“The earth has music for those who will listen.”*

I’ll be honest: When it comes to nature, I was never much of a listener. Oh, I’ve always done my best to help preserve the earth, believing fervently in the critical importance of environmentalism – but in those hectic work and family years, I’m not sure I stopped to appreciate more than an occasional mountaintop view or sunset.

In retirement, however, my perspective has changed. My recent training to become an Extension Master Gardener – (a title I feel sheepish sporting given the many far more experienced folks in my cohort) taught me to more closely observe plants, which has in turn shifted my perceptions of the nature around me. Suddenly, while I can’t necessarily tell you the colors of my neighbors’ houses, I can describe in detail the shrubs and flowers they’re growing in their front yards. And with noticing comes appreciation, micro-joys to brighten my day.

It’s this awakening that has caused me to belatedly become aware of our lovely gardens at UU Asheville! I am deeply grateful for the work of Kate Jerome and Venny Zachritz, who coordinate the Landscape Team that is responsible for this amazing, all-volunteer effort. As a subcommittee of the Environmental Action Team, the Landscape Team practices sustainable gardening, using native and food plants to attract pollinators and support wildlife. In the last five years, the group has worked tirelessly to plant, transplant, and maintain gorgeous pollinator, wildflower, butterfly, and diversity gardens – all spectacular additions to the UU landscape. 

Kate and Venny are aided by a team of about ten congregation members, but they can always use more help! The team meets on the first and third Saturdays of every month for a two-hour work shift. If you’re interested in helping out – even if Saturdays don’t work for you – please contact them:  katejerome2020@gmail.com (Kate) or VPWZ5258@gmail.com (Venny).

I asked Kate and Venny about their inspiration for this service; after all, gardening is tough work! Kate loves the enthusiasm of volunteers for climate justice, the opportunity to share information about sustainable gardening with the community, and the knowledge that “we are making a difference in our landscape.” Venny is likewise inspired by the dedication of helpers, as well as by her ability to share “this service of dirt and sweat…with the congregation.”

If you haven’t taken a walk around our UU campus in a while, I encourage you to make time to do so before or after your next visit. I hope that, like me, you’ll find the rainbow of colors lining the sidewalks, and the lively bees and butterflies darting among the coneflowers, to add cheer to the landscape and a lift to your spirits.

Melissa Himelein 
Board of Trustees

*Attributed to varied writers, including William Shakespeare, George Santayana, and Reginald Vincent Holmes

In these times when it is difficult to express the heaviness in so many of our hearts as we witness immoral leadership making decisions that impact our communities, this story shared recently in Piloting Faith reminds me that we are not in this alone. 

“They say that long ago, when the world was quieter and people still listened with their whole bodies, a young woman named Amaru lived high in the mountains of the Andes. She came from a long line of weavers—women who threaded the memory of the earth into cloth, each design a quiet offering to the sacred.

But Amaru was untethered. Her mother had died. Her teacher had gone. The elders whispered that the thread of her spirit had become tangled. She felt it, too—like a silence inside her that had once been singing. One day, she climbed to the highest ridge. The wind was thin. The stillness vast. She pressed her back against a stone and wept—not with drama, but with that ancient kind of sorrow that lives in the bones. The kind that asks no questions. The kind that simply aches.

Then—a sound.        Whirrrrr.          A flash of color, a shimmer of wings: a hummingbird.

It hovered in front of her, still as breath, beating like a heart just beneath the surface of silence. She followed it—not with certainty, but with that soft kind of instinct that rises when words fall away. It led her over stone and through thickets, to a cave hidden behind a waterfall. Inside, the darkness pulsed. The walls shimmered faintly, as if remembering. And in that remembering, Amaru began to remember too.

She closed her eyes, and the cave became the sky. She saw her ancestors—not as names or photos, but as presence, as rhythm, as song. They were dancing and weaving and soaring, reminding her: you are not alone.
The hummingbird hovered near her chest. And a voice—not outside, but within—whispered:
We walk with you. We always have. Be still, and you will remember.

When she returned to her village, Amaru weaved differently. The stories in her cloth shimmered with new color, new memory. She didn’t speak of the cave. She didn’t need to. People felt it. In her presence, they remembered their own rootedness, their own sky. And ever since, when someone in the village is lost, they say:
Look for the hummingbird. She shows the way back to those who walk with you.”

I wonder who the ancestors that walk with you are.
I wonder how you are remembering your “rootedness” in these times.
May his story be a reminder that we are not alone.
May we resist together knowing we are buoyed by the ancestors and justice seekers that came before us.

In faith,
Rev. Claudia Jiménez
Minister of Faith Formation

PS Do you recognize where this photo was taken?

There’s a pithy saying that I heard a lot growing up: “If you want to make God laugh, make plans.” It’s supposed to be a silly little proverb but it has started to take on an unkind edge in the past five years. Last September, my wife and I were in the process of buying a house, planning to make space for my parents to visit in early October. But then there was Helene, the house we were going to buy flooded, and we needed to focus on taking care of our neighbors. Prior to that, we had been planning to eventually move to Asheville in 2021, after I graduated from seminary. But then there was Covid and we needed to make an emergency move to Asheville to take care of family through the pandemic. In between there were elections and cancer diagnosis, and a thousand other crisis. And it makes me, a theist and a reluctant Christian, wonder about that glib little saying. I know that a loving God would never laugh at these tragedies, but does this saying actually speak to a deeper condition that I am feeling? There are times when it feels like the universe is out there ready to squash my plans as I make them, like a foot through a sand castle. As I look to this next October, I don’t want to take any trips and be away from those I love in case there’s another hurricane. Simultaneously, I want to get out of Dodge before Helene’s sister visits us. Maybe you are in the same boat where one crisis after another has started to wear down your ability to dream. And these are examples of recent collective tragedies, but any moment like this in a person’s life where they have to pause or cancel major life plans to address urgent needs can cause a similar effect. Psychologists would label this “anticipatory anxiety” but it feels much deeper than that. It’s most certainly related to PTSD and the effects of trauma, but the language used in trauma recovery doesn’t touch on this particular phenomenon, as far as I know. Francis Weller describes one of the Gates of Grief as “Grief for what we expected but did not receive,” so it’s probably grief too. I would label it an injury to our ability to hope. While knowing it and labeling it may be half the battle, there is still a question of how to heal this particular injury. My “hope” is that it is like physical therapy. We work on the movements we want to do, but just smaller, more carefully. My “hope” is that it is as simple as making little plans here and there, and seeing them to fruition through the power of our own will and joy. My “hope” is that God is seeing our dreams deferred and not laughing but doing the same work alongside us, always hoping for the best of what is possible. That’s my plan for my healing, at least for now.

Trevor Johnson

Connection Coordinator

As I prepared for my sabbatical adventures a few months ago, I shared that I was centering my Camino Portugues walk from Porto to Santiago de Compostela on the invitation by Francis Zanzaro in “Zen of the Wild” to focus not so much on what one can get out of the walk, but what a walk can get out of us. In the end, that became the focus of my sabbatical, not what I can get from the sabbatical –I tried not to create a “to-do list” of things to accomplish – but rather be open to what the walk and other activities- might get out of me. To practice letting-go. To be attentive to emerging thoughts and emotions, open to serendipity, open to what resonances might emerge from the new landscapes.

During these three months, many things emerged from my experiences. My overarching theme for journaling and reflection became “disconnect, reflect and reset.” I disconnected from work knowing that lay leaders, staff, Rev. Audette and I had thoroughly discussed how the Faith Formation and Justice Ministries were going to function in my absence. Thank you, team!
I am now ready to joyfully reengage with our liberatory faith and this community. Since my return, I have been reconnecting with lay leaders and staff catching up and planning for the new congregational year. I am grateful for all that has been accomplished in my absence.

It was difficult to completely disconnect from the news during my camino walk. Our European traveling companions often brought it up. TVs in small cafes and restaurants were unavoidable. Instead of trying to tune out, I listened, felt the feelings and affirmed to myself that I was taking a break from engagement to recharge my spirit for the work ahead when I returned. Later on, during our camping trip out west, I was truly able to disconnect, to immerse myself in nature, to appreciate the beauty and expansiveness of this country as we drove through diverse ecosystems, to enjoy new friends however briefly.  and an unexpected surprise, to learn the history of Indigenous Peoples of the southwest. 

One does not need to go far away to disconnect and recharge. Taking a 15-minute break, an hour, a half day when possible from one’s routines can be refreshing. Being mindful of how much time is spent consuming news can also be helpful. It is important to be informed and to create space for things that are uplifting and joyful. It allows us to be more present, resilient and intentional as we engage with one another in the many circles we are part of. I bought a postcard in a little café during my travels with this quote from Rebecca Solnit: “When you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated and isolated, joy is a fine act of insurrection.” I invite you to consider how you are making space for joy in these times.

A few of you have asked me about my sabbatical adventures. On August 20, from 6-7:15 PM I will host a potluck & slideshow in Sandburg Hall for those of you who would like to hear more. I will provide dessert: spicy carrot cake. Consider Joining in!

With gratitude & joyful anticipation for the new congregational year,

Rev. Claudia Jiménez
Minister of Faith Formation

Our youth group travelers are heading to GA this week! 

Fresh faced and mostly excited, ten of our high schoolers piled into vans with their four chaperone/sponsors Wednesday morning, headed to Baltimore, MD to attend UUA’s annual General Assembly (GA). We expect they’ll have a good time exploring the wider world of our active, liberal religion with other youth and UUs of all ages. Over the course of this 5-day immersive event, there are engaging workshops & speakers; inspirational worship services; UU business & voting; connection-building within identity groups and with UUs of all backgrounds; spiritual nourishment; justice learning & action; music; games and fun; and more! Additionally, our youth group has signed on to help lead the youth-focused Synergy Worship Service happening at GA on Friday. We hope all Asheville attendees will come to support our and all UU youth!

General Assembly is a time for connection, growth, and reflection and can be a rich, profound experience. GA is a space to explore personal and shared UU values and to go deeper in community. What does it mean to be a Unitarian Universalist? How do we live out our values? What does democracy look like in action? This is the first time since 2018 that our youth group is participating. 

The youth group and their parents (and others!) have been working together all year to bring this trip experience to fruition. THANK YOU to all of our Soup Sunday and pancake breakfast “customers,” Parents’ Night Out attendees, Faithify and other donors, to congregation groups and committees for shared work and revenue, and to the UUA/GA for several scholarships to help reduce the family cost. 

GA attracts more than 3,000 folx from over 1,000 UU congregations, and we are proudly in that number! In addition to our youth group of 14, UU Asheville has more attendees: Rev. Audette, Kim Collins, Mary Alm, Susan Foster, Rob Fulson, and Jody Malloy are attending in Baltimore while Rev. Claudia, Matt Farris, Bernise Lynch, and Mara Sprain are participating in GA business and more virtually. (Note: this may be an incomplete list.) Ask them all about it next week! 

Jen Johnson, Religious Educator

Opportunities to practice activism abound these days. In fact, we probably wish there weren’t such a need for our activism in service to collective liberation. Couldn’t we just get a little break from the injustices, the wrongs, the hurt? Sadly, the call for our activism is deadly serious, and we simply can’t ignore it. As we continue to promote collective liberation locally and nationally, I’d like to draw your attention to an often-overlooked form of liberative practice: mystic activism.

There is no substitute for Horizontal change for the Good; i.e., transformation that makes life better for Our Relations (humans and non-humans alike) in concrete ways. Then again, there’s also no substitute for Vertical change for the Good; i.e., transformation that makes life better for Our Relations (humans and non-humans alike) in spiritual, mystic, or esoteric ways. If the Horizontal were all that matters, we could be exclusively concerned with material life. But what about wellness for Our Relations that pertains to the soul, psyche, and so on? What about spiritual health and wellness for All Our Relations?

In her short and accessible book, Practical Mysticism: A Little Book for Normal People, Evelyn Underhill aims to promote a brass tacks, mystic way of life. Her book was originally published in 1914, and it bears a romanticism common in late 19th and early 20th century English spiritual thought. But maybe these days we need a bit more romanticism to inspire our struggle against “the banality of evil” (à la Hannah Arendt). Maybe we need more practical mysticism to counteract the soul-deadening effects of capitalism and the idolatry of exclusivist privilege.
Underhill lays out our collective calling as follows:

So here is your vocation set out: a vocation so various in its opportunities, that you can hardly fail to find something to do. It is your business to actualise within the world of time and space—perhaps by great endeavors in the field of heroic action, perhaps only by small ones in field and market, tram and tube, office and drawing-room, in the perpetual give-and-take of the common life—that more real life, that holy creative energy, which this world manifests as a whole but indifferently. You shall work for mercy, order, beauty, significance: shall mend where you find things broken. 1

Underhill urges us to recognize that the material world may be our field of play, but manifesting “that more real life, that holy creative energy” is the vocation for a well-integrated Vertical and Horizontal human life. Our Transcendentalist forebears—like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Elizabeth Peabody—understood that our holistic health requires us to live as beings who participate in Being (the sacred Whole, the Holy, the transcendent). To put it simply, our mystic activism is to be co-creators of a Good reality. Yes, advocate for Goodness on the Horizontal level, but don’t forget that the Vertical dimension of life also warrants our mystic activism: at the grocery store, in your neighborhood, “in field and market, tram and tube, office and drawing-room, in the perpetual give-and-take of the common life.”

The motto of Mount Tamalpais College—the two-year liberal arts college program for inmates of San Quentin State Prison—is Discamus Ut Mundum Reparemus: “Let Us Learn So That We May Repair the World.” That, Beloveds, is mystic activism in a nutshell! I taught philosophy at Mount Tamalpais College, and my students “on the inside” deeply understood the practicality of mystic activism. They grasped the vitality and power of spiritual wellness in service to collective liberation. We read Octavia Butler, Dostoevsky, Foucault, Vine Deloria Jr., and Paolo Freire. For them, studying Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed or Foucault’s Discipline and Punish wasn’t “just an academic exercise”—it was the sublime practice of spiritual resistance and the mystical praxis of wellness for the Whole.

Friends, mystic activism is an invaluable complement to the genuine transformation of our material world. Typically I would now provide you with a list of “spiritual things” you could do to practice mystic activism. You don’t need a list. Try something you think might be mystic activism. Or use your intuition. Or ask a kindred spirit what mystic activism might mean to them. Experiment. If you do this, you will be practicing mystic activism. It’s that easy…and sublime.

Matt Farris, Ministerial Intern 

My birthday is in May, and I am a Taurus. Horoscopes are complete nonsense, except for all the ways they seem to be true (this is humor). Regardless of the stars, I do tend to go at work and justice-side things long and hard and with a certain amount of push, but to keep that up – especially as the years do pass – I need real rest, times of just lollygagging (dilly-dallying!) or daydreaming, unpeople-y down time and sleep. 

As the weather and the world get so lovely, and summer adventures beckon, there’s a new challenge. We all know that the world is struggling, and our country is in a dangerous place – and not just at risk, but extremely hard to predict, given that we are affected by the pure whims of unserious people. To attend graduations, celebrate birthdays, or go to the beach or paddling down rivers at such a time can be a surreal kind of experience, but it’s one that has an actual name: hypernormalization. A term born in Russia, it was brought Westward by the work of Adam Curtis, who wrote:

““HyperNormalisation” is a word that was coined by a brilliant Russian historian who was writing about what it was like to live in the last years of the Soviet Union. What he said, which I thought was absolutely fascinating, was that in the 80s everyone from the top to the bottom of Soviet society knew that it wasn’t working, knew that it was corrupt, knew that the bosses were looting the system, and knew that the politicians had no alternative vision. And they knew that the bosses knew that they knew that. Everyone knew it was fake, but because no one had any alternative vision for a different kind of society, they just accepted this sense of total fakeness as normal. …Everyone in my country and in America and throughout Europe knows that the system that they are living under isn’t working as it is supposed to; that there is a lot of corruption at the top. But whenever the journalists point it out, everyone goes “Wow that’s terrible!” and then nothing happens and the system remains the same.”

So that doubling & tripling sense of “It’s bad/but I’m ok and things seem much the same/I want to check out/but I should do something” is both real and you are not alone.

So… what, then? As people of faith, we have faith in something, right? And for me, that “something” is two-fold: first, that humans can be wonderful and we have a lot of power when we work together and put our efforts into dreaming up better things. (We are also darn good at erecting roadblocks when we want to slow or stop something!)  And second, that we don’t know the future, and as Gandalf reminded Frodo, “There are forces at work in this world beyond the will of evil.” Greed and hubris and the hunger for power are deeply corrupting – but they have a limited shelf-life, and by staying present, working hard, and building up communities of strength and love, we can make a difference. We can turn the tide.

Perhaps, like me, you were born to dilly-dally, and need your rest time and times of laughter, good food, and beauty. But we have to fight fascism. So please: don’t make looking away and avoiding news your default. Rest and return to those things that are important to you. Find the institution you love and protect it. Find the people you love and protect them. Find the hope you have and nurture it. But it’s ok to dilly dally a bit, from time to time. 

Rev. Audette Fulbright Fulson, Lead Minister