Happy Earth Day! I hope you can all get outside today and enjoy our life-giving Mother Earth. Remember to cultivate gratitude and recognize yourself as an integral part of the web of life.

How are your letters from Gaia going? (Spiritual practice that I offered you this past Sunday– if you missed it, email me for details at heather@uuclakeland.org.)

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In our quest to allow hope to live through us and into the story of our lives, I’d like to remind you of this UUCL community’s shared values, as discerned last year: Connection, Love, Transformation. These are the values that we are building this church on, the values that will be incorporated into our mission statement, and the values that I see our members currently embodying in their actions.

I want to tell you more about the Ministerial Discretionary Fund, for this fund exists because of some of our generous members who embody our values and provide this community with hope. Our community is an interdependent whole. We are strong and resilient together, giving to one another our unique and individual gifts. Money is a gift that some folx can give, and quite a few have recently chosen to give to this fund to help out those who are struggling with job loss and reduced income because of COVID-19. The fund exists to help members and friends of UUCL with immediate basic needs- food, rent, bills, medical. In order to acquire needed funds, you would need to contact me and I will distribute them “at my discretion” (thus, the name of the fund). The funds are given out of love, to those connected to the community, in hopes that this money will help to sustain you and move you forward.

I consider this fund a part of the story that we are telling about “The Great Turning”: a story of active hope in which we all participate with our unique gifts, creating new solutions. I imagine that this is just the beginning of learning a new way forward together. I imagine this money as the seeds that can help us build something vibrant and sustainable, resilient and transformative. I invite you all into this story with me and the UUCL community. Come, dream a dream with me!

Take care and be well.