Our Minister's Reflections
Reflections From Stacy Craig’s Desk
Your Kid’s Religious Program is about…Sex?
When I first heard parents at Chequamegon UU Fellowship talk about Our Whole Lives (OWL), this is what went through my head. I was confused. Why would a church be teaching about sex education? The teachers were so passionate about it, but I was too new and too shy to ask, so I regarded it like I did most things related to institutionalized religion in those days; with suspicion and skepticism.
How did I go from there to being the #1 fan of Our Whole Lives? It’s a long story, but more than anything, it was going to a seminary that held embodiment as sacred. Our bodies are not some second-class, sinful material vessel for the pure soul. We are bodies. Sex and sexuality are part of our bodies. For too long, especially in religion, we excluded talking about this, which often created a stigma or taboo that lead to shame and silence. OWL, which is developed through a partnership between Unitarian Universalism and United Church of Christ, celebrates bodies and educates about them in safe spaces. It incorporates parental conversations and offers age- appropriate education on sexuality and health. For example, our K-2 OWL participants learned the names of all body parts and did a craft making sperm out of pipe cleaners. If you feel suspicious, confused or perhaps even horrified by that fact, please pause, and without judgement, with deep curiosity, ask, where is that message coming from?
As summer approaches, we’ll be working to hire a Director of Religious Education and Our Whole Lives. CUUF doesn’t offer any summer programming right now. The Protestant faith collaborative, made up of several churches in Ashland and Washburn, reached out to invite CUUF kids to join their Vacation Bible School, and we’ve included their flyer in this newsletter. This will be their last program, as the churches are unable to continue funding The other option in Ashland is the Salem Baptist “Ocean Commotion: Diving into Noah’s Flood” with curriculum from the Creation Museum/Ark Encounter. You can read more about it here: https:// salemashland.myanswers.com/ocean-commotion/
I know I am a minister who is passionate about religious education and OWL. Not all UU ministers are, and some are even adversarial about the amount of resources kids and youth programs require. For me, it isn’t about offering programs. It isn’t about filling classes. The work RE does changes lives. It empowers. Teachers and students are transformed by the curricula. Thousands of volunteer hours have built this program and volunteer hours and donations continue to support it. It’s growing and it’s one of the only options in the region for progressive religious exploration. I hope that you are joining me in celebrating what a wonderous accomplishment this is for this day and age.
Equal Parts – Light and Dark
The Spring Equinox was more than a month ago, and although this year has had a slow spring thaw, the daylight is now noticeably longer. Some years, I didn’t even stop to recognize this global experience: the two annual equinoxes are the only times both the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere share the same amount of sunlight and night. In the northern hemisphere, since the fall equinox, there has been more night than day, and this is when that balance shifts. For several years, I’ve used the spring equinox as a meditation on equality and the ways that inequality shapes our world.
The trap that one can fall into when talking about equality around the equinox is to associate light as good and dark as bad. This construct, even subconsciously, can reinforce racial stereotypes. It also reinforces fear of the night, when the nighttime can be a source of restoration. After all, it is the time of dreams. The night reminds us that at the edge of where our senses know and experience is where mystery begins.
The construct of light and darkness as good and evil has a particular history. It can be traced back to Babylonian, Zoroastrianism, and Manicheism beliefs and philosophies, which all looked to solve the problem of suffering by affirming that a co-dominant force (evil) existed in the world. These beliefs were especially prevalent and influential for the early Christian community. Ideas of heaven in the sky, full of light, and hell as ‘down below’ as dark and fiery also likely took hold from these dualistic beliefs. This either/or, good/evil framework rarely accounts for the gray areas of this thing we call life, yet as a belief, it has proved tenacious. People John Paul II even tried to dispel this by teaching that heaven and hell are not physical places at all; they’re states of being. The impact of choices that hurt others is not about a future world of eternal damnation, but describes the consequences of living with injustice and moral anguish in this world now. Hell is the state of living
in disconnection.
I take the spring equinox as a time to meditate on the dawn and the dusk. I take time to consider how I am capable of doing harm and being harmed. My deepest grief allows me to be a comfort for those grieving. This is a time of year when I think of the nature of grace, and how we can be loved and loving despite doing that which is unlovable. I think of the paradoxes of forgiveness; it is so much harder than holding onto anger. If hell is a state of being and is caused by disconnection, where can I eliminate hell right now for myself or another?
Roots and insects, bulbs and worms are beginning to awaken. Frogs are crawling out of their frosty mud homes. It is a very dynamic time, and perhaps you feel the push and pull, the thaw and freeze, that all of life on this part of earth is experiencing. May the sacred dark and the energized light of this time of year inspire you on your path to keep healing, and keep mending yourself and the world.
Spring-ish Greetings!
I start with gratitude: thank you to all who planned, supported and attended the Service or Ordination on Feb. 26. I am beyond grateful to have been ordained by the Chequamegon Unitarian Universalist Fellowship! The Alvord Theatre was transformed into a garden of delights. Thank you for the music, for the art, and for the technology investments that made this ceremony available across the country. Thank you for the reception, a feast that met every food allergy and need—all were welcome at this table. Thank you for your presence, in body or spirit, to mark this threshold for myself and CUUF, connecting us all more profoundly to the vision of a radically inclusive, deeply caring, liberating religion across time and across space. For this and so much more, I am forever grateful.
April and May hold many delights at CUUF—Easter rituals, the All-Music Service, an “All About Love” book group, and the Annual Meeting—just to name a few. Please read on and stay connected. As always, reach out with any questions or ideas for the fellowship at any time.
Thank You!
Thank You to the Chequamegon Unitarian Universalist Fellowship for conferring me into Unitarian Universalist ministry and providing a service of ordination celebration. Below is the chalice reading I wrote and shared at the end of the service:
When I say go in peace,
I mean the kind that starts in us.
The intentional cultivation of awareness
that suffering and harm happens.
Yet we can control our response: standing up to injustice, replying with kindness, even having happiness.
The peace that is hard work
and worth working for.
When I say go in care,
I mean that we don’t have to hide
our imperfections, we witness,
accompany, and comfort through struggles; amplify blessings and celebrations
as the interconnected web that we are
and that is cared for by us all.
When I say, go in love,
I mean the ultimate reality
of being as beloved. I mean the love
that cannot be destroyed. I mean the love that lives inside me and you and is all around if we just let it shine.
Go in Peace. Go in Care. Go in Love.
In Gratitude, Rev. Stacy Craig
Being Saved
We had lost two dogs in as many years. Life was chaotic with work and school, and the travel each required. The last thing I wanted was a new dog, but Alan was committed. He spent time with the litter and shared pictures of his pick, Ringo. “He’s the one who snuggles the most,” Alan explained his decision. The high energy puppy who came to live with us brought a special gift. He is an intuitive healer who has made me his special project of care.
There are many examples of Ringo’s healing nature. Once I sprained my ankle and Ringo slid into the space between my leg and pillow to help prop it up. He has never done this again, despite me kicking up my feet from time to time. The day he got in my face and began sniffing my eyes, my nose, and my sinuses I had just started feeling a little ‘off’. Ringo was acting so concerned I took a COVID test. It was positive. His early warning prevented me from spreading it to others. A final example is when I had panic attacks. He laid his chin on my leg and just stayed there, no matter how long it lasted. He channeled some kind of calm that he doesn’t exhibit any other time of his life, and this became my most effective treatment.
I can say without irony that Ringo saved me. He helped the pieces of my heart restitch together after they had been shattered by a trifecta of life events. I’ve recently stumbled upon several movies that have a similar message, and this has caused me to reflect on my relationship with Ringo and to also consider what it means to be saved.
The short clip called “The Three-Legged Dog that Saved My Life” shares the story of Marne, who was in a traumatic car accident. He adopted Tripod, a dog who had a leg amputated after a different car accident. Marne had been suffering from panic attacks and depression after his accident, and no therapies had helped. He reflected, “I was broken and he was broken” when he and Tripod got together. He credits Tripod with teaching how to love, how to show emotion, and how to be forgiving. He called Tripod a miracle, an angel, and reflected that when he realized Tripod’s presence in his life “transcends all human understanding,” that he had peace for the first time in his life. The documentary Wildcat tells the story of an English army veteran suffering from extreme PTSD and depression. He works on a wildlife rehabilitation project in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest where he fosters an orphaned ocelot. Early in the film, he remarks, “I am saving him while he is saving me.”
Salvation is the deliverance from harm. In my Christian upbringing, I was taught salvation comes through faith in Jesus where one is delivered from sin. In my own life and in the stories I’ve mentioned, people were in need of saving, but not because they had done something wrong or because of sinful nature. Life had dealt anguish, as it does to so many, and in that anguish, a different kind of savior appeared. They shared unconditional love, walked alongside, became teachers, and provided healing. Some call them angels. I realize some may find this use of being saved sacrilegious, but I’m not proposing any kind of conclusion about salvation. I’m just relating these experiences, lifting them up as a place to find wonder and gratitude, for salvation that comes in different ways.
May you take time today to say thank you for all that loves you back together when things fall apart.
Dear New Year,
I greet you with gratitude for peach freezer
jam and bright sweet moments the whole winter long.
I greet you with hope that this is the year we address climate change with humanity’s gifts of consciousness and kindness extended to strangers yet to be born.
I greet you with love for the soul home I’ve found at this fellowship and the work we do together.
—Stacy Craig
Creating Harmony
I recently read about how habits help us to live happier, more productive lives because whole segments of our lives don’t have to be thought out. If every morning we get up and have the exact same routine, there may be hours before the taxing and vexing decision-making processes and ever present ‘this is good for me but I don’t feel like doing it’ battles get waged in brains. This idea resonated with me because before the pandemic, I had routines. During the pandemic, I created new routines. Right now, the only thing routine is that there is no routine. Things aren’t ‘back to normal’ but they are still different from a year ago.
What I’ve figured out is that it is not balance I’m needing, but harmony. Balance is giving up one thing for another, while harmony is having all of the things work together.
How do we find harmony? Start with reflecting on values and, once those are clear, consider how your life is actualizing those values. Begin to trim the things that don’t, add the things that do, and imagine or tell the story to yourself about the life you want to live. As we move into a time of year when the night far outlasts the day, when the call to quiet contemplative evenings is interrupted by the continuous advertising and pressure to save-big-buy-it-all-repeat-repeat!, may you find some simple routines that bring meaning and harmony to your days. If you want to quadruple the impact, have a routine of reaching out to someone every day with a card, call, or text reminding them you care or asking how they are doing. Whatever it includes, may harmony become your new routine.
In peace, Stacy Craig
Doubling Down On Hope
There is a communal clergy thread right now processing a faith response to the active shooter hoax that put the Ashland schools and hospital into lockdown on October 20. Know that if you were terrorized or traumatized by this day, you are not alone. There were at least three communities, including Ashland, which were targeted on this one day alone.
Here and elsewhere, people are asking why would someone do this? While answers are scarce, we know that people who sow fear often do so to create mistrust and division. They know the power of hope and kinship and work to find the most terrifying way to dampen these down. It could be someone who believes that if people stop believing in hope, they will be apathetic and won’t vote or join movements to make change.
So, I am doubling down on hope and resisting the narrative that says that schools and hospitals in lockdown are part of a normal reality. While there isn’t a communal event planned at this time, area clergy are holding space in their congregations and fellowships, acknowledging this happened, naming the anxiety and terrors it evokes, and taking time to name all those who work hard, day in and day out, to keep communities safe and well.
Please know that if you would like to meet for prayer or processing I am available. As we explored at the All-Poetry Service this year, peace is not the absence of violence, but a very precious and hard-earned outcome of being in community together, of staying in communication, and acting with compassion.
In peace, in hope, in solidarity, Stacy
Autumn Greetings to You!
As colors of autumn appear, I am reminded that change can be beautiful. Even change that includes discomfort and loss, that ushers in a new season of longer nights and colder mornings, may bring gifts and perspective. Letting go can be gentle, like a falling leaf that becomes the hummus for new growth to spring from.
As we gathered back on the campus of Northland College for the first time in two years, I felt very emotional. There’s been so much change. Thank you to all those who innovated and adapted, stored equipment at their homes and in their cars, and gave and gave again to see this fellowship through to this point when we begin living into the hope that we shared that someday we would be able to gather in person again on the campus of Northland College.
Over the summer, the CUUF Board finalized a new Memorandum of Understanding to hold services on campus for the foreseeable future. Worship services will be both online and in person in the Alvord Theater. We gather with an awareness that COVID-19, while still in our midst, no longer poses the same life-threatening risks to large group gatherings. At each service, you’ll be asked to sign in for contact tracing in the event that a significant exposure occurs. We will follow our regional data and when cases are low or medium services will include singing and hospitality and masks will be optional. If regional cases are high or very high, we will adapt services, such as asking everyone to mask, adapting congregational singing, and encouraging social distancing.
As the liminality of the fall season continues to unfold, may your slippers be warm, may your tea bring comfort, and may the changes we’ve experienced sink in and be sources of new growth.
In peace and fellowship,
Stacy Craig
Each year, it feels summer goes too fast. Then the last two weeks of August arrive, and time for another swim, another visitor, another picnic, and all those fresh veggies at farmer’s markets—and, it’s not too much, not too little; it’s just enough. As the Chequamegon Unitarian Universalist Fellowship enters its annual cycle of services, which begins with a communion with water in September and concludes in a celebration of flowers in May, I look forward to re-gathering with you all in the coming season!
Over the summer, I worked on deepening into Unitarian Universalist history and polity (organizational structure and governance). From religious tolerance in Transylvania to the Transcendental movement to movement building today, there are a lot of stories that can guide and inspire, so some of these themes may show up in messages I share. Also, for the past year, your CUUF Worship Committee has been working to engage speakers and topics related to disability justice. This movement promotes the ways our unique bodies are part of expressions of diversity and brings awareness to the often-unconscious bias referred to as ableism. This is where able bodies are perceived as good and disabled are seen as lesser. As I’ve learned more about the disability justice movement, I’ve been reflecting on how the physical spaces where we gather, the songs and liturgy we use, and the philosophies we express contribute to or deter from creating beloved space for the diversity of our embodied existence. If you have feedback, ideas, or concerns related to accessibility in any way, please reach out to me or your CUUF Board members.
I have completed the final requirements for UU Fellowship—the UU equivalent for ordination—and I will present to their panel on September 30. Positive thoughts and prayers appreciated on that day! After wrapping up my work with Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Duluth in May, I learned that another UU community on the shores of Lake Superior was looking for ministry support. It all fell into place and for the coming year, I’ll continue as half-time minister of our fellowship and begin as a quarter-time minister for the Keweenaw Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. There will be some opportunities to learn with and from this fellowship in similar ways as we did with Duluth last year. I spend the first weekend of each month in Houghton and am looking forward to continuing to connect and explore watershed ministry.
As we sang at the All-Poetry Service in August:
Deep peace of the rolling waves to you, deep peace of the shining stars.
Deep peace of the blowing air to you, deep peace of the quiet earth.
In community, Stacy Craig
Your Kid’s Religious Program is about…Sex?
When I first heard parents at Chequamegon UU Fellowship talk about Our Whole Lives (OWL), this is what went through my head. I was confused. Why would a church be teaching about sex education? The teachers were so passionate about it, but I was too new and too shy to ask, so I regarded it like I did most things related to institutionalized religion in those days; with suspicion and skepticism.
How did I go from there to being the #1 fan of Our Whole Lives? It’s a long story, but more than anything, it was going to a seminary that held embodiment as sacred. Our bodies are not some second-class, sinful material vessel for the pure soul. We are bodies. Sex and sexuality are part of our bodies. For too long, especially in religion, we excluded talking about this, which often created a stigma or taboo that lead to shame and silence. OWL, which is developed through a partnership between Unitarian Universalism and United Church of Christ, celebrates bodies and educates about them in safe spaces. It incorporates parental conversations and offers age- appropriate education on sexuality and health. For example, our K-2 OWL participants learned the names of all body parts and did a craft making sperm out of pipe cleaners. If you feel suspicious, confused or perhaps even horrified by that fact, please pause, and without judgement, with deep curiosity, ask, where is that message coming from?
As summer approaches, we’ll be working to hire a Director of Religious Education and Our Whole Lives. CUUF doesn’t offer any summer programming right now. The Protestant faith collaborative, made up of several churches in Ashland and Washburn, reached out to invite CUUF kids to join their Vacation Bible School, and we’ve included their flyer in this newsletter. This will be their last program, as the churches are unable to continue funding The other option in Ashland is the Salem Baptist “Ocean Commotion: Diving into Noah’s Flood” with curriculum from the Creation Museum/Ark Encounter. You can read more about it here: https:// salemashland.myanswers.com/ocean-commotion/
I know I am a minister who is passionate about religious education and OWL. Not all UU ministers are, and some are even adversarial about the amount of resources kids and youth programs require. For me, it isn’t about offering programs. It isn’t about filling classes. The work RE does changes lives. It empowers. Teachers and students are transformed by the curricula. Thousands of volunteer hours have built this program and volunteer hours and donations continue to support it. It’s growing and it’s one of the only options in the region for progressive religious exploration. I hope that you are joining me in celebrating what a wonderous accomplishment this is for this day and age.
Equal Parts – Light and Dark
The Spring Equinox was more than a month ago, and although this year has had a slow spring thaw, the daylight is now noticeably longer. Some years, I didn’t even stop to recognize this global experience: the two annual equinoxes are the only times both the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere share the same amount of sunlight and night. In the northern hemisphere, since the fall equinox, there has been more night than day, and this is when that balance shifts. For several years, I’ve used the spring equinox as a meditation on equality and the ways that inequality shapes our world.
The trap that one can fall into when talking about equality around the equinox is to associate light as good and dark as bad. This construct, even subconsciously, can reinforce racial stereotypes. It also reinforces fear of the night, when the nighttime can be a source of restoration. After all, it is the time of dreams. The night reminds us that at the edge of where our senses know and experience is where mystery begins.
The construct of light and darkness as good and evil has a particular history. It can be traced back to Babylonian, Zoroastrianism, and Manicheism beliefs and philosophies, which all looked to solve the problem of suffering by affirming that a co-dominant force (evil) existed in the world. These beliefs were especially prevalent and influential for the early Christian community. Ideas of heaven in the sky, full of light, and hell as ‘down below’ as dark and fiery also likely took hold from these dualistic beliefs. This either/or, good/evil framework rarely accounts for the gray areas of this thing we call life, yet as a belief, it has proved tenacious. People John Paul II even tried to dispel this by teaching that heaven and hell are not physical places at all; they’re states of being. The impact of choices that hurt others is not about a future world of eternal damnation, but describes the consequences of living with injustice and moral anguish in this world now. Hell is the state of living
in disconnection.
I take the spring equinox as a time to meditate on the dawn and the dusk. I take time to consider how I am capable of doing harm and being harmed. My deepest grief allows me to be a comfort for those grieving. This is a time of year when I think of the nature of grace, and how we can be loved and loving despite doing that which is unlovable. I think of the paradoxes of forgiveness; it is so much harder than holding onto anger. If hell is a state of being and is caused by disconnection, where can I eliminate hell right now for myself or another?
Roots and insects, bulbs and worms are beginning to awaken. Frogs are crawling out of their frosty mud homes. It is a very dynamic time, and perhaps you feel the push and pull, the thaw and freeze, that all of life on this part of earth is experiencing. May the sacred dark and the energized light of this time of year inspire you on your path to keep healing, and keep mending yourself and the world.
Spring-ish Greetings!
I start with gratitude: thank you to all who planned, supported and attended the Service or Ordination on Feb. 26. I am beyond grateful to have been ordained by the Chequamegon Unitarian Universalist Fellowship! The Alvord Theatre was transformed into a garden of delights. Thank you for the music, for the art, and for the technology investments that made this ceremony available across the country. Thank you for the reception, a feast that met every food allergy and need—all were welcome at this table. Thank you for your presence, in body or spirit, to mark this threshold for myself and CUUF, connecting us all more profoundly to the vision of a radically inclusive, deeply caring, liberating religion across time and across space. For this and so much more, I am forever grateful.
April and May hold many delights at CUUF—Easter rituals, the All-Music Service, an “All About Love” book group, and the Annual Meeting—just to name a few. Please read on and stay connected. As always, reach out with any questions or ideas for the fellowship at any time.
Thank You!
Thank You to the Chequamegon Unitarian Universalist Fellowship for conferring me into Unitarian Universalist ministry and providing a service of ordination celebration. Below is the chalice reading I wrote and shared at the end of the service:
When I say go in peace,
I mean the kind that starts in us.
The intentional cultivation of awareness
that suffering and harm happens.
Yet we can control our response: standing up to injustice, replying with kindness, even having happiness.
The peace that is hard work
and worth working for.
When I say go in care,
I mean that we don’t have to hide
our imperfections, we witness,
accompany, and comfort through struggles; amplify blessings and celebrations
as the interconnected web that we are
and that is cared for by us all.
When I say, go in love,
I mean the ultimate reality
of being as beloved. I mean the love
that cannot be destroyed. I mean the love that lives inside me and you and is all around if we just let it shine.
Go in Peace. Go in Care. Go in Love.
In Gratitude, Rev. Stacy Craig
Being Saved
We had lost two dogs in as many years. Life was chaotic with work and school, and the travel each required. The last thing I wanted was a new dog, but Alan was committed. He spent time with the litter and shared pictures of his pick, Ringo. “He’s the one who snuggles the most,” Alan explained his decision. The high energy puppy who came to live with us brought a special gift. He is an intuitive healer who has made me his special project of care.
There are many examples of Ringo’s healing nature. Once I sprained my ankle and Ringo slid into the space between my leg and pillow to help prop it up. He has never done this again, despite me kicking up my feet from time to time. The day he got in my face and began sniffing my eyes, my nose, and my sinuses I had just started feeling a little ‘off’. Ringo was acting so concerned I took a COVID test. It was positive. His early warning prevented me from spreading it to others. A final example is when I had panic attacks. He laid his chin on my leg and just stayed there, no matter how long it lasted. He channeled some kind of calm that he doesn’t exhibit any other time of his life, and this became my most effective treatment.
I can say without irony that Ringo saved me. He helped the pieces of my heart restitch together after they had been shattered by a trifecta of life events. I’ve recently stumbled upon several movies that have a similar message, and this has caused me to reflect on my relationship with Ringo and to also consider what it means to be saved.
The short clip called “The Three-Legged Dog that Saved My Life” shares the story of Marne, who was in a traumatic car accident. He adopted Tripod, a dog who had a leg amputated after a different car accident. Marne had been suffering from panic attacks and depression after his accident, and no therapies had helped. He reflected, “I was broken and he was broken” when he and Tripod got together. He credits Tripod with teaching how to love, how to show emotion, and how to be forgiving. He called Tripod a miracle, an angel, and reflected that when he realized Tripod’s presence in his life “transcends all human understanding,” that he had peace for the first time in his life. The documentary Wildcat tells the story of an English army veteran suffering from extreme PTSD and depression. He works on a wildlife rehabilitation project in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest where he fosters an orphaned ocelot. Early in the film, he remarks, “I am saving him while he is saving me.”
Salvation is the deliverance from harm. In my Christian upbringing, I was taught salvation comes through faith in Jesus where one is delivered from sin. In my own life and in the stories I’ve mentioned, people were in need of saving, but not because they had done something wrong or because of sinful nature. Life had dealt anguish, as it does to so many, and in that anguish, a different kind of savior appeared. They shared unconditional love, walked alongside, became teachers, and provided healing. Some call them angels. I realize some may find this use of being saved sacrilegious, but I’m not proposing any kind of conclusion about salvation. I’m just relating these experiences, lifting them up as a place to find wonder and gratitude, for salvation that comes in different ways.
May you take time today to say thank you for all that loves you back together when things fall apart.
Dear New Year,
I greet you with gratitude for peach freezer
jam and bright sweet moments the whole winter long.
I greet you with hope that this is the year we address climate change with humanity’s gifts of consciousness and kindness extended to strangers yet to be born.
I greet you with love for the soul home I’ve found at this fellowship and the work we do together.
—Stacy Craig
Creating Harmony
I recently read about how habits help us to live happier, more productive lives because whole segments of our lives don’t have to be thought out. If every morning we get up and have the exact same routine, there may be hours before the taxing and vexing decision-making processes and ever present ‘this is good for me but I don’t feel like doing it’ battles get waged in brains. This idea resonated with me because before the pandemic, I had routines. During the pandemic, I created new routines. Right now, the only thing routine is that there is no routine. Things aren’t ‘back to normal’ but they are still different from a year ago.
What I’ve figured out is that it is not balance I’m needing, but harmony. Balance is giving up one thing for another, while harmony is having all of the things work together.
How do we find harmony? Start with reflecting on values and, once those are clear, consider how your life is actualizing those values. Begin to trim the things that don’t, add the things that do, and imagine or tell the story to yourself about the life you want to live. As we move into a time of year when the night far outlasts the day, when the call to quiet contemplative evenings is interrupted by the continuous advertising and pressure to save-big-buy-it-all-repeat-repeat!, may you find some simple routines that bring meaning and harmony to your days. If you want to quadruple the impact, have a routine of reaching out to someone every day with a card, call, or text reminding them you care or asking how they are doing. Whatever it includes, may harmony become your new routine.
In peace, Stacy Craig
Doubling Down On Hope
There is a communal clergy thread right now processing a faith response to the active shooter hoax that put the Ashland schools and hospital into lockdown on October 20. Know that if you were terrorized or traumatized by this day, you are not alone. There were at least three communities, including Ashland, which were targeted on this one day alone.
Here and elsewhere, people are asking why would someone do this? While answers are scarce, we know that people who sow fear often do so to create mistrust and division. They know the power of hope and kinship and work to find the most terrifying way to dampen these down. It could be someone who believes that if people stop believing in hope, they will be apathetic and won’t vote or join movements to make change.
So, I am doubling down on hope and resisting the narrative that says that schools and hospitals in lockdown are part of a normal reality. While there isn’t a communal event planned at this time, area clergy are holding space in their congregations and fellowships, acknowledging this happened, naming the anxiety and terrors it evokes, and taking time to name all those who work hard, day in and day out, to keep communities safe and well.
Please know that if you would like to meet for prayer or processing I am available. As we explored at the All-Poetry Service this year, peace is not the absence of violence, but a very precious and hard-earned outcome of being in community together, of staying in communication, and acting with compassion.
In peace, in hope, in solidarity, Stacy
Autumn Greetings to You!
As colors of autumn appear, I am reminded that change can be beautiful. Even change that includes discomfort and loss, that ushers in a new season of longer nights and colder mornings, may bring gifts and perspective. Letting go can be gentle, like a falling leaf that becomes the hummus for new growth to spring from.
As we gathered back on the campus of Northland College for the first time in two years, I felt very emotional. There’s been so much change. Thank you to all those who innovated and adapted, stored equipment at their homes and in their cars, and gave and gave again to see this fellowship through to this point when we begin living into the hope that we shared that someday we would be able to gather in person again on the campus of Northland College.
Over the summer, the CUUF Board finalized a new Memorandum of Understanding to hold services on campus for the foreseeable future. Worship services will be both online and in person in the Alvord Theater. We gather with an awareness that COVID-19, while still in our midst, no longer poses the same life-threatening risks to large group gatherings. At each service, you’ll be asked to sign in for contact tracing in the event that a significant exposure occurs. We will follow our regional data and when cases are low or medium services will include singing and hospitality and masks will be optional. If regional cases are high or very high, we will adapt services, such as asking everyone to mask, adapting congregational singing, and encouraging social distancing.
As the liminality of the fall season continues to unfold, may your slippers be warm, may your tea bring comfort, and may the changes we’ve experienced sink in and be sources of new growth.
In peace and fellowship,
Stacy Craig
Each year, it feels summer goes too fast. Then the last two weeks of August arrive, and time for another swim, another visitor, another picnic, and all those fresh veggies at farmer’s markets—and, it’s not too much, not too little; it’s just enough. As the Chequamegon Unitarian Universalist Fellowship enters its annual cycle of services, which begins with a communion with water in September and concludes in a celebration of flowers in May, I look forward to re-gathering with you all in the coming season!
Over the summer, I worked on deepening into Unitarian Universalist history and polity (organizational structure and governance). From religious tolerance in Transylvania to the Transcendental movement to movement building today, there are a lot of stories that can guide and inspire, so some of these themes may show up in messages I share. Also, for the past year, your CUUF Worship Committee has been working to engage speakers and topics related to disability justice. This movement promotes the ways our unique bodies are part of expressions of diversity and brings awareness to the often-unconscious bias referred to as ableism. This is where able bodies are perceived as good and disabled are seen as lesser. As I’ve learned more about the disability justice movement, I’ve been reflecting on how the physical spaces where we gather, the songs and liturgy we use, and the philosophies we express contribute to or deter from creating beloved space for the diversity of our embodied existence. If you have feedback, ideas, or concerns related to accessibility in any way, please reach out to me or your CUUF Board members.
I have completed the final requirements for UU Fellowship—the UU equivalent for ordination—and I will present to their panel on September 30. Positive thoughts and prayers appreciated on that day! After wrapping up my work with Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Duluth in May, I learned that another UU community on the shores of Lake Superior was looking for ministry support. It all fell into place and for the coming year, I’ll continue as half-time minister of our fellowship and begin as a quarter-time minister for the Keweenaw Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. There will be some opportunities to learn with and from this fellowship in similar ways as we did with Duluth last year. I spend the first weekend of each month in Houghton and am looking forward to continuing to connect and explore watershed ministry.
As we sang at the All-Poetry Service in August:
Deep peace of the rolling waves to you, deep peace of the shining stars.
Deep peace of the blowing air to you, deep peace of the quiet earth.
In community, Stacy Craig
Reflections From Stacy’s Desk
Your Kid’s Religious Program is about…Sex?
When I first heard parents at Chequamegon UU Fellowship talk about Our Whole Lives (OWL), this is what went through my head. I was confused. Why would a church be teaching about sex education? The teachers were so passionate about it, but I was too new and too shy to ask, so I regarded it like I did most things related to institutionalized religion in those days; with suspicion and skepticism.
How did I go from there to being the #1 fan of Our Whole Lives? It’s a long story, but more than anything, it was going to a seminary that held embodiment as sacred. Our bodies are not some second-class, sinful material vessel for the pure soul. We are bodies. Sex and sexuality are part of our bodies. For too long, especially in religion, we excluded talking about this, which often created a stigma or taboo that lead to shame and silence. OWL, which is developed through a partnership between Unitarian Universalism and United Church of Christ, celebrates bodies and educates about them in safe spaces. It incorporates parental conversations and offers age- appropriate education on sexuality and health. For example, our K-2 OWL participants learned the names of all body parts and did a craft making sperm out of pipe cleaners. If you feel suspicious, confused or perhaps even horrified by that fact, please pause, and without judgement, with deep curiosity, ask, where is that message coming from?
As summer approaches, we’ll be working to hire a Director of Religious Education and Our Whole Lives. CUUF doesn’t offer any summer programming right now. The Protestant faith collaborative, made up of several churches in Ashland and Washburn, reached out to invite CUUF kids to join their Vacation Bible School, and we’ve included their flyer in this newsletter. This will be their last program, as the churches are unable to continue funding The other option in Ashland is the Salem Baptist “Ocean Commotion: Diving into Noah’s Flood” with curriculum from the Creation Museum/Ark Encounter. You can read more about it here: https:// salemashland.myanswers.com/ocean-commotion/
I know I am a minister who is passionate about religious education and OWL. Not all UU ministers are, and some are even adversarial about the amount of resources kids and youth programs require. For me, it isn’t about offering programs. It isn’t about filling classes. The work RE does changes lives. It empowers. Teachers and students are transformed by the curricula. Thousands of volunteer hours have built this program and volunteer hours and donations continue to support it. It’s growing and it’s one of the only options in the region for progressive religious exploration. I hope that you are joining me in celebrating what a wonderous accomplishment this is for this day and age.
Equal Parts – Light and Dark
The Spring Equinox was more than a month ago, and although this year has had a slow spring thaw, the daylight is now noticeably longer. Some years, I didn’t even stop to recognize this global experience: the two annual equinoxes are the only times both the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere share the same amount of sunlight and night. In the northern hemisphere, since the fall equinox, there has been more night than day, and this is when that balance shifts. For several years, I’ve used the spring equinox as a meditation on equality and the ways that inequality shapes our world.
The trap that one can fall into when talking about equality around the equinox is to associate light as good and dark as bad. This construct, even subconsciously, can reinforce racial stereotypes. It also reinforces fear of the night, when the nighttime can be a source of restoration. After all, it is the time of dreams. The night reminds us that at the edge of where our senses know and experience is where mystery begins.
The construct of light and darkness as good and evil has a particular history. It can be traced back to Babylonian, Zoroastrianism, and Manicheism beliefs and philosophies, which all looked to solve the problem of suffering by affirming that a co-dominant force (evil) existed in the world. These beliefs were especially prevalent and influential for the early Christian community. Ideas of heaven in the sky, full of light, and hell as ‘down below’ as dark and fiery also likely took hold from these dualistic beliefs. This either/or, good/evil framework rarely accounts for the gray areas of this thing we call life, yet as a belief, it has proved tenacious. People John Paul II even tried to dispel this by teaching that heaven and hell are not physical places at all; they’re states of being. The impact of choices that hurt others is not about a future world of eternal damnation, but describes the consequences of living with injustice and moral anguish in this world now. Hell is the state of living
in disconnection.
I take the spring equinox as a time to meditate on the dawn and the dusk. I take time to consider how I am capable of doing harm and being harmed. My deepest grief allows me to be a comfort for those grieving. This is a time of year when I think of the nature of grace, and how we can be loved and loving despite doing that which is unlovable. I think of the paradoxes of forgiveness; it is so much harder than holding onto anger. If hell is a state of being and is caused by disconnection, where can I eliminate hell right now for myself or another?
Roots and insects, bulbs and worms are beginning to awaken. Frogs are crawling out of their frosty mud homes. It is a very dynamic time, and perhaps you feel the push and pull, the thaw and freeze, that all of life on this part of earth is experiencing. May the sacred dark and the energized light of this time of year inspire you on your path to keep healing, and keep mending yourself and the world.
Spring-ish Greetings!
I start with gratitude: thank you to all who planned, supported and attended the Service or Ordination on Feb. 26. I am beyond grateful to have been ordained by the Chequamegon Unitarian Universalist Fellowship! The Alvord Theatre was transformed into a garden of delights. Thank you for the music, for the art, and for the technology investments that made this ceremony available across the country. Thank you for the reception, a feast that met every food allergy and need—all were welcome at this table. Thank you for your presence, in body or spirit, to mark this threshold for myself and CUUF, connecting us all more profoundly to the vision of a radically inclusive, deeply caring, liberating religion across time and across space. For this and so much more, I am forever grateful.
April and May hold many delights at CUUF—Easter rituals, the All-Music Service, an “All About Love” book group, and the Annual Meeting—just to name a few. Please read on and stay connected. As always, reach out with any questions or ideas for the fellowship at any time.
Thank You!
Thank You to the Chequamegon Unitarian Universalist Fellowship for conferring me into Unitarian Universalist ministry and providing a service of ordination celebration. Below is the chalice reading I wrote and shared at the end of the service:
When I say go in peace,
I mean the kind that starts in us.
The intentional cultivation of awareness
that suffering and harm happens.
Yet we can control our response: standing up to injustice, replying with kindness, even having happiness.
The peace that is hard work
and worth working for.
When I say go in care,
I mean that we don’t have to hide
our imperfections, we witness,
accompany, and comfort through struggles; amplify blessings and celebrations
as the interconnected web that we are
and that is cared for by us all.
When I say, go in love,
I mean the ultimate reality
of being as beloved. I mean the love
that cannot be destroyed. I mean the love that lives inside me and you and is all around if we just let it shine.
Go in Peace. Go in Care. Go in Love.
In Gratitude, Rev. Stacy Craig
Being Saved
We had lost two dogs in as many years. Life was chaotic with work and school, and the travel each required. The last thing I wanted was a new dog, but Alan was committed. He spent time with the litter and shared pictures of his pick, Ringo. “He’s the one who snuggles the most,” Alan explained his decision. The high energy puppy who came to live with us brought a special gift. He is an intuitive healer who has made me his special project of care.
There are many examples of Ringo’s healing nature. Once I sprained my ankle and Ringo slid into the space between my leg and pillow to help prop it up. He has never done this again, despite me kicking up my feet from time to time. The day he got in my face and began sniffing my eyes, my nose, and my sinuses I had just started feeling a little ‘off’. Ringo was acting so concerned I took a COVID test. It was positive. His early warning prevented me from spreading it to others. A final example is when I had panic attacks. He laid his chin on my leg and just stayed there, no matter how long it lasted. He channeled some kind of calm that he doesn’t exhibit any other time of his life, and this became my most effective treatment.
I can say without irony that Ringo saved me. He helped the pieces of my heart restitch together after they had been shattered by a trifecta of life events. I’ve recently stumbled upon several movies that have a similar message, and this has caused me to reflect on my relationship with Ringo and to also consider what it means to be saved.
The short clip called “The Three-Legged Dog that Saved My Life” shares the story of Marne, who was in a traumatic car accident. He adopted Tripod, a dog who had a leg amputated after a different car accident. Marne had been suffering from panic attacks and depression after his accident, and no therapies had helped. He reflected, “I was broken and he was broken” when he and Tripod got together. He credits Tripod with teaching how to love, how to show emotion, and how to be forgiving. He called Tripod a miracle, an angel, and reflected that when he realized Tripod’s presence in his life “transcends all human understanding,” that he had peace for the first time in his life. The documentary Wildcat tells the story of an English army veteran suffering from extreme PTSD and depression. He works on a wildlife rehabilitation project in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest where he fosters an orphaned ocelot. Early in the film, he remarks, “I am saving him while he is saving me.”
Salvation is the deliverance from harm. In my Christian upbringing, I was taught salvation comes through faith in Jesus where one is delivered from sin. In my own life and in the stories I’ve mentioned, people were in need of saving, but not because they had done something wrong or because of sinful nature. Life had dealt anguish, as it does to so many, and in that anguish, a different kind of savior appeared. They shared unconditional love, walked alongside, became teachers, and provided healing. Some call them angels. I realize some may find this use of being saved sacrilegious, but I’m not proposing any kind of conclusion about salvation. I’m just relating these experiences, lifting them up as a place to find wonder and gratitude, for salvation that comes in different ways.
May you take time today to say thank you for all that loves you back together when things fall apart.
Dear New Year,
I greet you with gratitude for peach freezer
jam and bright sweet moments the whole winter long.
I greet you with hope that this is the year we address climate change with humanity’s gifts of consciousness and kindness extended to strangers yet to be born.
I greet you with love for the soul home I’ve found at this fellowship and the work we do together.
—Stacy Craig
Creating Harmony
I recently read about how habits help us to live happier, more productive lives because whole segments of our lives don’t have to be thought out. If every morning we get up and have the exact same routine, there may be hours before the taxing and vexing decision-making processes and ever present ‘this is good for me but I don’t feel like doing it’ battles get waged in brains. This idea resonated with me because before the pandemic, I had routines. During the pandemic, I created new routines. Right now, the only thing routine is that there is no routine. Things aren’t ‘back to normal’ but they are still different from a year ago.
What I’ve figured out is that it is not balance I’m needing, but harmony. Balance is giving up one thing for another, while harmony is having all of the things work together.
How do we find harmony? Start with reflecting on values and, once those are clear, consider how your life is actualizing those values. Begin to trim the things that don’t, add the things that do, and imagine or tell the story to yourself about the life you want to live. As we move into a time of year when the night far outlasts the day, when the call to quiet contemplative evenings is interrupted by the continuous advertising and pressure to save-big-buy-it-all-repeat-repeat!, may you find some simple routines that bring meaning and harmony to your days. If you want to quadruple the impact, have a routine of reaching out to someone every day with a card, call, or text reminding them you care or asking how they are doing. Whatever it includes, may harmony become your new routine.
In peace, Stacy Craig
Doubling Down On Hope
There is a communal clergy thread right now processing a faith response to the active shooter hoax that put the Ashland schools and hospital into lockdown on October 20. Know that if you were terrorized or traumatized by this day, you are not alone. There were at least three communities, including Ashland, which were targeted on this one day alone.
Here and elsewhere, people are asking why would someone do this? While answers are scarce, we know that people who sow fear often do so to create mistrust and division. They know the power of hope and kinship and work to find the most terrifying way to dampen these down. It could be someone who believes that if people stop believing in hope, they will be apathetic and won’t vote or join movements to make change.
So, I am doubling down on hope and resisting the narrative that says that schools and hospitals in lockdown are part of a normal reality. While there isn’t a communal event planned at this time, area clergy are holding space in their congregations and fellowships, acknowledging this happened, naming the anxiety and terrors it evokes, and taking time to name all those who work hard, day in and day out, to keep communities safe and well.
Please know that if you would like to meet for prayer or processing I am available. As we explored at the All-Poetry Service this year, peace is not the absence of violence, but a very precious and hard-earned outcome of being in community together, of staying in communication, and acting with compassion.
In peace, in hope, in solidarity, Stacy
Autumn Greetings to You!
As colors of autumn appear, I am reminded that change can be beautiful. Even change that includes discomfort and loss, that ushers in a new season of longer nights and colder mornings, may bring gifts and perspective. Letting go can be gentle, like a falling leaf that becomes the hummus for new growth to spring from.
As we gathered back on the campus of Northland College for the first time in two years, I felt very emotional. There’s been so much change. Thank you to all those who innovated and adapted, stored equipment at their homes and in their cars, and gave and gave again to see this fellowship through to this point when we begin living into the hope that we shared that someday we would be able to gather in person again on the campus of Northland College.
Over the summer, the CUUF Board finalized a new Memorandum of Understanding to hold services on campus for the foreseeable future. Worship services will be both online and in person in the Alvord Theater. We gather with an awareness that COVID-19, while still in our midst, no longer poses the same life-threatening risks to large group gatherings. At each service, you’ll be asked to sign in for contact tracing in the event that a significant exposure occurs. We will follow our regional data and when cases are low or medium services will include singing and hospitality and masks will be optional. If regional cases are high or very high, we will adapt services, such as asking everyone to mask, adapting congregational singing, and encouraging social distancing.
As the liminality of the fall season continues to unfold, may your slippers be warm, may your tea bring comfort, and may the changes we’ve experienced sink in and be sources of new growth.
In peace and fellowship,
Stacy Craig
Each year, it feels summer goes too fast. Then the last two weeks of August arrive, and time for another swim, another visitor, another picnic, and all those fresh veggies at farmer’s markets—and, it’s not too much, not too little; it’s just enough. As the Chequamegon Unitarian Universalist Fellowship enters its annual cycle of services, which begins with a communion with water in September and concludes in a celebration of flowers in May, I look forward to re-gathering with you all in the coming season!
Over the summer, I worked on deepening into Unitarian Universalist history and polity (organizational structure and governance). From religious tolerance in Transylvania to the Transcendental movement to movement building today, there are a lot of stories that can guide and inspire, so some of these themes may show up in messages I share. Also, for the past year, your CUUF Worship Committee has been working to engage speakers and topics related to disability justice. This movement promotes the ways our unique bodies are part of expressions of diversity and brings awareness to the often-unconscious bias referred to as ableism. This is where able bodies are perceived as good and disabled are seen as lesser. As I’ve learned more about the disability justice movement, I’ve been reflecting on how the physical spaces where we gather, the songs and liturgy we use, and the philosophies we express contribute to or deter from creating beloved space for the diversity of our embodied existence. If you have feedback, ideas, or concerns related to accessibility in any way, please reach out to me or your CUUF Board members.
I have completed the final requirements for UU Fellowship—the UU equivalent for ordination—and I will present to their panel on September 30. Positive thoughts and prayers appreciated on that day! After wrapping up my work with Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Duluth in May, I learned that another UU community on the shores of Lake Superior was looking for ministry support. It all fell into place and for the coming year, I’ll continue as half-time minister of our fellowship and begin as a quarter-time minister for the Keweenaw Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. There will be some opportunities to learn with and from this fellowship in similar ways as we did with Duluth last year. I spend the first weekend of each month in Houghton and am looking forward to continuing to connect and explore watershed ministry.
As we sang at the All-Poetry Service in August:
Deep peace of the rolling waves to you, deep peace of the shining stars.
Deep peace of the blowing air to you, deep peace of the quiet earth.
In community, Stacy Craig
Congratulations to Stacy!
Chequamegon Unitarian Universalist Fellowship’s new minister, Stacy Craig, will graduate with high honors on May 3 with a Masters of Divinity, Church Leadership and Religion and Theology, from United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities in St. Paul, Minnesota. She will be completing a Clinical Pastoral Experience (CPE) this summer as part of that program. This will include working with restorative justice in the prison system and with people working through addiction and recovery through The Recovery Church in St. Paul. A CPE is a supported experience where Stacy will be immersed in difficult work to find her own struggles and to build empathy and pastoral care skills for others while also learning to care for herself while doing difficult work.
Stacy’s course of study at United Theological Seminary has been challenging and inspirational. She has deepened her knowledge, expanded her search for the truth, and made lifelong connections. Her studies, though concluding soon at United Theological, will continue as she pursues the road to ordination over the next couple of years. Though the actual graduation ceremony is delayed until spring of 2021, let’s help Stacy celebrate her huge accomplishment now!