Filmmaker Vivien Hao is making a documentary film that uplifts and spotlights Asian and Pacific Islander Unitarian Universalists. The film needs your compelling story of experiences in general communities or Unitarian Universalist spaces. All people who identify as Asian and Pacific Islander and Unitarian Universalist in Washington State are invited to submit their stories for consideration to be in the film.
Join us on Saturday, April 2, 2022 at 7 p.m. for a meeting of the WUUC Nonfiction Book Club, hosted by Alaine Davis and Lane Owsley. We are planning for an in-person gathering, but will adjust if necessary. We will discuss Having and Being Had by Eula Biss. RSVP to Alaine.
Having and Being Had is a timely and arresting new look at affluence by New York Times bestselling author Eula Biss. “My adult life can be divided into two distinct parts,” Biss writes, “the time before I owned a washing machine and the time after.” Having just purchased her first home, she now embarks on a roguish and risky self-audit of the value system she has bought into. The result is a radical interrogation of work, leisure, and capitalism. Described by The New York Times as a writer who “advances from all sides, like a chess player,” Biss brings her approach to the lived experience of capitalism. Playfully ranging from IKEA to Beyoncé to Pokemon, across bars and laundromats and universities, she asks, of both herself and her class, “In what have we invested?”
(Modified from Better World Books)
Four times a year, the WUUC Book Discussion Group gathers to read and talk about a nonfiction book. You only attend the meetings about books that interest you, so we end up with a different group of participants every time. We meet to connect and talk about a book in depth. Anyone is welcome to suggest a book and/or lead a discussion. Contact Alaine to RSVP, suggest a book, or offer to host a future discussion.
Please join us online Saturday, Feb. 12, 2022 from 4-6 p.m. as we kick off this year’s drive with updates from Rev. Dan plus music, socializing, and community. Bring your aspirations for the new year and your hibernation stories. (Donor Appreciation Event)
Re-Emergence is the theme for this year’s annual budget drive as we anticipate increasing opportunities to gather together again this year and next.
Co-hosts for this year’s drive are Jane Flood and Linda McCrystal.
Both will provide information and updates on our drive at our All Supporters Get Together Feb. 12 and on Sundays during our drive, Feb. 27 – March 20. (Annual Budget Drive Kickoff)
There are holy rats who live in an Indian temple and are revered. There are lab rats who save our lives. (I had breast cancer, and the drugs which were developed by giving cancer genes to rats, saved my life.) There are pet rats who love their humans. There are wild rats who I keep out of my house.
There are two species of common rats, the ones who kind of look like hamsters and the ones who look kind of scary until you really look at them carefully and notice that they are actually cute. However, another species, which is very big, are known as Hero Rats. They detect live mines and tuberculosis in third world countries. They save thousands of human lives. I adopted one in Vietnam last year. I gave money for her care.
I volunteered at American Cancer Society for 16 years, in order to help raise funds for cancer research. That means I helped purchase lab animals. I am grateful to them, sad for them, and feel guilty.
In 2003, before my cancer bout and before my work with the cancer society, I fell in love with two beautiful female rats who became my pets. They can learn their names and respond to us when we call them. They are adorable and sweet, unless they have been mistreated and/or ill.
Since 2013, I’ve been a director at an animal shelter called Best Friend Rodent Rescue. We have a lot of abandoned animals who either were pets or were used as psychological experiments at a local university. I adopt the needy ones, so I get bit once in a while, but I also have ones who grow to trust and love me. I currently have 3 sweet critters. Please consider adopting pet rats at http://bfrr.org
Many thanks for donating to our November and December ASJ Special Collections. The November collection of $505 went to Lavender Rights Project, a grassroots organization providing legal services by and for trans and non-binary people, with a focus on serving the Black and Indigenous gender diverse community. The December collection of $830 benefitted the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, a nonprofit, nonsectarian organization advancing human rights together with an international community of grassroots partners and advocates.
The ASJ Committee thanks WUUC members and friends for their generous support of our monthly special collections, which take place during services on the third Sunday of every month. Instructions for giving are posted during the service, and you can also donate anytime the following week at https://onrealm.org/wuuc/-/give/now, or by sending a check to WUUC at P.O. Box 111, Woodinville, WA 98072. Please make checks out to WUUC and write “ASJ Special Collection” in the notes.
