mindfulness- Community and kindness

Dear UU Parents and Guardians, 


REGISTRATION TIME!!!
Please register for the church year if you think you or your family will participate in ANY way this next church year. Let us know how you and your family have been or will want to participate this year - and sign up to potentially receive some goodies from the church for your children!!!

 Here is the link: REGISTRATION

It would be lovely if you could join us for our weekly gatherings! 

Here is what is currently being offered: 
​
*Sunday School *
Approximately: 30 minute program geared towards K-5 but open to all ages
Sundays at 11am
please email me for the link

This Sunday is our very last Drag Queen Story Hour!!!

This summer you will find: Drag Queen Story Hour, Yoga with Maggie, and the

Pioneers Park Nature Center as well as guests from our very own UU
volunteer pool of caring adults. Each week is something different!

*Middle and HS *
Taking August off for a break and will resume in September - date and details will come as soon as they are finalized. We will be joining in with the 1st Unitarian Church in Omaha on Wednesday nights starting some date in September. We will also be offering a moderated Discord (app) group with details to come later as well. 

*Parent and Guardian Chat: *
The chance for parents and guardians to just get together and chat
Every other Thursday 8pm and every other Wednesday noon

Thursday 9/3
     Link: https://zoom.us/j/866583131     Password: lovemykids 

 Wednesday 9/9
      Link: https://zoom.us/j/474526337     Password: lovemykids    
 
NEW! Family Spotlight! 

In an effort for us to remember seeing faces, and to get to know one another better, I am going to spotlight one family each month in our church newsletter. 

Sign up HERE to participate

There's only a handful of spots, so grab yours while there's a chance!
No need to think about it now - just when it comes to the month of your sign-up and I will contact you again with the info. 
This information will show up in our UU newsletter, our email to parents, and perhaps our church 'social' facebook age. If you would NOT like for us to share this spotlight in any of those places please let me know.
I'll ask for the following:

1. A photograph of your family
2. Names of everyone and ages or grade levels of your children IF you feel comfortable doing so
3. A SHORT paragraph answering some of the following questions from your family as a whole, or from some of the individual members:
     1. What is your favorite part of being in our church community?
                Example:
                                We always look forward to the Soup Supper each year!
                                 or
                                Little Suzie loves the church potlucks the best

     2. What is a favorite experience or memory or what brought you to our church?
                Example:
                                 Timmy remembers Bruce Raymer teaching his
                                 classroom when they went outside to pick up trash
                                 around the playground and talked about our earth
                                 or
                                  Daisy remembers a Christmas Eve service when she
                                  sang Silent Night and met her friend Rosie for the first
                                  time
                                  or
                                  My wife and I brought our children to this church
                                  because I came for a meeting of the Wildlife Lovers of
                                  Lincoln and saw the rainbow flags. I looked at some of
                                  brochures Chelsea had put out about the program and
                                  it seemed like a great fit for our family

Community Art Project! 

Please color one or more of these coloring pages and then take a photo and send as a photo attachment to my email, or send to the church's address: 
Unitarian Church of Lincoln
Attn: Chelsea Krafka
6300 A Street
Lincoln, NE  68510
I can print and bring to your house if you don't have a printer
Deadline extended through October 31st! 

Coming of Age for High School Students:
Deadline to submit an email with interest is August 31st 
More information can be found here

New in September:
Look for emails from me which will start incorporating new themes: our connection with the services and the UUA through our Soul Matters Curriculum for families which can be done on your own time! 

*New Youtube links for this week!*

Story with Miss Heather: https://youtu.be/NJe06aJ7BZQ
Story with Ms Alexa: https://youtu.be/zqp3xvV55P4
Miss Molly just had baby Estrella join the family so did not make a video this week - welcome baby!!!

Chelsea's Meditation Video: 
https://youtu.be/whfrphNENN0
Theme this week: 
Community and Kindness - Mindful Parenting

Words from Sumi Loundon Kim:

Much of how we parent our children is a reflection of our internal world. When we are healthy and whole, we bring that into our parenting. Where we have brokenness and pain, that also comes out in our parenting. One of the most powerful gifts of meditation is that it helps us to see this personal psychology clearly, as well as to see how we act out of it in our interactions with our children. Once our internal world comes into the space of awareness, we have the opportunity to heal our pain and change our habits. 
A great deal of this inner work is around what we've internalized from our relationship to our own parents. Much of our inner formation is informed by our experience in childhood. As adults, we tend to re-create our childhood with our children, sometimes intentionally but more often subconsciously. Thus, raising children provides an opportunity to bring our own unconscious material to light and to heal. If we can do this, we not only find our own freedom but we give our children a family life of prenal love, acceptance, and happiness that we longed to have ourselves. Indeed, we give it to ourselves as well. 

Reflection:  

Oh, Sumi, don't tell me my parenting is informed by my childhood experience. Dang it. That's way too heavy for a weekly parent/guardian email. Skip ahead....
Let's talk about a basic message within Sumi's thoughts this week that we are better parents when we have inner peace. That I can roll with. What are you doing for self-care, dear ones? This start of the school year has been rough! Are you making time to decompress before bed? Listening to your favorite music? Choosing to do pizza carryout instead of cooking one night? Yoga? Hitting the gym? Are you remembering to breathe in and out? It is SO easy to put our children first - because they ARE first. We would do ANYTHING FOR THEM, right? Yet, I keep coming back to the notion of not being able to pour from an empty cup. I need to remember that the bath toys need to get cleared out of the tub, so that my shower can actually be relatively peaceful, and so that I don't break a leg. I need to remember that we get to actually eat brussels sprouts, asparagus, and beets, even though my children prefer broccoli and cauliflower. I need to remember that it's okay to say, "No, we're just going to read one book tonight" - instead of 5 books as we usually do, so that I can actually have a moment to myself before bed. I need to remember that I not only get to give myself PERMISSION to do these things, but that I should give myself the BLESSING to do these as well. We do SO much for our children. 24/7 - every single day - it's OKAY to do something for ourselves. It is NOT selfish. We are at our best parenting when we feel whole, rested, peaceful. Be kind to yourselves, and your families. 
Next month, I will begin a new series of parenting emails based on our Soul Matters themes, and stepping away from a mindfulness/meditation theme. Although, I am sure these concepts will find their way through the Soul Matters curriculum as well. Next month's theme is: Renewal. I look forward to all we can share together with what comes next. Can you please do me a favor?? As I assess whether my messages are getting through to you, will you please email back to me the words: "Mindful Parenting", if you read this far? I'm just curious as to who is still reading these messages. Thank you all for sharing this summer with me. I am excited for the coming church year, and can't wait to share with you what I'm finding with the UUA's Soul Matters curriculum. 

Discussion Questions:

1. How would you explain mindful parenting to a friend unfamiliar but interested in learning more?
2. What is the relationship between our inner work and our parenting behavior?
3. To what extent is your parenting informed by how you were raised? 
4. As you think about the upcoming church year, what is important to teach your children with regards to the value of community?