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Nadia Sims is the Poet Laureate for the Town of Manchester. Currently, the poet is focused on spreading her message of grace across CT, NY, and MA. The Princeton graduate is the proud author of "A Soft Place to Land," "We Know the Dark" and her newly released collection "Apostle, Interrupted" . Her spoken word album, "The Weight of Grace," is available here , here and here and pretty much everywhere else. Nadia Sims   “A Poet’s Purpose” ©Nadia Sims, 2025   To listen and translate The murmurings of life To catch darkness’ secrets And find the wound To not just hear the wind at the tops Of the trees, but to interpret God’s whisper To witness rage and terror and call them Twins by blood and name To hear the laughter of a baby And liken it to the birth of joy To not just see the silver lining But to sew tapestries with it that bind The world to a common understanding To give pain meaning To give love a fighting chance and Hope good soil to grow To say: You were seen And never created in vain   “Boxes” ©Nadia Sims, 2025   In the census of life, Poverty was the first box I ever checked See, I didn’t know I was broke Until the Scholastic Book Fair Came in the first grade and I Had just enough money to window shop Books are a luxury when you’re scraping Pennies together for milk I lived in that box of rice, beans, government cheese, Boiled water for baths and lights that never stayed On for a while – but true darkness didn’t come until My stepfather called gays an abomination And I found myself in a closet – not because I was sure of my sexuality, but because being questionable wasn’t safe in that space – there were already so many things to hate about me in that place – I was already fat, lazy and not his child, I wasn’t Going to give him something else to hate to my face So, I hid behind grades and a grin that said Everything was great on my face I didn’t know what it meant to be Black Until I went to a university where everyone else wasn’t And worked 3 jobs to live and still left with debt Worked twice as hard because I knew half as much and all I could depend on was myself A two for one – poor and Black, both boxes checked   And then I found out my body was in danger of being labeled There are just too many things that I’m not physically able How can I go about the business of a woman’s work When the parts that make me a woman don’t really work? When diabetes doesn’t want me to win? And I’m half a donut away from needing insulin? Single, barren, diabetic – check, check, check Queer, Black woman – check and double check Well, at least I’m American I was born here, right? Even with all my checkboxes, I still have some rights And maybe if I live quietly, I can hide in plain sight Except I can’t Because boxes become targets My stepfather taught me that – That boxes become topics And labels you can’t take back Become headlines and catchphrases Become the names on t-shirts And loud cries asking why And hashtags And cautionary tales And Hollywood films where checkboxes die And the actors who play them win awards While we hold the picket lines And swap out signs to keep up with today’s crisis Like due process and corruption and is it safe to be where Ice is   It wasn’t until recently that I realized I was broken And rapidly breaking from my fears unspoken That there are too many boxes Too many marks against me That there’s no safe place to hide No safe way to be me And that’s no way to live In the land of the free     “Checking Boxes” Rev. Josh Pawelek [To Nadia:] Thank you for this poem. And thank you for your next poem, which I had an opportunity to read a few weeks ago when you wrote it, and all I could say was “wow!” Thank you for being here this morning and sharing some truths about yourself. Thank you for your vulnerability. Thank you for your witness. Thank you for coming here with the poet’s purpose in your heart, mind and soul which you begin to describe in your poem, “A Poet’s Purpose,” as listening and translating the murmurings of life, catching darkness’ secrets, finding the wound, and not just hearing the wind at the tops of the trees, but interpreting God’s whisper.   [To the congregation:] Our ministry theme for June is freedom . In early May Nadia and I had a conversation about freedom and how we might explore it together on a Sunday morning in this space. We landed on boxes. Whether we like it or not, we Americans are a box-checking people. Nadia refers to the census of life. I’m mindful that every decade when the United States census comes around, we check off boxes on the form. We check a box to indicate our financial relationship to our home (owned by you or someone in this household with a mortgage or loan? Owned by you or someone in this household free and clear (without a mortgage or loan)? Rented? Occupied without payment of rent?). We check a box to indicate our sex (male or female are the only options if I remember correctly). We check a box to indicate whether we are of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin. And we check a box to indicate our race. I’ll just say, in my view, given the wide variety of choices and the way they are listed on the page, there’s some profound confusion at the Census Bureau about what race actually is (though that’s a message for a different Sunday). My point is we are invited, asked, expected, required to identify pieces of ourselves by checking boxes. In doing so we, often very innocently, box ourselves in. It's not just government agencies, and all the other form-using entities with which we interact—health care providers and insurance companies being perhaps the most prominent deployers of forms to gather data. It’s the census of life. We box each other in, often out of ignorance or our own insecurities. We box ourselves in, sometimes without realizing we’re doing it, sometimes very intentionally, to stay safe, to survive. Nadia speaks about the way her step father boxed her in; and how in response, for safety, she boxed herself in further. Again, Nadia, thank you for this sharing, your vulnerability, your translations of life’s murmurs, your catching of darkness’ secrets. I haven’t written my own poem, my “Boxes” companion piece. I would like to. It would sound very different from Nadia’s, a reminder that some boxes confer privilege—even power—to those who can check them off. My poem might say something about remembering my parents purchasing their first home and filling the shelves around the fireplace with books from their college days. There would be a line in my poem about three square meals a day and those white powdered mini-donuts after-school snacks. There’d be a whole stanza on music lessons, little league baseball, and summer vacations on North Carolina’s Outer Banks; maybe another on our Unitarian Universalist congregation. My poem would veer into confession, would lift up my childhood assumption that everyone lives this way or close to it; would name, with some embarrassment—though I can handle it—that I was oblivious not only to the boxes others were checking, or the way oppression was boxing them in, but oblivious to the boxes I was checking—white, straight, middle-class, able-bodied, college bound—and oblivious to the truth those boxes and others were creating limits and boundaries, shaping and curtailing—dare I say colonizing—my life in subtly pernicious ways, even though I felt free, unbounded, unlimited. It is the land of the free after all. Isn’t that how we’re supposed to feel? My life was real and I wouldn’t trade it; but my poem would call that freedom-feeling an illusion, paid for with the back-breaking, exploited labor of people I would never know. My poem would invite contemplation and struggle. I was four years old when Fannie Lou Hamer took the stage at the National Women’s Political Caucus and uttered those immortal words, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” That would be the struggle my poem invites. My poem might even end with that quote. My poem would end there, with an implicit, if not explicit, invitation to struggle for everyone’s freedom. And I would have to add a similar invitation to struggle for the earth’s freedom, because she too is boxed in. This would not be an invitation to struggle alone, of course, but to join with people who are already confronting, subverting and redesigning all the ways the census of life confers privilege and power on some and harms many others. I am mindful there are some boxes we might really want to check. I think that’s what Pride is all about. People check their gay, lesbian, bisexual, polyamorous, pansexual, transgender, gender non-conforming, gender-bending, gender fluid, intersex, 100% queer boxes in a big public way in June—out loud, proud, celebratory. This is who I am! This is who we are! We deserve and claim space in this society. We are Americans too! We are human beings too! Though it's not my identity, I have some sense of how freeing it is to check the Pride box in a moment when the federal government is doing everything it can to erase it. But ultimately, there’s something utterly inhuman about checking boxes, because each of us has pieces of ourselves that just don’t fit into the boxes we’re offered. Each of us, to quote Nadia, has pieces of ourselves that are questionable. Our lives are much more grey than black and white. Beauty, complexity, mystery and transformation reside in the grey spaces. But when we box ourselves in, we lose that. We lose all the unique, quirky, off-beat parts of ourselves that make us us. In the end, we need a practice of unchecking the boxes.             “Unchecked” ©Nadia Sims, 2025   When I turned 33, I asked God, “what did you make me?” He answered, “a beautiful misfit.” Said, “I never intended for you to be like anyone else – What your family never seemed to like What your friends couldn’t find a way to love I designed it on purpose I designed you on purpose   You are wild and weird and wired a little wrong How else would you break ceilings and switch lanes And defy gravity? You are loud, chaotic, and boisterous How else would you disrupt the norm and break strongholds? What is good about a messenger that cannot be heard?   You make mistakes. You stumble. You’re clumsy. How else would you learn empathy and fortitude? To keep walking through the wilderness? To not look down upon those who stumble too.   You love too hard. You give too much. How else would you learn grace? I made you to be in the world, not of it To not be so tied to boxes that you lived in a cage To not be so busy hiding behind a shield that you make it a barrier to living I designed you to experience rejection and heartbreak, Never to test you, Never to hurt you, But for you to show others that you can dance on broken legs, And sing with a broken heart You can mother with no womb And make life your canvas And you can be brave enough To tell the world how You are red with anger and there Are not enough words that don’t End in less - You are not hopeless Or helpless Or jobless Or loveless But it’s close And you listen to the blues enough To know you are blue It’s not quite depression But it’s close That tinge of anxiety Has colored your days With a purplish hue You rise royal and hold tight To your golden crown in a world That would prefer your brown Chin be down As you all come to the Realization that bootstraps Are green and there will Never be enough to go around For those of you living In greyscale The view is 4K HD but you’re still Afraid of telling the truth in Technicolor But you are emboldened In Black – unerasable and here to be witnessed For others to take For others to create Their own canvas of courage   I designed you to rise as the sun does And you do I designed you to soar like the eagles And you do I designed you to thunder and roar and rage And you do I would never put all of that sound and fury In a checkbox I designed you to endure, to outlast any shackles To move forward, to fight the grey And the grave And the extermination of your light I designed you to break every chain To live a life outside the boxes – Unchecked.”

Greetings CYM Families & Friends! ***Sunday service and CYM programming begins at 10AM now through Labor Day!*** (Nursery available at 10AM) This Sunday is CYM Field Day! - followed by our end-of-year Stakeholders Meeting! (Childcare will provided for this meeting!) We are expecting good weather for Field Day this year - hooray! We will have yard games, a percussion circle, marshmallow roasting and more! Feel free to bring a favorite game from home to share. Following the Field Day and Sunday service, we will flow into an end of year CYM stakeholders meeting down in the field. Feel free to bring a blanket and lunch, or bring along some goodies or a side dish to share. (Folding chairs will also be setup.) Both of my daughters will provide childcare during the stakeholders meeting to look after young ones, and families are welcome to start in the meeting circle and have their children come and go with the sitters. Continued yard games, bathroom visits and general entertainment will be provided nearby, or inside if they choose. Also, if your youth is trained to provide childcare and would like to earn some money this weekend, feel free to let me know and we’ll add them to the roster! The most important thing you can do is bring the gift of your presence! So whether you are just checking us out or have been attending for years, COME! If you haven’t already done so, please take some time to answer our short but important end-of-year survey about CYM programming. The focus is on the experience of monthly All Congregation Services and the weekly Time For All Ages component this year. More detailed discussion about specific classes wrapping up and plans for the future will take place at our stakeholders meeting on June 8th. Please see more details on that meeting in my “Save The Date” section. You may access the survey here . See you Sunday! SAVE THE DATE : JUNE Sun, Jun 8 : CYM Field Day and final ‘24-’25 CYM Stakeholder’s Meeting in the field Sun, Jun 15 : CYM Sunday Service, Bridging Ceremony for Youth Sun, Jun 22 : UUA General Assembly With Love and Gratitude, Emmy Galbraith dcym@uuse.org Cell: (860)576-7889 CYM Committee Members: Desiree Holian-Borgnis, Chair Michelle Spadaccini Paula Baker Sudha Heather Alexson Committee email: uusecym@uuse.org Angela Attardo, CYM Program Assistant CYMAsst@uuse.org

Greetings CYM Families & Friends! ***Sunday service and CYM programming begins at 10AM now through Labor Day!*** (Nursery available at 10AM) This Sunday is CYM Field Day! - followed by our end-of-year Stakeholders Meeting! (Childcare will provided for this meeting!) We are expecting good weather for Field Day this year - hooray! We will have yard games, a percussion circle, marshmallow roasting and more! Feel free to bring a favorite game from home to share. Following the Field Day and Sunday service, we will flow into an end of year CYM stakeholders meeting down in the field. Feel free to bring a blanket and lunch, or bring along some goodies or a side dish to share. (Folding chairs will also be setup.) Both of my daughters will provide childcare during the stakeholders meeting to look after young ones, and families are welcome to start in the meeting circle and have their children come and go with the sitters. Continued yard games, bathroom visits and general entertainment will be provided nearby, or inside if they choose. Also, if your youth is trained to provide childcare and would like to earn some money this weekend, feel free to let me know and we’ll add them to the roster! The most important thing you can do is bring the gift of your presence! So whether you are just checking us out or have been attending for years, COME! If you haven’t already done so, please take some time to answer our short but important end-of-year survey about CYM programming. The focus is on the experience of monthly All Congregation Services and the weekly Time For All Ages component this year. More detailed discussion about specific classes wrapping up and plans for the future will take place at our stakeholders meeting on June 8th. Please see more details on that meeting in my “Save The Date” section. You may access the survey here . See you Sunday! SAVE THE DATE : JUNE Sun, Jun 8 : CYM Field Day and final ‘24-’25 CYM Stakeholder’s Meeting in the field Sun, Jun 15 : CYM Sunday Service, Bridging Ceremony for Youth Sun, Jun 22 : UUA General Assembly With Love and Gratitude, Emmy Galbraith dcym@uuse.org Cell: (860)576-7889 CYM Committee Members: Desiree Holian-Borgnis, Chair Michelle Spadaccini Paula Baker Sudha Heather Alexson Committee email: uusecym@uuse.org Angela Attardo, CYM Program Assistant CYMAsst@uuse.org

< To Upcoming Services Jul 14, 2025 AA - Mondays at Noon- Every Monday at Noon Every Monday at Noon OOS Sermon YouTube

Religious education is not just for kids. We have plenty of programs to keep adults busy too. Intro to UU The Intro to UU program is taught periodically by the minister. There's not one scheduled at the moment. Keep an eye on the Happenings section of the website to see when the next session might be coming.

A list of all of our past services, including links to the sermons. Past Services This is a list of past services. Upcoming services can be found here . 6/8/25 OOS Sermon YouTube Unchecked Sunday Service: "Unchecked" This morning, we welcome Manchester's amazing poet laureate, Nadia Sims, who will help us explore our June ministry theme, freedom . The larger society puts us in boxes which often limit our sense of freedom, sometimes without our realizing it. Perhaps it's time to uncheck some of those boxes! We will also welcome new members into our congregation. Coordinator : Rev. Josh Pawelek Summer schedule: 10:00 A.M. service #eBlast-06-04 6/1/25 OOS Sermon YouTube Affirmation Sunday Service: "Affirmation" Affirmation is our long-standing 'coming-of-age' program for youth. This morning we honor and celebrate two UUSE youth who have participated in the Affirmation class over the past congregational year. They will share their credo statements, and we will hear form their mentors. Coordinators : Emmy Galbraith, Rev. Josh Pawelek Summer schedule: 10:00 A.M. service #eBlast-05-28 5/25/25 OOS Sermon YouTube Imagination As a Sacred Tool. Sunday, May 25th: Imagination As a Sacred Tool. Our UU faith asks us to work for a more just and equitable world. In the words of Rev. Heather Concannon, “one of the sacred tools we must draw on is imagination. The tool of not just denouncing the world as it is, but of announcing: here’s what I imagine a better world to look like.” This service explores the ways that members of our UUSE community use imagination to conjure “the world our hearts know is possible”. Coordinators: Sandy Karosi & Paula Baker. 5/18/25 OOS Sermon YouTube Flower Communion Sunday, May 18th: Flower Communion. All Congregational Worship. Through wonderful music and our annual flower communion, we celebrate our beloved, multigenerational community. Please bring a flower to share! Note: Our 2025 Annual Meeting will begin shortly after the 11:00 service. Coordinators: Emmy Galbraith, Rev. Josh Pawelek. Show More