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Theme: Renewal
Theme: Renewal
(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.
Notes for Earth: Stubborn Optimism
by John Hartman
The world must reduce its carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2030 to have hope for a livable future. And we must be living in a carbon neutral, regenerative world by 2050.
The good news is: We Can Do This!
That’s the conclusion of “The Future We Choose,” a book members of the WUUC Climate Justice Committee have been reading the last couple of months.
The authors — Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac — were among the chief architects of the 2015 Paris Agreement, the landmark accord in which nearly every nation in the world pledged to try to limit the rise in global temperature. Because of this experience, “The Future We Choose” is a mix of solutions-driven optimism and political pragmatism.
The authors are realists. They know that even in a best-case scenario some things will get worse before they get better. The emissions we’ve sent into the atmosphere to date guarantee dangerous heat waves and rising seas for decades to come. But to avoid the worst-case scenario, most countries will have to implement green solutions — many of which already exist or will soon exist. The issue is not the lack of solutions. The issue is the willingness of governments, corporations and individuals to implement the solutions. In much of the book, the authors challenge each individual to do what governments and corporations cannot or will not do. Do not be defeated by short-term setbacks (Stubborn Optimism). See yourself as a citizen not a consumer. Engage in politics. Let go of the old world. Face your grief but hold a vision for the future.
We know we can do this. Since January, the Covid-19 pandemic has led to a shift in human activity around the globe. There are millions of people who have adopted a collective sense of mission — the willingness to restrict our activities for a time to protect the vulnerable. This is the attitude we need to adopt for climate change — to treat it like a crisis we intend to solve.
This is how the authors end the book:
“We want you to know two things.
“First, even at this late hour we still have a choice about our future, and therefore every action we take from this moment forward counts.
“Second, we are capable of making the right choices about our own destiny. We are not doomed to a devastating future, and humanity is not flawed and incapable of responding to big problems, if we act.”
In the October and November WUUC Newsletters, Notes4Earth will discuss sections of The Future We Choose in more detail.
Worship Team Update: 2020-2021 Soul Matters Themes
By Donna Johnson
The worship team is looking forward to the 2020-2021 church year with our new minister, Dan Lillie.
WUUC subscribes to Soul Matters. The Soul Matters web site says, “The Soul Matters Sharing Circle is a network of Unitarian Universalist congregations who follow the same monthly themes so we can more easily share small group material, as well as worship, sermon, music and children’s religious education resources. We are a web of support and connection. Companions traveling a new journey together each month.”
The themes for 2020-2021 are:
September: Renewal
October: Deep Listening
November: Healing
December: Stillness
January: Imagination
February: Beloved Community
March: Commitment
April: Becoming
May: Story
June: Play
The Minister, Worship Team, and Religious Education committee use these themes to help plan the focus of each month during the church year. Each month a member of the Worship Team writes an article for the WUUC newsletter about the theme of the month. This month Linda Sherry provides an article on “Renewal” based on the September Soul Matters materials.
Please let the Worship Team know if you have contributions for worship based on one of the themes for the upcoming year. Once a month our minister is not “in the pulpit,” and we welcome lay speakers and worship leaders to provide sermons and homilies. We also welcome short reflections, readings, poems, music, and art based on the Soul Matters themes.
Give the Gift of Life
Bloodworks will conduct a pop-up Blood Drive in the WUUC sanctuary Tuesday through Thursday, Sept. 8-10, between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Donations are by appointment only. Face masks are required.
Please avoid visiting the church during this drive, except to donate blood.
For information on how to schedule an appointment, please contact Dewey Millar, 425-867-1781 (call or text).
Nonfiction Book Club – Fall 2020
Join us on Saturday, Oct. 10 at 7 p.m. via Zoom for a meeting of the WUUC Nonfiction Book Club. We will be discussing Daring to Drive by Manal al-Sharif. RSVP to Alaine, alaine.davis@yahoo.com.
“Manal al-Sharif grew up in Mecca the second daughter of a taxi driver, born the year fundamentalism took hold. In her adolescence, she was a religious radical, melting her brother’s boy band cassettes in the oven because music was haram: forbidden by Islamic law. But what a difference an education can make. By her twenties she was a computer security engineer, one of few women working in a desert compound that resembled suburban America. That’s when the Saudi kingdom’s contradictions became too much to bear: she was labeled a slut for chatting with male colleagues, her teenage brother chaperoned her on a business trip, and while she kept a car in her garage, she was forbidden from driving down city streets behind the wheel.
“‘Daring to Drive’ is the fiercely intimate memoir of an accidental activist, a powerfully vivid story of a young Muslim woman who stood up to a kingdom of men — and won. Writing on the cusp of history, Manal offers a rare glimpse into the lives of women in Saudi Arabia today. Her memoir is a remarkable celebration of resilience in the face of tyranny, the extraordinary power of education and female solidarity, and the difficulties, absurdities, and joys of making your voice heard.”
–-Bookbrowse.com
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.