Stickers and Mugs and Jewellery, oh my!
One day in early December of 2019, the Canada post guy said “Okay, I’ll bite. What the heck is a Hysterical Society?”
He’d been watching me drop off package after package with that return address for weeks.
Back then, when people asked me what I did for a living, I usually blushed and mumbled “I run a humour group that makes fun of my religion”, which is not a very accurate answer, but was a good way get out of the conversation.
But that day, I did not blush. I did not mumble. Something in me had shifted.
A month earlier, my friend Rev Mwibutsa (Fulgence) Ndagijimana had approached some of us for help raising money to fund a group of refugees to resettle to Canada. They were from the Unitarian Church of Burundi, and had been forced to flee for standing up for our shared values during the political unrest. We Hystericals were a much smaller group back then, but we were determined. We designed hilarious holiday products and pdfs inspired by some of our best comment threads, we shopped and donated and posted, and together we raised over 16,000 for refugee settlement through the UU Charity Flaming Chalice International.
And so, that day, I told the Canada Post guy the full truth. We are a group that loves humour, and that supports some of the most systemically disadvantaged people in the world.
And so began a yearly tradition. It’s not always refugee support. Lately, FCI's main priorities are community development based. Its board (the voting majority of which is from that area—I am the only westerner) feels that projects that bring Hutus, Tutsis, and other groups together are a priority. They want to see long term prosperity, the foundation of which is long term peace.
The details are a little different each year, but there are two things that are always true. One is that FCI’s agenda is set by local people, who are experts in their own situation. The other is that we never, ever, attempt to convert people to UUism. We are there to help. Not talk about our religion.
Whether or not you are able to join in, I just wanted you to know about this wonderful thing we do together every year. Because it’s a part of our story just as much as the giggling and the community.
We are a group that loves to laugh, and we are also something more than that. Something that makes a real, tangible difference, in another corner of the world.
Something that I am (for a whole host of reasons) very grateful to be a part of.
To support Flaming Chalice by buying UUHS merch (remember, 100% of the profit goes to FCI year round), visit our Shop
To donate to FCI directly, visit their website.