Our February 1st Town Hall!

Sunday we gathered after Keola Whittaker’s moving message “The Thaw” for our first Sunday of the month Town Hall. We had much to discuss. Sue asked me to show the assembled our new website first. Our incredibly skilled office manager, Suzette, manages much! And she managed to do much to help our web developer Naomi Moon and me to rebuild the website— using past content, but creating new, editing and deleting old. This is now live, but it is in progress! Please email suggestions to Suzette or me for changes and additions!

Now it is easy for members to log in to the Member Portal. Use the email this newsletter came to. If you do not remember your password, just click “lost password” and make one up. Here is a quick view of what members can see. Notice the links on the right (also available in the Member Portal dropdown menu above)

Our Town Hall was important and moving. Members can see a summary of the meeting and the slides by clicking here February 1, 2026 TownHall
(You will need to log in. But it is easy, please try it! If you are not a member and want to see the summary, email me.)

• We explored the new website- first big update since 2017.
• We reached an important consensus that our Shefflera/Umbrella Tree hedge has exceeded its healthy lifespan, so it must be removed for safety reasons.
• Sue reported on some of the many building upgrades, alarms, etc. — I witnessed Dan and Pierre on scaffolding, replastering the kitchen ceiling— these guys do not stop!
• Sanctuary setup was discussed—we are experimenting to continuously improve audio, visibility, and aesthetics, and to make room for our growing numbers—we ran out of Orders of Service for the past two Sundays!
• We discussed our “Black Lives Matter” banner hanging on our aging sign on Pali Highway. This banner has had to be replaced 17 times due to vandalism. Other churches have supported us in replacing it, as they have valued this expression of support, controversial as it has been. The sign has been a safety concern for some of our residents and neighbors, and we have been very concerned about that. Given all the threats and concerns today, several members have suggested new banners, and some have suggested rotating them. Our resident Kristin Witcher shared her feelings of vulnerability caused by this banner on the highway and offered us an important understanding of Stochastic Terrorism, the interactive process that links public rhetoric to acts of violence. “Safety always comes first.” You may read Kristin’s full presentation to us here—Mahalo to Kristin for sharing this with all of us.

The past two church services have responded to our current, painful, dangerous, and divisive situation. “UU Heroes – Then & Now” and “The Thaw” have both addressed our need to progress as humans, to protect each other, to stand for what is right, and to continuously be of love to each and all, with humility.

Sue summarized this most important movement of congregational shared hearts and minds like this:

We are listening better. At Sunday’s town hall, we finally tackled the issue of the Black Lives Matter banner: some wanted to keep displaying it at the highway, while others wanted to rotate it with other banners more in tune with the current national scene. Folks were patient. Almost everyone spoke. Amazingly, after we heard from church resident Kristin Witcher about her struggle with the banner and her concern for the neighbors, who are not white, privileged folk, the congregation began to understand how our need to take a stance might make the vulnerable, whom we want to support, feel even more vulnerable. Zachary Fraser, told the congregation that when the conversation began, he was all for putting up a banner with the most radical statement he could think of about ICE, but after hearing from Kristin, he found himself siding with Molly Rowland, our oldest congregant, who says take down down the BLM banner and spend our time and resources on fixing the church’s sign that is about to fall over on its face! Amazing! For the most conservative and the most radical to converge!

Our sign on the Pali Highway will be rebuilt. We will move forward together.

February is InterFaith Harmony Month.

The Interfaith Alliance of Hawai’i (TIAH) is leading, coordinating, and supporting activities throughout Hawai’i for the month.
Friends of our church, Cynthia Lynch, president, and Thomas Lynch, board member, are sponsoring an InterFaith retreat of leaders of diverse faiths. Our own Marie Anne, TIAH secretary and leader in our church, and I are participating.

Our February 15th worship service is included in the InterFaith Harmony Month events. We are hoping for others in our larger community to join us as we consider “where we converge.”

Mahalo for all you do,
Deborah

Rev. Deborah Bond-Upson, Minister
First Unitarian Church of Honolulu
808-367-0710
2500 Pali Highway, Honolulu, 96817
office hours: Tuesday 10am-2pm, Wednesday 2pm-6pm