When you read or hear someone mention our first Unitarian Universalist Principle, that calls us to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person, do you believe it applies to you also?
I can recall a time during my teens and young adult years when I did not treat myself with worth and dignity. And while I tried to treat others with worth and dignity, I still caused family and friends emotional pain. I was recently reminded of that time of my life when I attended a retreat for UU Military Chaplains.
During my undergraduate studies, I joined ROTC and when I graduated I was commissioned as a 2LT in the U.S. Army. After three years of escaping detection while serving in the Army Reserves, I failed a drug test two days after reporting for active duty and was separated from the Army nine months later.
After the deaths of my parents, those nine months and years to follow until I got clean and sober was the worst time of my life. Needless to say, treating myself with worth and dignity after throwing away my military career was almost impossible.
Not until I sat in a circle with UU Military Chaplains did I realize that I had healed and forgiven myself for treating myself and the Army with disrespect.
So I ask you, do you treat yourself like you have inherent worth and dignity? Is there anything you need to forgive yourself for? What do you need to do to start the process of forgiving yourself?
As always, I would love to hear from you. You can message me on Facebook at Monica Cummings, email me at mcummings@uua.org or leave a comment for me on the YaYA of Color blog, UU Living Mosaic at http://uuyayaoc.blogs.uua.org/.
I am sitting in my home office watching squirrels run across cable lines while reflecting on 2011. Wow, it has been quite a year. Most notable this past year is the publicity related to teen suicide because of bullying, and the Occupy Movement.
At first glance these topics seem to be unrelated. However, after digging just a little below the surface, the connection becomes clear. The common thread that connects the two is abuse of power. For example, heterosexual youth who use their dominant cultural power to bully LGBTQ youth and CEO’s of banks and corporations who use their financial power to bully the unemployed, under-employed, poor and working class. Indeed, 2011 will be remembered as the year the 99% broke their silence to let the 1% know that bullying (physical, verbal, financial) destroys lives.
Finally, I invite you to reach out to family and friends who may be struggling with unemployment, depression or illness during this holiday season and let them know that they are not alone. Conversely, if you are suffering with depression, please reach out for support. Youth and Young Adults of Color who are interested, I have a list of UU ministers and religious professionals of color who are willing to provide chaplain support during the holidays. Please contact me for a list of their names.
I hope this message finds you and your family well. I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Central Midwest District Chapter of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association’s fall retreat last week. The topic for the retreat was “Whose Are We.” For two days, we reflected on relationships with colleagues, our personal ministries, a Higher Power, etc… In addition to pondering the above questions, I also participated in a morning worship service titled, “Whose Are We”, by providing the following closing words,
I invite you to respond to the questions, “Whose are we and Whose am I” with your family, friends, youth group, or co-workers. After you do so, I would love to hear about your experience.
Paper Plate lady birds: The kids painted the snack sized paper plates red and stapled on the head and antennae I pre-cut from some black card. The spots are just black stickers bought in a box from my local newsagent. The stickers were great because we didn't ave to wait for the paint to dry completely.
Caterpillar Pegs: These are super cute but a little tricky for real little hands as the pompoms fell off quite easily as the glue wasn't drying very fast. Might be better in summer when the glue would dry quicker. I'm going to add a strip of magnetic tape to ours so I can put them on the fridge to hold the kids drawings.
Bee Hive Printing: With my slight obsession with on-line shopping I always have lots of bubble wrap laying around so this was an easy activity to prepare. I simply cut out a bee hive shape that the kids spread yellow paint over. They then laid a piece of paper over the top to create a bubble wrap bee hive shape. The kids then practised their scissor skills by simply cutting out bees that a printed out (a simply used a google image of bees and repeated them in a word document) and cut into strips. They randomly glued the bees on to finish their bee hive.
Symmetrical Butterflies: The kids loved these. I bought the butterflies pre-cut in a pack from Kmart. Some of the kids just painted them and some loved putting blobs of paint on one side and folding them in half to create a symmetrical pattern. This was a create opportunity to also talk about colour mixing as some of the colour squashed together and made another colour.
Sensory Tub: I simple sensory tub with green spilt peas, bugs & beetles along with tweezers, bug catchers and magnifying glasses. I picked up the creatures really cheap at Kmart and found the nets in a pack for just $2 at Target.
The Beetle games would have been perfect to add to the days activities but Molly was getting it for her birthday the very next day. Next time!