February News & Views
- Feb 3
- 13 min read
Updated: Feb 4
Observing the water teaches me [that] resilience isn’t trying to hold on to all you have been and somehow get through. It is the flow of water that responds to its environment and even changes its form, yet never changes its fundamental nature. -Sue Heartherington
“…I didn’t say to be calm, said the wind,
I said to breathe.
We’re going to need a lot of air
to make this hurricane together.” -from Breathe by Lynn Unger
Breathe, my friends, breathe. Our Soul Matters theme this month is Embodying Resilience, following up on last month's Practicing Resistance. And we’ve had quite a month of resistance. I don’t need to tell you what you already know and have seen with your own eyes. The systems we relied on to follow the rule of law have broken down and communities are being intimidated and terrorized; there’s no other way to put it. People are afraid, but they are also practicing resistance everywhere. This is cold, hard work for those on the “front lines,” like our neighbors in Minnesota who have shown such brilliant resilience and resistance in the face of death. But I know that ICE doesn’t need to be on your street to feel the fear and anxiety, it’s already arrived everywhere.
Breathe. Breathe with me because if I don’t breathe, I will scream and scream at everything all at once and fall into the snow and keep screaming until I or the snow have melted in my driveway. You know what I mean. And that’s what I’m talking about. I have heard it from church members, from family and friends, from strangers on the street, from other clergy and counselors: this is a spiritual attack as much as a mental and physical one. The soul of our nation, the one that is the idea (even if we haven’t achieved it) of freedom, equality, and justice for all, is slowly being strangled and we can all feel it. It hurts. So breathe with me, because we have to balance this resistance with resilience. And like everything in this fight, we must do it together.
Author and activist Soraya Chemaly said, “No one is resilient alone, at all times, and in all situations. Resilience is a dynamic process and it is healthier and more accurate to say that we take turns being resilient for one another.” I love that imagery. Today, maybe you can be resilient for me, tomorrow, I’ll be resilient for you. And when we have to resist, we will stand side by side, breathing, elbows up. To keep up the fight, we also have to allow ourselves time to rest between rounds. Listen to your body when it tells you to take a day off when you really need one. And find ways to embody resilience: take a walk or make a huge snowman with a friend, play some music and dance in your kitchen while you sing, learn that weird Klingon Tai Chi to impress your minister, find a swing and see how high you can go like you’re 8 years old (do not jump off like you were 8 years old), have a race to eat a cupcake just for laughs. Find your own special way to DO something to rest your weary mind and soul for a little while, so resilience finds its way in. And keep breathing.
With Fortitude-Karen
Soul Matters: Welcome to Embodying Resilience
When did we decide that resilience was a solo project?
It's not that we consciously chose to define it that way. It's just what we were taught, from the time we were little right up to today: "Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps"; "You're stronger than you think."; "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.”; “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” The cultural consensus is clear: resilience depends on your personal toughness and inner strength. It’s a solo act!
But other voices are on the rise. Take author and activist, Soraya Chemaly, who writes,
“In spectacular arrogance, our mainstream vision of resilience encourages us to ignore, minimize, and even punish the desire for our greatest resilience assets: interdependence, collective versatility, and shared care. Instead of revealing our relationships to one another, our environments, and the systems we live in, this vision highlights and glorifies self-sufficiency, limitless positivity, and individual strength against all odds. It makes us less resilient, not more.”
In a world facing numerous threats of collapse and conflict, Chemaly’s words help us see that correctly defining resilience is not just an intellectual exercise, but a matter of life and death. We all sense it: the road ahead for us human beings is going to get rough. So we simply can’t afford to overlook a single source of resilience.
Which is another way of saying the world needs us to start speaking up too! If those rough roads ahead are to be successfully navigated, we need people who challenge those old-school chants of “You can do it!” with a new mantra of ”We can’t do it on our own!”
That doesn’t mean we have to abandon old messages about personal resilience entirely, but it does mean that we need to get better at noticing when they get in our way. It’s fine to celebrate the classic resilient image of a tree flexibly leaning and bending with the wind, but we can’t let that distract us from the fact that, today, the kind of leaning that matters most is leaning on each other.
It’s all one big reminder that while resilience has a lot to do with what is inside us, it is even more dependent on what is between us. We survive our wounds and weaknesses by having the strength to tell others about it. We find the courage to make our way through the dark only when we sense we are not alone. Internal and individual grit only gets us so far; empathy, assurance and love from others gets us the rest of the way. Boil it all down and you get this: There really is no such thing as a resilient person; there are only resilient relationships from which resilient people arise.
So friends, this month, let’s look around as much as look within. Let’s let up on all the “grin and bear it” talk and instead grab the hand that is reaching our way.
Read the entire Soul Matters Packet for February. Download below.
30 Days of Love 2026
Week Two: Grounding in Context
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REFLECTION, by Rev. Ranwa Hammamy, UUA Congregational Justice Organizer
Becoming parents was no small decision or task for myself and my spouse. We live at the intersections of some very real privileges and challenges. On the one hand, we are a queer couple, so the ways we could expand our family necessitated medical and legal proceedings that disproportionately impact families like ours. But we were also privileged enough to have access to insurance and providers in a state that made it affordable and safe to grow our family when the time was right. And it was not lost on us that we were at the height of our efforts to have a baby when the Dobbs decision came down in 2022, dealing a horrific blow to the reproductive justice movement that had made families like ours possible.
Yet, with all of the medical, legal, financial, and logistical aspects to our decision-making process, one factor weighed most heavily on my heart: What kind of world would my child be inheriting? Would they hate me for bringing them into a world that was dying?
Both my spouse and I had several conversations about this truly difficult reality. Was it fair for us to bring someone into a world that was going to be that much harder and scarier for them just because we wanted a child? With global temperatures and fascism on the rise, would they even have a chance to live a full life? Even now, asking those questions aloud, I still wonder…I suppose that’s the inevitable reality of parenthood.
But in the end, amidst those real fears and uncertainties, we knew there was space for hope.
Because we believed, and still do, that just because the hardships are inevitable, it doesn’t mean the beauty and healing are impossible. Because we know what kind of world we are building our family within, we can surround Noor with the values, experiences, and communities that nurture their creativity, resilience, compassion, and commitment to the world they decide is possible. Witnessing youth and young adults lead the way with movements like the March for Our Lives, the Sunrise Movement, Black Youth Project 100, Palestinian Youth Movement, and countless more reminded us that if the ones inheriting the world are still fighting to change it, then we have no excuse to give up on it yet. That Noor would be inheriting not simply a dying world but an evolving one - shaped by the experiences, imaginations, wisdom, and collective care of communities centered on the values of interdependence, transformation, and love.
Body Practice by Kimberlee Anne Tomczak Carlson
Our Roots of Resilience
Feel the gravity of the earth holding you in place.
Wiggle your toes as if they were roots.
Roots connect you to the earth lending you strength.
Gently sway in the wind, turning your body like a trunk of a tree,
Leaning this way and that, bending as the air pushes and pulls.
What surrounds you, may sway you,
Make you bend and feel unbalanced
Wiggle your toes.
Know that your roots can hold you as you grow and learn.
A tree is nourished by the soil and water.
You are nourished by food the earth grows and the water it provides.
You are cared for and loved by many people.
Breathe deeply [repeat or pause]
Still yourself [wait till everyone is still]
Know that your roots are strong.
Wiggle your roots.
Reflection questions:
Can you think of any actions or justice groups started by youth in our city/school/state?
If you were going to address one local issue, what would it be?
What are the ways that youth are leveraging their power in this video?
Week Three: Mobilizing for Action
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REFLECTION, by Caitlin Breedlove, UU the Vote 2026 Lead
In the season of darkness, I find it easy to nest, grounded in revelations that come out of the long nights. But as the Winter Solstice gives way to the growing of the light, it is time once again to begin to open up and connect.
When was the last time we went outside? Not just on a hike or walk, but outside of our friends, family, and network? The last time we took a risk, felt awkward, greeted someone we do not know, attended a meeting of a new group, or asked a neighbor for coffee?
When my father comes to visit, he likes to bake cookies for a small army. In order to not allow my kids (or self) to enter sugar shock, every year, I am inclined to wrap some up for neighbors in my townhouse complex, and deliver them.
It is extraordinary how much joy this gives my neighbors, how appreciative of this they are. I always get text messages with many exclamation points. I do not bake much, let alone remember to make enough for neighbors. I get mired down in my own worries, concerns, and responsibilities. But, every year, my dad bakes and then asks me: who might be alone this holiday and want some?
Years ago, my friend Kai Lumumba Barrow introduced me to the work of Laura Mvula, especially her Green Garden. I love the beauty and Black excellence of her work, and I love the way she shares the idea of take me outside. The video, and song, remind me to move myself from concrete emptiness to undomesticated land as much as possible.
I read her words I go, wherever you go, wherever you take me, I go not as a submission to another person, but as a letting go to Spirit itself. A union with the collective that is at the heart of mobilizing: we go outside together, understanding very little can be changed alone, but together we can transform much more than we could imagine.
Even now. Perhaps especially now: as we see a return and draw to the analog of life, and life itself: springing and decomposing on and on, into and from the earth.
Orange sugar cookies in foil on a doorstep. Building the campaigns of our dreams and inviting each other in. To be invited, to be gifted, to be thought of: one of the greatest quiet joys of life. A joy we can give freely and generously, when we invite each other to mobilize for what matters in this new year.
I invite you to consider: where are you wishing to be invited in to? What are you part of that brings you joy that you could invite others into? What could you be part of building in the new year that would make you want to join, and to invite?
Something to do together as a family
Practicing gratitude is a way to help us nurture hope and continue a lifelong practice of social justice action. It helps strengthen the foundation that inspires us to act on our values. Try one of the following practices together or come up with one that can work for you on a long-term basis. Be explicit with kids that practicing gratitude has been shown to benefit physical, emotional, and mental health.
Mealtime gratitude: Take turns, having each person share what they are feeling thankful for as you eat.
Gratitude journal: Start or end each day with writing down one or more appreciations. The act of writing (or drawing) appreciations helps embody the feelings.
Gratitude chain: Cut strips of paper, leave them in a basket. Each day, each person writes something they are grateful for on a strip of paper and adds it to the chain. Do this for every day of 30 Days of Love!
Reflection:
What does mutual aid say about how people see each other?
How does mutual aid help people keep their dignity?
Collective Action
UU Solidarity Initiative ICE Out! Week of Action
In this time of moral crisis, our faith calls us to live our values through courageous and prophetic action. Join Unitarian Universalists across the country for a national Week of Action, Feb 2 through Feb 6, against the violent, immoral actions of ICE. The week will include a 40-hour phone call blitz to Congress, five straight days of virtual action hours led by UU State Action Networks, and an opening event with UU Solidarity Initiative.
Feeling cooped up? Come and walk the sanctuary during office hours!
With the fiscal year almost coming to a close and the Annual Meeting scheduled for May 17, the Nominating Committee will be seeking people for the following positions:
Treasurer—Deb is retiring as of June 30
Two vacancies on the Board of Trustees
Please let a trustee know if you would like to volunteer.
On January 22, we welcomed the SouthCoast Almanac, The Buzzards Bay Coalition, Lee Blake from the NB Historical Society, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Master Slave Husband Wife, Ilyon Woo, and over 50 individuals for an author reading and Abolition Row walking tour.
The gripping book tells the true story of the Crafts, an enslaved couple who escape from Georgia, disguised as a disabled white gentleman and "his" manservant, to the North, where they become famous abolitionists while evading bounty hunters. The tour group visited the home where they stayed when they came to New Bedford, along with other sites connected to the Abolitionists.
Photos taken by photographer James Mahaney, provided by SouthCoast Almanac.
Did you miss Sunday Service? Watch it here!
Photos from February 1 service.
Sunday Service
February Thrift Shop Sale! 50% off anything RED—Stay tuned for additional sales!
The Thrift Shop is open Tuesdays and Saturdays from 10 AM to 1 PM.
Arts & Culture Nonprofit Meetings Scheduled
First Unitarian Church in New Bedford is forming an art & culture nonprofit! We will be facilitating a series of meetings to discuss details, board members, grants, and more.
Meeting One: In person, Sunday, February 8 at 2 PM in the Parish House. Anyone interested in joining the discussion, or just wants to listen in is, welcome to attend. We will be exploring the structure of the organization, by-laws, and board members.
Meeting Two: Virtual, Wednesday, February 11 at 7 PM. A Zoom link will be added to the church calendar.
Stay tuned for additional details! All interested individuals are encouraged to join the conversation.
By-Laws Committee
A mailing will go out to notify the membership, but please save the date for March 1, 2026.
We will be holding a FINAL in-person meeting after church to discuss changes to the by-laws before they are voted upon at the Annual Meeting on May 17, 2026.
What does it mean to be a people of Embodying Resilience?
February 8: Finding Resilience through Grit, Loyal to the Truth: Rev. Egbert Ethelred
Chalice Children & SOUPER BOWL SUNDAY
February 12: Art, History, Architecture {AHA}, I AM NB ― Storytelling Series
February 15: Finding Resilience through Community, Lailah's Lunchbox - A Ramadan Story by Reem Faruqi | Read Aloud for Kids | The Reading Booth
RE TEAM MEETING 12:00 {Tryworks}
February 22: Finding Resilience through Humor, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Please share these events with your family and friends, and consider attending yourself. We would love to see you!
FREE Events Happening at UUNB
Being Human takes place every Friday at 11 AM. Please use the parking lot door.
There are still 2 classes left!
We are excited to announce a FREE 4-session class on understanding US Government, taught by Fairhaven resident and local attorney Ellen Nelson, Esq.
Registration is required. See the event details by clicking on the "Register Now" button below.
Save the date! You won't want to miss this.
Our Mission is to encourage diversity and mutual acceptance and work for positive change in ourselves and our community.
"We envision a congregation in which we practice the principles of our faith. We seek to enjoy peaceful reflection and inspiration in intellectually and spiritually satisfying church services. We aim to embrace the people and efforts of our church community by supporting our children and their programs, our committees and their goals, our staff and their efforts on our behalf, and each other."
Our Promises
Each person is important.
Be kind in all you do.
We help each other learn.
We search for what is true.
Each person has a say.
Work for a peaceful world.
The web of life’s the way.
Build the beloved community, free from racism and oppression.
First Unitarian Church in New Bedford
71 8th Street, New Bedford, MA 02740
(508) 994-9686
Administrator ext. 10
Minister ext. 13
Karen cell: (508) 441-9344
Thrift Shop ext. 12
Board Members & Officers
Steve Carmel, President
Charles Morgan, Vice President
Deborah Carmel, Treasurer
Elise Rapoza, Secretary
Trustees
Camilla Brooks
Niko Tarini
Mary Rapoza
Jack Vitale
Committee Chairs
Staff
Rev. Karen Leblanc, Minister
Yasmin Fle-fleh Vincent, Director of Religious Education
Randy Fayan, Director of Music
Jessica DeCicco-Carey, Administrator
Tony, Gonsalves, Facilities Manager
John Manning, Sunday Sexton
Mari Fay-Martin, Sunday School Teacher
Sam Angelini, Sunday School Teacher
The Thrift Shop is open Tuesdays and Saturdays from 10 AM to 1 PM
(508)994-9686 ext.12
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