President's Message
Our Faith In Action
Our congregation voted to pursue two primary social justice projects this year. The first initiative is to provide clothing for immigrant workers. Guatemalan immigrants wait on street corners early each morning in hopes of being chosen as day workers. They may stand in the cold al day without being chosen. The work is often difficult and unlikely to be desirable to local residents. The aspiring workmen often walk for miles to arrive at the rendezvous place where contractors and others come to find day workers. They live together in modest abodes to preserve their wages that are sent home to support families. The men, being from Central America, lack warm clothing that is essential during our cold winters, especially this one.
Many in our congregation have donated warm clothing to sustain and protect these visitors from the inclement weather. Politics aside, we accept them as fellow human beings in need and welcome the opportunity to help. We are grateful to Judy Bellini, our “Caring Connection” coordinator, for helping to organize this opportunity to be of service.
Our other special focus is on feeding the needy. We partnered with other religious organizations in a regional effort to provide food for persons in need. Our congregation was alone in stepping forward to provide meals for 150 people on Easter Sunday who might otherwise go hungry. This is a huge undertaking for our small but undaunted congregation. We are grateful to Kate Liebhold for coordinating this important and essential activity. Be sure to contact Kate to volunteer for this worthy effort. We need everyone for this one!
Our beloved, May Stawsky and Trustee, Arta Boucher, were designated as our representatives to a county coalition to build a statue of Martin Luther King, Jr. on the campus of Farleigh Dickinson University. Contact Arta to join her in that effort.
Other examples of our faith in action include the following:
The Sienna Project: www.siennaproject.org
Tom Hart and I will join his mother, Caroline and stepfather, Martin Lavandhar on a unique mission to create educational opportunities in Central America. Martin and Caroline lost their three year old granddaughter, Sienna, to a sudden fatal illness. For the past five years, their Sienna Project has built three and four-room schools for Mayan children in the mountains of Guatemala as a legacy for their granddaughter. The Guatemalan government will provide a teacher and supplies only after a community has built a school.
I am reminded that Julius Rosenwald, a Jewish philanthropist, built 5,000 two and three-room schools for Negroes after the Civil War. The Sienna Project offers a unique opportunity to re-gift the opportunity for education that has benefited all Americans but remains unattainable for many. The opportunity to participate in this wonderful adventure will be available to you again next year.
Unitarian Universalist Living Legacy Civil Rights Pilgrimage:
Michael and Sylvie Meyers-Jouan will join Kate Liebhold and me on the annual Unitarian Universalist Civil Rights Living Legacy Tour that begins in Birmingham, Alabama and visits many of the significant sights of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. The tour offers opportunities to meet with surviving participants of those momentous events.
Unitarians started the anti-slavery abolitionist movement and were primary financiers of the Underground Railroad stations that provided safe havens for runaway slaves.
Two of the four white Americans martyred in the Civil Rights Movement were Unitarians. Rev. James Reeb was beaten to death in Selma for his participation in the historic march. Viola Liuzzo was gunned down in her car by members of the Ku Klux Klan for ferrying participants in the march from Selma to Montgomery.
The Unitarian Universalist Association (uua.org) is the only predominantly white nationwide religious denomination to have elected an African American as its national president.
Locally, Archie and Theodora Lacey, educators and protégés of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Birmingham, started the annual MLK birthday celebration with other members of Central Unitarian Church of Paramus that became the official Bergen County commemoration. The Award given annually at the Bergen County commemoration to a person who exemplifies the ideals of Dr. King is named for Rev. Lee Reid who founded our congregation as an intentionally diverse, multi-cultural anti-racist community of faith.
This is an opportunity to make the pilgrimage with those who walk the walk. Kate Liebhold has travel tips. Putting our faith into action honors the memory and continues the legacy of our members who devoted their time, talent and treasure to this congregation before passing from our presence but not from our thoughts.
“Service to others is the rent you pay for your time on earth”.
Eddie Raynord Hadden