Dear UUFJC Members and Friends,
I hope the beginning of spring finds you all well, and doing your best to hold onto hope and spread love wherever you can. I know it is not always easy.
The UUFJC Board is currently considering whether to renew Rev. Tom Bozeman’s contract for an additional year. We welcome your feedback on how you think his ministry is going so far. Please keep in mind that he is under contract for 1/8 of full time, and his duties are proportionate to that level of service. Please respond privately to myself or Lisa Sanning, our Worship Chair.
Also, we are planning an initiative to seek out more live local speakers for our Sunday services. I may be contacting some people to see if they wish to participate in this effort, but if you have an interest in this, please contact me. It would probably take the form of a small temporary committee that would spend a month or two building up a roster of reliable, compatible speakers.
Also, I am very pleased to report that we will be having a new member ceremony this Sunday, March 1! Mark and Cindy Johnson and Jack Eastman are already valued members of our community, and we will be very happy to welcome them formally. If you are considering becoming an official Member, please speak to Mary Jo LaCorte, our Membership Chair.
I appreciate everything you do to make UUFJC the warm and welcoming community that it is.
Rich Burdge President, UUFJC Board of Trustees
UUFJC Annual Meeting
Sunday, May 31
Voting (by members)
will take place to elect our 2026-27
Board of Directors
“I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I’ve been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done?”
Mary Oliver
The Summer Day
Just this.
Just this,
this room where we are.
Pay attention
to that.
Pay attention to who’s there.
Pay attention to what is known
there.
Pay attention to what
everyone
is thinking or feeling; what
you’re doing there.
Pay attention.
Pay attention.
W.S. Merwin
The Process of Paying Attention by Ben Worrall
So how do we step away from our thought patterns and get back to seeing what’s there?
Nowadays, I would say the biggest problem is the overload of stimulation from all sides. Especially online media content which is never-ending and keeps us programmed with narratives about the world at the expense of coming to our own conclusions through observation.One way I’m trying to fight this tendency is by being more conscious about what I watch, read and the ideas I consume. I’m also gradually increasing the amount of time I spend in nature.
Imagine an entire day sitting in nature, without distractions, simply observing. How do the leaves move in the wind? What patterns emerge in the way a spider builds its web? Does the ambience reveal anything when you look and listen? Any one of these could occupy a full day of study, leading to unknown revelations that may change our entire outlook on life — we don’t give ourselves a chance at this type of growth because we spend so little time truly looking.
Even those people who do get out and engage with the world often are likely so lost in their internal dramas that they never see the intricacies right before their eyes.
What the process of paying attention comes down to is trusting life to be your ultimate teacher. For most of my adult years, I’ve been attempting to improve myself through study and intellectualization. But I’m starting to realize that real change happens through vulnerability — a willingness to be knocked down. Through facing whatever life has in store rather than relying on the subtly defensive ploy of over-analyzing everything.
In a way, you could think of this as an acceptance, or even a submission, to reality. It’s a bowing down to the lack of control that we ultimately have and enjoying the ride anyway. Things start to shift when you’re sat firmly on the rollercoaster, wind blowing into your face, and you give in to the thrills and pains of the ride. This is when the doors of perception begin to creak open. Finally, you’re paying enough attention to notice the horizon beyond. And with every turn of the track emerges a new version of you — exactly the way it was intended.