February 2020
It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends. ―J.K. Rowling
Siri Allison is a storyteller with Story Circle at Proctors, the resident storytelling company at this performing arts center in Schenectady, NY. This story is from the Kanglanek people, who live near the source of the Colville River, a major river on the Arctic Coast of Alaska. (Story begins at 1:20 after some introduction.)
Most of us only see clowns in parades and circuses. But for refugees and people who cannot go back to their homes, there are not many parades or circuses, and the children who live in the refugee communities don’t get to see many clowns-or have a lot of fun in general. It’s a hard life for anyone, especially for children, but these clowns are clowning for a cause!
Clowns without Borders is a troupe of performers who visit refugee camps and displaced communities and perform for them. They juggle, they do magic tricks, they make everyone laugh and smile. For more than 20 years, these joyful folks have brought joy to the loves of people who have experienced great struggles and loss. They call it Resilience Through Laughter.
Why is this posted in the UU & You section of Family Quest? Because there are UUs participating in Clown Without Borders today! Here’s an interview with lifelong Unitarian Universalist Sarah Foster:
Sarah Liane Foster, a lifelong Unitarian Universalist, traveled as a professional clown with Clowns Without Borders to Haiti, Turkey, Colombia, Swaziland, and South Africa where children have experienced conflict and injustice. “Laughter is a critical way to heal trauma,” Sarah said. You can read more about Sarah’s story in the Spring 2016 Family pages of UU World as well!
“We’re thinking about resistance more than resilience here in New Orleans.” -Rev De Vandiver, ten year anniversary of The Flood
Here’s to all who resist!
Resist assimilation
Resist cooptation
Resist oppression
Resist ignorance
Resist consumerism
Resist the certainty of others’ diagnoses
Resist complacency
Resist numbing out
Resist the same old same old
Resist being taken advantage of
Resist the hissed whisper to be quiet, settle down
Resist what is given, and instead create what is needed.
Here’s to all who create!
Create new stories, with new life springing forth
Create laughter and tears
Create gardens and delicious meals from them
Create music and its deep companionship
Create relationships that defy labels
Create deep rootsCreate beauty
Create courageous actions
Create what will carry us to a new day.
Here’s to the new day!
May it dawn bright for all, condemning none to nightmares
May it bring hope grounded in reason to hope
May it bring evidence for hearts to trust that love is real
May it bring joy and the simple abundance of enough.
Here’s to Labor Day, to the humble imperfect work of us all.
Seen and unseen, paid and unpaid, respected and unrespected.
Here’s to our real work together
From “The Stargazer Who Discovered a Comet” in The UU Kids Book by Anne Fields and Charlene Brotman (Biddeford, Maine: Brotman-Marshfield, 1989); used with permission. “Afterward” from Rooftop Astronomer: A Story about Maria Mitchell by Stephanie Sammarti
NOTE: The name, Maria, is pronounced “ma-RYE-ah.”
Maria always remembered the day she helped her father time an eclipse of the sun. She used the chronometer to count down to the exact second that the moon began to block out the sun. Her father needed to send the timing report to his astronomer friends at the big Harvard University observatory, where they were collecting eclipse information from all over.
“There will be another eclipse like this in 54 years,” said father.
“I’m twelve now, I’ll be 66 then!” exclaimed Maria. How could astronomers know so far ahead what would happen in the sky? How amazing that the stars and planets spun around in such order!
“I want to study the stars, always!” decided Maria one day. “I want to be an astronomer!”
“Father, can only men be astronomers?” she asked.
Father thought for a moment, while Maria watched his face anxiously. He knew that no matter how smart a girl was, she could not get into any college in the United States to study astronomy. Only boys were allowed to go to college in those days.
Finally he said, “There are no women astronomers in America. There are only a few in the entire world, but I do think it’s possible, Maria. I will teach thee all I know about astronomy. Cousin Walter has scientific books he might let thee read. Thee will need to study mathematics. That is as important to astronomy as the telescope. Yes, I do think it is possible thee could be an astronomer.”
“Oh, I will study, father, I will!” cried Maria joyfully, hugging her father.
True to her word, Maria spent long hours studying geometry and trigonometry in a tiny room at the foot of the attic stairs . . .
Maria still spent most evenings studying the sky with the telescope and keeping careful records on the stars. One night she saw a fuzzy spot through the telescope that she had never seen before. Quickly she checked the charts to see if a star was supposed to be in that place in the sky. No star was ever there. Could it be a new comet?
“Father, come up and look quick!” she shouted. Her father dashed up the attic stairs to the roof and peered carefully through the telescope.
“Thee’s discovered a comet above the North Star!” he exclaimed. “We must write immediately to the Harvard Observatory and tell them! A comet is named for the person who discovers it first but the discovery doesn’t count unless it is reported to an observatory.”
They wrote the letter that very night, but to their dismay, a storm at sea delayed the mail in leaving the island for two days. Soon the comet was also sighted by someone in Italy, then in England and in Germany. The King of Denmark had promised a gold medal to the first person who discovered a comet that could be seen only through a telescope. Would Maria miss getting the medal because her report was late? Months went by while this was being decided!Finally one day a package arrived for Maria from the King of Denmark. It was the gold medal! Now Maria was famous. She was the first woman in the world to have a comet named after her!
Women all over America were so proud of Maria that they collected money for a new, larger telescope for her. How excited she was! Now she could learn so much more about the stars and planets!
Maria’s life changed in 1865 when a wealthy man named Matthew Vassar had the courage to start a college for women — Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York.
People called Matthew Vassar an old fool. They said girls didn’t need a college education, they just needed to know how to sew and do housework and maybe play the piano a little. College would ruin them for doing housework.
There were ministers who thundered, “It’s against the will of God for girls to go to college! It will break up families and destroy the country!”
In spite of such talk, Matthew Vassar wanted Maria to come and teach astronomy! She could have an observatory with the third largest telescope on the continent.
“Father, how can I do this?” said Maria softly, trying to keep her voice from trembling. “I’ve never even been to college myself!” She was also thinking, “If I’m not any good at it, then people will say, “This proves that women have no business teaching in colleges!”
“Thee can do it, and do it well,” said her father. “Thee should have no fears.”
He was right. Maria’s students loved her. The other professors just expected the students to sit and listen to them talk, but Maria taught her students to question everything and experiment, and to think for themselves.
Afterward
In 1986 another young woman discovered a comet. Working at Mount Palomar Observatory near San Diego, California, Christine Wilson had equipment and techniques at her disposal undreamed of in Maria’s time. At the start of her career, she had a knowledge of astronomy surpassing all that Maria learned in a lifetime of study.
But Christine Wilson’s discovery, while exciting and well publicized, did not catapult her into sudden fame as Maria’s had. New comets are not headline news. Thanks to pioneers like Maria, neither are women astronomers. Women now occupy important positions in the scientific community. Side by side with their male colleagues, they fight disease, predict the weather, design computers, and continue to discover comets. Maria Mitchell would be pleased.
From Session 2 of the Toolbox of Faith Curriculum, part of the Tapestry of Faith Curriculum offerings from the UUA. Find the complete curriculum here.
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What do you do when you need a little extra courage? You might take some deep breaths or talk with a friend, but sometimes a song is just the thing to get you in the right frame of mind to take on something that’s scary or overwhelming. “Never Turning Back” by Pat Humphries is one of those songs you might want to sing to yourself for courage. It’s the kind of song that’s easy to put in your own words for, so you could even change the words to fit your situation and sing something like “Gonna walk right past that bully, walk right past that bully, walk right past that bully. Never turning back, never turning back.”
Even though she is small, Snail Girl has the courage to seek water for her people.
In the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the year 1858, a young woman entered a streetcar and sat down. The conductor came to her and insisted she leave, but she stayed quietly in her seat. A passenger intervened, asking if the woman in question might be permitted to sit in a corner. She did not move. When she reached her destination, the woman got up and tried to pay the fare, but the conductor refused to take her money. She threw it down on the floor and left.
What was that all about? Read more →
March 2015
“Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. ” —Maya Angelou
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Arianna Huffington, the noted author and popular pundit, wrote a book entitled On Becoming Fearless. In it, she observed that too many women and girls today are afraid to be themselves—to inhabit the bodies they have, express the convictions they feel, demonstrate the talents they possess, and claim the autonomy that is rightly theirs. Most girls learn early that the best way to stay safe in our culture is to be pretty and quiet. Read more →
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As a Unitarian Universalist congregation with no geographical boundary, the CLF creates global spiritual community, rooted in profound love, which cultivates wonder, imagination, and the courage to act.