Torch Articles
The High School YRUU youth are partnering with Planet Green to recycle e-waste! For each of the following items that we mail in, Planet Green gives a certain amount to our youth group. You get to be rid of your e-waste, and support our youth at the same time! Below is a list of items that can be recycled. Please bring only items that are on the list to the box near the Environmental Ministry table on Sundays, we’ll do the rest! In addition, if you’re looking to buy ink cartridges, you can buy them from Planet Green and we get a percentage! Just go to this website: planetgreenrecycle.com/slcyruu
What We Recycle:
· Inkjet Cartridges
· Laser/Toner Cartridges
· Cell Phones & Accessories
· GPS & Radar Detectors
· Calculators
· eBook Readers
· iPods/MP3 Players
· Digital/Video Cameras
· PDAs
· iPads/Tablets
· Video Game & Consoles
Questions? Contact Nancy Moos at
Religious Education News - Julie Miller, Director of Religious Education
Becoming a Volunteer for Religious Education
Why Should I Volunteer?
Volunteers are an essential part of Religious Education (RE) at First Unitarian Church. As a volunteer, you help us create a community that spans generations. Your presence as either a classroom teacher or teacher’s assistant enables the lead teacher to work more effectively with children and youth on a one-on-one basis, which then enhances the classroom as a safe and flexible environment. In short, our programs won’t run without you!
What Would I Do as a Volunteer?
Most volunteers assist in teaching our children and youth. At times, we may just ask for help on special events or with a social justice service project.
How Do I Become a Volunteer?
We appreciate many helping hands, but we ask that you be present at First Unitarian Church for six months prior to working in a classroom so that you have time to ‘feel right at home’ before taking on a classroom assignment. If you choose to teach, you will be asked to complete a simple background check that is paid for at our expense.
Upcoming Special Family Event!
No doubt about it, Halloween is a favorite day of the year. This year, First Church’s annual family Halloween Party features food, fun and song for everyone. Set for Tuesday, October 25 from 6 to 7:30pm, we’ll gather in Eliot Hall at the Church for the festivities. A family donation of $5 to $10 is suggested.
Plan to chow down on pizza and soft drinks, decorate cookies and pumpkins, enjoy a storyteller, play games, whack a piñata, get your face painted and blow huge glow bubbles on our front patio. Choir Director David Owens conducts a sing-along too, so bring your voice!
As 7pm approaches, we’ll form a casual parade of costumed kids and head a few stops north to Friendship Manor to entertain our friends and residents in the Manor’s Community Room. Looking forward to seeing you, your kids and, of course, those seriously scary costumes!
Minister's Column - Rev. Robert Fulghum
All the stories and essays in the book, All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten, were originally published in the newsletter of a small Unitarian church – as a minister’s column called From the Friarplace. The church was the Edmonds Unitarian Fellowship in Edmonds, Washington. The Minister was me. And here I am, back where I started. Writing the minister’s column for The Torch while Tom Goldsmith is away. FYI - I’ve continued writing a weekly column on my own published on the web at robertleefulghum.com linked to a Facebook page that carries photos connected to the web-journal. Take a look.
Why do I continue writing? To be useful.
Often, without realizing it, we fill important places in each other’s lives. It’s that way with the guy at the corner grocery, the mechanic at the local garage, the family doctor, teachers, coworkers, and neighbors. Good people who are always “there,” who can be relied upon in small, ordinary ways. People who, by example, teach us, bless us, encourage us, support us, uplift us in the daily-ness of life.
I want to be one of those.
You may also be one of those. There are those who depend on you, watch you, learn from you, are inspired by you, and count on you being in their world. You may never have proof of your importance to them, but you are more important than you may think. There are those who couldn’t do without you. The rub is that you don’t always know who. We seldom make this mutual influence clear to each other. But being aware of the possibility that you are useful in this world is the doorway into assuring that will come to be true.
My way is to keep writing and sharing that. What’s yours?
In the Life - Rev. Matthew Cockrum
National LGBT Coming Out Day
Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur
Saint Damien Canonization Day
Indigenous People’s Day & Columbus Day
That’s a whole lotta holiday in a little bit of time.
These are some of the observances - civil and religious - that show up on my calendar for the coming weeks.
Each of these observances has both historic and contemporary significance for me in my personal life and in my continued growth and development.
As a queer cisgender man, National Coming Out Day - a holiday created as part of an effort to fight stigma and advocate for AIDS research and funding - has been a part of my life and consciousness since I first came out almost 25 years ago.
Rosh Hanshanah and Yom Kippur have increasingly become part of my personal consciousness since I discovered my maternal Jewish roots, buried and hidden by her family in an effort to pass as respectable White middle-class people in the 1950’s.
Saint Damien - Father Damien of Molokai was one of the first “saints” I met in my mostly un-churched upbringing. A Catholic priest who served a mission in Hawaii’s “leper colonies” (still in existence, though much diminished) and contracted the disease, now known as Hansen’s Disease. His image and story continues to serve as an inspiration and challenge to whole-hearted giving.
Indigenous People’s Day & Columbus Day - Is one of the ongoing cusps of my life. It is an example of consciousness raising and another challenge to take responsibility for histories of genocide and White privilege, working through White shame and fragility and moving toward right relationship.
There’s a saying in yoga that “the pose starts the moment you want to get out of it.” This is not to say that suffering is necessarily redemptive or that we’re to injure or torture ourselves. Rather, it’s a reminder of the tricks our minds play and how quickly we seek to avoid discomfort and challenge. For those of us who have a tendency to push ourselves too hard, it can also serve as a reminder that we must balance mind/body/spirit, rather than overrule any one aspect of that necessary whole.
This month’s “Seeking the Sources” session (October 31, 6:45-8:45 p.m. in the Little Chapel) we’ll be exploring the first source of Unitarian Universalism, “Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life.” What observances - daily, annually - help you to tap into the wisdom of your experience of mystery and wonder? What moves you to renewal and openness?
Whatever your practices, I invite you to continue to seek openness in service of creation and renewal.
Here’s to The Work, friends.
Peace, Faith & Passion,
Matthew
FYI - Matthew will be away at a minister’s gathering in Colorado Springs October 17-20.
Night with Soul Report
Thanks to all who helped in creating and attending the fantastic “Night with Soul” event with Rev. Robert Fulghum and music from The Disposable Thumbs on 9/30. (Insert photos) Kim Grob Lee and Kristen Quinn and their host of volunteers transformed Eliot Hall and provided tasty jambalaya and desserts. Altogether you helped raise almost enough money to cover one of the four chaperones we intend to send on the New Orleans service trip with our high school youth this summer. Thanks so much! Keep an eye on the bulletin boards in Eliot Hall for updates and more opportunities to support this important part of First Church youth ministries!
Youth Ministries Reports
Our Whole Lives - 8th & 9th Grades - Off to a running start with an introduction to an expanded notion of sexuality, our 8th and 9th graders and their teachers are moving into deeper conversations about values as they pertain to healthy relationships and examining accurate scientific information about human anatomy and physiology. Remember 10:45-12:15 in Junior High Room (#218)
World Religions - 6th & 7th Grades - have begun their exploration of world religions with Unitarian Universalism! They’ll be in the Parlor for their regular session (11-12:15) on 10/09 and will be heading on a field trip for Hinduism on 10/16. Parents, keep an eye on the 6th-7th grade Facebook page for reminders or check with your teachers, Sara Jordan, Usha Spaulding, Ian Mitchell and Jenn Gibbs. Remember 11-12:15 in Parlor (Room#225)
High School - 10th-12th Grades - Are eagerly engaging in debates, discussions, reflections and learning. They’ve also begun planning a regional youth conference “Con” for Martin Luther King weekend along with youth from our UU congregations in South Valley and Ogden. A social with area youth is in the works for early November. Keep an eye on the high school Facebook page and RE Newsletter for updates. Remember new times - 10:45-12:45 in the Haven (Room #214)
10/30 Sermon Title - Living with Loss, Dancing with Death - Rev. Matthew Cockrum, speaking
UU Orientation & Info Session - 10/24 - 6:30-8:30 p.m. in Eliot Hall. New or new-ish to Unitarian Universalism or First Unitarian Church? Curious about how to get connected with this community of service, learning and justice? Join staff and lay leaders in an intimate evening of questions and exploration. RSVP online by clicking here, or to clminister@slcuu or Rev. Matthew Cockrum at 801.582.8687 ext. 205. Child care available upon request and light refreshments served.
Seeking the Sources - 10/31 - 6:45-9:45 p.m. in the Little Chapel - join Rev. Matthew Cockrum and other seekers in this drop-in session, focused on the sources and principles of Unitarian Universalism. Wear comfortable clothing and bring a yoga mat or meditation cushion if you have one. Movement, meditation and mindful exploration for all!
Building a Beloved Community: Carol’s Welcome Table Story
-submitted by Carol Romagosa
Back in November 2015, I was introduced to the idea of The Beloved Community by Mark Matheson, my Shakespeare professor. As director of the MUSE Project at the University of Utah, he wrote an introduction for U.S. Rep. John Lewis who would be speaking at the U. Lewis has dedicated his life to protecting human rights, securing civil liberties and building what he calls “the Beloved Community” in America and the goal of realizing the Beloved Community has guided every aspect of his activism and public service.
Through his writings, nonviolent direct actions and service as an elected official, Lewis has demonstrated the transformative power of this ideal for the individual and its efficacy in creating social justice. Lewis learned of this ideal in the 1950s from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Lewis has written that the story of his life can be understood in terms of his dedication to this single ideal which he defines as a truly interracial democracy based on nonviolence and simple justice that values “the dignity and worth of every human being. Is this not our Unitarian value?
The idea of the Beloved Community emerged in the late 19th century in the work of the American philosopher Josiah Royce. An important aspect of the Beloved Community is that it is based on the loyalty of the individual to the community but in the process the person does not sacrifice his or her individuality. Many churches, including UU’s, have adapted the idea and practice for their groups and activities. I became instantly drawn to this ideal and knew that I wanted to practice it in my life and introduce into my life and my community at First Unitarian Church in Salt Lake City.
My personal background in coming to First Unitarian explains how I came to adopt the practice. Having been shy my whole life, in 2005 when I began attending First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City, I meditated at stop lights when driving to church on Sunday to tell myself that I could walk into Eliot Hall alone. Even so, I signed the book in 2005 because I had read Jack Mendelsohn’s book Being Liberal in an Illiberal Age and discovered that this was where I needed to be.
However, many Sundays in Eliot Hall, very few, if any, individuals approached me to talk with me or welcome me. I gradually became more comfortable as I participated in more church activities and groups. But the fact remains that we need to be more welcoming to visitors, strangers, newcomers and perhaps even “oldcomers” in Eliot Hall before and after services. We most definitely need to approach people who appear to be standing around alone.
Rev. Matthew, our Consulting Minister for Congregational Life, arrived in August 2015. When he announced he was forming a Hospitality Committee, I personally was experiencing a lot of personal anxiety. So the opportunity to be involved in making our church more welcoming was intuitively a very welcoming idea for me. When I met with Matthew and learned of “the Work,” the very important and necessary Work, this committee would be doing, I chose to work on the Welcome Table. The committee decided to separate the Welcome Table from a Congregational Life Table that offered information on all the church’s activities. The Welcome Table would “welcome” people by helping them feel comfortable and inform them where to find information on church activities, if they were interested.
The Hospitality Committee decided to move the Welcome Table to outside the Chapel door and to maintain the Welcome Table during the summer Forums. With the approval of the committee, I chose to “dress up” the table to make it more attractive. This summer, I spent every Sunday in Eliot Hall to welcome those who showed up on time or late, some of the most satisfying work I have ever done. I also discovered there is a great need for at least one person to be “on duty” in Eliot Hall throughout the service.
I believe in the need for someone in our Beloved Community to be present to welcome those who do visit the table. If we do not create a welcoming and caring presence for everyone who comes to us, we are not honoring our Seven Principles and we are not creating our Beloved Community.
It Just Happened - submitted by Nicholas Shifrar
The energy is a peaceful morning vibration. It’s not the frenzy of a festival. It’s not the excitement of a campus during the first weeks of fall or spring. It’s the steady radiation of an engaged movement. Some set tables with fliers and sign-up sheets on the patio. Others are parking their cars, locking up their bikes, and walking through the front doors to snag a seat in the red-padded, white-wooden pews. The choir is rehearsed and ready to groove. It’s 8:55am and the service is about to start.
I’m on the fly. Jog at 5:50, breakfast and an email or two at 6:20, work by 7. God supposedly set this day aside for rest. But I’m a Unitarian, I’ll rest when the world is just. My employer gave me a two-hour window to attend the Sunday service that I cherish. I’m grateful for this. Unfortunately, it means I’m unable to stand at any table or chat with the active members to hear about their organizations and commitments after the service. The Unitarian Universalist Young Adult table, the Social Justice table, the Environmental Justice table, the Choir table, to name a few. They’re all set up on church’s front patio beneath a solid blue September sky ready to re-enlist folks or to sign them up to various activities for the first time. I walk briskly through the small crowd and swoop in to snatch a seat with the choir. So, maybe my sense of the air isn’t fully encompassing. I’m fallible and finite, but service is about to start with the singing of “Welcome, Welcome,” by Clif Hardin. I’ll nip the rumination in the bud.
After the song, it’s Rev. Matthew’s turn. He moves up to the pulpit. “Come in,” he says with a peaceful, welcoming voice. “Come in, you agitators and thinkers.” I can feel the space opening up with the characteristic language of our engaged progressivism like the first deep breath of the day. His voice is smooth and warm like a space heater in winter.
“But seriously, come in.”
The doors are then opened for those agitators and thinkers who are currently categorized as latecomers. We’re all settled in now and at the end of the opening words, Rev. Matthew lights the chalice. We’re here to reconnect with Hope and Knowledge and for a weekly reorientation to the infinite possibilities of Love.
Today’s sermon from the great Rev. Goldsmith is many things. It is an extraction of Thoreau’s Walden-grown wisdom; it is a relaying of history from William Ellery Channing to the American Unitarian Association to the convergent evolution of Unitarians and Universalists and their merger in 1961; it is a lesson on the non-dogmatic, non-creedal, universally applicable bylaws established by the UUA in 1984. If, though, I were to whittle it down to a single thing (and the last time I whittled thusly I told my date that the grand October sky this evening was “Blue. And beautiful,”), I would whittle it down to a call. It was a call for us attending members to engage in the Unitarian Universalist tradition.
The rich history of agitators and immense minds is why I am here. I sit in the chapel this morning because Thoreau didn’t reject the world, he criticized it on his quest to live the good life. He dismantled cultural practices to better understand purpose and intention. He sojourned in a natural setting to discover the worth of patient, determined, simple labor and to uncover the meaning of a person’s encounters with the surrounding world: the occasionally overwhelming and perpetually perplexing umwelt of the human organism.
It seems to me that we sit in church on a Sunday morning because this religious alternative is one that embodies positive change for the sake of our earth and each of its beings. The transcendentalists reawakened the divinity in our own breast; the humanists gave us a manifesto to centralize our humanity, and raise our attention to the responsibilities bequeathed by that humanity; the early Unitarian ministers like Theodore Parker pushed the limits of what could be said behind a pulpit and uncovered the tendency of some preachers to conceal things that should be said behind a pulpit. This church is a piece of a great movement. We are its rational and compassionate agents.
I sat in my little chair feeling the undercurrent of history’s unseen ocean moving within me. From Rev. Goldsmith’s soul emerged the meaning of the word soul. It isn’t an irrational concept or unscientific, otherworldly thing. The soul is a person’s relation to the beauties, the mysteries, the simplicities, the mundanities, the profundities of an individual lifespan caught in the molecular shaking of a cosmos that has temporarily coalesced into the spherical rock we call Earth. I could simplify this. The soul is our connection to the many fragile and finite things of this life as well as our connection to the infinite. The soul is a way to express the ideals contained within us or the fears we never thought we’d have or the ones we face daily. The soul is the mind’s ruminations about our mortality and meaning that sometimes are manifest into speech or writing and other times drift off into the graveyard of thought. The soul is the connection to grandma’s cooking, the expansive evening sky, and the writings of 19th century New England essayists. It is everything we are, seen and unseen.
This sermon was a call to sustain our engagement, to walk forward with principle, and to understand again the lineage behind our forward motion. Coming from Rev. Goldsmith who has been a minister for Salt Lake’s First Unitarian church for almost a quarter of its history, we are given greater reason to step up. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Those who are ignorant of history miss out on its bone-quaking inspiration. Those who engage in history write it.
It’s not possible to portray each detail of the sermon or the service. That doesn’t mean erasure. It means there’s unexplored stardust in this universe of experience. From Rev. Cockrum’s playful musical antics and wit to David Owens’ outstanding musicianship and ever-present empathy, this is a small reflection from the First Unitarian church in Salt Lake City. These details are not lost on open souls.
Reverendly Yours - Rev. Tom Goldsmith
There’s an old axiom that suggests that UU churches swell in numbers in proportion to our nation’s conservative leadership. In other words, UU churches flourished during the Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan years, with a slight upbeat during the Bush years. The Obama years may have kept our country a little left of center, but his administration hurt our membership overall.
Although it’s not a science, we can safely speculate about the correlation between the politics in the White House and whether or not liberals support their churches. It seems as though we don’t feel urgency to sit in liberal pews as long as there’s a sense that the political agenda moves towards a more just system. It makes UU ministers think twice about how they want presidential elections to turn out. On the other hand, if this year’s nightmare gets elected, we may need to build a new church the size of the Tabernacle on Temple Square. A bump in membership comes at quite a significant cost.
I never have made sense of the ebb and flow of UU membership being somehow mystically tied to the party in office. It feels as though liberals have a liberal agenda, namely ensuring that those who live in the margins of society are not forgotten. The agenda includes hospitality to immigrants, equal opportunities for all races in education and employment, and also includes health care as a basic human right for all. But why don’t liberals embrace these principles on a local level in their UU churches instead of believing (erroneously) that it suffices to have a liberal president? Is there a fear factor that drives prospective Unitarians to churches to do the work they are meant to do? Are our churches only meaningful to liberals in dark times, when our valued principles are threatened?
The correlation between who’s president and who’s in the pews makes UU churches appear far more political than they really intend to be. Although the seven UU principles encompass values usually attributed to people who aspire to make our nation more multicultural and diverse, care for the environment, and call to affirm justice, equity, and compassion in human relations, there is more to a liberal church community than its political agenda. We want our children educated in the value of helping others; we need community to celebrate and mourn; we want to enrich our spiritual lives and share this good life with the people who join us in worship.
Social justice needs persist on a local level regardless who’s president. First Church provides opportunities for us to work meaningfully to make this little corner of the world more just. We fulfill an important niche in the liberal heart. It’s not just about politics, but also a religious understanding that gives meaning to our lives. Let’s build our church to where we are a sustainable institution into the future. It really shouldn’t matter who wins an election. TRG
In the Life - Rev. Matthew Cockrum
...And we’re off! Just a few weeks into the new program year (and a month or so into the academic calendar) and it feels to me like we’re already at breakneck speed. It’s the end of September and we’re hurtling forward into plans for Halloween, Solstice and Christmas. It can make it seem as though summer was just a dream or is just a vague memory.
Over the summer I tried to return to a practice of focused reading. One of the texts I chose is a slim one which I commend to you, “An Other Kingdom,” by Peter Block, Walter Bruggeman and John McKnight. The authors - a business consultant, a theologian and a community organizer - paint a picture of what it would be like to live into another kind of community, rather than one focused on success, consumerism and contracts. Their focus turns to collaboration, neighborliness, abundance and covenants. Over and over again I found myself thinking, “They’re talking about Beloved Community! They’re talking about Church!”
I share this with you for two reasons. First, I highly recommend this text for your reading. If enough of us take the time perhaps we could have a book discussion and then explore how we might implement these suggestions in the First Church community and our broader communities. Second, it reminds me that our work here is not just busy work. Strategic planning, religious education for all ages, small group ministry, social justice organizing...they’re not just to feel good now, to accomplish an immediate task or to get us through another season. Our work in this great good place is, ideally, to shape us and our world more toward Beloved Community.
Much good is afoot here - meals for the Homeless Youth Resource Center, a youth service trip to the Gulf Coast, activism to address climate change, white supremacy, international bullying, and opportunities to reflect, learn, grow and cultivate greater self awareness and self-culture (see Tom’s sermon on 09/18/16 for more history on W.E. Channing’s concept). I encourage you to scan the state of your heart and mind. What do you need? Now scan the state of the community around you. What does it need?
Now...what’s stopping you?
Here’s to The Work, Friends!
Peace, Faith & Passion,
Matthew
More from Matthew:
Seeking the Sources - September 26, 6:45-8:45 p.m. in Eliot Hall. Join Rev. Matthew Cockrum in an exploration of the Sources and Principles of Unitarian Universalism. This is a monthly drop-in class. Come to one, a few or all! Each session will include movement, meditation and conversation. If you’ve got a favorite yoga mat or meditation cushion bring it along…or just come as you are! Sessions will be the last Monday of the month unless it’s a holiday, in which case it will be on the prior Monday.
Information Session - Join Rev. Matthew Cockrum for an informal Info Session on the first Sunday of every month in the small chapel, immediately following each worship service. Coffee and light refreshments available with an opportunity to meet other newcomers and ask questions about this congregation and Unitarian Universalism. No RSVP needed. Interested in helping? Contact Matthew at or 801.582.8687 ext. 205.
A Evening with Soul - September 30, 7 p.m. - Help our high schoolers and chaperones get to the Gulf Coast to be of service this summer! Plus have a night of great music, great food and great stories! First Church’s Minister-at-Large, the Rev. Robert Fulghum will regale diners with amusing, touching and heartfelt tales between musical sets by The Disposable Thumbs, all while you dine on authentic jambalaya (vegans too)! Tickets are $25 and are available in Eliot Hall on Sundays. For more questions contact organizer Kim Grob Lee at or 801.879.9719.
-submitted by Cathy Chambless, Chair of Endowment Committee
The Endowment Committee wishes to thank the following donors for their thoughtful gifts to the Church Endowment Fund in memory of members who have recently passed:
In memory of Janet Minden
Betsy Minden
Carol Blackwell
Cosette Joesten
Paula Julander
Lex Hemphill and Nancy Melich
In memory of Alice “Pat” Capson Brown
Virginia Rothstein
Anne Holman/ King’s English
Evelyn D. Bennett
Richard and Helen Wolford & Family
Miriam C. Bushnell
Have you heard about the Emerson Society?
Individuals who have included the First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City in their will or estate plans are inducted into the Emerson Society. A wood and brass plaque on the south wall of the Chapel lists the names of Emerson Society members.
If you would like more information about how to include the Church in your will or estate plans, Endowment Committee members are available to meet with you to discuss several different options for making bequests.
The Endowment Committee wants to know if you have already provided for giving to the Church in your will or estate plans but have not notified the Church. It is important to let the Endowment Committee know your intentions – not only to honor you (if you wish), but to ensure your wishes are respected.
For either purpose, contact us at or pick up a request form at the Congregational Life table in Eliot Hall after church services.
Anti-Racism Committee Class
-submitted by Catherine Parnell
White Privilege, White Shame, Black Pain is an eight-week course that will help students understand race as an emotional experience that has been perpetuated by historical and contemporary attempts to consolidate rather than share power. As a group we will aim to reveal the ways in which racism harms both people of color and white people, and we will strive to imagine the ways in which we can dismantle these racial barriers by looking inward at our privilege and personal experience, and outward at our relationships and institutions. The class will meet at the church from 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. on Thursdays, from September 29th through November 17th. We will read two books, Learning to be White and The New Jim Crow, which must be purchased by the start of the class. Register here: http://tinyurl.com/SLCUU-WhitePrivilegeWorkshop