoming community. And have you noticed the kids? Young people – with their laughter, exuberant energy, and boundless smiles – are once again bringing life and vitality to our church family in numbers not seen since well before the pandemic. On a recent weekend, the Children’s Carnival at the Auction made for a fun-filled Saturday night (some young people even got into the bidding later that evening!), while 12 hours later in the sanctuary, we had more children on a Sunday morning than I’ve seen in a long, long time.

There is palpable momentum, right now, at HUUC. Which is why what we do and decide, collectively, over the next couple of weeks is so critically important. We can’t afford to lose that momentum – a rare commodity in churches these days, both locally and nationally. As Unitarian Universalist Association President Susan Frederick-Gray says, “Now is no time for a casual faith.”

I’m talking here, among other things, about our church budget. About the level to which we each are supporting that church budget. Are we really “all in”? Do our pledges of financial support reflect how much this congregation means to us, and how deeply we believe in the momentum – the future – of this church?

The Board of Trustees – your elected congregational leadership – has been grappling with some difficult financial realities. At their recent budget-preparation meeting, they began with all the programs and staffing that had been requested for 2023-24, then compared that to the amount that had been pledged by members and friends to support the church for the same 2023-24 period. The result would have been a deficit of a little more than $50,000.

To their credit, they concluded that we can no longer sustainably carry such large operating deficits. I wholeheartedly agree. So the conversation turned to ways to increase fundraising and rental income, and how we might cut expenses. Cutting pay and decreasing the number of hours our program staff (including yours truly) work each week might just be necessary in order to balance the budget. Remember the old saying “the numbers don’t lie”? Well, the numbers are telling us that we need to generate more income in order to pay for the level of paid, professional leadership and staffing the congregation has come to expect.

All this while other numbers – those that reflect attendance and participation, those that reflect membership – are once again on the rise. Those numbers, too, don’t lie. In fact, they reflect a congregation that is energized, growing, and coming out of a pandemic and a lock-down in much better shape, quite frankly, than many other churches.

Over the next couple of weeks, we will be holding a series of Town Hall meetings to discuss our budget and financial issues – followed by the Annual Meeting on June 4, when hopefully we will be able to adopt a budget that can simultaneously be balanced, while ensuring that we maintain the hard-won momentum we are currently enjoying.

Please participate in this important process of discernment. The future direction of the church is, literally, in our hands this spring. May we be loving and careful stewards of it.

Blessings,
Rev. Bill

May 19, 2023.

by Martha Viehmann

During the month of April, members of the Heritage community wrote words and phrases that they associate with this church and dropped them in a jar. Those submissions inspired this poem.

 

Our Heritage

Say hello.
Smile.
Say thank you.
Weave connection.

Eat together.
Laugh together.
Set a place at the table for all.
Create a family.

Sing together.
Breathe together.
Seek together.
Become a sanctuary.

Commit.
Serve.
Accept.
Build compassion.

Kindle love at the center
of this community.
This is our church,
our Heritage together.

Martha Viehmann

2023.

by Julie Kane

In July, my term as Heritage Board President comes to an end. I have learned so much from serving as president this past year. I wanted to take a moment to express my appreciation and gratitude for all the encouragement and support I received. It was an honor to work alongside such talented and dedicated individuals on the board.

As my leadership role comes to an end, I want to encourage everyone to become more involved in Heritage. There are many opportunities at Heritage to volunteer. Please consider participating in making Heritage the community we all seek.

I wish you all joy, peace and love.

Julie Kane
HUUC Board President

by Rev. Bill Gupton

A quick online search for the definition of “sanctuary” will yield two main understandings of that word: “a sacred place” and “a place of refuge or safety.” There is, of course, a literal sanctuary at Heritage Church – the space in which we gather for Sunday services, worship services, memorial services, singing and celebration, mourning and meditation. You know, the room with the beloved round window that looks out onto the world, from our inner sacred space.

There is also Heritage Acres Memorial Sanctuary – a 40-acre piece of that natural world, which is set aside not only as the final resting place for, already, dozens of people who have passed from this life, but also as a “nature sanctuary” where wildlife and ecosystems can be protected and preserved.

Both of these sanctuaries – the one on Newtown Road and the one on Locust Corner Road – align with both of the definitions of “sanctuary”: they are, most assuredly, sacred places … and they offer a place of refuge and safety, whenever such a place is needed, either by one of us, or someone in the wider community.

In these difficult and often painful times, I am reminded that this is perhaps our most important mission. Moved by the love that is the spirit of this church, we seek to provide a sanctuary from an often dangerous world. With hateful, exclusionary legislation being proposed and passed in this and other states around the country, we offer a safe place for those who are being marginalized by society. With racism, homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny driving much of the discourse in our culture (the so-called “culture wars”), Heritage Church can be a much needed, even life-saving sanctuary.

Every week, I speak with someone who is grateful, sometimes even deeply emotional, to have found a place like Heritage. They use words like “safe” and “oasis.” They say things like “I never knew such a church existed” and “Where have you been all my life?” and “I can’t imagine what life would be like without this place, and these people.”

I lift up the idea of sanctuary, and experiences such as these, because it is important to remind ourselves, every now and then, why we are here. Why we support Heritage. Why what we do matters.

May we always be a sanctuary, when you need one. May we always serve this community as a sanctuary of faith, of hope, but most importantly, of love.

Namaste!

May 2023.