Adult Programs - Awakening the Sage Within - A FREE workshop with Connie Zweig
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you really are.” ~ Carl Jung
Today, for the first time in history, most people approaching their elder years can expect to live for another two or three decades. But how do you want to live those years? Research now shows that people with positive self-perceptions as they age will live longer, healthier lives.
We will gather for two 3-hour workshops to explore Sage-ing or conscious aging, a model for late life that can help us to live with more awareness, joy, and purpose facilitated by Connie Zweig, Ph.D. Sat. April 27, 2:00-5:00 pm and Sunday, April 28 2:00-5:00 pm Unitarian Universalist Church: 1260 18th St.
FREE! PRE REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED.
Contact the Director of RE dre@uusm.org
Recommended reading:
"From Age-ing to Sage-ing"
by Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi.
A FREE workshop with Connie Zweig, Ph.D.
Sat. April 27, 2:00-5:00 pm and Sun. April 28 2:00-5:00 pm
Unitarian Universalist Church: 1260 18th St.
The Program: Today, for the first time in history, most people approaching their elder years can expect to live for another two or three decades. But how do you want to live those years? Research now shows that people with positive self-perceptions as they age will live longer, healthier lives.
We will gather for two 3-hour workshops to explore Sage-ing or conscious aging, a model for late life that can help us to live with more awareness, joy, and purpose. This inner work of aging opens the opportunity for seniors to become Elders--Awakening the Sage Within.
We will introduce aging as a spiritual journey, our images/fears of aging, harvesting wisdom from our life review, forgiveness to release the past, and facing our mortality.
The Presenter: Connie has been in private practice as a therapist in Los Angeles for 25 years. I am the co-author of the bestsellers Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow, author of Meeting the Shadow of Spirituality, and the forthcoming book The Reinvention of Age. I am a Certified Sage-ing Leader with Sage-ing International.
Pre-registration is required at dre@uusm.org. No walk-ins.
Recommended reading: From Age-ing to Sage-ing by Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi.
Date / Time:
Repeats every day until Sun Apr 28 2019 .
Saturday, April 27, 2019 - 2:00pm - 5:00pmSunday, April 28, 2019 - 2:00pm - 5:00pm
Lunches for Bunches
Please join the Hunger Task Force as we assemble bagged lunches for the homeless under the courtyard shade structure.
Date / Time:
Sunday, January 27, 2019 - 10:15am - 11:00am
Contact Name:
Patrick Meighan
RE - Safe Sitter Training
Safe Sitter Class! Safe Sitter® teaches young babysitters how to handle crises and how to nurture and guide young child. Safe Sitter® babysitters help children stay safe and sound while their parents are away. In the process, these 11 to 18-year-olds emerge as more confident, responsible and compassionate teens and adults.
Bring a lunch!
Contact Kathleen for more details and to sign up. uusmdre@gmail.com
Date / Time:
Saturday, February 16, 2019 - 9:00am - 4:00pm
Contact Name:
Kathleen Hogue
YRUU Fun Night
Date / Time:
Saturday, February 2, 2019 - 5:00pm - 9:00pm
Room:
Contact Name:
Kathleen Hogue
Nominating Committee Meeting
Date / Time:
Monday, February 4, 2019 - 6:30pm - 8:30pm
Room:
Contact Name:
Liza Cranis
Adult Programs - Men's Me Too
Join Rev. Greg for the next three Sundays, all men are invited to attend a class for men about gender inequity. We will explore what makes a man a man and what are kind of social conditioning goes into making a man that grants privilege and what goes in that is painful and even dehumanizing (for men as well as women).
Next dates: January 20 & January 27.
Contact Rev. Greg at revgreg@uusm.org. Read the Men #MeToo Class Note
Date / Time:
Repeats every week every Sunday until Sun Jan 27 2019 .
Sunday, January 13, 2019 - 12:45pm - 2:00pmSunday, January 20, 2019 - 12:45pm - 2:00pm
Sunday, January 27, 2019 - 12:45pm - 2:00pm
Room:
Contact Name:
Rev. Greg
Adult Programs - Women's Me Too
Date / Time:
Repeats every week every Sunday until Sun Jan 27 2019 .
Sunday, January 20, 2019 - 12:30pm - 2:30pmSunday, January 27, 2019 - 12:30pm - 2:30pm
Room:
Contact Name:
Robin Stillwater
Adult Programs - Women's Me Too
These classes run as a series. Please plan to attend them all. It will be a small class of 8 people max.
Please RSVP with Robin at internminister@uusm.org.
Date / Time:
Sunday, January 13, 2019 - 2:00pm - 4:00pm
Room:
Contact Name:
Robin Stillwater
Newsletter for January, 2019
From Our Minister:
To the Glory of Life: Possibility
Dear Friends,
If you’re like most human beings looking at the planet right now – or, even, just our little part of it – and you’ve experienced the sad frustration of intractability, you are who I am writing to now.
We live in a time of both inexhaustible potential – in terms of innovation, technology, intelligence and experience – and inexhaustible need. Somewhere, in the melding of these two realities, is the exciting realm of possibility. If you’ve ever wondered why, in the boundless array of opportunity before us, we fail to make the difference that is within us to make, you know the primary conundrum of the 21stcentury. To successfully answer what has brought the last few generations to stagnation, and prevents the next few generations from moving forward, we have to understand the art of possibility.
Consider this story about a shoe factory that sends two independent marketing scouts to a region of Africa. They wish to study the prospects for expanding business. One scout sends back a telegram saying,
SITUATION HOPELESS – STOP – NO ONE WEARS SHOES
The other – on the same day, in the same region – writes back triumphantly,
GLORIOUS BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY – STOP – THEY HAVE NO SHOES”
The theme of the month for January is ‘Possibility,’ and I can think of no more important or appropriate a topic for us to ponder as a church community who is re-examining its place and purpose in this new and unprecedented time in social, civil and global evolution.
I want to draw a little bit from a book written by Ben and Roz Zander about 15 years ago called the Art of Possibility. In it, they emphasize the importance for anyone who wants to have a relevant impact in an age of intractability, of letting go of what led you to a stuck place in order to pick up what will get you out. In other words, once you find yourself well over your head in a deep hole, it’s time to put down the shovel and look for what points ‘UP and out’ instead of what directed you to the ‘DOWN and out’ place you’re in.
To do this requires one of the easiest and most obvious – as well as illusive and hardest – changes: to recognize and let go of the agenda behind stuckness. The reason this is hard and doesn’t happen easily is because it’s so difficult to admit – or even recognize – we have an agenda in the first place. Agendas are often quite unconscious to the owner. And an unconscious agenda is often the greatest obstacle to moving forward.
Agendas – especially the unconscious kind – are often built using old unexamined hurts and fears assembled together to protect us from further pain. This is quite understandable. But it is often difficult to ‘protect’ and ‘perceive’ at the same time. A mind in ‘protection’ mode will only recognize a small bandwidth of available information to incorporate into problem solving. And keen, open perception – even information that, at first, seems uncomfortable – usually proves essential in constructing a solution with wide relevance.
The framing that comes from our minds can both define – and confine – perceptions of possibility. That crucial first glance where we project confidence and invitation – or doubt and obstruction – can allow something to appear inevitable or impossible depending on the framing we provide. Creative and open framing of data causes many problems to vanish and new opportunities to appear
The UUSM board is working really hard at framing new ways to see beyond old stuck-ness. They are casting a vision that allows groups new ways to apply energy previously lost to confusion, old assumptions, hurt or distrust. They are setting goals and re-imagining every task so that everyone knows what ‘done would look like
And it’s not just for us here at the church. It’s so we, collectively, can be about the important work of bringing together Love and Leadership so as to create Justice. It’s so we can be about our mission of helping the world around us get unstuck. And so we can all move beyond old agendas and embark upon new possibilities.
To the Glory of Life.
Featured Articles:
Welcome, New Members!
MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE ORGANIZES WELCOME
Our church welcomed six new members this past December 16: Erika Scremin, Dan Wunsch, Julia Barnett, Chuck Craig, Cedar Boschan, and Barbara Gluck.
We are reminded that the Welcoming Ceremony isn’t just about joining our church. It’s a multifaceted commitment, spanning our congregation, ourselves, and our world. It’s a commitment to secure the health of our church community through financial investment and voluntary support as each is willing, motivated, and able. It’s a commitment to personal growth in wisdom and the practice of relating to each other with acceptance and respect. It’s also a commitment towards social justice, a part of our grand mission.
So let us welcome, with wide arms, these six individuals who have found not just value in our church, but also personal fulfillment in joining us. We are all called to reach out to each one of these new members and invite them to participate in our grand adventure together.
Holiday 2018 Photoessay: Tradition and Fresh Perspectives
UUSM CELEBRATES THE SEASON
Photos by Carol Ring
News & Announcements:
Second Sunday Cinema: “The Great White Hoax: Donald Trump and the Politics of Race & Class in America”
Sunday, January 13, 7:30 p.m.
Join us after the Second Sunday Supper for this documentary, featuring Tim Wise, a prominent white antiracist author and educator. It explores the rise of Donald Trump and the way Trumpism reflects longstanding white racial resentment in America.
UU Rendez-Vous for the Women’s March
Saturday, January 19, 9:00 am
7th & Grand in Downtown LA, front of Bottega Louie
Join Faith In Action and UUs from all over the LA area for the 3rd annual LA Women’s March! Once again, we will march together to speak truth to power and bear witness to the force of thousands of our diverse friends and neighbors showing up for women’s rights and the worth and dignity of all.
Sunday, February 17 & February 24:
Dining for Dining for $$$ Dollars Auctions
We proudly announce that due to your amazing generosity and participation, the proceeds from last year's D4$, after expenses, was a record-breaking $37, 343. Our campaign for 2019 is about to start and soon you will hear from one of us as to how we can make 2019 another banner year. Time to start thinking about what event you might host in the coming year. If you want new ideas, please let us help, though we do love repeats! With sincere gratitude to all those who host and to all those who bid.
December UUSM News Podcast: News plus Rev. Greg on Holiday Services
UUSM’s Interfaith Quest RE class presents the December news podcast. Listen in for highlights from the online Newsletter plus an interview with Rev. Greg Ward. He discusses all the special holiday services being celebrated at “18th & Arizona.”
Let us know what you think, and share with your friends if you think these middle-schoolers deserve a thumbs up.
Splinters from the Board:
December 11, 2018 Board Meeting Highlights
The meeting began with the president’s message expressing a feeling of shared leadership and ownership.
The Rev. Kikanza Nuri-Robins asked for church sponsorship in becoming fellowshipped as a UU minister. The board was happy to approve.
We heartily welcome one new member, Julia Barnett. Two members have resigned, Ruth and Allen Potts. We are sad to see them leave.
The board approved a short term “interim treasurer” job description, with slightly fewer responsibilities, for January through May of 2019. If you are interested, please speak with someone from the Nominating Committee. Intern Robin Stillwater presented her Financial Mapping Report, based on her 16 interviews with people from past and present finance committees. Both of these items are available through the board link in the Thursday announcements.
Church member Beth Rendeiro expressed a desire that the Right Relations Covenant be mentioned more from the pulpit and be thought of as a living document.
Rev. Greg has been working with several committees to generate a timeline for budget creation, including key roles. This is not so much a new system – more a compilation in one place of the process.
The Board continued a “Big Rocks” discussion begun at its fall retreat. The Mission and Vision section related to procedures for the Membership Committee charter, e.g. having a more frequent “New Members Welcome.” Other sections of the discussion included a Leadership Task Force and the Stewardship procedures and goals for this year. Your can read the full goals document here: https://archive.uusm.org/about-our-church/governance/board-of-directors/board-goals.
The Humanist banner is ready. An installation ceremony was held during the service on December 16. It now hangs in the sanctuary.
A first pass at a document on congregational safety was presented. This document has become more necessary as more religious passions have made the news. The Board will review it again in February. Once approved, training and implementation will follow.
-- Rebecca Crawford
Music News:
Choir and Friends – Spreading Holiday Cheer!
On Saturday, December 1, a few of our choir members and friends got together to share seasonal music and good cheer with two care facilities in our neighborhood – Sunrise Assisted Living and Seaport Care Center.
We were greeted warmly at both venues by both staff and residents. At Sunrise, word must have gotten out that we were coming because the residents, many of whom were dressed in cheerful holiday garb, came out in large numbers to listen and sing along. And, at Seaport, one member of the audience could sing pretty much every verse of every carol along with us without referring to the lyric sheets we handed out.
If you love this season and want to contribute your voice and a couple of hours of your time, we’d love to have you join us next year. No experience necessary! This is a great way to let our neighbors know we are here, and that we care about them.