A Thank You Message to my Congregation

June 30, 2019

Dear PUUF friends,

I am writing this on Sunday to tell you again how much I have enjoyed our time together.  It’s been almost seven years since I joined PUUF and 6 and a half years that I have been serving as your minister.  It has been a wonderful time for me and, I hope, for you individually and for PUUF as a community.

We have done some good things together, I think, and I want to share with you what I consider to be my legacy.  It’s not a last will and testament, of course, because you will take things from here and will make decisions about what to keep and what to let go of.  But I hope you will consider my suggestions and make decisions that will serve the entire congregation, from committed nontheists to spiritual, pagan, and Christian members, long timers to newbies and visitors.

Together we’ve created satellite groups in Tillamook County, Astoria, South County, and the Peninsula.  These have been social groups that increase the amount of time PUUFers can spend with each other and they will, I hope, continue as social groups with a point person who stays in touch with our new Vice President as liaison to committees.  As new folks come into the congregation, perhaps she and the PP’s (point persons) can make sure they are invited to group gatherings and added to the  group roster for reminder notes and updates.  These reminders and updates can also be published by the Monday eMail, if our webperson is informed in advance.

Together we’ve created teams and work-arounds to make the PAC more effective for Sunday services.  The PAC isn’t perfect and probably never will be, but we have made it a welcoming space as best we could and have grown because we have sufficient space to meet on Sunday morning for services.  We’re cramped in the Green Room, but social hours still seem to be pretty successful, thanks to the hospitality mentors and those who provide wonderful refreshments!

Together we’ve produced several excellent fundraising events as part of our commitment to the Partners for the PAC:  Skamokawa Swamp Opera, Darrell Grant and the New MJ group, the Shifty Sailors, and two Pete Seeger Tribute Concerts.  PUUF will need to produce one more before the calendar year is over—just saying.

Together we’ve gotten more and more involved in the social justice arena of UUism:  we are now a major partner in the PRIDE festivities in Astoria/Clatsop County, increasing our participation from just walking in the parade to having a booth, to having a special PRIDE service and, this year, co-hosting the annual PRIDE barbecue and potluck, plus a special Pizza in the Park event just this past weekend.  We’ve sponsored and supported the Perez family, as they struggled with their husband and father’s detainment, a situation which I will continue to monitor.   With a newly organized Social Justice committee, I hope you will continue this pattern of outreach in the name of Unitarian Universalism and PUUF’s goodhearted community.

MY SUGGESTIONS:

I hope you will continue to use a “Gathering Affirmation” at the beginning of Sunday services.  It doesn’t have to be the same one I’ve introduced, but the good thing about this small gathering ritual is that it immediately tells visitors something important about PUUF:  that Love is our guiding principle, that we show our love through service, that we make a promise to each other that we will be together in peace, that we will be loving in our search for truth, and that we are committed to each other’s wellbeing.  You can find other possible affirmations in the back of the hymnal, if you’re ready to find a new one.  But it’s important that newcomers know right up front  who we are and what we stand for.

I hope you will continue to find work-arounds for deficiencies in the PAC.  Though you may eventually decide to look elsewhere, rest assured that the ownership of the PAC, when it is sold by the college, will be a local, community-minded group or person who is committed to keeping the PAC as a community resource and will not evict any current Partners.  This is a requirement that the PAC board makes clear to every interested buyer.  This decision should be finalized by October 2019.  There are currently four interested community members or groups who are considering bidding for the purchase.

I hope you will consider creating teams for Sunday greeting and any other regular duties, similar to the Sexton team, the Hospitality Mentors, the potluck Set-up group, etc.  That way, you wouldn’t need to pass the volunteer clipboard around every Sunday, which can be a distraction during the opening parts of the service.

I hope you will continue to be welcoming to visitors and to newer members; this is often the “make or break” moment for new folks who come through the door.  If they don’t feel welcome, they may not come back.

MY PROMISE:

Until you have found your new minister, I will continue to be available for emergencies such as deaths or other crises.  I will always love you and am grateful for your love in return.  We’ve done good things together and we will continue to do good things for the North Coast community, as individuals and as a UU congregation.  I wish you the best in the future!

Much love,

Kit

63 years worth!

Here's my work history from the beginning, with brief details.  No wonder I'm tired.

Age 14-17:  pea bum in the fields of NE Oregon, .85 per hour, 12 hour days, driving a truck in pea and wheat fields.

Age 17-21:  Linfield College, BA in Modern Languages, primarily Spanish.

1964-65:  public assistance worker, Klickitat/Skamania Counties, State of WA

1965-66:  program worker, Denver Christian Center (aka Baptist missionary in the inner city, working with Preschool--Teenage kids)

1967-1968:  attended Colorado Women's College to qualify for teaching credentials

1968-1976:  Spanish teacher, Jefferson County Schools, CO, while working on a Counseling degree at the U of Colorado, Denver.

1976-1995:  Guidance Counselor, Jefferson Co Schools, CO

1995-1999:  Student, Iliff School of Theology, graduation and ordination in May 1999.

1999-2003:  Minister, Wy'east Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Portland OR

2003-2007:  part-time Minister, Vashon Island Unitarian Fellowship while also serving UUCWI part-time.  (They called me the ferry godminister.)

2003-2012:  part-time Minister, UU Congregation of Whidbey Island, retiring in June 2012 to move to Oregon's North Coast

2013-present:  part-time accidental Minister, Pacific UU Fellowship, retiring June 2019 after 20 years of ministry.

BEING A MORE EFFECTIVE ALLY TO OUR Q COMMUNITY FRIENDS

Rev. Kit Ketcham, PUUF, June 9, 2019

My understanding of what it might mean to a person who was transitioning from their birth gender to their true gender began in the mid-90’s, on a UU church retreat in Colorado.  My friend Stephanie and I knew that our mutual friend Harold was a wonderful musician who played the flute and sang tenor in the choir.  It was Sunday morning at the YMCA camp in Estes Park, CO, a beautiful fall day, and Steph and I were eating breakfast with Harold at one of the rugged wooden tables in the rustic cafeteria.  

We noticed that Harold looked a little different that morning, friendly as always, a cute middle-aged guy with a little bald spot, and a ready smile.  And eye shadow and liner.  And foundation and blush.  And mascara.  We felt a little shy about asking about his new look, but we did ask, and Harold entrusted us with his story of transition.  He was coming out a little bit at a time in places where he felt comfortable, and our church was a safe place for him, he felt, as he moved from being Harold to Carol.

This was a huge journey for him—and for all of us at Jefferson Unitarian Church.  We loved this guy for his sweet nature, his many skills, his friendly ways, and we would not have done anything to hurt him.  But we did.  We hurt him repeatedly, mostly accidentally, but we were transitioning too—in our understanding of who the real person was.  It was really hard to shift from loving Harold to recognizing that Carol was the same person and that she needed us not to let our discomfort with her changes override our love for her.

Carol was the first trans woman most of us knew.  Several of Carol’s friends from the Gender Identity Center in Denver began to visit and our education as a loving community began to unfold, but it had its bumps and misunderstandings.

One of the hardest things for us straight folks was the pronoun problem.  It was so easy to blurt out “he” instead of “she” and even though Carol reassured us that she knew it was accidental and not an intended insult, you could see from the look on her face that it stung every single time.

Carol had a wife and a child at home; her son was one of my students at the middle school I worked at.  This was a family who loved each other but also were in transition.  Carol and her wife eventually decided to divorce but remain friends and parents to their son.  The divorce and the gender transition were hard on their son, as well, and this complicated the transition.

If you have trans friends, you already know some of this.  You may have watched as loving couples struggled with a transition.  Spouses and children have a different set of challenges, but they must be addressed.  They are private and deeply personal.

I ran across an article that I’d like to offer a few points from.  It’s about how to be most helpful when you want to be supportive to a trans person.  I tried to pick out the ones that I found most relevant to my learning to be a good supporter, though Christina and Tessa may want to add their thoughts later.

1.   For me, getting the pronouns right was critical.  There’s a lot of discussion about the preferred pronouns these days and it can be tricky to sort out, but when I learned how painful it was for my friend Carol to continue to be called by male pronouns, that was a wakeup call for me.  I learned--If you goof up, apologize and move on.  Don’t make a big deal out of it.
2.  Don’t pry.  This is a deeply intimate and personal experience.  And don’t assume that someone has changed their sexual orientation along with a gender transition.  You don’t need to know.  Gender and sexual orientation are not the same thing.
3.  Don’t “out” someone.  You need the person’s permission to say anything about their transition.
4.  Not everyone is either male or female; many folks are both or neither.
5.  Listen if a transperson chooses to talk to you about their identity.  Be open and not judgmental, in both words and body language.
6.  Transwomen experience sexism and misogyny daily, on top of transphobia, and it is often dangerous to be out as trans.  Be respectful and offer help as requested.
7.  Recognize that as “cis” persons (meaning normatively gendered, aka straight male or female) we have privilege that our friends may not have.  Don’t take unfair advantage of it.
8.  Educate yourself about all the letters of the Q alphabet, from “a” for asexual, “I” for intersex, “p” for pansexual and beyond.  It’s much more extensive than we have ever realized.  And do your own research into what transition means, rather than asking rude questions.  You can find a lot of information online.  Just be sure it’s not fake news!

These are only a few of the ways we cis folks can be helpful.  Our transfriends don’t need us to run their lives and they don’t need to be a spokesperson for the trans community.  They just want to be a regular person with the same needs and loves that we all have.  And respect---they want and need and deserve respect, deep deep respect.

In closing, I’d like to thank the Q choir for singing with us and for us this morning, the Q center for co-sponsoring our after-church potluck across the street, and to Christina and Tessa and David for assisting me this morning in the pulpit.

CLOSING HYMN   “WE ARE A GENTLE ANGRY PEOPLE 

BENEDICTION:  As David extinguishes our chalice, let’s pause for the benediction.  Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place.  Let us go in peace, remembering that our acceptance of the inherent worth and dignity of every being is the foundational principle of our religious tradition.  May we remember it as we go through our lives, treating each other with love and understanding and deep respect.  Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

CLOSING CIRCLE