7 Mar News and Notes

The Children’s story today was the Hindu story of Trishanku.  He was the arrogant prince who tried to enter heaven as a mortal with his body.  Through a series of unfortunate events, he managed to get himself suspended in a place that was neither heaven nor was it on earth… and, by the way, he was upside down.

We are all souls who want to belong somewhere.  Many of us are hybrids or hyphenated people of multiple faiths and beliefs.  The culture, however, prefers easily defined lables… no hyphens allowed.  All those who believe like they do are the saved humans and everything else is less than human.  They have identified themselves by whom they exclude.

The great thing about the UU church is that religious hyphens aren’t just tollerated, but are welcomed as the first-choice sort of people.  The hypens are accepted as seekers and not just tolerated as religious peeping-toms.   Sometimes ideas come out and are explored in our UU congregations that make us feel uncomfortable, but we keep returning because we know we are not alone.  Love has no boundaries or barriers, because we are ALL on the same side of love.

The UU General Assembly is in Minneapolis later this year.  If anyone is interested in going please see Stan.  Another one of the friends of this congregation is under threat of lay-off and, subsequently, will be losing health care benefits.  We lit a candle for the Congress and the President to find a solution to the health care problem in this country.  Kimberly has the joy of a new job offer and the concern of what on earth to do about care for little Owen.  Courage has had a health setback also… he has fallen on his injured arm and the re-injury has threatened his ability to get back to work before he too has a problem with health care benefits.

Sue was soliciting information about what people want to have in the way of Sunday services.  She has a nifty form for you to fill out to tell her what you want to have more of and what you want to have less of.  You need not be afraid of it because the categories are already lined up on the page… you don’t have to think up categories of stuff on your own.  Just see Sue, OK?

31 January News and Notes

The Humanist meeting last week was lauded with much enthusiasm.  Next meeting of the Humanist group is Feb 28 when they will discuss Greg Epstein’s book

евтини мебелиGood Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe

Friday Feb 5, 2010 Jim and Sue are going to give dance lessons at the church.  First up is the Cha Cha…  the basic steps for getting along at any wedding now-a-days, everyone is invited to come out and learn just enough to not make a fool of themselves on the dance floor.  Expertise will come later… right now we are just trying to get everyone up and out of their chairs.

Today Shawn gave us an excellent introduction to meditation.  We were growing in harmony with the divine.  After the introduction to what meditation is all about, he brought us through a guided meditation.

24 January News and Notes

Jan and Becca explained the state of the planet.

Announcements:  The Three Cranes are inviting us to celebrate on January 31, 2010 at Feast of Imbolc.  See www.threecranes.org for details.

The joint Jan and Shawn birthday party/pot luck was very successful.  Betty has volunteered to provide reminder call service to anyone who wants to attend the monthly pot-lucks but cannot be lucky enough to remember it when the right week rolls around on the calendar.  Contact Betty for the reminder service (if you can remember to do that).

After the pot luck Sue and Jim took some food over to Connie and Gordon.  They report that Connie is looking very good although she tires very quickly.

Jan presented some of the latest information on how planet A was doing.  When we make planet A unlivable, we shall all embark for planet B… when we discover planet B… and a way to get to planet B.  Meanwhile, the rate of tuberculosis seems to be a measure of how bad the air pollution is in a region.  When the

Becca presented some of the news from Copenhagen.  The big story was that the Northern most nations and the island nations are the vulnerable ones who have to suffer the most from the climate chaos.  The industrialized nations can continue to enjoy the benefits of dumping pollution into the sky and force those nations to pay the price.  It’s like being able to dump your garbage over the fence into your neighbor’s yard when they aren’t allowed to stop you from doing it… and they have no ability to clean it up or move it.  They simply have to live with the consequences of all your cat litter and rotten vegetables being thrown into their back yard.

Becca played a video called Tick Tick Tick… or tck tck tck.   It seems that the young have a better understanding that eventually all that garbage is going to be a problem for them, even while their elders are laughing at the poor people who have to suffer from their profligate pollution habits.   If anyone knows where to link to that video, contact me at rpittaway@yahoo.com and I will post it here.

17 January News and Notes

Kalen received his new member packet from Betty today.

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.

2009 December 20 News and Notes

This was the seasonal celebration of sharing day.

The choir sang Carol of the Bells.

Kimberly announced that UUCE has a Facebook page and a twitter account.

Betty shared some bulletins from past years of seasonal celebrations.   Thanks were offered to Mary Woodward who contributed the cover art for the 2009 seasonal celebration of sharing.

Kimberly sang “Oh Holy Night”.

Perry read his poem “Midwinter Sunset”

Rick talked about the importance of bells to his family memories.

Lisa read her poem about friends that she wrote at age 16… see below

Sue and Jim performed a wonderful dance.  It looked as if they had been practicing for weeks and it was later revealed that they are so good together that they do that without much practice at all.

Leesa read a poem by Dan Ralph Miller.

Shawn read a piece by Lao-Tse that was quoted in the book In Nature’s Honor by Patricia Montley

Matt J shared his humorful drawings.

About Friends

When the world gets you down,
And you feel like giving up,
Look up into the sky and dream.
Dream of the good times that were,
And of the good times to be.
In all your life, the good outweighs the bad.
But, when all seems lost,
Remember your friends.

When you’re up and everything’s fine,
Take time to look at your world.
Watch and listen till it all fits –
The children, the animals, and the flowers.
When it all comes together,
You’ll realize your life’s worth living.
But, when all seems lost,
Remember your friends.

When you’ve grown and moved away,
Don’t forget the good times and dreams.
Ever remember the children and animals,
And, when you visit at home,
Stop and pick some of those flowers
For the friends you’ve remembered.
And, when all seems lost,
Your friends will remember you.

Lisa A. (age 16)