By Leslie Morton
The Rummage Sale will be on Friday and Saturday, June 3-4 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
This is a big fundraiser for WUUC. Help is needed during and after the sale. Questions? Reach out to members of the committee: Leslie Morton, Dewey Millar, Linda McCrystal, Marlene Katz and Tevina Flood. Thank you!
by Lori Varosh
Outgoing Office Administrator
I am delighted to introduce May Killorin (pronounced kah-lor’-in), who has been hired as the new WUUC Office Administrator. She and I will work together until the end of June.
May lives in Lake Forest Park. She grew up attending University Unitarian Church in Seattle, where she became very involved in leadership. She is now involved in national UU young adult groups.
She graduated from Western Washington University in June 2020 with degrees in the Global Humanities of Religion and Culture, and Theater Stage Management.
May loves to listen to music, dance, play board games and cook.
Please be patient with her (I know you will be!) There is a lot to learn!
As I prepare to retire, I want to thank you all for making my 14 years as office administrator a warm and enjoyable experience. You have been a wonderful congregation to work for and with.
By Rev. Jennifer A. Hackett
UUCE Minister of Pastoral Care & Adult Faith Formation
I am writing to you today to let you know that our colleague, the Rev. Lois Van Leer will be participating in the Service of the Living Tradition to signify her retirement from parish ministry.
Rev. Lo was my teaching minister last year when I was a ministerial intern at the UU Church in Eugene, OR. She mentored me and is now a friend.
The UU Church in Eugene is assembling a card bouquet to present to her after the service on 06/23. (Sadly, I believe the service is being restricted just to Assembly registrants due to Covid protocols).
We welcome cards mailed to the UU Church in Eugene ℅ Rev. Lois Van Leer 1685 W. 13th Ave Eugene, OR 97402 by Wednesday, June 15.
Kind regards,
Jennifer
“I guess after plan A fails, I need to remember there’s still a whole alphabet out there.”
Who of us doesn’t need a little help remembering that? Especially after enduring Covid for so long. The war in Ukraine, hatred and violence across the nation, the ongoing reckoning with racism, the world’s inability to deal with climate change. And political division. You get the point.
It’s easy to feel demoralized, daunted and defeated these days. With so many things going wrong, it’s easy to overlook the many things going right.
For Unitarian Universalists, this tunnel vision is the central tragedy of the human condition. Which is also why blessings are so core to our faith. They are our way of widening our view.
As UU’s we don’t say a lot of blessings. But we do point to them. For us, blessings are not so much about giving something to each other or receiving something from on high, as they are about helping each other notice all that’s already been given. To notice and to live into blessings prompts us to live in balance and experience joy and gratitude even when tumult surrounds us.
And it’s not just about widening our view to see the gifts and blessings themselves; it’s about widening our understanding of life. Pointing to blessings repairs our relationship with life, allowing us to see it as generous instead of indifferent or threatening. And that’s no small thing. Because when the world seems stingy with us, we start getting stingy with others. In contrast, those who feel blessed have little trouble passing blessings on. Life spills into us and we spill into others.
And in that overflow, it does indeed get a whole lot easier to notice that there is, most certainly, a whole alphabet out there.
Submitted by Linda Sherry, and modified from the June 2022 Soul Matters materials. Soul Matters is a UU guide for monthly themes available to All UU Congregations. Please consider bringing these themes to your WUUC small groups, circle suppers, even committee meetings. And to those you know outside our community – just imagine if more and more people could balance their life, to sooth their suffering by including and embracing the blessings, wherever they can be found. — and they are everywhere when you know how to look.
Find the June Soul Matters packet here.
In person congregational and choral singing has resumed at WUUC. To continue prioritizing the health and safety of all who attend as well as our larger communities, we ask that service attendees wear N95 or KN95 masks if they plan to sing. We will provide this higher quality mask to individuals who may show up to the service without one. We believe these higher quality masks, in addition to the other COVID safety measures we already have in place, will allow us to safely bring back choral and congregational singing during Sunday worship services.
Bringing back singing is an exciting step for our congregation. While this is a positive development toward a more fully reopened church, we are aware that the pandemic is not over. COVID cases are again on the rise and the pandemic continues to evolve with new variants. It is possible that we will need to move back to tighter restrictions again.
The COVID Response Team will continue meeting regularly to monitor COVID cases numbers and hospitalization rates, and these precautions are subject to change.
Please remember to bring your N95/KN95 with you on Sunday if you plan to sing! Again, we will have extras if someone needs one.
With gratitude,
The COVID Response Team:
Leslie Morton
Emily Kuo
Lane Owsley
Barbara Ramey
Kerrie Vespaziani
Questions:
By Carol Taylor
One of the things I appreciate about being a UU is our willingness to question previous doctrine and tradition, and adapt to what is needed here and now.
Check out the latest issue of UU World, Stitching a Layered Faith, for stories of how the UUA and UU organizations are addressing changes outlined in the Widening the Circle of Concern report from the Commission on Institutional Change.
“This ability to grow, change, and adapt is a fundamental expression of our living tradition” (from “Embracing an Ethic of Love” by Rev. Dr. Susan Frederick-Gray). “Unitarian Universalist programs seek not only social justice in the wider society, but cultural transformation within” (from “Change from the Inside Out” by Elaine McArdle).
If you have not had a chance to read the WCOC report, it’s available in full online and there are hard copies available at the church. See for yourself what issues are being discussed and considered.