Identity is an interesting notion, understanding. For a person it can signify self-understanding as well as self-awareness of one's personality, qualities, talents, skills and sense of place in the larger life in which they participate.  Identity is tested often on occasions: uncertainties about abilities, worth, and place. Several elements are in play here: unexpected situations, overwhelming events, changes planned or forced, uncertain consequences, and misunderstandings. Change that we have no control over is the meanest.

Our coping can best come through an honest and courageous search for understandings (moral inventory) and reaching out to others for their perspectives, when hard questions of self are asked bravely and intensely, and self-appreciation is honored. If self-trust is affirmed, openness to change is real, and acceptance of worth as well as willingness to grow is expressed, a process begins. Next comes a sincere conversation with another friend or two or a professional. Through this process we may find some resolution to times of uncertainties and doubts. It is a dynamic that can offer help: our internal pondering, self-inventory and checking out with others their sense of things and their response to our quandaries.

For a Unitarian Universalist congregation faith community --  a spiritual community like ours, informed by freedom and guided by honest engagement with meanings and ethics dedicated to honoring the interdependence of life and living justice - - articulating an easily shared, understood, and promoted identity can be a challenge. An identity that serves as a resource for being and becoming, for activities and programs, and that offers an envisioning loyalty, is so very important.
 
It matters that we answer who we are, how we are, and why we are as a community. How these queries are answered become devotional and directional.  They will guide our support and inspire our appreciation of the value of our congregation and the forms we craft for our future.

Our Ministerial Search Committee is working diligently and creatively to discern from each of us our perspectives on who we are, how we are, and why we are as they prepare a packet, profile, presentation for prospective ministers. There will be several occasions for your input through a well designed survey, conversations, and group activities. 

You will call your next settled minister early in 2015. She or he will be in place in late summer. Please give thoughtful, creative support to the work the Search Committee is undertaking. It matters. A vital, active, inspired UU Church of Tampa matters and you have the opportunity to find the best person available to invite and install to lead in a collaborative ministry that honors the potential and possibilities. Oh, he or she will just be a human being with some good specialized training and wisdom-offered experiences but then that identifies most of us. 
It will be as it needs to be. It will be better if all participate and care.
"May Love Guide Us."

The Reverend Dr. Doak M. Mansfield, Interim Minister

This summer, the primary focus of the Ministerial Search Committee (MSC) and the congregation is a set of activities and events grouped under the category of Survey.   The purpose of these activities is to define what we are looking for in a minister and to provide potential candidates with a profile of who we are as a congregation.   The MSC wants to thank the Planning Committee for volunteering to work with us and the BOT to accomplish this work in a short amount of time.   UUCT member participation in the survey activities will begin in August.  You will get more information on the details of these activities as soon as possible.

The congregational survey offers all members of the congregation the chance to express their needs and wishes for the congregation's future ministry.  Quantitative analysis of survey data can give a factual basis to support or correct vague impressions of the congregation's make-up or direction.  The MSC is acutely aware that the seven of us will be making important decisions for the entire congregation.  We want to be confident that we know each member well enough to do this.  We need to hear from everyone as part of the survey process.  

We have also started a set of activities grouped under the category of Packet.  The purpose of these activities is to create something that presents our congregation to ministers seeking a position.  The MSC is maintaining a list of things to include and has started collecting and requesting items.  Don't be surprised if someone asks you to share your knowledge, talents or testimonials. We are working with Joe Adles on creating scripted video clips too.  Mary Francis is the lead on these efforts and would welcome offers to assist.  She is personally working on the design of a Web version of the packet.   There will also be a print copy and both will be shared with the congregation once we get to the point of having something worth looking at!

Comments, questions and conversations are welcome in person anytime, at Conversations with the Board, or by email to search@uuct.org .

Elise Richardson, Joan Lund, Ara Rogers, Marta Pearson, Ed Benedict, Earl Harvey, Mary Francis

This is the time of year the finance committee takes a closer look at church budget to see if we need to make adjustments in spending.  You can help this process by reviewing your financial commitment to UUCT; and also by, when planning your summer vacation spending, setting aside the sum you had pledged and mailing it to church.  Attendance at church is usually lower during the summer, making it critical that each of us maintain our financial commitment to UUCT, so that we can continue to keep the bills paid.  If you are not sure what you have contributed to date and would like a printout of a statement, to help you see if you are on track, stop by the office on a Sunday morning or call me at home. Joyce Formica pledge secretary (988-1907).

When:     Sunday, September 21, 2014 (following the service)  Who:       Our congregation
Where:    Large dome sanctuary.
What:      Beyond Categorical Thinking workshop.
Details:   Please plan on attending this vital workshop that will help our congregation prepare for the search of our next settled minister.  More details in next month's Domelight.

 
The UU Humanists of Tampa group will be taking the summer off  after 10 years.  Plans to restart in the fall are under consideration.
Please no food for the migrant basket over the summer.  Workers are up north during our summers.  We will start again in the fall.

It was long overdue!  Betty McCluer Lee is now remembered with a stone in our Memorial Garden.  One afternoon some of us were working in the garden area and someone mentioned that there was no stone for Betty Lee.  One person said "I would contribute toward that!"  Another replied, "Me too".  And so it began.  As it turned out, Betty's family agreed and sent a check to cover the costs.  So no need to take up that collection.  However, take some time to visit the garden, reflect on the precious time we share, and enjoy the memories.

 

This month, learning and study are more attractive for me because of some writings by Joseph Goldstein, specifically those found in his book One Dharma: The Emerging Western Buddhism.  I thank Grantford Wilson for letting me know about the book, which I immediately latched onto at the nearby University of South Florida campus library.  We'll begin talking and deciding about an Adult RE course in 2014 based on what we can gather together with Grant and study in connection with this Goldstein book.  Here's an early passage that seemed especially helpful to me:
 
"The essence of One Dharma is wisdom.  The perfection of wisdom is the light that illuminates our lives, revealing both the causes and the end of suffering.  Through mindful attention in the moment, we see the impermanent nature of phenomena and understand the happiness of nongrasping.   And through nongrasping, we experience for ourselves the innate wakefulness of the wisdom mind." - Joseph Goldstein (2002, p. 14)  This is good to learn in 2014!
 
In this time of very worrisome war in Afghanistan and, yet again, in Iraq and Syria, it is very important, I feel, to continually seek to learn how we can act in the world to do more of what needs to be done.
 
I'm grateful for gatherings of us in small groups in twos or threes and other, larger gatherings of us in Adult RE to discuss what we see going on at GA now.
 
 ---  Jeff Austin
Chair of Adult Religious Education at the UU Church of Tampa

 
We need volunteers! Our plan is to have two volunteers every Sunday and the ability to rotate people to reduce the frequency needed. We also need content providers, folks who know or are willing to learn Powerpoint and can create what is put on our screens.  We will train you so don't be shy!
 
Exciting times at UUCT!  If you are interested, or even might be interested, contact our Worship Chair, Diane Gainforth at worship@uutampa.org.

On April 20th, the Sunday service focused on sending love to our Mother Earth.  The globe that was part of that service now hangs out in the meditation meadow.