OPEN INVITATIONAL: EATING ART
October 31, 2008
CALL FOR ARTISTS
To mark the beginning of the Unitarian Universalist Associaton’s 4 year study/action project: ETHICAL EATING, Bell Street Chapel invites local artists to submit art for our show, “Eating Art.” All art must focus on or derive inspiration from eating or food related subjects i.e.: hunger, body image, vegetarianism, locavorism, cooking, etc. All mediums are welcome.
Show will run from December 13th to January 3rd, with an opening on December 13th at 7:00 pm, and possible performance pieces at 8:00 pm. Show hours are Saturdays and Sundays from 12:00 pm to 4:00 pm.
Drop-off is to be at Bell Street Chapel, 5 Bell Street (off Broadway), Providence, from 12:00 am to 4:00 pm on Sunday, December 7th and Monday, December 8th. Bell Street Chapel’s commission is 20 % of the sale price. Please label each piece with Name, Medium, Title and Sale Price (or NFS). Pick up will be at the same location from 12:00 am to 4:00 pm on Sunday, January 4th and Monday, January 5th. Although Bell Street Chapel will take every reasonable precaution to protect the artwork, we cannot be responsible for loss or damage due to unforeseen circumstances.
For further questions, call Carol Wiseman at 401-461-6903.
Welcoming and Engaging Visitors: A Congregational Discussion
October 21, 2008
Welcoming and Engaging Visitors
A Congregational Discussion
Saturday, Nov. 1
10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
At our annual meeting in May, the congregation decided to hire a consulting minister and to focus on growth, both in numbers and in spiritual depth. At our annual leadership retreat in September, the Governing Board and committee chairs began discussing these issues with our consulting minister Rev. José Ballester.
As a next step in the process, the Governing Board has decided to expand our traditional fall Council of Chairs meeting to include anyone who wishes to have input into this process. Members and friends of Bell Street Chapel are invited to join the Governing Board, Committee Chairs and our consulting minister in the first of what we hope will be a series of discussions about issues related to membership growth. This short, interactive workshop will focus on how well we welcome, engage and integrate visitors to Bell Street. We will share our own experiences, generate ideas and develop specific plans for members and leaders to foster a welcoming environment. Your input is important and will help us to develop a unified vision for growth in the near future.
A light lunch will be provided by the Governing Board. A sign-up sheet is available in Eddy Hall. Please sign up so that we can coordinate food.
We look forward to seeing you on Nov. 1.
~Don Laliberte, President
November Events
October 21, 2008
The women of Bell Street Chapel have been graciously invited to attend a series of lectures and luncheon programs sponsored by the First Unitarian Church Women’s Alliance. Ellen Kellner attended the Oct. 6 meeting and heard a fascinating lecture by retired Providence Journal writer Scott McKay titled“The Media and the Elections of 2008.” Scott told us that the turning point for modern media reporting on elections was September 1960 when Kennedy and Nixon held the first televised presidential debate ever presented to the public. From that point forth, candidates have been scrutinized not only for their platforms, but for their delivery as well.
The Nov. 3 luncheon meeting starts at 11 a.m. and features Richard Kleinfeldt giving a lecture titled “Coffee from Seed to Cup.” He is the founder of New Harvest Roasters. New Harvest is a Rhode Island business that roasts and markets fairly traded, organic, shade-grown coffee. He will tell what happens before the coffee is imported and sold in the United States. The program will be held at the First Unitarian Church at One Benevolent St., Providence. If you wish to attend, call Marilyn Eanet at (401) 433-1299 and let her know if you wish to stay for the $9 lunch following the lecture.
Also in November Bell Street will host its annual Thanksgiving dinner and Service Auction on Sunday, Nov. 23, following the service. Be thinking about services and items you may have to donate for the cause. Some of the past offerings have been: trays of Christmas cookies, canoe trips, special dinner in your home for party of 4, 6, 8, or ten, hours of landscaping labor, a weekend of pet sitting, limo service to and from the bus station or airport, tickets to plays, a time share in a country condo up north (or New York City) for a weekend, web design, computer services, musical entertainment, ballroom dancing lessons, piano lessons and poker lessons. There will be sign-up sheets both for potluck choices for the Thanksgiving feast and for donations you want to offer in Eddy Hall the first three Sundays in November.
~Ellen Kellner, Events Committee Chairperson
Newsletter available by e-mail
October 21, 2008
Bell Street Columns is completing its transition into the 21st century and is now e-mailed to Bell Street members and friends each month. If you currently receive our weekly announcements e-mail, you should be getting the newsletter by e-mail too. It is be sent as a .pdf file viewable with free Adobe reader software that most computers have, and you will be able to print it on regular size paper if you would like a hard copy.
In an effort to reduce our environmental impact and save trees, we ask that you consider opting out of having a copy mailed to your home if you get the e-mail and would read it that way. To opt out, please contact our office administrator, Heidi Gilkenson, at contact@bellstreetchapel.org or (401) 273-5678 and ask her to remove you from the newsletter mailing list. You will not stop receiving other mail from Bell Street. Please also contact Heidi if you are not currently receiving any e-mail from Bell Street and would like to do so. Thanks!
~Meredyth Waterman
Bell Street Columns editor
December newsletter deadline
October 21, 2008
The deadline for the December issue of Bell Street Columns is Sunday, Nov. 23, at 8 p.m. Please limit each submission to 500 words (and shorter is better) and e-mail as a Word attachment to newsletter editor Meredyth Waterman at MeredythW@aol.com. Our newsletter is a great way to get the word out to the Bell Street community, so please think of writing for it as you look toward December and into the new year.
~Meredyth Waterman,
Editor
Movie Night
October 21, 2008
Nov. 14, 6:30 p.m.
For the past two years, Bell Street Chapel has had a monthly movie night featuring films with gender-identity themes. Viewing and discussing these films is an enjoyable way to live out our commitment as a Unitarian Universalist Association Welcoming Congregation.
Last month’s movie night featured a beautifully filmed and fascinating look at the American West in the mid-nineteenth century, “The Ballad of Little Jo.” The life of Jo Monaghan, a woman passing as a young man and conducting a long-term role reversal relationship with her Chinese houseboy provoked an interesting discussion.
November Movie Night will honor Transgender Day of Remembrance. We will show a film that drew immense critical acclaim when it was released in 1999 and won an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. It is a stunning film.
The venue for November Movie Night will be Carol Crowley’s house, since Daydream Theatre will be using Eddy Hall. Bring a dish to share at our potluck dinner and join us at Movie Night!
~Carol Crowley
On the Road to Providence
October 21, 2008
Recently some ministers were discussing mistakes they had made but that some good came out of the mistake. Following the devastation of hurricane Katrina around 145,000 evacuees had come to Houston. I had volunteered to be one of the overnight chaplains in one of the major shelters. I would arrive around 9 p.m. and would stay until 6 a.m.
Most nights I would simply help with clean up and some processing and occasionally would meet with someone in the makeshift chapel. However, most nights were spent simply walking among the people sleeping on air mattresses, answering questions, providing requested items but mostly just trying to keep things quiet. Occasionally some of the more rambunctious teenagers would have to be reminded that others were sleeping and to please move their activities to designated recreation areas. Once I had to help retrieve five air mattresses from a man who was hoarding them.
One night I heard a child crying and went over to investigate. I found three children, two boys and a girl, all less than 4 years old. The young girl was crying because her two brothers were teasing her. There was a fourth child, a boy around 10 or 11, who was trying to quiet down the young girl. I asked them to please be quiet as it was late at night and there were others who were trying to sleep. Looking at the older boy, I sternly asked him, “Where are your parents?” He did not answer; he just gave me this deep, mournful stare.
It was at that moment when I realized I had wandered into the protected area reserved for women alone and children who could not locate their parents. For several uncomfortable seconds I stood there realizing I may have just asked a newly orphaned child the cruelest question anyone could ask. Finally the boy broke the gaze by looking down and breathing a deep sigh. “Can I help?” I asked him, trying to make up for my insensitivity. He did not answer, just simply handed me a storybook. So I sat down and read stories to his siblings until they all fell asleep.
A security guard came by, saw my volunteer shirt and clergy collar and moved on. Later that night I met the guard and he thanked me for what I had done with the kids. He said they had arrived on the first busload with no information as to where they lived or where their parents had gone. “All of us have been trying to do what we could,” he informed me, “but we don’t have much hope of finding their parents. Boy, I wouldn’t want to have your job.” Until that moment I never realized how important and fulfilling what I was doing was.
Five days later, when the shelter was being emptied due to the approaching hurricane Rita, I could not locate the children. The security guard said they had not been there at the start of his shift. I don’t know what ultimately happened to the children, whether their parents found them or if they had been placed elsewhere, but I have always hoped they found peace and security. And I was grateful I helped when I could.
~Rev. José Ballester
Save the date: Holiday Party
October 21, 2008
We know how quickly calendars can fill up for the holiday season. So here’s a heads-up to save the evening of Saturday, Dec. 6, for the annual Bell Street Chapel Holiday Potluck Party at the home of Carol Crowley. The holiday party is a wonderful community-building event with good food, the singing of holiday songs and just being together outside of church. The more the merrier - so put it on your calendar! Partners and friends are invited.
Gay Bingo
October 21, 2008
Our congregation has become a yearlong sponsor for monthly Gay Bingo at the Riviera Bingo Palace on Elmwood Avenue in Cranston. Every third Thursday night, fans gather to have an evening of bingo fun emceed by a local drag queen. Proceeds go to support AIDS Project Rhode Island.
Our church is listed on the promotional literature and publicity for the event and we get to call one bingo game each night. The event provides visibility for our congregation and underscores our commitment to diversity and being a Welcoming Congregation. It’s an event where our participation stands out and we reach out to a community that often feels excluded by conventional religion. It also gives visibility to a leader from our congregation and promotes our community events (like the Rhode Island International Film Festival’s horror festival at Bell Street).
By sponsoring Gay Bingo, we underwrite the costs of the event and the prize for the game, so that game fees go directly toward AIDS care and services, rather than administrative overhead. Each year, Gay Bingo raises thousands of dollars; many tens of thousands have been raised since the event began over a decade ago.
Originally, Miss Kitty Litter, Rhode Island’s gay First Lady, was the exclusive emcee. Now, each month brings a different hostess and a different style. On Nov. 20, the theme for the night will be Disney Gay Bingo and nonperishable food items are being collected (with an extra chance at a prize for donating!). There are door prizes and a raffle. Some nights, proof of green underwear gets you a special game card.
$16 gets you cards for the nine main games. $20 ($4 more) adds the special games to your pack. A dauber is a buck. There is an inexpensive snack bar with snacks and burgers. We reserve a table for Bell Streeters, so let us know you’re coming. Doors open at 6 p.m.; bingo at 7-ish. The Riviera Bingo Palace is at 1612 Elmwood in Cranston. Gay Bingo is R-rated, and alcohol- and drug-free. See Clara Hardy, Parish and Social Concerns Chairperson, for more information.
~Brian Kovacs
Ethical Eating
October 21, 2008
Ethical Eating
The Unitarian Universalist Association Study/Action Issue (SAI) for 2008-2012
STUDY: So much choice! American supermarkets and restaurants are brimming with a bewildering array of food choices. So what should we have for dinner? Should we choose what we like? Should we select what is least expensive? Should we decide on a nutritionally sound diet (if we ever could agree on what that is)?
The U.U.A. suggests that we make ethical food choices, and for the next four years, we will spend some time considering what that means for each of us. Each month, I will give you a few facts to chew on, to mull over, to provide food for thought (oh, those food metaphors!).
Take fish. Perhaps you are frequently choosing fish for dinner, thinking fish is a healthier choice than red meat because it has less fat. Well, guess again!! We now know that it isn’t simply the amount of fat that determines whether a food is healthy, but the ratio of “bad fat” (those containing omega-6 fatty acids) and “good fats” (those with omega-3 fatty acids). Excessive omega-6 fatty acids may predispose to obesity, diabetes, heart disease and stroke. Remember it this way: nix on six, three for me.
Wild-caught fish, which eat a diet of algae and krill, do indeed have high levels of omega-3 and little omega-6. But farmed fish, especially farmed salmon, are fed corn, of all things, because corn, heavily subsidized by our government, is cheap, and fish-farming is a profit-driven business. Grains have a high 6:3 ratio and so do the animals that eat them. Do you see where I am going with this? Yes, it turns out that corn-fed salmon have just as much bad fat as feedlot cattle, which are also fed corn for the same reason. Welcome to the U.S. industrial food chain! Pasture-raised, grass-feed beef has a much lower 6:3 ratio, not as low as a diet consisting only of green plants, but definitely lower than that farmed fish.
Okay, you say, I’ll choose only wild-caught fish. That is certainly a healthier choice, but do it quick while they last. Cod, haddock, halibut and many other favorites have been dangerously overfished and are threatened species. Unsustainable fishing methods and destruction of habitat have drastically depleted the world’s fish stocks.
But before you decide to become a strict vegetarian, let me tell you that it is possible to eat fish without supporting environmentally damaging and unhealthy practices. Some fish farmers are raising organic fish in a sustainable way; farmed catfish, tilapia and trout are usually safe bets. And some species of wild fish, for example tuna and crab, are not endangered at this time. The Monterey Bay Aquarium has done all the research and its recommendations are available online.
So, it is NOT necessary to give up what you like in order to make ethical food choices. But it is necessary to be an informed consumer.
I wish to credit my two sources of information for this article; Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and Jane Goodall’s “Harvest for Hope:A Guide to Mindful Eating.”
ACTION: Our action for this fall is the “Eating Art” installation in Eddy Hall, headed up by Audrey Greene, Carol Wiseman, and Tina Holden-Shea. The opening is scheduled for Dec. 13. The art show will be a good way to whet our appetites (another food metaphor) for this Study/Action Issue. See Audrey and find out how you can get involved.
~Carol Crowley (ccrowley8@cox.net)