As this is written, Asheville just had its first Code Purple event of the season, meaning that due to cold temperatures, emergency overflow shelters are open for our unhoused neighbors.
Our congregation has what I like to think of as a “ministry of warmth”—Fiber Friends! We gather monthly to craft in community, and part of our mission is creating warm products for cold weather: hats, scarves, wrist warmers, mittens, etc.
We create for all ages and gender identities, with a variety of sizes and colors. Our “adult” sizes are distributed through the BeLoved pantry box beginning with a donation (sometimes wrapped) in December, and a second batch of items given later in the winter. Children and youth sizes are given to Children First for distribution through their programs. At our November meeting, we set aside 38 items for BeLoved and 42 for Children First.
The warmth we share is not only physical. We provide emotional warmth through donations of handmade dishcloths/washcloths to seniors through the Santa for Seniors program of Meals on Wheels. Sixty-seven cloths were sent to MoW in November.
We also create warmth within our community as we talk while crafting. We share stories and events from our lives—family, work, health, whatever is on our minds or in our hearts. Join us with your personal project(s) or work on one of ours; any craft that can be comfortably done in your lap is welcome. We meet the first Saturday of each month—the weekly Enews will have details. Contact Mara (mara_sprain@yahoo.com) to get on the reminder email list.
I had the opportunity to attend a UUA youth summit with a few of our amazing high schoolers and YRUU Advisor Jim Gamble last weekend in Oak Ridge, TN. What an uplifting experience that was! I’ve got to tell you, folx, I love our youth. They are kind, inclusive, curious, thoughtful, fun, and mature teens. Uniquely themselves and beautiful in their own right, they also have a synergy that creates a positive, respectful, bright light together. I am inspired by our young UUs!
At the youth summit, our Asheville group gathered in person with other teens (and a sprinkling of adults) in tandem with four other host sites across the southern region. We connected with each other and peers new to us; we talked about who we are as a youth group; we dreamed together about what UU youth culture could be; we worshiped, sang, danced a little, ate, and played. It was heartwarming to hear from our articulate Asheville youth that UU youth group is a place where “I can be myself unapologetically,” that “makes me happy, and I am loved for who I am,” and where “I want to explore our diverse lives in the group” (paraphrasing a little as I wasn’t recording during the youth summit). This echoes what I heard recently when I spent time with our middle graders (5th-8th) on a Sunday morning; a common refrain from that set was, “I like being here because I get to spend time with friends I don’t normally get to see during the week and do different things.” (Now weeks ago, I can’t remember all of what they said but do recall having a full heart that day as well.)
This place, the space and time and resources we commit to one another – those who we know and befriend, those younger and older who we don’t know well yet – is not magic (a lot of it is definable math). But its effect is almost magical. Our congregation coming together weekly and more often nurtures the spiritual seeds planted in all of us, and together, we are a bountiful garden. This month and always, I am thankful for our Asheville congregation and wider UU family.
P.s. I also want to share some other good news from our high school youth group, a.k.a., YRUU = Young Religious Unitarian Universalists. Beyond the youth summit, they have had an active fall season together, despite a short hiatus after the storm. They recently completed painting the new street pantry box that is now in place on Charlotte Street (see photos of that weeks-long project below and hear about it from them during worship in December); they processed at PrideFest with our congregation; they prepped postcards for UU the Vote; they made care packages for our recent YRUU graduates; they explored Tarot as spirituality with Rev. Audette; youth families gifted a Soup Sunday to our congregation last month and have another (trip fundraiser) “Soup to Go” this Sunday during the craft fair; they have plans for a wisdom story and Parents Night Out, both in December; and they’ll be leading worship in February. Our congregation is fortunate to have engaged families of all ages, shapes, and sizes. We hope you join us in honoring and supporting them.
And a special shout out to YRUU Advisors Margaret McAlister, Joanne Fox, Jim Gamble, and Sarah Kirkpatrick. Also to Anita Feldman for collaborating on the pantry project with our youth.
Thank you to all who participated in our post carding events! We mailed over 4,000 postcards this election season. We are also grateful to volunteers offering rides to the polls, canvassing, phone banking and working at the polls during early voting and on Nov 5.
UU Avl & UU Justice Events
UU Justice NC’s Friday Action Hour – 11:00 AM every Friday Sign up for the Zoom link & weekly Friday Action Hour promo email here. TOPIC: TBA
An invitation from the Environmental Action Team: Our Changing Climate in a Post-Helene World Where: The Collider, 1 Haywood St. Suite 1 When: Dec 4; Door open 6PM; Program 7-8:30 PM Who: Dr. Zeke Hausfather followed by panel discussion Details and registration here.
The garden’s almost finished for the year. Except for the final clean-up, plants are going to sleep, interconnected roots are hugging each other below ground, earthworms are burrowing deep and the landscape is heaving a sigh. I love this time of year simply because of the time for reflection.
I will sit awhile in the sun. We’ve had a rough couple of months, but the plants are still hanging on. And we’ve had a lovely gift of warmer-than-usual fall days.
So, I love to mull over what happened in the garden this year. The fall greens, broccoli and leeks are still standing strong, but gone are the luscious fruits of high summer. I ate my last fresh tomato, and now it’s the appropriate time to bring out the canned tomatoes for Thanksgiving dinner.
This is a good time to do a basic inventory of what needs to be cleaned up before winter and what can be left until next spring. If dead plants standing bother you, then cut them down. But try the chop and drop method in which you do three chops with hedge shears and let the stems fall. They provide organic matter to feed the plants next year.
The healthiest gardens and landscapes are those that mimic nature. Nature doesn’t remove leaves or dying foliage. The plants will simply grow through the plant matter the following spring and will be healthier for it. We have an overwhelming amount of tree debris because of the storm, but for the most part, nature will take care of it. Just slowly.
Most importantly, do what you feel needs doing in your own garden. Our wonderful landscape crew has put many parts of our campus landscape to bed, and we’ll be letting nature take over from here. We’ll remove the leaves from hard surfaces, but the rest will be blown into beds to make mulch. The ornamental grasses will be left standing to provide winter interest and will be cut back in early spring.
The beds may look a bit messy as we chopped and dropped perennials and annuals, but I invite you to come take a look in the spring as plants emerge through their cozy blanket. Nature isn’t tidy. Nature recycles beautifully and once we take her lead, we will be able to finally relax. And, we’ll be ecstatic when those hostas pop through last year’s leaves. Last year’s leaves will be the carpet that feeds next year’s plants. The garden and landscape will progress through the regular sequence even if we don’t intervene. It may not be as tidy, but it will progress.
This year, let’s sit back and enjoy the show, make every effort to relax, not get insanely nuts over tasks not done, and spend more time simply being in the garden.
In a time of trauma and shock – and Asheville has been through almost unimaginable trauma and shock over the last month and a half – it’s important to focus on first principles: food. Water. Shelter. Securing the safety and wellbeing of those you love. Breathing in. Breathing out. Deep practices of self-care and mutual aid.
In times of turbulent and uncertain, unwanted change, the first principles are the same, with one more element – finding and keeping our eyes on our own North Star, that inner compass which points true to our deepest values and most enduring commitments to Love.
We have always lived in dangerous days; sometimes we are very aware of it, and sometimes, less so. The calls to liberation always are sounding, and our most vulnerable have always needed us to be brave. That hasn’t changed. There may come times in the days ahead when living into your most deeply held values and answering the call of Love will be harder than ever before. We need to be prepared for that. That is why we need each other: to create sanctuary, and practice Love that transforms, even when to do so is to risk everything.
We are still here. We still love what we love, and we will persist, and Love more. And please remember that rest is resistance, joy is essential, and being able to laugh and love even in difficult times is how we make a life. Don’t be afraid of the beauty that still is everywhere in this world.
For now, let the day be enough unto itself, and please – join us here at UU Asheville. To see the faces of those who understand, who are working to build that same better world you dream of, is salvific. We need each other more than ever.
Here for you – Revs. Audette & Claudia Matt Farris & TKay Browning, interns David McKaig, Jen Johnson, Trevor Johson, & Kim Collins – UU Avl Staff
