We lit a candle for Emily’s friend’s father who had a heart attack.  Betty has created new art for us to wear in late summer.  Everyone should display theirs when you come to church on Sunday.  It is the little art card.  Your name is written on yours so you know which piece of art you are supposed to wear.

Jim spoke to us about unknown unknowns.  In epistemology (the theory of knowledge and how knowledge is aquired), the term unknown unknown refers to circumstances or outcomes that were not conceived of by an observer at a given point in time. The meaning of the term becomes more clear when it is contrasted with the known unknown, which refers to circumstances or outcomes that are known to be possible, but it is unknown whether or not they will be realized.  Jim pointed out the differences between people who read the signs but don’t comprehend them (that is, people who know that they have been warned even if they do not understand the threat) and people who don’t read the signs (that is, people who have no idea that a warning has been given and a threat is imminent.)  Knowing what you don’t know is the first step in learning.  If you don’t even know that you lack knowledge, then you are not prepared to learn.  For example, if your religion teachs with certainty that what is said in the Christian bible is without factual error, then anything that conflicts with that certainty will be forever closed and unknown you.

Where do we look for answers?  Where do we look for questions?  Each of us has a set of filters that we wear so that we don’t have to comprehend everything our senses see and hear.  What senses do we not possess, such that we dont even understand what we cannot comprehend?

Anosognosia is a condition in which a person who suffers disability seems unaware of or denies the existence of his or her disability or defect.  See: pointy-haired boss.

In the end, reality is what our senses percieve if BP allows us to know it.

Rick

Our refrigerator has started using very high amounts of electricity.  A recycling grant of $50 is available to the church if we replace it with an efficient model.

PotLuck was last night.  (Come the third Saturday of every month for dinner and a movie.

We lit a candle for Betty, who is still sick, one for Marco who is moving to California and a candle for the earth.

Mark Waite came to talk to us about Sustainable Reynoldsburg.  It is a new community group started by just six residents in Reynoldsburg in 2009.  Mark said it was a pair of long words that, even taken together are not terribly grand.    Yet, they are making changes.

The planning and development of suburbs such as Reynoldsburg Ohio was based on the belief that there were no serious limits to cheap fossil fuels and other natural resources.  The planners believed that our world will take all the greenhouse gas and pollution we throw at it.   They believed that national chains are an adequate substitute for locally-owned businesses  with a stake in the community.

Sustainable Reynoldsburg sees things differently and want to nurture a sense of community and take better care of our local and global environment.  The vision for the group is to foster a way for people to connect with each other to do good things.  They are trying to create a way for local residents to connect for practical action, positive discussion, and information to help make our community and homes resilient, liveable, and healthful into the future.

The “sustainable” movement is a wide variety of local groups.  Mark has worked in other countries and he said members of communities have common circumstances the world over.  Being a citizen is

In Candide by Voltaire, the hero travels the world over looking for perfection and ends up believing that working at home, as an individual, is important work.  What does it mean to be a member of the Reynoldsburg community?  This was the question also raised by David Soliday last week.  According to Mark, it is partly to extend love to those around us and to be politically engaged to achieve wider change.  What do we do in Reynoldsburg to affect climate change?  For one thing, every time we tromp on the gas pedal we use finite resources.

Being a citizen is inextricable from being a good environmental citizen.  Being a good citizen is being a good neighbor.  Being a good neighbor involves sharing resources.

Sustainable Reynoldsburg is a very small active group of local residents who asked what can be done to help the community be resilient.  As residents of Reynoldsburg (if only by church affiliation)  “they” becomes “we.”  We meet every 3 to 4 months.  We use the group to combine energies but have not done anything to cause great publicity to come upon us.

Safe routes to schools:  Anew initiate to help students walk and bike safely to school.  Each school has a transportation plan, bike safety training, safety enforcement.  Some schools start ‘walking schoolbuses.”  We hope to leverage this beyond children to get people to ask why is the community question always framed in terms of cost instead of value.

Livingston Community garden:  We are the motivating force behind this aspect of the city initiative to revitalize the Brice Livingston neighborhood.  In taking responsibility to lay out plots when the snow was still on the ground, we find that others enthusiastically follow.

http:/groups.google.com/group/sustainable-reynoldsburg/

The children’s story this week is “OH the places you’ll go”

Our Community is Our Mountain.  It is said, don’t bring the mountain to Mohamed, bring Mohamed to the Mountain.

We host AA meetings and The Humanist groups.  We support individuals and we support each other.  We invite out members to speak here on Sundays.  We have something to offer the neighborhood, the City, the World.

Neighborhood churches transform neighborhoods.  Hospitality, discernment, healing, contemplation, testimony (Sharing transformation), diversity, Justice in how we treat each other,  worship in how we celebrate what is good, reflection in how we see things from other’s prospective, beauty.

Transformation takes place at the grass roots level.  We are the community, we should be involved in the community.

Whatever you ask for in faith, you shall receive.

    There are two locations in Columbus. Hoover Dam and Weiland Park (a city park near OSU campus). The assembly time will be 11 am.  It will take longer to drive than to carry through the symbolic action. To be a part of the visible reaction of individuals to powerful energy industries is small but united can be potent. Also UU First Church is informed and invited to participate in Hand Across the Sand.
   For info and directions go to: 
   http://handsacrossthesand.org/organize.php?state=Ohio

If you have any questions contact Becca at (614) 260-1319

or  nicole.sierraclub@gmail.com (614) 461-0734 ext306

The Space Cadets have really cleaned up the sanctuary to make more… um… space.  The Statue of Liberty was bubble-wrapped and stored… ok, she was put out on the back porch but there is a foot of snow on the ground right now.  The easy chair was easily taken by Material Subsistence Providers who apparently take furniture and keep it until someone needs it.  I couldn’t find a link on the internet to this outfit so you have to take the Space Cadet’s word for it.

A group called Sustainable Reynoldsburg has contacted us to inquire whether we would be interested in participating in their community garden project.  We told them our garden project had guardn’ problems because the rabbits and raccoons feasted until the deer came to muscle them aside.  Anyone interested in participating in Sustainable Reynoldsburg can find out more at:   http://groups.google.com/group/sustainable-reynoldsburg?lnk=srq

The Potluck is canceled for February 2010.  We are all looking forward to March.  More snow tomorrow– President’s day.  Stay healthy.

Rick

Today, Gordon informs us that Connie’s funeral Mass at St. Pius X has been moved up one hour.  The viewing will be at 10 and the Mass will begin at 11:00

St Pius is at 1051 Waggoner Rd in Reynoldsburg.

http://www.spxreynoldsburg.com/

Courage had surgery on his shoulder but has come  through the surgery well.

We were all asked to consider “Dreams” for Martin Luther King’s birthday.  Particularly, David asked us to define the “American Dream.”  Being Americans, we were all asked about whether we were happy, since the Declaration of Independence specifically mentions life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.  Happiness is not being offered, only the right to pursue it.  Martin Luther King’s dream was, in part, to eradicate the effects of poverty in America.  When he died, he was helping out the sanitation workers.

This idea of the American dream is harder to figure out than it used to be.  Once it could have simply been that every American has the opportunity to move up in the world without regard to previous social status.  It was also tied to the hope and dream that one’s children had the opportunity to achieve a better life than you yourself had achieved.  This was certainly true in the 19th century when there was plenty of land to homestead and cities were growing up where there had only been grass and trees just a scant few years back.  Today, the American dream has changed into something different than it was.