#UULent COMMUNITY

Today’s UU lent word for reflection is community. I’m still in “I need the inspiration of Mr.
Rogers” mode, so here’s some quotes from that wonderful man about community. I
hope you can take some time this week to reflect on each one of these and what it all
means to you in the context of building the UUCL church community with us:

● “The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the
compassionate actions of its members.”
● “One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome
and help people in a way we couldn’t as individuals.”
● “We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to say, ‘It’s
not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.’ Then there are
those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.”
● “All of us, at some time or other, need help. Whether we’re giving or receiving
help, each one of us has something valuable to bring to this world. That’s one of
the things that connects us as neighbors—in our own way, each one of us is a
giver and a receiver.”
● “Imagine what our real neighborhoods would be like if each of us offered, as a
matter of course, just one kind word to another person.”

I’m including a picture from almost 6 years ago, during the COVID shutdown, when
UUCL came together with “neighboring” organizations to provide a mobile food pantry
that would feed the most vulnerable people in our Polk County community. We set the
Social Hall up as a place to receive and organize food. The food was then organized
into boxes for families in need. Volunteer drivers would come pick up the boxes for
designated routes and then go out into the community and deliver the food to people
who could not leave their houses to go to the store (for whatever reason) and could not
afford to have groceries delivered. We called our coalition: It Takes a Village. The
strength and connectedness of our community was tangible and fulfilling.