UUWF The Communicator June, 2006 | Vol 24, Issue 2

As part of the preparations for presentation of our Ministry to Women Award to Rev. Shirley Ranck, UUWF has invited members to write brief messages to her about what Cakes for the Queen of Heaven has meant to them. We are compiling these in a commemorative album we will present to Shirley at the award reception.

If you would like to become part of this effort, please write or type your message on a greeting card (or a sheet of paper no larger than 5½ x 8½) and send it to: UUWF Cakes Project, 25 Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02108. Messages received too late to be included in the album presented to Shirley at GA will become part of Volume II and sent to her during the summer.

The following are excerpts from some of the messages we have received so far:

§ Cakes changed my life and set my feet on a path of spirituality. Each month a friend and I offer a ritual to our church, which we would not be doing if we had not taken it.

§ Thank you for your liberating view of women’s pilgrimage in life and its unique way of being human in this world of inhumanity and violence. Your spirit sings and we rejoice that we are part of the chorus!

§ I am so pleased that you will be presented with the Ministry to Women Award at GA this year. It is greatly deserved. I took the Cakes classes years ago and was very impressed with the program and its breadth of coverage of the Goddesses.

§ I thank you and honor you.

§ Men too, appreciate your great contribution to our religious enlightenment.

§ How to thank someone for connecting me to my spiritual life isn’t easy. I was in the first Cakes test group, drawn by a UU World ad asking if I’d ever thought of a feminine God. The experience changed my life. Since I brought the curriculum back home to share, even years later I’m still reminded often by those touched by your deeply insightful work - it bridges the ancient religious beliefs with feminine experience supporting the journey. There are no words for the connection your gift has brought to so many.

§ Your work has changed the world! Thank you!

§ Until I took your course, I was unaware of the goddess aspect of history. It gave me a better perspective of women’s place in religion before patriarchy.

§ Cakes opened my mind to ideas I’d have never discussed otherwise. Thank you for your creation.

§ Thank you for the gift of Cakes for the Queen of Heaven! I recall with great pleasure those days of sitting in the circle with women and the excitement we all had about the Cakes material which was so new to us all. I’m looking today for something new to bring back that enthusiasm and energy.

§ Cakes changed my life and led to my entering the UU ministry. I’ll be forever grateful.

§ I was active with a group of women belonging to a fellowship in Ohio when they studied Cakes... the material was something so new and stimulating for us. We enjoyed it very much. I saved my material. A new group is organizing so I was very glad I could give it to them. Thank you for writing such a helpful curriculum.

§ Cakes was a significant part of my UU spiritual journey. I found the goddess within, and continue to be made joyful for the goddess I meet in each woman. Thank you, Reverend Ranck!