In this column and in my Sunday sermons, I often quote words of wisdom from ministers and authors. Today instead, I am quoting the wisdom of a 5 year-old boy, which I found on social media today.  The boy’s mom told the little boy that she was nervous about a meeting she had later in the day. The boy said, “Mama, I am nervous all the time. I know what to do,” and proceeded to give her this advice:
 
1. “You gotta say your affirmations in your mouth and your heart. You say, I am brave of this meeting! I am loved! I smell good! and you say five or three or ten until you know it.”
2. “You gotta walk big. You gotta mean it. Like Dolly on a dinosaur. Because you got it.”
3. “Never put a skunk on a bus.”
4. “Think about the donuts of your day! Even if you cry a little, you can think of potato chips!”
5. “You gotta take a deep breath and you gotta do it again.”
6. “Even if it’s a yucky day, you can get a hug.”
(FaceBook post by StressieBessie@EPrecipice)
 
Best advice ever.
 
I especially love the first and last pieces of advice here. First, affirmations are amazing. A minister today reminded me that human thinking is hard-wired to emphasize the negative, and therefore we should think two positive thoughts for every negative one. Affirmations are a great way to overcome negativity and self-doubt. Some affirmations that I find helpful are, “I feel my feelings without avoiding them,” and “I honor my commitments to myself and others.” I think I will add, “I smell good!” The little boy’s last piece of advice, about getting a hug, reminds us that we are not alone and that we need one another. In this time of COVID isolation for many of us, we can actually give ourselves a hug. That may sound silly, but I invite you to try it. It does feel good. I feel warmth and love when I give myself a hug.
 
It was a UU minister, Robert Fulghum, who wrote the essay (and book) called “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” This 5 year-old child is of about that age, and reminds us all that there is wisdom in children equal to--or surpassing--the wisdom of adults. May we be open to receive that wisdom.
 
PRAYER:
God of children and adults, Spirit of playfulness and truth-telling, hear this prayer.
 
May each of us find our affirmations and say them in our mouths and in our hearts. May they strengthen our self-esteem and our courage.
 
May we be alive to the child within, that spirit of innocence and playfulness and wonder, that place of conviction and joy, that loving part of us. May we cherish all the children in our lives and the child within each one of us.
 
Blessed be.
 
Rev. Andrew Frantz
January 27, 2022

I think of this as the first and only pandemic I have experienced--and I thought until recently that this is true for all of us. Who has already lived through a global pandemic?
 
And then I received a message from a fellow UU minister entitled, “Lessons from my first pandemic.” He is referring to the AIDS crisis. With the wisdom that comes from surviving that dangerous time, he offers these four points:
 
• I choose to live with caution and not in fear. Fear causes me to be constantly reactive to possibility and suggestion and not present to the here and now. Caution allows me to make conscious choices that enable me to assess risk in every situation.
• Balance is important. Risk assessment includes physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. If I try to protect my body in ways that sacrifice my emotional needs, I’m more likely to make a dangerous choice at some point to meet my emotional distress.
• We are all connected. My choices impact my community. As much as I’m trying to protect myself, I’m also trying to protect others. Testing and safety precautions matter.
• Everyone makes different choices. It is up to each of us to assess our own levels of risk. I need to set clear boundaries for myself and ask that those boundaries be respected. Trying to persuade others to have my boundaries is often not worth the effort.
-Rev. Darrick Jackson, Director of Ministries for Lifelong Learning, UU Ministers Association
 
I am grateful for the wisdom and perspective of Rev. Darrick. The second point about Balance strikes me especially. In leadership conversations at the UU Fellowship of Central Michigan, this notion of balancing health risks versus the spiritual and emotional benefits of gathering in person is always present. I love Rev. Darrick’s point that if I go too far in the direction of safety, I may sacrifice my emotional and spiritual needs--and then do something more risky later to make up for it.
 
This feels very relevant to me right now. For the past two and a half weeks I’ve been in near isolation: I’m doing all of my work at my home office instead of the UUFCM building; Sunday worship is on Zoom; I leave the house only to take a walk or do errands. Yet I received a visit from my adult children last weekend. This felt clearly in line with the balance I want and need—if any risk is worth it, that one is. And, others may not have chosen what I did.
 
What choices are you weighing? How are you balancing your spiritual and emotional needs with the health risks of exposure to COVID? How are you setting boundaries and communicating those boundaries to others? What help do you need in navigating this pandemic and keeping your body, mind and spirit healthy?
 
PRAYER:
Source of All, guide us as we navigate this round of the COVID crisis.
May we lean on the wisdom of ourselves and others who have been through hard times.
May be balance our risks and our needs.
May we protect ourselves and others.
May we honor one another’s boundaries and choices.
May we ask for help when we need it.
Amen.
 
Rev. Drew Frantz
January 20, 2022

Every week I get an email message from Richard Rohr, a Christian spiritual leader who founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in New Mexico. The reflections and prayers that Father Richard sends out sometimes feel like just another email in my inbox. And, I try to take the time to appreciate these messages because there is always some wisdom, some peace, and a loving perspective contained there. Today I’m passing on to you a thought from this week’s email. This is not Father Richard directly, but the words of Christine Valters Paintner that he featured in his reflections this week:
 
How often do we really see another person as the beautiful gift they are? Perhaps this happens sometimes with those we love, where we are caught in a moment of grace and see them in all their wondrousness and feel full of gratitude for their presence in our lives.
* * *
We can also bring this practice out into the world. How often do we really see another person beneath their role, under our expectations? What if we paused at the grocery store and for a moment brought eyes of love to the stock clerk or the cashier. They don’t have to know what you’re doing. You don’t have to stare, just take in their image, then close your eyes for a moment, breathe, and bathe them with love. Pause and see the other person as beloved and beautiful as they indeed truly are.
 
[Christine Valters Paintner, Breath Prayer: An Ancient Practice for the Everyday Sacred (Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2021), 165–166. Quoted on the Center for Action and Contemplation website at https://cac.org/]
 
The author Christine Valters Paintner invites us to see the other as a gift, as beloved, as beautiful and perfect. The other, she says, can be a cherished loved one as well as a stranger. We are all invited to see how beautiful and perfect our human companions in this life are. And I was thinking that surely this applies to seeing ourselves in the mirror, affirming the beauty and perfection we find there.
 
I had a moment to reflect on this today. I was listening again to a favorite song that I shared last Sunday in worship: “Seed” by Emma’s Revolution. I don’t have the personal beauty or the gorgeous voice of that singer, I was thinking. And then I realized that I have my own beauty and my own voice. So do you. So does your spouse, so does your baby; so does the nurse who cares for you and so does the person who delivers the mail to your door.
 
This is an everyday practice of gratitude and love that Christine Valters Paintner invites us into: to appreciate a person we are with, appreciate their wholeness, and to exercise our human capacity to love. Bathe the person in love, she says. I invite us to do that for ourselves as well.
 
PRAYER
Great Spirit, Wisdom deep within me, hear this prayer. May I remember to appreciate and love those around me. May I take the mindful moment to see the beauty of the next person I encounter. May I hold this love and appreciation for myself next time I see myself in the mirror or on the Zoom screen. May love bless us all.
Amen.
 
Rev. Andrew Frantz
January 12, 2022

May I rest in the stillness of Winter.
May I cherish my body, my dreams and intuitions.
Guide me from fear to courage.
Teach me to see deep into the mirror of my soul.
-Winter Mudra by Karen Hering
 
The words above go along with a series of motions—thus it is a mudra—and you can find a video of Karen Hering leading and explaining the mudra here:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUQoj5HwUhU
 
This speaks to me today, as winter seems to have settled in with cold and snow and wind over the last few days. I opened the window blinds yesterday to see flurries of puffy snowflakes.
 
The post-holiday time reminds me every year that Christmas and Yule mark the beginning of winter. The long cold of January and February are before us. This week the stillness and isolation of winter are increased dramatically: because of the COVID omicron surge, I am taking all of my meetings online and moved my base of operations from the Fellowship building to my home office. I have voluntarily decreased the bubble of my physical interactions.
 
The gift of winter and of darkness is the stillness. The quiet. The sacred beauty of falling snow that insists you slow down and listen to it. As I write this, I’m in a darkened room in my home; it’s after dinner and very dark outside. In the summer this hour would be full daylight.
 
What does the stillness of winter teach you? What are your dreams and intuitions? We are all forced to retreat into quiet and darkness by the COVID outbreak and by the cold weather. I believe the winter has gifts for us if we open ourselves to them.
 
PRAYER:
Gentle Goddess, bringer of snow, thank you. I accept the winter time as a reminder to slow down.
May we all reflect on what is most important. May we seek and find wisdom within ourselves  in this cold season.
Blessed be.
 
Rev. Andrew Frantz
January 6, 2022