By Tom Richards
BAG Co-chair
Each year your Buildings and Grounds Committee sponsors a clean-up party before Ingathering. We’ll be doing it again this year on Saturday, Sept. 12.
Even though we aren’t meeting in the building, maintenance and repair needs have not been suspended. We’ll start at 9 a.m. If we’re done by noon we’ll go home; if not we’ll provide a socially distant lunch and go on from there.
At the direction of Bridget Laflin, Director of Religious Education, WUUC members and their families created a visual celebration Saturday, Aug. 22, for the socially distanced, drive-by meet-and-greet the next day with newly arrived Minister Dan Lillie, his wife Emily Kuo and daughter Natalie Kuo-Lillie. Well done!
Bridget reports: “The first people to arrive were Winny, Sarah and Honomi. They each staked out a spot on either side of the front entrance to create their beautiful pieces. Honomi showed us all a technique of blending the chalk with her hands which added depth to her art. Winny told us about how she used to do chalk art when she was a little girl. She was also super prepared and brought kneepads which she left for other people to use after she left. Thank you, Winny!!!
“Then DD and Hilarie came and added their pieces while they talked and reconnected in the beautiful sunshine.
“Karen Plass came by and chalked her beautiful sunset. She stayed for quite a while, and while she was there, Meg Laflin also came and added her message.
“Then Jessica Belmont and Jen Ikeda arrived. Jessica took the bold move of filling in one of the spaces right in front of the door with and Jen added a beautiful chalice to the mural.
“Finally, the Smith family came and finished it off. The large empty space immediately in front of the door became a flower garden and Kate added some rainbow stripes and circles to fill in the empty spaces between the earlier art pieces. And Grant added a conceptual piece that we determined was a deconstructed ice cream sundae.”
There’s a form for that. Please click this link to submit your idea to the Ministry Council. They will be in touch.
(some ponderances from Linda Sherry, largely adapted from this month’s Soul Matters theme, What Does It Mean to Be a People of Renewal?)
As I begin to frame the September Soul Matters theme of Renewal, I find that I have become resigned to a bit of humdrum; that the ongoing struggle to stay safe in this time of COVID has dampened my enthusiasm for Doing and that the current state of affairs in our country and world have made me very weary.
September is a season of homecoming for us UUs. And renewal is central to that. At the opening of each new church year, we renew our commitments to each other and our church community. We renew our energy for another year of journeying together.
In our culture and secular lives, the questions we ask about renewal focus mainly on health (Are you drinking enough water? Are you getting enough sleep?”) and work/life balance (Are you making enough time for family, play and rest?). Those are fine questions, but they don’t take us very deep or push us very far.
This month’s theme of Renewal prompts us to renew our very questions about renewal. Perhaps we need to be asking:
Are you sure it’s your body that’s tired, or could it be your soul?
What if “time away” isn’t about restoring ourselves in order to return to our work, but instead about making space to decide if it’s time to reconfigure ourselves and re-imagine what our true “work” is?
Is it time to renew your responsibility to those who will come after you?
Is it time to renew your commitment to carry on the work of those who came before us?
What if you saw your daily living and loving as an opportunity (even a calling) to renew others’ faith in humanity?
Could it be that continual self-improvement is not the path to renewal but instead compassionate acceptance of who you already are, warts and all?
What if renewing our common future isn’t just about moving forward, but instead requires a return to an honest telling of the past?
And that’s just a few questions that are sitting on top of the pile!
So friends, this month let’s dig in together and deeply examine the ways and reasons we might find and live Renewal.
Let’s renew and refresh the renewal questions we ask.
Meeting The World
There is a wind that keeps blowing since the beginning of time, and in every language ever spoken, it continues to whisper, you must meet the outer world with your inner world or existence will crush you. If inner does not meet outer, our lives will collapse and vanish. Though we often think that hiding our inwardness will somehow protect or save us, it is quite the opposite. The heart is very much like a miraculous balloon. Its lightness comes from staying full, meeting the days with our heart prevents collapse.
This is why 90-year old widows remain committed to tending small flowers in the spring; why 10-year olds with very little to eat care for stray kittens, holding them to their skinny chests; why painters going blind paint more; why composers going deaf write great symphonies. This is why when we think when we can’t possibly try again, we let out a sigh that goes back through the centuries, and then, despite all our experience, we inhale and try again.
By Bridget Laflin
Director of Religious Education
Hello WUUC!
Summer is winding down and we are ramping up for a church and school year like no other. All of us are feeling the pressure of figuring out how to create a new normal during these challenging times. WUUC’s Religious Education Committee is no different.
But we are very excited about the upcoming church year and the offerings we are preparing for religious education for children and youth. We will be kicking off our fall RE program on Sept. 20. Here are just a few highlights:
· All Ages Interactive Chapel on Sunday mornings
· Online Bitmoji RE classroom that students can access whenever they want
· Social justice projects for junior and senior youth
· Coming of Age program for 9-11 graders
· Monthly online regional youth cons
We will be reaching out to ALL members of the congregation to ask for support for our online RE programs. Since much of the content will be pre-recorded and the children will access it at their convenience, we will be looking for people from the congregation to make short recordings so that our children get exposure to the faces and voices of their church family. We will be looking for people to record some of the following things to share with the class:
· Chalice Lightings / Extinguishings
· Reading or telling stories
· Craft / art demonstrations
· Songs
· Movement exercises (body prayers, yoga, dances etc)
· Nature discoveries
· Demonstrate a skill (building, cooking, garden etc.)
· Messages of encouragement / affirmation
· Puppet shows
· Other???
We can’t wait to share in the experiences of our talented congregation!