a saguaro’s greeting...welcome • beinvenidos • willkommen • aloha • svagat • hwangyong...

Being a Welcoming PeopleIn the Spirit of the Saguaro Cactus

To Join a Small Group, email [email protected] Universalist Congregation of Phoenix 1

Small Group Ministry Packet | September | 2017

A Saguaro’s Greeting“Welcome home!” is one of my favorite things to

hear. Whether I’m walking through the front door of my actual home at the end of the day, or in oth-er contexts, like when I arrive for a week of camp at DeBenneville Pines, it’s nice to receive (or offer) an enthusiastic welcome.

At UUCP, we have often said that the congregation serves as our spiri-tual home. On Sunday mornings, and whenever you’re here throughout the week, I hope that you feel welcomed and that you’re at home.

For me, the desert is another form of home, both geographical and spiri-tual. The Sonoran plants and animals are familiar to me, the seasons bring comfort. While Unitarian Universal-ism is my religious identity, and the teachings of Buddhism form the core of my spiritual practice, it is a strong connection to the desert that sustains and grounds me.

As we welcome our congregation back for a new year, we are adding a desert flavor to our usual list of monthly themes. For September, the saguaro cactus is included alongside the theme of “Welcome.”

We have a few saguaros on our 10 acres of land at UUCP. Most are young, still only a single column. A saguaro typically begins to grow arms around seventy or eighty years old. When you see a large saguaro with dozens of arms, it has certainly survived a couple cen-turies of life in the extremes of desert climate.

One of the taller saguaros on the property is home to a few families of birds throughout the year. Gila woodpeckers are the only ones that can bore into the flesh, and the cactus responds by creating a scab tissue that seals the hole into a cozy home. After the wood-

peckers are done with it, other desert birds, including wrens and elf owls, will move in. Saguaros are the high rise lofts of the desert.

Their spring blossoms are pollinated by the lesser long-nosed bat, and the burgundy red fruits split open to reveal a sweet, sticky flesh eagerly eaten by doves

(look for the pink bird poop on your window shield to know when they are ripe).

Using their ribbed, outer skin, a saguaro can expand and contract, allowing them to drink in hundreds of gallons of water during the summer and winter rains to keep them alive through the dry months in between. They do their photosynthesis during the day, and respirate at night, which minimizes water loss.

As co-habitants with these So-noran giants, may we be open to receiving lessons from, learning from their perseverance and their elegance.

May our roots be strong, our breath be intentional, our reserves expand and contract as needed. When times have been difficult for me, I’ve been known to go and just sit next to an elder saguaro for a while, seeking its counsel. And I always look forward to seeing saguaros when I return from a trip away from the desert.

We all have a role in welcoming each other to our spiritual home at UUCP, especially as we welcome a new minister to our community, as we welcome new visitors who may be discovering us for the first time, and as we welcome back all who are part of this com-munity. May we all be like a desert full of saguaros, our arms outstretched, exclaiming, “welcome home!”

Emrys Staton

Being a Welcoming PeopleIn Spirit of the Saguaro Cactus

To Join a Small Group, email [email protected] Universalist Congregation of Phoenix2


Exploring the Theme

1. How do you like to be welcomed to a place?

2. When have you felt most welcomed at UUCP? Or at other faith communities?

3. How do you welcome others into a place?

4. In what contexts should welcoming also mean stepping back or de-centering oneself to make space for others?

5. How do you welcome change into your life?

6. Are there boundaries to welcoming?

7. Does the Sonoran Desert feel like a welcoming home?

8. Do you have a favorite saguaro (or other) cactus somewhere around Phoenix?

9. Saguaros have spines to guard and protect itself, but also shelter and nurture many desert animals - what life lessons can you draw from cacti or other desert plants?

10. What words or behaviors, even with good intentions, can be unwelcoming?

11. What is your vision of and commitment to UUCP being a community of “radical in-clusion?”

12. What is a spiritual practice you have done or would like to do in order to become more welcoming?

Welcome • Beinvenidos • Willkommen • Aloha • Svagat • Hwangyong hamnida Ahlan’wa sahlab • Karibu • Καλώς ορίσατε • Tervetuloa • Yōkoso • Khosh amadid • Bem-vindo

Soo dhowow • Добро пожаловать!

“Welcome” dates back to Anglo-Saxon days, from Beowulf. The word was originally wilcuma in Old English, a combination of wil (pleasure) plus cuma (guest). The verb form, wilcumian, meant to receive someone with pleasure.




Quotes and ThoughtsWhere you belong is where you choose to con-stantly choose to show up. —Karina Antonopoulos

We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. —John Steinbeck

Here we are – all of us – all upon this planet, bound togeth-er in a common destiny,Living our lives between the briefness of the daylight and the dark. Kindred in this, each lighted by the same precarious, flickering flame of life, how does it happen that we are not kindred in all things else? How strange and foolish are these walls of separa-tion that divide us! —A. Powell Davies

Belonging: It’s not quite love and it’s not quite com-munity; it’s just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. —Marina Keegan

When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life. —Jean Shinoda Bolen

The soul should always stand ajar, ready to wel-come the ecstatic experience. —Emily Dickinson

I had crossed the line. I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land. —Harriet Tubman

It’s amazing really. As a hu-man being all you have to do is enumerate exactly the way you don’t feel at home in the world, and the moment you’ve uttered the exact dimensionality of your exile, you are already on your way home. —David Whyte

Sometimes the urgency of our hunger blinds us to the fact that we are already at the feast. To accept this can change ev-erything; we are always home, never exiled.

—John O’Donohue

I do like to have guns around. I don’t like to carry them. But I like - if somebody is going to come into my house and I have not put out the welcome mat, I want to stop them. —Maya Angelou

We all belong here equally… Just by being born onto the earth, we are accepted and the earth supports us. We don’t have to be especially good. We don’t have to accomplish anything. We don’t even have to be healthy. —Polly Horvath, My One Hundred Adventures

“I think I do myself a disservice by comparing myself to Steve Jobs and Walt Disney and human beings that we’ve seen before. It should be more like Willy Wonka... and welcome to my choco-late factory.” —Kanye West




He drew a circle that shut me out-- Heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout. But Love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in! —Edwin Markham

I’m on my way to a job where I am the only black person in my office. I work with people who either don’t know or don’t care about Alton Ster-ling or Philando Castile. They are going to ask me “How are you this morning?” and the simple truth is that I can’t be honest. I can’t say that I’m scared and angry and that I want to take a men-tal health day. I can’t say that I and people like me subconsciously fear for our lives on a daily basis. I can’t say how I am this morning because it will make them uncomfortable and offended. The offensiveness of my pain is why we have to remind America over and over again that Black Lives Matter: because if you lack empathy for our tears it’s likely that you lack respect for our lives. —Shane Paul Neil

I believe every inch of America is sacred, from sea to shining sea. I believe we make it holy by who we welcome and by how we relate to each other. Call it my Muslim eyes on the American project. “We made you different nations and tribes that you may come to know one another,” says the Qur’an. —Eboo Patel

Whiteness has been used throughout the histories of America and Europe to praise desirable groups of people and exclude undesirable groups. But “white-ness” is not an ethnic group, a cultural group, or a nationality. In the United States, the Supreme Court legally defined what it meant to be “white” in a pair ofdecisions in 1922. In other words, whiteness was created by law to let some people in and keep others out… —Sarah C Stewart, The Story of Whiteness

The Guest House This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice. meet them at the door laughing and invite them in. Be grateful for whatever comes. because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. — Jalal ad-Din Rumi (translation by Coleman Barks)

Quotes and Thoughts

The me that shows up in mostly white UU spaces isn’t inauthentic, but is guarded and not my full self.—Rev. Marisol Caballero




Quotes and ThoughtsTalking to Grief by Denise LevertovFull poem found here: https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/talking-to-grief/“Ah, Grief, I should not treat you like a homeless dogwho comes to the back door for a crust, for a meatless bone. I should trust you.I should coax youinto the house and give you your own corner…”

Brave Spaceby Micky ScottBey Joneshttp://www.mickyscottbeyjones.com/invita-tion-to-brave-space/Together we will create brave spaceBecause there is no such thing as a “safe space.”We exist in the real worldWe all carry scars and we have all caused wounds.In this spaceWe seek to turn down the volume of the outside world,We amplify voices that fight to be heard elsewhere,We call each other to more truth and love,We have the right to start somewhere and continue to grow.We have the responsibility to examine what we think we know.We will not be perfect.This space will not be perfect.It will not always be what we wish it to beButIt will be our brave space together,andWe will work on it side by side.

A Blessing for a Friend on the Arrival of Illnessby John O’DonohueNow is the time of dark invitation...You feel that against your willA stranger has married your heart...When the reverberations of shock subside in you,May grace come to restore you to balance.May it shape a new space in your heartTo embrace this illness as a teacherWho has come to open your life to new worlds.May you find in yourselfA courageous hospitalityTowards what is difficult,Painful and unknown....

Religious Community Is Not Enoughby Tom Shade (excerpt from UU World)“Being a community” is thinking small. Our ultimate goals and purpose cannot simply be about ourselves. Unitarian Universalists, like members of every other religion, are trying to change the world by encour-aging people to live a different way. By word and by deed, Unitarian Universalists are trying to change people. It is time for us to acknowledge and proclaim this, and to see that building a religious communi-ty is but a means to that larger end… Inclusion has been our goal. But inclusion is about “bringing in.” We should now be thinking about “going out.” Now we should turn ourselves inside out to turn the world upside down.”

Hospitality is a form of worship.Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 127a




The Saguaro

Trivia and Facts about saguaros:Where do saguaros grow? How far do their roots spread? What are some of the indigenous beliefs about saguaros? What is the word for saguaro in O’odham? How do saguaros die? Have you ever seen a crested top saguaro? What causes that?How are saguaros affected by climate change? What are the legal protections for saguaros?

drawing by starburry

Personal or group activities: Take time to find a saguaro and get to know it. Study its textures, colors, and how it grows.

If you can, commit to a longer relationship with a saguaro. Visit it at different times of day through-out the year. Upload photos of saguaros - we’ll share them on the UUCP Facebook page.

See if you can find different saguaros: - have birds living in them - have interesting features - a dead or decaying saguaro - a saguaro with holiday lights - a baby saguaro - how many are at UUCP?

a saguaro’s greeting...welcome • beinvenidos • willkommen • aloha • svagat • hwangyong...

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