 Greetings, friends! Welcome to CTUCC Conference Cast for February 20, 2014, the regular podcast of the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ. Whoever you are and wherever you may be on life's journey at this very moment, you are welcome here. We apologize for last week's gap in our podcast, which was the result of yet another bout of bad weather here in Connecticut. The snow and ice has been playing havoc with our publications in every medium this winter, and we thank you for your patience. As a result, this week's show will include not one but two reflections, as Tamara Morland recorded a wonderful meditation for last week's podcast, and we'll use that to close today. We begin this week's conference cast with this meditation from Anne and Tim Hughes, co-directors of Silver Lake Conference Center. They've just returned from warmer climbs, where they've been exploring the wonders of God's creation in a way rather different than the way they usually do it at Sharon, Connecticut, where they have the privilege to work and play in what we love to call God's backyard. And so, they've turned to the first chapter of Genesis and these words. And God said, Let the water team with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky. So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teams according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind, and God saw that it was good. Their reflection is read this week by your podcast host. The underwater sea world is a lot like the spiritual world, teeming with life, rich in astonishing color that changes according to the light it's viewed in, communities rich with personality drama and surprised voices of creatures and waves, and lots of movement going on. But it takes some effort and intention to visit the underwater world, much like the spiritual world. Most of the human species throughout the millennia have lived near it or beside it or sometimes on it. But we have to return to the vicinity. We have to purposefully get ourselves close to it and we have to turn our attention towards this submerged world to visit. We may wear a lens to view it more clearly. We may don divers equipment and accessories like fins and tanks to turn off our above water noise, slow down our breath and get in and get a good look. But wet. Notice all this life going on beyond our usual consciousness. Listen to very different sounds, the waves, the bubbles, the pelicans diving, the talking of the creatures. We look and notice and when we hear and see and move around this submerged galaxy it's kind of like praying. We are offered a spiritual experience described so vividly by Anne-Marie Lindbergh in Gift from the Sea. The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach waiting for a gift from the sea. We visit the domain of the fish, the dolphin, the ancient sea turtle and the prehistoric pelican. We slow our frantic limbs to a languid fluid movement matching the ebb and flow of the sea. We behold the magnitude of life pouring out around us indifferent to our awareness almost amused by our sudden interest. When we are finished visiting these aquatic neighborhoods and communities ready to resume our above water lives we discover we have practiced our patience and delight and emerge a little more peaceful dripping with awe. For a moment like following really good prayer talk with God we are happy and thankful and realize we did just visit God. And so here is a prayer talk with God. Thank you God for wonders above and wonders below the waves. May we always drip with awe when we visit with you, wherever and whenever that may be. Amen. Please hold the loved ones of these people in your prayers as well. The Reverend Donald W. Morgan led the First Church of Christ in Wethersfield for many years and helped organize the United Church of Christ as it came together in the 1950s. He died on January 28th at the age of 88. Margaret Dickinson was a Christian educator and commissioned minister who served churches in Southbury and Cheshire and as Resource Center Director here at the Connecticut Conference. She died on February 9th at the age of 84. And just this past Sunday, Eleanor Stier, the spouse of the Reverend Kenneth Wade Stier died. She taught at levels ranging from kindergarten to community college in Connecticut and in New Hampshire. She directed the Foster Grandparent Program here in this state. She was 93. In the news this week, a Florida jury last week convicted Michael David Dunn of attempted murder for shooting at four African American teams in an automobile in Jacksonville in November 2012. But that jury failed to reach a verdict on the charge of murdering one of them, 17-year-old Jordan Davis. Conference Minister of the Reverend Kent J. Salati and the Sacred Conversations on Race Ministry team issued a statement today saying in part, as your conference minister and as the Sacred Conversations on Race team, we are reminded too frequently of the ways in which the racial divide in our land separates us in deep and significant ways. The murder of Jordan Davis in Florida and the murders of others in our country that are fueled by racial hatred cause us to rise up and say, no more. You'll find the complete statement on our website at ctucc.org. And Salati welcomed Minister of Faith formation Karen Zeal to last week's Vantage Point, where they looked forward to the upcoming Super Saturday event on March 1st. Make sure to check that video out on our YouTube channel. And if you'd like to go to Super Saturday to hear from Diana Butler Bass and to learn from two of 45 workshops that day, well make sure to register before Friday. It's a long trip from Salisbury to Bridgeport, Connecticut, and the roads simply don't run straight. But when the food ministry at United Congregational Church UCC in Bridgeport needed assistance in the aftermath of hurricane sanding, the people of the Congregational Church of Salisbury UCC helped them to maintain the only food pantry that stayed open after that storm struck the northeast. Since then, the churches have deepened the relationship they founded in that emergency. Salisbury members have helped with food service as well as food collection in Bridgeport. The pastors have exchanged pulpits, and they plan further experiments in mission, service, and worship together. The conferences Give Squared program added a new chapter last August, when seven churches along the Nagatuck River created the Nagatuck Valley Youth Connection. Their three service events to date have involved 40 to 75 young people and adult advisors. This month they visited with residents of the Crestview Senior Housing Facility in Oxford, playing games, and telling stories. Connecticut Conference has been adding new publications pretty rapidly this winter, despite the pressures of the weather. In addition to Vantage Point, which we'll next see on Ash Wednesday, March 5th, the conference released a mobile app for both Apple iOS devices and Google Android smartphones and tablets. The free app offers the current headlines, upcoming events, maps, and of course the audio and video editions of Conferencecast. You can find it by searching for CTUCC in the Apple App Store or Google Play today. We've also announced a new regular devotional publication. Spirited Wednesday will be delivered to email subscribers of the Spirit Calendar as well as posted to our website, Facebook, and Twitter. Instead of being written by Conference staff, we've recruited a large and talented group of writers from around the state to author that publication. Spirited Wednesday's first edition will come out on Wednesday, March 5th, again on Ash Wednesday. Reverend Matt Kreben, senior pastor of the Newtown Congregational Church, writes these words. One UCC laywoman who telephoned me soon after the shootings on December 14th, 2012 commented things like this just should not happen. But Sandy Hook happens every week in America. In fact it happens several times over. Every week in the United States more than 50 of our children and youth die due to gun violence and many dozens more are injured. Most of us just aren't paying attention. That's why I want to invite you, my fellow UCC brothers and sisters, to help one another and our nation to pay attention. Please join me in taking part in the Gun Violence Prevention Sabbath sponsored by Fates United to Prevent Gun Violence, scheduled for the weekend of March 13th through 16th. Commit yourself and your community to pray about, learn about, and act upon an issue that is claiming far too many of our fellow citizens. There are a number of additional stories on our website from the last two weeks, an amazing show sponsored by the Gilead Congregational Church UCC which decisively demonstrated that Hebron has got talent. A minister learned from a long anticipated visit to the Asian Rural Institute in Japan and you can read about discerning a call to spiritual direction. You'll find these stories and all the current headlines at ctucc.org slash news. Register now for Super Saturday, that day of workshops, fellowship and celebration for church members and leaders featuring a keynote address from author Diana Butler Bass. We'll gather with our friends from the Massachusetts Conference on March 1st in Ludlow, Massachusetts. Registration closes on Friday. A workshop on community and church gardens will be held on March 8th in Vernon. A series of webinars on the new resource Children's Ministry and the Way of Jesus begins on March 10th. Stepping Stones takes up the challenges of the pastoral care of youth on March 19th in the Southington. Silver Lakes Maple Sugaring weekend for young people in grades 6 through 8 will run March 21st through 23rd, tapping trees, boiling sap and renewing a sense of the sweetness of God's creation. Stepping Stones holds a workshop on sacred dance on March 25th in Southington. The New England Women's Celebration will be held March 28th through 30th in Portland, Maine. You can register for that at uccwomencelebration.org. The Spring Women's Spirit Retreat of Yoga and Sacred Chant will be at Silver Lake April 4th through 6th. And Spring Action Weekend, which prepares the camp for its summer program, is the weekend of April 25th through the 27th. The Farmington Valley Association and Simply Smiles are teaming up for a mission trip to the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Reservation in South Dakota. That trip begins May 3rd. Silver Lake will host an open house for those interested in learning more about its summer program on May 4th. By all means, come then. And also remember to visit silverlakect.org to find out about summer offerings and to register. And mark your calendars now for May 17th, the 4th annual Connecticut Conference Youth Revival to be held this year at Dixwell Avenue, UCC, in New Haven. You can always learn more about what's coming up in the Connecticut Conference by visiting us at ctucc.org slash events. We turn now to the Reverend Tamara Morland, Northwest Central Regional Minister, for her reflection on Jesus' Prayer in the 17th chapter of John. That they may be one as we are one. For more than 100 years, Black History Month has been a time to acknowledge the contributions African Americans have made to our society. This is a sacred time, especially for African Americans, as we celebrate and honor our ancestors who helped to make this grand and diverse quilt known as the United States. I was honored to be invited this past week to the annual day away for women in ministry organized by the Connecticut Women of the United Church of Christ. The theme for this event was, Blessed are the peacemakers, they are called to be made whole. We heard of one woman's life story reflected in the shapes and patterns and colors in her quilt. And we made our own quilt as we pinned pieces of fabric together in our groups. This time away helped me to remember my own role in quilt making. As a child, I was the one assigned to thread needles and cut pieces of scrap cloth for my grandmother and her two sisters, Annie, Leela, and Laura. These sisters who were well up in age in the early 1960s would gather every few weeks to sew, to have some private woman time, to weep, and smoke cigars as they retold family stories and stories of African Americans working and dying for our civil rights. They plotted how they could help relatives back in Georgia and even those here in Connecticut through their churches and local black organizations. They had their own rituals around quilting time. And I felt special because I could be a part of this sacred sisterhood that produced quilts for newborns and for those going off to study, for those who died, and for those embarking on a new life with a new husband or wife that connected them to our family and our roots. The Reverend Laura Bushbaum writes in with sacred threads, quilting, and the spiritual journey, our lives become rich and meaningful when we piece together the joys and sorrows, the questions and answers, the successes and failures, the longing, the people and experiences that have been the colors and shapes of our lives. Out of chaos, we can sometimes make comforting patterns. Out of despair, beauty. Out of longing, new possibility. Out of joy, visual radiance. African Americans are part of this country's quilt, which is not an ordinary quilt. This country is a crazy, jazz-like quilt, holding stories, holding histories of high notes and low notes, all sewn together in varying styles and stitches. The result is a strong yet yielding creation made stronger because of its unique pieces. Jesus prayed that we would be one and that our unity would convince others of his mission. His prayer was in effect a rebuke for those who would seek division among his followers. We all of us are not whole without each other. We are at our best when we are a quilt of rainbow colors, gifts, stories and faith, all woven together for God's use and God's glory. And so here's a prayer for this week. O gracious God, I pray that all of us through the message of Jesus the Christ would be one. And that brings this conference cast to a close. Thanks to Tim and Ann Hughes and to Tamara Morland for our reflections and to GarageBand for our music. Primary funding for conference cast comes from your congregation's gifts to our church's wider mission, basic support, changing lives through the United Church of Christ. This is Eric Anderson, the Minister of Communications and Technology for the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ, praying that your days this week may be filled with the presence, the guidance and the grace of God.