Movie Night, Oct. 10, 6:30 p.m., Eddy Hall
September 30, 2008
Our 2008-2009 Bell Street Chapel Movie Night series started with our second annual showing of the cult classic, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” We had more than 20 participants, including visitors from Youth Pride. Hopefully by next year we will have the words to the songs and the steps to the Time Warp down pat.
Our next movie night will be on Friday, Oct. 10, at 6:30 p.m. in Eddy Hall. The film is a modern western directed by Maggie Greenwald. It is about a young woman running away from her past disguised as a man. She finds the role suits her and settles in Montana as a male.
Bring some food or nonalcoholic beverages to share and bring your friends to Bell Street Chapel’s October Movie Night
Marsh cleanup
September 30, 2008
Our biannual marsh cleanup on Sept. 20 was a great success, with a record turnout of 21 volunteers, including about 10 enthusiastic Johnson and Wales University hospitality students, that enabled us to clean parts of the beach we’ve never touched before. We picked up dozens of bags full of all kinds of trash, from cigarette butts and tires to kitchen chairs and even a toilet bowl. Perhaps our most fascinating and gruesome find, however, was a three-foot long shark that appeared to have been killed by a gash, possibly from a boat propeller.
Because our fall cleanup is part of the International Coastal Cleanup, we cataloged every piece of litter we found. We were among 2,000 volunteers at 87 sites in Rhode Island participating in the event, and the information we collected will be used to develop programs to combat coastal litter, which kills birds, fish and other animals.
While the cleanup involves touching some unsavory objects (congrats to JWU students Deirdre and Jeanne for winning the biannual Bell Street Chapel Biohazard Contest) the mood is always light and it is very satisfying to see the marsh we’ve adopted on the Providence waterfront at Oxford Street getting cleaner each time.
To top it all off, we even made the Providence Journal! Reporter Randal Edgar used our site as an example in his story on the statewide effort, making mention of Bell Street Chapel and the Johnson and Wales students.
Much thanks to Eugenia Marks and July Lewis of the Audubon Society for providing assistance, materials and T-shirts for our cleanup; to Sandra Tremblay of Johnson and Wales, who arranged the participation of the students; and to all the Bell Streeters, friends and even one unrelated volunteer who helped the earth and helped make our day a success.
~Meredyth Waterman
From the minister
September 30, 2008
I noticed that the terror threat level was orange at the airport. This was not unusual, and I blithefully drove past the sign without really noting the warning. Suddenly a chilly sense of dread began to engulf my mood. The sign was unusual, it was not the seemingly ubiquitous temporary lighted signs dotting our highways with their flashing messages. This was a small, orange sign with black letters on a post by the side of the road. A permanent sign.
There is something wrong with a permanent sign informing us of the current changing condition of a threat level. I might not have found it disheartening had the threat level been blue or green, the two lowest levels. I might have found it uncomfortable had the threat level been yellow; but the threat level was orange, the second-highest. And the sign was a permanent sign.
Does this mean that this country is now in a permanent state of high alert? Second-highest terror threat; was that not the equivalent of DEFCON 2? And the highest that number had gone was DEFCON 3, and only three times: during the Cold War, during the Cuban missile crisis, and on 9/11. And yet there I was about to board an airplane at a time when the threat level was the highest it had ever been.
At the terminal I expected to find tanks and other war wagons lined up ready to defend the city, but there were none. Inside I was looking for the National Guards, dressed in combat gear with assault rifles slung at the ready. But again nothing, just the usual TSA security guards, checking IDs and instructing us as to which items to place on the conveyor belt for X-ray examination.
While waiting in line, the couple ahead of me kept making jokes about some TSA signs telling them what they could bring on board the airplane as long as it was in a Ziploc bag.
“Look, honey, we could have brought gravy and honey as well as salsa,” exclaimed the woman.
“Yes but they don’t let us bring all the other ingredients nor any silverware,” observed the man.
These people were joking in line when the threat level was orange, surely they or their luggage would be treated as a threat to the facility.
But they were given no extra scrutiny, just told to place their shoes on the conveyor belt and to take out any laptop computer or other electronic devices out of their bags. I wondered if people had become so complacent that no one was taking the threat levels seriously. Or had people become so comfortable with living under constant threat that they no longer took the warnings seriously. Or, I told myself, security was not all that serious, after all the signs were permanent and yet the security seemed unchanged, maybe I was being too paranoid? At that moment the metal detector sounded because I had forgotten to remove my cell phone.
As I stood to the side, emptying my pockets I could see the other passengers looking at me and thinking “What’s wrong with him? Doesn’t he know we are under an orange alert?”
~Rev. José Ballester
Bell Street is on Facebook
September 30, 2008
Bell Street Chapel is now on the social networking Web site Facebook! If you are too, please search “Bell Street Chapel” and you will find our page and our group. Please join them both. You can post comments or pictures there, get information and reminders about events and communicate with others in the Bell Street community. While you’re at it, become a fan of the the Unitarian Universalist Association’s page, too. If you’re not on Facebook, now is the perfect opportunity to give it a try. It’s fun and it’ll be another easy way for us to connect with each other and those who are looking for a spiritual home like ours.
~Meredyth Waterman
Ethical Eating — The U.U.A. Study/Action Issue for 2008-2012
September 30, 2008
The U.U.A. Study/Action Issue (S.A.I.) for 2008-2012
STUDY: As we educate ourselves, discuss the issues, and examine our consciences about our food choices, we will all come to different conclusions about just what “ethical eating” is. For some of us, ethical eating will mean becoming (or continuing to be) vegetarian or vegan. For writer Barbara Kingsolver and her family, it meant eating, with few exceptions, only foods grown or raised by themselves or their neighbors in rural southwestern Virginia. Barbara Kingsolver described her family’s experiment in her recent bestseller, “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life.” Her environmental biologist husband and her teen-age daughter added their own perspectives to Kingsolver’s eloquent descriptions of shelling peas, canning tomatoes, and “processing” turkeys. The latter will probably suffice to drive some to vegetarianism! But Kingsolver, in confronting complex choices, has decided that, for her, giving up bananas is a more ethical choice than eschewing locally raised, pasture-fed, and humanely treated livestock products. After all, Kingsolver reasons, bananas are grown at the sacrifice of rain forests and require a great deal of fossil fuel for transportation over thousands of miles. Hmm – food for thought, indeed!
ACTION: Meanwhile, here at Bell Street, Audrey Greene is organizing an art installation about food and eating behavior. Audrey reasons that art is a beautiful and nonjudgmental way to call attention to an issue that is both personal and political (see related article). Be sure to invite your artist friends to show their work here at BSC. In addition to being a way to introduce the Unitarian Universalist Association S.A.I., an art installation will attract members of other U.U. churches and the community at large and hopefully generate interest in and discussion about the issue of food choices.
~ Carol Crowley
New Denominational Affairs Coordinator
September 30, 2008
I would like to introduce myself as the new denominational affairs coordinator for Bell Street Chapel. In this capacity, I will be the primary liaison between the Bell Street laity and both the Unitarian Universalist Association and the Ballou Channing District. I will write a monthly column on denominational affairs, and publicize denominational activities for the Bell Street community. I look forward to help our community deepen our connections to the wider U.U. world!
Ballou Channing District Information:
325 W. Elm St.
Brockton, MA 02301
(508) 559-6650
District Executive, Bill Zelazny, bzelazny @ uua.org
Eva Marx, UUA Trustee, emarx @ uua.org
Upcoming Events
The U.U. New England fall conference will take place on Oct. 17 and 18 at the DCU Center in Worcester, Mass. Both the candidates for U.U.A. president, Rev. Peter Morales and Rev. Laurel Hallman, will be there. More information can be found online at http://www.bcduua.org/flyers/UUNEC-081017-18.html
There will be a stewardship conference on Saturday, Oct. 25, from 9:15 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Fairhaven.
The U.U.A. social action issue of the month is Iran. Please support diplomatic solutions with Iran by going online to http://www.uua.org/socialjustice/issues/irandiplomacy/37408.shtml
and writing a letter to your U.S. representative.
In faith and fellowship,
Dan Greco
Council of Leaders – Nov. 1, 10 a.m.
September 30, 2008
The Governing Board will be expanding our traditional fall Council of Chairs meeting, scheduled Saturday, Nov. 1, at 10 a.m. in Eddy Hall, to include not only chairpersons of committees and the board but also anyone else who wishes to be a part of leading our church through what we hope will be a period of welcoming and growth. We need to be unified in a clear vision of where we want to be in the near future, and in our mission of making our church more welcoming and engaging to visitors. This meeting will be about what we each can do in every committee and activity and as individuals to achieve those goals. Details will follow, but please set aside the morning for this important session.
~Meredyth Waterman
Winter Coat Exchange
September 30, 2008
For the 10th consecutive year Bell Street Chapel will be participating in the Winter Coat Exchange. The premise is simple. Individuals and organizations collect winter coats which are no longer needed and they are then made available for those who do need them the day after Thanksgiving on the lawn of the State House.
This is really a remarkable grassroots effort, so please join in. Let your friends, family members and non-Bell Streeters know about the event. If they are thinning out their closets and have coats to donate, bring them in. We will have a clearly marked spot in Eddy Hall where they may be left. During the past 10 years we estimate that Bell Streeters and our resident Daydream Theatre group have contributed close to 700 coats. That’s a lot of warmth, and a lot of love.
Please talk this up as much as possible. If your employer allows it, put up a notice at work that you will collect coats for this event. It will bring in more coats and may provide a solution for some folks who are worried as to how they can provide winter coats for their kids. These are tough economic times; let’s help each other as much as possible
~Tom and Betty Lamora
Among Us
September 30, 2008
A haze on the far horizon, the infinite tender sky,
The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields,
And the wild geese sailing high –
And all over upland and lowland the charm of the goldenrod,
Some of us call it Autumn, and others call it God.
~William Herbert Carruth
In this column we celebrate milestones and other life events, request healing thoughts for those in need, and remember departed loved ones. If you have information you would like to share in this column, or if you know of anyone in need of assistance, please contact Carol Crowley.
Carl has a new heart! We are happy to report that Carl Freese underwent a heart transplant In September and is making a remarkably quick recovery from the surgery. Several Bell Streeters have already visited Carl, quite a few have had telephone conversations with him, and many have sent cards and e-mails. Carl and his family ask that we also keep the donor and his family in our thoughts and prayers. Thanks to all who contributed to Carl’s care packages.
Happy Birthday to Arline Davis and Steve Kagan. Anniversary best wishes go to Wendy Schwartz and Steve Barretto, married 13 years; Joe and Renae Chaves, married for seven years; and Kathy Lannigan and Cindy Palmieri, who celebrated their wedding at Bell Street Chapel four years ago. Congratulations to all.
And love to Aeriel Arthur and Beverly Hart.
Enjoy the lovely, cooler, but shorter days of autumn, Bell Streeters.
~The Membership and Caring Committee
Calendar October 2008
September 30, 2008
