The Second Day of Chalica 2013

Happy Chalica!

What will you do today to honor our Second Principle?

To the right is the children's version of our Principles, which is to guide our children to treating everyone with kindness especially when in a group of people.

It is very easy on a one-to-one basis to be kind and fair with others, but when our children are in a group, especially with a group of their peers, this can be much more difficult.

The adult version of this principle is: justice, equity and compassion in human relations. Sometimes when we try to get justice for others we forget that all people need compassion. 

Give gift(s) to honor those in your local community that are less fortunate.

Examples:

- spend time in a soup kitchen

- donate clothes to a worthy organization

- display kindness and care to those around you

- take part in a political demonstration at city hall

The UUA has a great article regarding the Second Principle that I highly recommend reading.

One of my favorite stories about compassion is located on a page at the Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship website.

Some good books to read to children today are:

Accept and Value Each Person (Learning to Get Along) by Cheri J. Meiners M.Ed. 

Horton Hears A Who! by Dr. Seuss

On Chalica! someone posted that their child was trying to convince them they needed presents.  I have found the best explanation for this from The Chalica Story by Lisa Romantum Schwartz.

“Chalica is more about gifts than presents, baby girl.”

“Presents, gifts … what’s the difference?”

“The gifts of Chalica are not usually things you can wrap up with paper and ribbons. They’re things like forgiveness, understanding, joy and belonging. If Chalica is an alternative holiday, it won’t lead us to buy and consume even more stuff. It’ll lead us to explore our values, and find new ways to live as Unitarian Universalists.”

Blessed be,

Kathy