Last weekend I went to my first Pow wow: the 33rd Annual  Celebrating Life Pow wow at Central Michigan University. The main impression I got was a mixture of reverence and joy. I had a strong feeling of witnessing a different culture, one that I had heard about but not been part of in person.
 
I arrived in time for the Grand Entry. Five groups of drummers encircled the arena, and each group consisted of 8 or 9 men around a single drum. The different groups took turns offering songs, which consisted of unison singing and all the drummers beating the drum together. For the Grand Entry, a community elder led the procession. As he danced along, the flags and staffs of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe, the United States, Canada, US Army, US Navy and more were carried in honor. Then came dancers in ceremonial dress and many more dancers—and all moved behind the elder at his speed, dancing steadily along. In my culture, I can’t think of a time when we give an elder the place of honor like that.
 
After the Grand Entry, I witnessed many dance competitions in categories by age and type of dance: Women’s Traditional; Women’s Jingle Dress Dance; Men’s Grass Dance; Men’s Fancy and more.  I was amazed at the energy and footwork of the dancers and at their regalia. I can only guess at the hours of time put into each outfit and the spiritual meanings of the feathers, symbols and colors that adorn them. According to the program, for instance, “The women’s jingle dress dancers wear cloth dresses that contain 365 small metal cones, a prayer for each day,” and there is an Ojibwe legend that connects the dress to healing a village of sickness.
 
Intertribal dances were interspersed throughout the Pow wow also, when anyone and everyone was invited to dance, and people came out with babies and children, dressed in everyday clothes or intricate traditional garb.
 
I am still processing everything that I saw and felt at this Pow wow. The piercing ring of the songs is in my head, and the drum beats that make everyone want to move. I am still reflecting on an ancient culture passed down and alive today in this form, a culture indigenous to this place where I now make my home, and where my people are relative newcomers. I know that I want to come again, to experience again the reverence and the joy and to keep learning about native culture. I already have July 29-31 marked on my calendar, when the next Pow wow will be held in Mount Pleasant.
 
PRAYER:
Great Spirit, spirit of the dancers and the drummers, spirit of those who attend the Pow wow as spectators and those who live and breathe it, send your blessing. Bless the dancers and the drummers, bless the vendors and the announcers, bless the elders and the children.
 
May this Pow wow, and the next one, and the next, be a vehicle for living tradition, a place of reverence for the past, an embodiment of joy and of the fierce spirit of survival.
 
May it be so.
 
Rev. Andrew Frantz
March 24, 2022

​I will be away next week for spring break. Look for the next Minister's Column on Thursday April 7.

Today I recycled my Christmas tree. Yes, I know--it’s St. Patrick’s Day. I took the ornaments off the tree around Valentine’s Day, and by then the city’s time for collecting Christmas trees at curbside had long since passed. I chopped it into little pieces and put them in plastic trash barrels. Today, the first warm spring-like day, I took those barrels to the dump and got rid of the tree in the “brush” pile for a fee of $1 per barrel.
 
Today at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship building, two large trees on the Wisconsin Street curb lawn were cut down by the city. If you have been to the building recently, you may have noticed the pink “X” spray painted on each of them. This is part of the city’s management of trees on curb lawns within the city limits…and it makes me sad. Unlike my Christmas tree, which was younger than my kids, the trees next to the Fellowship were older than my parents. Each one had a trunk bigger than I could get my arms around. Tonight these trunks lie in enormous heavy pieces on the grass.
 
I take for granted a life where I can go to the dump on a warm spring day and where the loss of familiar trees is a significant event to mourn. It is in this context that I read the news about Ukraine today—families fleeing to Poland with no possessions; children wounded and killed by bombs and missiles. I see the pictures that go with the news story, but I have not touched the human bodies suffering in this war as I have touched the trees I said goodbye to today. I know that those people love their trees too. I know that some trees will be destroyed in the devastation of this war, while others will survive, silent witness to the human lives that share the same soil and breathe the same air.
 
PRAYER:
One God of all humans, all nations, all armies, all children, all refugees, all soldiers--
One God of all trees, of tree huggers and tree cutters, and of those of us who do both--
Hear my prayer.
May we always be reverent of Life. Each life is precious. Each contributes its spark, its energy to the great energy that flows through all. Let each life be celebrated in its living, and let each life be mourned in its ending—some timely, some tragic.
May peace bless the city streets of Mount Pleasant. May peace grow like the spring time in Poland and in Ukraine.
Blessed be.
 
Rev. Andrew Frantz
March 17, 2022

Last weekend I visited my step-father. He’s 93 and about to make the significant move from independent living to assisted living. On Sunday, we made time to sit down with the minister of his church to talk about the transition and his next steps in life. During this conversation I said to him, “I encourage you to lean into this church community. I can see that you have connections here, and my sense is that there is more love and support for you that you haven’t tapped into yet.”
 
I guess that’s what you get when your step-son is a minister himself.
 
I may have been out of line in promising love and support from a community that I’m not even part of (I live in a different state from my step-father), but I felt pretty secure in doing so. What I know about congregations, and other loving communities, is that they don’t run out of love. It’s not a scarce resource, it’s an abundant one. Love multiplies and grows the more it is shared.
 
I would say the same thing, to anyone reading this column, about the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Central Michigan: there is more love and support here that you haven’t tapped into yet. If you’re already part of this religious community, or if you are thinking of joining us, we have love and support for you. And heaven knows we need it these days. The daily news from the Ukraine is draining and demoralizing. The state and national news reveals alarming attacks on our democracy, on transgender kids and their families, and on public school teachers. We need one another in these difficult times.
 
May love grow and multiply as we offer love and support to one another.
 
PRAYER:
Mother Father God, as the good people of United Church of Christ call you…
Spirit of Life and Love, as we Unitarian Universalists like to say…
Allah, Jesus Christ, Brahman…
Divine Energy of many names and no name at all…Hear our prayer:
May the elders find their way forward into old age with dignity and with the support of family, friends, and community.
May the people of Ukraine be relieved of the horrors of the war they did not choose and do not deserve.
May divine grace shield transgender youth and their families from the atrocious legal attacks that state legislatures are levelling against them.
May the sacred right of voting be upheld and strengthened.
May school teachers be honored for their work, not scrutinized for the political correctness of their lesson plans.
In the name of all that is holy we pray.
Amen.
 
Rev. Andrew Frantz
March 10, 2022

This week the war in Ukraine has occupied my mental and spiritual energy. Some of my friends and colleagues have pointed out that this conflict is getting more attention and sympathy than similar conflicts that involved black or brown people. I think it also has a greater significance to Americans because it involves a foe that has been cast as our enemy for generations: Russia. In any case, I find myself glued to the news and I noticed something disturbing going on in my head. I want Ukraine to win so much that I imagine bombing the Russian convoy, shooting the Russian soldiers. I picture myself in this war. I can’t remember feeling that way before.
 
Anger is what’s at work here. I’m angry at Putin for invading, and in my anger I want to lash out. I need to let go of that anger in a healthy way, because it is not serving me. As I call myself back to my best self, a more appropriate feeling emerges: sadness. Sadness for the civilians being harmed; for the refugees; and for the soldiers on both sides fighting and dying.
 
Last Saturday we had a vigil for Ukraine at the Fellowship building, and the number of people who turned out was moving—familiar faces and total strangers, called to come out for a moment and witness the sadness, injustice, the human tragedy that is war.
 
My step-mother shared this blog post with me this week, written by a Unitarian Universalist peace activist. She reflects on being a young woman and asking her mom what she could do to counteract the war in Viet Nam. The answer surprised her:
 
I was to knit. Yep, knit. Explicitly, I was to knit baby blankets. Baby blankets for infants of Viet Cong mothers who were in hiding. Baby blankets that were to be knit of wool which would not ignite and cling to the skin of tiny babies like synthetic fibers; baby blankets that had to be knitted of the non-baby colors, the jungle colors, of black, gray, dark green, dark brown so they would be baby  camouflage. I knit a lot of tears and prayers and hope into those blankets.  
Ellen Dionna / www.susquehannamysteryschool.org
 
This is a reminder that we can all do something, even in the face of an unspeakable human catastrophe far away, such as this war. May we channel our energies toward doing what we can do, and be ready to contribute what we can in the way of healing and hope and refuge when we are called to do it.
 
PRAYER:
Great Spirit, Energy that was here before humans and will endure to the end of time as we know it, look on us with your benevolent mercy. Help the human race to see the folly of war, help us to break the cycle of anger and retaliation. Bring peace and gentleness and generosity into our hearts.
 
May it be so.
 
Rev. Andrew Frantz
March 3, 2022