# data[].attributes.body
When we think about imagination, one can’t help reflecting on the very first thing one does with UU kids: Child Dedications. In contrast to some faiths that highlight how we are born with original sin, UU Child Dedications emphasize that we are born with inherent goodness and immense possibilities. So, what’s one of the ways our faith guides us into becoming a people of imagination? It tells us to “Don’t put any limits on imagining what you can become!”

# data[].attributes.body
After viewing the story, ponder the following questions:
What possibilities exist in you?
What would your Everything Seed look like?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Everything Seed - By Carole Martignacco, Illustrations by Joy Troyer

# data[].attributes.body
Let’s now get into our meditation positions.

Sit comfortably in your chair or on the floor.

Put your hands on your lap or on your knees.

Sit up nice and tall.

Focus your eyes in front of you.

Find your breath moving in your body by taking in one breath through your nose and then slowly breathing it out through your mouth.  Now click on the video link.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
My Imagination - Mindful Moments with the kids

# data[].attributes.body
Our faith is a hopeful one. We disagreed with those who saw this life as doomed and irredeemable and instead asserted that life in the here and now was good and full of possibilities. In difficult times our faith has always encouraged us to hold on to hope by imagining the new day that is on its way. (Think about how often we quote the famous line about the arc of the universe bending toward justice.) So, what’s one of the ways our faith guides us into becoming a people of imagination? It tells us to “imagine the new day that is on its way!”

# data[].attributes.body
Find a pair of binoculars! We look through binoculars to see things far away. Have you ever looked through binoculars the opposite way than you are supposed to? Give it a try! It makes things look really, really tiny and far away. Well, that’s funny, but not too helpful.

What do binoculars have to do with our theme? Imagination is the theme for this month. And imagination is a lot like a pair of binoculars. It helps us see beyond that which is right in front of us! It helps us see beyond our current struggles with things like COVID and glimpse a not too far off day when days will be more like normal.

So today we’re going to use our Imaginations to give us hope by daydreaming about what we will do when we are able to be back together again.

# data[].attributes.body
Imagine that you wake up tomorrow morning and COVID has disappeared, draw a picture of what you would do first. Then take a listen Change to Come!

# data[].attributes.body
When it comes to imagination, we focus on imagining a better world. And who better to celebrate than Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr? Dr. King’s words in his “I Have a Dream” speech can be revisited through the lens of today’s environment with even more impact. White UU’s were not very aware of racism in the last decade. Yet, now white UU’s are working on understanding that racism is still here, deep in our society. Today, more white UU’s realize that they need to imagine a better world. We need to work hard to end racism. Our faith has taken up this work and called on UU’s to build a world without racism. So, what’s one of the ways our faith guides us into becoming a people of imagination? It says, “Imagine and work for a better world.”

# data[].attributes.headline
Meet Martin Luther King Jr. with Kid President

# data[].attributes.subject
Meet Martin Luther King Jr. with Kid President

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Story of Martin Luther King Jr. by Kid President

# data[].attributes.headline
The “Club from Nowhere” - Georgia Gilmore

# data[].attributes.subject
The “Club from Nowhere” - Georgia Gilmore

# data[].attributes.body
Meet the Fearless Cook who Secretly Fed - and Funded- the Civil Rights Movement

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In December 1955, after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus to a white man, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other black ministers and community leaders organized a citywide bus boycott in protest. That part is well known.

Less well-known is the story of Georgia Gilmore, the Montgomery cook, midwife and activist whose secret kitchen fed the civil rights movement.

When King and others held meetings of the Montgomery Improvement Association at the Holt Street Baptist Church, Gilmore was there, selling fried chicken sandwiches and other foods to the African-American men and women gathered there who'd pledged not to use the city's buses until they were desegregated. Gilmore poured those profits back into the movement, as John T. Edge recounts in his book The Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South.

"In the process, her home kitchen became a locus for change," writes Edge, the director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, which is based out of the University of Mississippi and documents the intersection of food and culture in the South.

Gilmore organized black women to sell pound cakes and sweet potato pies, fried fish and stewed greens, pork chops and rice at beauty salons, cab stands and churches. "She offered these women, many of whose grandmothers were born into slavery, a way to contribute to the cause that would not raise suspicions of white employers who might fire them from their jobs, or white landowners who might evict them from the houses they rented," Edge says.

The money they raised helped pay for the alternative transportation system that arose in Montgomery during the 381-day bus boycott: hundreds of cars, trucks and wagons that ferried black workers to and from their jobs across town each day. Gilmore's cooking helped pay for the insurance, gas, wagons and vehicle repairs that kept that system going.

She called the group of women who worked with her in this project "The Club from Nowhere" because, as Betty Gilmore, Georgia's sister, told Edge years later, "It was like, 'Where did this money come from? It came from nowhere."

Gilmore would attend MIA meetings at the church and announce how much she'd raised that week, eventually inspiring another group of women in town to start a similar endeavor, Edge says.

In February 1956, a Montgomery County grand jury indicted King and dozens of other boycott leaders for unlawful conspiracy. Gilmore was among those who testified at King's trial. As the late Rev. Al Dixon told NPR in 2005, "Everybody could tell you Georgia Gilmore didn't take no junk. You pushed her too far, she would say a few bad words. You pushed her any further, she would hit you."

Gilmore brought that fighting spirit to the courtroom. She fearlessly denounced the white bus driver who had kicked her off a city bus from the witness stand. "When I paid my fare and they got the money, they don't know Negro money from white money," she told the judge.

The testimony made Gilmore a hero to local blacks, Edge says. But "in the white world she became a pariah." Gilmore lost her job as a cook at the National Lunch Company - though Edge says it's not clear whether she was fired or resigned "knowing her testimony would lead to her dismissal."

King lived a few blocks from Gilmore and was a fan of her cooking and her activism. "Whenever VIPs would come to town, he would always have Miss Gilmore cook up a batch of chicken," Nelson Malden, King's one-time barber in Montgomery, recalled in a 2005 interview with NPR. "When she was fired from her restaurant [job], Rev. King said, 'Well, why don't you go into business for yourself?' "

So she did. With King's support, Gilmore turned her house into an informal restaurant.

"[Robert F.] Kennedy came, [Lyndon] Johnson been here - Dr. King brought him," Gilmore's son, Mark Gilmore, who died in 2008, told NPR in 2005. (That NPR story from 2005 features many voices who knew Gilmore and is really worth a listen.)

"Gilmore's house became a clubhouse for King," Edge writes, and often the first stop for people in the civil rights movement who visited Montgomery. "When King arrived in Montgomery during the 1965 march from Selma, he beelined to Gilmore's kitchen for pork chops."

Gilmore died on the 25th anniversary of the civil rights march from Selma. She'd spent the morning preparing chicken and macaroni and cheese to feed people marching in observation of the anniversary. Her family served that food to those who came to mourn her.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Meet The Fearless Cook Who Secretly Fed - And Funded - The Civil Rights Movement

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In December 1955, after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus to a white man, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other black ministers and community leaders organized a citywide bus boycott in protest. That part is well known.

# data[].attributes.body
Our faith asks us to use our reason to question what is and imagine new ways to think about things.  It’s part of our fifth UU Source, “...heed the guidance of reason and the results of science…” Sometimes people think of science and imagination as opposites but every good scientist will tell you that you need both imagination and reason to understand the world and to invent new things. So what’s one of the ways our faith guides us into becoming a people of imagination? It tells us “Use imagination and reason as partners to think outside the box!”

# data[].attributes.body
Try the puzzle and ponder the following questions:
When was a time when you came up with a solution to a problem that wasn’t obvious?

Did you find it easy once you remembered to “think outside the box?”

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Can you solve this puzzle? Nine dots, four lines challenge

# data[].attributes.body
Reflect on how the children in the book used their imaginations to “think outside the box.”

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Roxaboxen by Alice Mclerran. Picture Book about Imagination Read Aloud

# data[].attributes.body
Our faith talks a lot about using reason to analyze the world and using action to change the world.  But UU religious educators are reminding us that we also need to nurture our imaginations so we can dream up new worlds. Whether it is through stories like Lord of the Rings or classic fairy tales, there is something powerful about using our imagination to visit and create new places. It allows us to transcend our limits and indulge in an escape now and then. It also allows us to learn life lessons while in a pretend world. So what’s one of the ways our faith guides us into becoming a people of imagination? It tells us to “Use your imagination to visit and dream up other worlds!”

# data[].attributes.body
Play the game in which you and your family collaborates on creating a world. Start a fantasy story, then each person takes a turn and continues the story that the first person started.

# data[].attributes.body
Go for a walk through some popular children’s fantasies and see the transition from real life to pretend. Ponder these questions:
What is your favorite story?

Each of these stories has a “just pretend” part. Which one would you like to visit?