Prairie UU Society, 2010 Whenona Drive, Madison WI 53711–4843 (608) 271-8218 admin@uuprairie.com Located off the south frontage road (West Beltline Hwy Rd.) near the Seminole Hwy exit. PRAIRIE FIRE "As the prairie stretches out until it becomes one with the sky, let us reach out to touch and be one with the natural world and with one another." August 24, 2007 Prairie Fire is the semi-monthly newsletter of Prairie Unitarian Universalist Society. View past issues at www.uuprairie.org. President: Rachel Long, ra_a_l@tds.net; 608-328-4899 Editor: Dan Proud, admin@uuprairie.org; 661–0776 PRAIRIE CALENDAR Sunday, August 26 *10:00 a.m. Ingathering Water Ceremony 10:00 a.m. Religious Education classes begin Tuesday, August 28 *2:00 p.m. Prairie Elders meet at Oakwood East to discuss children's books for adults Sunday, September 2 *10:00 a.m. Labor Day program led by Ruth Gundlach Thursday, September 6 7:30 p.m. Committee on Ministry meeting Saturday, September 8 4:30 a.m. Serve breakfast at the Men's Homeless Shelter, Grace Episcopal Church Sunday, September 9 *10:00 a.m. “Revisioning Our Vision” presented by the Rev. Ralph Tyksinski 12:00 noon. Humanist Union potluck and meeting Wednesday, September 12 *7:30 p.m. Pre-Retreat Folk Dance Practice Friday-Sunday, September 14-16 *Prairie Retreat at Bethel Horizons Sunday, September 16 *10:00 a.m. Key Log Ceremony, Bethel Horizons *2:00-4:00 p.m. Interfaith Hospitality Network open house at Midvale Lutheran Church (corner of Midvale and Tokay); short program at 3:00 p.m. Tuesday, August 28 4:30 a.m. Serve breakfast at the Men's Homeless Shelter, Grace Episcopal Church *2:00 p.m. Prairie Elders meet at Oakwood East to discuss children's books for adults Friday-Sunday, September 14-16 *Prairie Retreat at Bethel Horizons (* = Details follow in this issue.) NEXT INPUT DEADLINE SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 2 DETAILS OF COMING PROGRAMS Sunday, August 26 As we begin our new program year, this service will be our annual ritual of ingathering commonly celebrated in most UU churches—-the Water Ceremony. Please bring to the service a small container of water which is a reflection of a meaningful story from your summer weeks. The source of the water might be almost anything—-laughing, or crying with others, sharing a special moment, or scene, or event; learning something new about yourself and the world we live in. Let your imagination have wings. We will blend our offerings of water as symbolic of our joining ourselves in community to begin a new program year. (If you forget to retrieve some water you will be allowed to offer a “virtual” sample for your sharing!) Sunday, September 2 To honor Labor Day, we will hear from Ruth Gundlach of AFSCME on major issues facing labor today. Sunday, September 9 In “Revisioning Our Vision,” Rev. Ralph will explore the desired elements for a revision of a Prairie Vision. What can be realized and achieved by the year 2112? Bring your hopes, dreams, and wishes and Ralph will bring his. OUR SOCIETY A FEW MORE RETREAT VOLUNTEERS NEEDED! Volunteers are still needed for these projects for the Prairie Family Retreat at Bethel Horizon, September 14-16. Please contact Aileen Nettleton if your talents match one of these areas: * Lead an adult workshop on "What is Your Environmental Footprint?" * Coordinate an intergenerational photo project "Friends for Peace" * Lead an Outdoor Sports-related activity with kids and adults * Help Robin Proud as "Assistant Registrar" on site * Assist a leader with a craft activity with children * Read aloud stories to younger children for Storytime Please contact Aileen Nettleton, retreat program coordinator, with your offer to volunteer and describe which task you are interested in. Over 20 people have already volunteered to help develop a stimulating weekend for all of us. Everyone will also have a chance to volunteer for "Table setting" and "Cleanup" once we are there!! More information and the registration form will be in the coming issue of Prairie Fire. If you have questions about registration, contact Robin Proud. The deadline to register is September 2. Many thanks, Aileen Nettleton DIRECTIONS TO BETHEL HORIZONS To get to Bethel Horizons, take highway 18/151 west to Dodgeville, then highway 23 north 4 or 5 miles, past the entrance to Governor Dodge State Park, to County Highway ZZ. Turn right and follow ZZ for about 1 mile. There will be a sign on the right at the entrance to the Bethel Horizons property. The address of the retreat center is Bethel Horizons, 4651 Cty Hwy ZZ, Dodgeville. Camp Phone is 608-935-5885. CHOICE OF RETREAT ACCOMMODATIONS Here is some clarification on the various buildings available at Bethel Horizons. The Prairie Center is the main building where meals and most of the activities will be. This is the best location for anyone who wants a minimum of walking and a maximum of amenities. Each room has its own bathroom with shower. Rooms hold 4-7 people. Usually couples do not have to share, but if there is a lot of demand it is possible. If you have a health issue that requires a private room, just indicate that on your registration form. The Barn Center is down the hill and is a bit more basic, and the bathrooms are shared. Usually a couple or single person can have their own room, so if you are looking for quiet and privacy, this is a good choice. The Farmhouse has a number of rooms with bunks and a shared bathroom. This could be a good choice for an extended family or a couple of families who want to be together. This is also down the hill from the main center. No matter which building you are staying in, you need to bring soap, sheets, towels, and pillowcases (unless you want to pay extra to rent linens). Blankets and pillows are provided. Camping is available for individuals, couples or families, and you have the option of coming for any part of the retreat, for example, during the day Saturday without staying overnight. PRAIRIE ELDERS MEET AUGUST 28 TIME: 2:00-3:50 p.m., Nakoma Room, Heritage Oaks Building, Oakwood Village West. TOPIC: A children’s book that has special meaning in your adult life. This could be a book from your childhood, a book you read to your children or a book you discovered as an adult. There is no age limit for loving children’s books – or for writing them. The last book Theodor Seuss Geisel wrote and illustrated was his 1990 publication Oh, the Places You’ll Go. Much beloved Dr. Seuss was 85. We alternate a round-robin “show and tell” topic with discussion of a current issue. At the July meeting, one person came armed with a copy of the Constitution, others shared ideas about salvaging our democracy and we conducted a serious Prairie-style discussion about the precarious state of our nation. We begin and end our gathering with casual conversation. The Nakoma Room will be open at 1:30. Come and go as necessary for appointments, rides, etc. REFRESHMENTS: Please bring a small handful of snacks to pass. Beverages are furnished. Bring your own beverage cup if you can. ABOUT US: Prairie Elders aims to provide good times and mutual support for Prairie UU Members and Friends over 65. For directions, rides, parking and further information please contact Donna Murdoch 238-3802, Rosemary Dorney 238-4382 or Rose Smith 233-3363. PRE-RETREAT FOLK DANCE SESSION A pre-Retreat folk dance session will be held on Wednesday, September 12 at 7:30 p.m. in the meeting room after the potluck. Prairie folk dance enthusiasts and musicians are invited to a work session to learn circle and line dances Doleta Chapru will be leading at the retreat. It would be helpful to inexperienced dancers and to Doleta to have some people at Bethel Horizons who are familiar with the dances. To get music ahead of time, instrumentalists can contact Doleta. Dances will be selected from the list below. None require partners and are fairly easy. Some faster dances will have alternative slower steps so more people can be included. The work session is open to adults and older RE people and is not limited to those attending the retreat. While "work" is the operative word, we plan to have fun. The session at the retreat will begin with a couple of dances easy enough for younger children or babes in arms. Hashual - Israel Carnivalito - Bolivia Bannielou Lambaol - Brittany Savila Se Bela Losa - Serbia Milanova Kolo - Yugoslavia Lesnoto - Macedonia Bak Kardeshim - Turkey Hineh Ma Tov - Israel Mythos - Greece BOOK CLUB SELECTIONS FOR THE FALL All are welcome to the Book Club discussions listed below. We meet at Prairie after Sunday services, except in September. Participants bring food to share. The meeting usually begins about 11:30 a.m. and continues until 1:00 or 1:30 p.m. For more information or to be put on the e-mail list, contact Mary Mullen, mmullen (at) chorus.net, 608-298-0843. Saturday, September 15 (at Prairie’s annual Bethel Horizons’ retreat; exact time to be announced later.) Midnight at the Dragon Cafe by Judy Fong Bates, from $2.19. www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/1582431892/105-3315333-7491661?SubscriptionId= 09GE3K6JDGSKCKXKEJG2. This is a Chinese immigrant story set in Canada where 6-year-old Su-Jen Chou meets her father for the first time when she and her mother come to join him where he runs a restaurant. It’s a first novel by the author. Booklist says, “The haunting characters in that lonely greasy spoon evoke a tradition stretching back to Carson McCullers.” 317 pages (Suggested by Al Nettleton, from an Oregon “everybody reads” program) Sunday, October 14 Man Gone Down by Michael Thomas, from $5.95 at http://www.amazon.com/Man-Gone-Down-Michael-Thomas/dp/0802170293. The narrator of this first novel is a man who was born poor, black, and brilliant in a Boston ghetto, married a white upper class woman, became a father, and at 35 is struggling to reconcile his upbringing and his life as a black father. He has four days to come up with $12,000 to rent an apartment, pay the tuition at his children’s private school, and rescue his family from New England where they’ve spent the summer with their Brahmin grandmother. Flashbacks to his 1970’s childhood as a “social experiment” and the son of an abusive mother and absent father blend into his more recent history. The New York Times Book Review notes that in his critique of American Society Thomas relies heavily on “Invisible Man” and also on T.S. Eliot. 432 pages (Suggested by Donna Murdoch) Note: In each case, the Amazon URL give access to used books at reasonable prices and includes brief reviews of the books. Prices are those current at http://amazon.com as of June 10, 2007. The Web sites have brief reviews as well as links to buying the books. SUMMER READS On Sunday, August 12, Rose Smith led us in a program titled "How Can I Keep from Reading?" Attenders shared books they had read recently that they highly recommended. The following list notes the person who shared (where known) and the book they talked about. Homer, The Iliad (trans. by Robert Fagels). Pat Watkins Noddings, Nel, Critical Lessons: What Our Schools Should Teach (2006). Mary Frantz Niven, Jennifer, Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic (2003). Mary Mullen Gildiner, Catherine, Too Close to the Falls: A Memoir (1999, 2002). Rose Smith Pullman, Philip, Golden Compass Trilogy. Amy Armstrong Dickens, Charles, Great Expectations. Amy Armstrong Pollan, Michael, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (2006). Galen Smith Brennan, Tom, Cold Crime: How Police Detectives Solved Alaska's Most Shocking Cases (2005). Galen Smith Rita Golden, Tales of a Female Nomad Tsukiyama, Gail, Women of the Silk (1991). Sonya Sidk Tsukiyama, Gail, The Language of Threads (1999). Sonya Sidky Sayers, Dorothy, Strong Poison. Anne Urbanski Sayers, Dorothy, Have His Carcase. Anne Urbanski Fergus, Jim, One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd (1998). Heidi Hughes Gruen, Sara, Water for Elephants (2006). Jean Matos Yann, Life of Pi (2002). Jim Cunningham & Martel The Epic of Gilgamesh (most recent translation). Kathy Ducat Grogan, John, Marley and Me (2006). Kathy Ducat Eugenides, Jeffrey, Middlesex (2002). Anne Lundin Peck, Richard, A Long Way from Chicago (2000). Mary Lou Diehl Peck, Richard, A Year Down Yonder (2001). Mary Lou Diehl Nesbitt, E., Five Children and It. Robin Proud Eager, Edward, Half Magic. Robin Proud Kingsolver, Barbara, Prodigal Summer. Gennifer Lawrence Kingsolver, Barbara, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (2007). Gennifer Lawrence Mortenson, Greg, Three Cups of Tea (2005) Ferguson, Niall, The War of the World: 20th Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (2006). KK Anderson Park, Wilford, Pocket Dairy 1917 unpublished (http://parkscrapbook.us) (family member). Bob Park LA Theater (sound rec), Proof and Going to St. Ives. Erin Bosch REV. RALPH'S RUMINATIONS I hope you have received and by now have had an opportunity to read the Letter to the Congregation sent by Rachel and myself, dated August 12. The letter was not intended to be alarming nor was there any intention to “throw darts,” “grind axes,” or “point fingers.” If you have discovered any misinformation or know of any factors that were not considered in our letter please let us learn of them. We need to be as informed and educated about this aspect of our congregational life. But it is not the only area of a congregation’s life. In the coming weeks we will be developing and planning group meetings to focus on Strategic Planning for Prairie. What does Strategic Planning mean? Some have called this process Long Range Planning and Prairie has been engaged in this activity for several years. Here’s my current thinking about Strategic Planning. Simply put, strategic planning determines where a congregation (like any organization) is going over the next year or more, how it's going to get there and how it'll know if it got there or not. The focus of a strategic plan is usually on the entire scope of activities the congregation is engaged in, for example, Sunday Programs, Religious Education (both Children’s and Adult), Social Action projects and participation, Membership Growth, Identity and Outreach to the wider community, Financial Health. In a conference call with UUA Financial Consultant, Wayne Clark, it was suggested to our executive committee and me that one way for the Prairie community to refocus on its vision and mission, or long-range plans, is to engage in a process that is called Appreciative Inquiry (AI). AI is a major breakthrough in congregational/ organization development, training, and "problem solving," in general. AI is based on the assertion that "problems" are often the result of our own perspectives and perceptions of phenomena, e.g., if we look at a certain priority as a "problem," then we tend to constrain our ability to effectively address the priority and we continue to struggle, bringing on constraints in our personal development, in our lives and especially in our social relationships. Prairie has “problems” that need to be identified and using the Appreciative Inquiry approach we may be able to develop Strategic Plans for their resolution. AI is a philosophy so a variety of models, tools and techniques can be derived from that philosophy. For example, one AI-based approach to strategic planning includes identification of our best achievements and/or experiences during the best situations in the recent past of our congregational life. In this process, the wishing and thinking about what worked best then, envisioning what we want in the future, and building from what worked best in order to work toward our vision can lead to a specific set of strategic goals, with benchmarks for knowing when goals have been met. What I have been observing since beginning my service as minister with Prairie last November is a congregation that identified the challenges it was facing, made substantial efforts to respond, but has not been able to respond effectively in achieving its goals. Now is the time for Prairie to focus on organic growth through leadership development and skill building, with the full participation of it membership in this challenging process. Intentionally investing congregational energy in organic growth will pay dividends for years to come. Organic growth demands that leaders set aside the continual pressure just to do "anything" and replace it with a response to select the "something" that is the best match to the situation. Doing just "anything" to relieve leaders’ and congregants’ anxiety is usually ineffective. It can feed the tendency toward burnout. Doing the “right something" is more effective and is certainly more rewarding to those leaders who want to see something positive and lasting accomplished. In effect, fostering organic growth and strengthening the habits of continual improvement are closely related. Building internal congregational systems that assume we will always need to learn is vital for achieving and sustaining congregational health. Congregations that create a culture of continual learning find that they are always involved with learning skills and acquiring knowledge, applying these skills and knowledge, and evaluating their accomplishments. Once a congregation learns a new technique, carefully applies what it has learned, and evaluates how to make improvements, it has modeled a cycle that can be repeated over and again to meet the demands of the future. Such a cycle becomes an expected process, and the habit of process becomes a part of congregational identity. If Prairie continues to aspire to grow larger numerically, organic growth is mandatory. Numerical growth will make systems growth mandatory, or conversely, the lack of systems growth will stop numerical growth completely. Failure to grow effective systems truncates healthy growth faster than does new Religious Education space! If Prairie does nothing more in the coming months than build robust congregational systems, we will be fabulously effective in achieving our dreams. Glad to be journeying with you, Ralph RELIGIOUS EDUCATION WELCOME BACK PRAIRIE STUDENTS Welcome back everyone! And welcome to all the newcomers. It seems like only yesterday I was wishing our graduating senior, Mei-Lien, good luck in college and recognizing our transition students, Gavin McFarlane and Seth Gutknecht. Even though classes are starting I refuse to say summer is over. It’s not over, we still have a month left! Even though we’ve had some crazy heat and crazy rain this summer season I want to cherish every minute before the cool air comes in and the leaves begin to fall. We have a very exciting year. Classes begin August 26th with our annual Ingathering Water Ceremony. Bring your jars of water from your summer vacation and prepare to tell us about your summer. I can’t wait to hear all about it. After classes we will have lunch at Prairie and then off to the pool in Middleton for our first ever Prairie Pool Party! This will be a fun opportunity for students to get together and catch up and a great chance for our newcomers to get better acquainted with their classmates. It’s also a nice time for our parents and teachers to meet and just have some fun. I’m really looking forward to this year. We have some interesting speakers lined up for our World Religions program this year and some very cool field trips to various churches and temples in Dane County. As always, if you would like to lend a hand with RE please let me know. Rebecca Malke (YREC) youthcoordinator (at) uuprairie.org PRAIRIE RETREAT FORMS Prairie Retreat Forms are available at Prairie or in the PDF version of the Prairie Fire newsletter.