WUUC’s Advocates for Social Justice is joining JUUstice Washington as they focus their legislative advocacy positions and actions on the Take Action Network, a web platform designed for those who want to be more civically engaged in Washington State.
Please click on https://www.takeaction.network/users/new?invitation_token=heauycUyneq62Eu28HmFHg to join the Take Action Network. You’ll be provided with an initial profile that will allow you to follow JUUstice Washington’s legislative advocacy work and actions (and those of other advocacy organizations) that most relate to your primary issues and the types of events and civil actions of most interest to you. TAN also allows you to customize the information you receive. We hope that you will include actions and events from JUUstice Washington in your TAN list of sources.
See you there!
And, of course, we will continue to provide more information and additional events on the JUUstice Washington website (http://juustwa.org) and though our direct communications with you. To learn more, you can also join the 3rd Tuesday Emergent Conversations each month organized by our JUUstice Washington Revitalization Project interns Sahar and Elle. Check the website for more information.
We will be making available TAN training information in the coming weeks to help you get the most out of this new resource.
We also encourage Washington UU congregations to facilitate their members joining TAN.
Hello WUUC! My name is Emily Kuo-Lillie. I am married to Rev. Dan Lillie. I am thrilled to share a bit of my journey that led me to becoming a bone marrow donor and now a donor care coordinator with the National Marrow Donor Program, also known as Be The Match.
After graduating from nursing school in 2014, I began working at a pediatric hospital in Denver. While I cared for a wide variety of patients, I quickly found my love for pediatric hematology and oncology nursing. This very special patient population inspired me to join the Be The Match Registry. With a simple cheek swab you are placed on the registry with the hopes that someday you could answer the call to help a patient with a life-threatening blood cancer or other type of blood disorder. I was also moved to join when I learned that people of color have a significantly lower chance of finding a bone marrow donor because of a lack of diversity on the registry.
In July 2020, I got that life-changing call that there was a child in need of a bone marrow transplant, and I was their match! At the time our daughter Natalie was just 5 months old and we were about to move to Washington so Dan could begin working as your minister. Thankfully, Be The Match was able to arrange my donation here with the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. My short surgery was a major success, and the team was able to collect all the healthy stem cells my young recipient needed. That same day a courier traveled by plane, train, and automobile to deliver my cells to the other side of the world.
I was so moved by my donation experience and the exceptional care I received that I applied to work as a donor care coordinator with Be The Match in October 2021. Now I get to help other donors prepare for their donations and advocate for their needs. I keep my former pediatric patients and my bone marrow recipient close to my heart as I do this work. It is an honor to take part in this life-saving work!
There are a few major misconceptions that I wish to clear up about Be The Match. First, more than 80% of donations do not require surgery but instead involve 5 days of medication follow by an apheresis procedure similar to donating plasma. The less common surgical procedure takes about 90 minutes, the pain is minimal, and most donors fully recover within a couple weeks.
While only 0.3% of individuals on the registry go on to donate, all 12.5 million members of the registry are incredible symbols of hope. Joining the registry is free and easy, and even if you do not donate, perhaps you will inspire someone else to join the registry who does match with a patient. As a Unitarian Universalist and humanist, I believe we are all on this Earth to find ways to support and help one another as we journey through life. Please reach out to me if you have any questions about Be The Match or visit www.bethematch.org to learn more!
By Linda Sherry Worship Support Specialist For me, the word Faith is difficult – what does Faith even mean?? Personally, the idea of faith in God, is quite foreign to me. So how does Faith play out in the Unitarian Universalist perspective? What is Faith, if it does not refer to God? Does the word have any meaning or significance for me?
Yes, it does, and faith mysteriously sustains me. Perhaps we can explore our own perspectives on Faith with each other this month.
Here are some thoughts adapted from the Soul Matters materials for this Month:
The word Faith didn’t enter the English language until the 1200s after the Norman invasion, via the Old French ‘feid’ — in turn from the Latin ‘semper fidelis’ (always loyal). Its meaning then had nothing to do with belief in the absence of evidence, but rather with keeping promises and being worthy of trust; it was not a statement about belief, but about behavior. Over time, the religious notion of Faith came into play and came to suggest: One who is faithful to God is one who keeps God’s commandments. Faith, then, was believing that if one keeps to God’s commandments, God will reward them, either now or in the afterlife.
Sometimes talking about faith can wind us in circles. Ultimately, faith is too complex, visceral and personal to be easily defined, much less shared.
All of us know what it’s like to lose our faith. We’ve been betrayed by a relationship, let down by our church community, or convinced that life just won’t get better. For many, our greatest faith can sometimes be the belief that life and others don’t deserve our faith in them.
But sometimes our doubts need to be doubted. Sometimes life and the people around us need to be given a second chance.
More often than not, we can’t find or renew our faith on our own. It takes others. It takes exchanging ideas with others. It takes observing other and realizing that theircommitment to justice renews our faith that a better world is possible. Their compassion and kindness (even when they have struggles of their own), renews our faith in humanity. Their bravery reignites our faith in ourselves.
So who is that “other” for you? Whose faithfulness renews your own?
And perhaps most importantly, have you told them?! Why is that so important? Well, simply put, telling them they sustain your faithfulness helps them sustain theirs. It keeps them going. It’s a gift to them. A gift that honors the gift they gave you.
So let me say, right here and right now, that this beloved spiritual community, of which YOU are a part, gives me strength to get through the rough stuff – helps me know that there’s always someone who will take my arm when I lose my balance, who will remind me of what a difference I CAN make, and reminds me that the values we share are worth living fully — You give me the faith to go on.
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)
