Calendar of upcoming events:

Sunday, 1/27
            RE Faith in Acton Sunday – trip to Turning Point shelter for K-7th grades
            8th-9th O.W.L. meets
Sunday, 2/3
            8th-9th O.W.L. meets
Sunday, 2/10
            8th-9th O.W.L. meets
Sunday, 2/17
            RE/Pulpit Switch: Catherine Loya leads the worship service & Rev. Rebecca visits RE classes!
            8th-9th O.W.L. meets
Thursday, 2/21
            Faith Live a River: UU History Adult RE class begins

Volunteer Opportunity:
·         NEW RE Teacher Needed for Spring Semester (at 9:00 service)!   One of our 1st-2nd grade teaching team members has an unavoidable conflict on Sunday mornings for the rest of the year, and so we now have a need for additional RE teachers in that class.  We are looking for one volunteer to join the teaching team and commit to leading once per month, and sometimes assisting for one additional Sunday during the month, between now and the end of May.  The class includes a dynamic, inquisitive bunch of young people, and the curriculum we are using is called “Spirit Seekers,” which engages our monthly ministry themes through engaging stories and fun follow-up craft activities.  We’ll provide you with the lesson plans as well as supplies for the classroom activities, and you’ll be joining a team of welcoming and experienced teachers.  Can you help?  Contact Catherine@uusm.org or 310-829-5436 x105 for more information or to volunteer.

This Week in RE:

·         Preschool-Kindergarten: “Babies” This week our preschool class will learn about babies and the idea that all living has a beginning.  Meets in the NW room of the cottage.

·         1st-7th Grade:  “Turning Point Field Trip” This week children in our 1st-7th grade RE program are invited to take part in this month’s Faith in Action field trip, a visit to the Turning Point transitional housing shelter for a tour and to prepare lunches for the residents.  Be aware: we will make one full-morning trip, leaving after the story in the first service at 9:20 am, and returning at about 11:30  If you would like for your child to participate in the trip, please make sure to come to the first service, or meet us in the cottage at 9:20 for the walk to the shelter, located about four blocks from UUCCSM at 1446 16th street.  After returning to the church, children can be picked up right away or will participate in an activity in the cottage until the 11:00 service has concluded.  There will be alternate activities offered during each service for children who choose not to participate in the trip.  Note: Food donations are still needed – we’re short on tomatoes (slice ahead of time, please) as well as deli meat for sandwiches.  I’m also looking for a couple of volunteers at either service who will not be going on the trip and would be willing to assist with the at-church alternate activity.

·         8th Grade (Coming of Age) – 9:00 only:  This Sunday, Liza will lead and Nalani will assist as we work to wrap up a couple of outstanding projects: Photo Journalism Book & New UU Holiday. Note room change: Meets in the mural room at the end of the hallway upstairs above Forbes Hall.

·         9th-12th Grade (Young Religious Unitarian Universalists) – 9:00 only: This Sunday YRUU will play a game of Mafia and will do some creative writing together.  Meets in Room 1, the first room at the top of the stairs above Forbes Hall.

Announcements:

NEW Turn in Guest at Your Table Boxes this Sunday!  If you still have a Guest at Your Table box at home, bring it to the service with you this Sunday and turn it in; this is the final Sunday of our collection for the year.

Please sign up to bring snack for your child’s RE Class:  Now that we’ve made it to January, most of our RE classes have lots of open spots for parents to sign up to bring a snack to class.  Children and youth value snack highly as part of their RE experience; parents, please take part in making sure it’s available every Sunday!  Here are links to online signup pages for each class; just fill in your last name for the Sundays you’re willing to help out, and you’ll get a reminder email midweek leading up to the Sundays you’ve signed up for.

·         9:00 Preschool-K: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ufVuIEr6mprU7qJoBIB5zLLa_3jE9N7fr3A4zTaWhMk/edit#
·         9:00 1st-2nd Grades: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AF3KpLXhQQ3VjhG6iUoJ_pnLty_UXzI9ZeitbBd0H8M/edit#
·         9:00 3rd-5th Grades: https://docs.google.com/document/d/110AaDJ89pZT_ZjO9lVreQ27fKGmKOFOho7AKExSyLRI/edit#
·         9:00 6th-7th Grades:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EKU4mbGqhw44nPj9LdfW27-csnLDHW5QmxOrejIam74/edit
·         9:00 8th Grade (COA): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FB5jHL7YoaH108ssr5IJGlnhiK8jg20s0Koj11Lm3ps/edit
·         9:00 9th-12th YRUU:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oqqIus8jaWyxtJYmWcNpmbsosVpi1TfA-F11_sSAwnU/edit
·         11:00 Preschool-K:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gPziJCMxNoRq4-riRoMOrkjZZ5jMqfEzieCUTWpFs/edit#heading=h.gjdgxs
·         11:00 1st-2nd Grades:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UnitBIIPUViUOH-hIAYZD4eMoNSv_Tbpd8pFyCs-q34/edit#
·         11:00 3rd-5th Grades: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zMN3zUu13da4GFt8xgIBQbnoRP1PLh_kA3qr_IYx_xE/edit#
·         11:00 6th-7th Grades: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12d_JtawEjyetDi1mFIKU_Ds8v0KqpCcVEiTGhHEIJZE/edit

Time to Register for Elementary Winter Camp:  The Pacific Southwest District’s Elementary Winter Camp at de Benneville Pines, is over President's Day Weekend next month, Saturday February 16 - Monday February 18.

Family and Elementary Winter Camp – A Winter of Wonder! 
February 16-18, 2013
Register at http://www.uucamp.org/camps/2013/PSWD/elem_winter/ElemWinter2013.html
Dean: Melinda Merkel Iyer
Pricing - Child Camper or Adult: $145.00; Accompanying child under kindergarten: $85.00

Join us for a weekend of wonder and beauty as we wander in de Benneville’s wintry landscape.  The spirit of curiosity, community, and amazement surrounds us up at camp, sparking our warm thoughts and offering countless opportunities to have a wonder-full camping experience!  Come ready for snow play, outdoor activities, indoor excitement, and a weekend of riddles, puzzles, and lots of time to ask those questions, big & small.  This is a wonderful chance for family members to participate in their camper’s experience, whether they share a cabin with their youth, or allow them to go solo with other unaccompanied campers in the counselor cabins.  This camp is sponsored by the Pacific Southwest Region of the Unitarian Universalist Association and is for children who are attending grades K through 6 at the time of the camp. Children in grades K-2 require a parent to accompany them to camp.  You must make a non-refundable deposit of $75 per camper to reserve a space at this camp. You can make additional partial payments but the balance must be paid by 2/11/2013.

RE Books Wish List on Amazon:  Another arm of the “master wish list” for the RE program, is an Amazon Wishlist of books and supplies that will be useful in RE classes this year or that will be valuable resources for teachers & families in our church.  We do have some money earmarked for purchases, but we are running on a tight RE budget, and donations are happily accepted.  If you’d like to help out by donating to the program, check out the Amazon list at http://tinyurl.com/rewishlist.  (Used books in “good” condition are just fine!)  THANK YOU to the members who have already sent books or other supplies our way – they are so appreciated!

UU Everyday (resources and ideas for practicing your UU values at home):

Chalice Lighting Words of the Week (January’s Theme – TRUTH):

January 27:
As the polestar once guided explorers,
May the flame of this chalice guide us
To ever better understandings of
Ourselves and our universe.
-- Norman V. Naylor

For the 2012-13 church year we’re trying out a new way of living as one lifespan religious community: congregation-wide ministry themes.  Each month we’ll explore a new theme, and in January our theme is TRUTH.  The chalice lightings shared here will be used in all of our RE classes, and I hope that your family will also share it at home during the week.  I’m tickled by the idea of all of our UUCCSM families sharing a reflection in common each week as we go about our daily lives.

At-Home Activities to Reinforce this month’s theme of TRUTH:

·         Create a Family Credo: (adapted from Parenting with Spirit  by Jane Bartlett)
o   What is the purpose of your family?  Whether you are a large family, a small family, a single-parent family, a family with stepchildren, a family of any kind at all, why are you all together, living here on this earth?  We have been designed to live together as partners, mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, grandparents.  We are committed to each other by bonds of affection and duty.  When families go wrong we are profoundly unhappy and may carry the wounds throughout our lives.  However, the impulse within us to be in family is so strong that we usually risk trying again.  Many of us do our best not to repeat the mistakes that our own parents made.  Many people who have divorced remarry.  Some people who find themselves outside of traditional family structures defy the old saying that “blood is thicker than water” by cultivating loving friendships that become chosen families.
o   In this exercise I invite you and your family to press the pause button on your whirl of day-to-day family life, step back, and take a moment together to look at the bigger picture and contemplate your family’s spiritual purpose.  Ask yourselves: what are we about as a family?  What are we for?  What sort of family do we want to be?  These are fundamental questions that we often fail to ask ourselves because of our busyness of getting on with getting on.
o   A Family Credo – “Credo,” in Latin, means “I believe.”  A family credo is a statement about what you together believe to be the purpose of your family life.  It is popular now for organizations to develop a mission statement to inspire people and unify them behind a common cause.  Creating a family credo is rather like devising your family’s mission statement, and you may prefer to call it a mission or vision statement.
o   Seed-o Your Credo – First and foremost, make the creation of your credo a fun experience.  Gather the family together somewhere comfortable, provide snacks, and enthuse about what you are about to do.  Keep your meeting short, possibly only five or ten minutes is your children are very young.  Provide paper and colored pens and have ready a few useful questions to prompt thought.
§  These are some that are good for older children:
·         What is the purpose of our family?
·         What kind of family do we want to be?
·         What kind of things do we want to do?
·         What are our highest priorities and goals?
·         What are our responsibilities?
§  For younger children I suggest:
·         What are we like together when we are feeling really kind?
·         What do you like doing as a family?
·         If you had three wishes for us as a family, what would they be?
§  Have a brainstorming session and get everyone to write down their answers to these questions.  If the children are too young to write, do it for them.  Alternatively, they could draw a picture and talk about it afterward.  Don’t judge the contributions, but show respect and encouragement.
o   Knead-o Your Credo – It takes time to create a family credo and you may have to meet several times to get the right wording.  When creating your credo remember that the process, which can be very bonding, is just as important as the finished result.  An adult needs to take your first brainstorming material away and distill the contributions.  Are there common themes and suggestions?  Parents should separately discuss their contributions if they seem to differ widely.  Try drafting your first family credo and take it back to the table for comment.  This is the difficult part: everyone needs to agree on the final result and feel that it represents their views.  Try to keep the working fairly simple so that children can easily say it aloud.  As an example, this is one family’s credo:
Our family is a place where we:
Share love;
Respect and listen to each other;
Pray together;
Send kindness into the world;
Have lots of fun!

Another example, more suited to older children:
The mission of our family is to create a nurturing place of faith, order, truth, love, happiness, and relaxation, and to provide opportunity for each individual to become responsibly independent, and effectively interdependent, in order to serve a worthy purpose in society.
o   Weed-o Your Credo – As a living statement of belief and faith, your credo needs to be revisited and revised over time.  Even if in essence it stays the same, you may want to change the wording as your children get older.  You may want to change some of the principles expressed in the credo as you progress together as a family.
o   Heed-o Your Credo – Now you have got your credo, don’t put it away and forget it!  Put it up on the wall, somewhere prominent.  The children may like to decorate it, or write it out themselves.  Keep it alive by referring to it if you have family meetings, or use it as a grace before you eat a special meal together.  It could be referred to at times of trouble or conflict.  Everyone should get to learn the family credo by heart so that it can be carried around internally, a bit like the name tag inside a school uniform: when we are out in the world it tells us who we belong to if ever we need to find the way home.

This Week in UU History: (From This Day in Unitarian Universalist History, by Frank Schulman)

January 28, 1568:  Prince John Sigismund of Transylvania issued the final Edict of Tolerance, extending the edicts of 1557 and 1563 to cover all sects, Unitarian or Trinitarian.

January 29, 1861: Florida Yates Ruffin Ridley was born in Boston, Massachusetts.  An African-American, she was educated in Boston.  Her parents were distinguished local citizens, but they moved to England to rear their family in a free country.  They returned to America at the outbreak of the Civil War to help end slavery.  Ridley became the second African-American teacher in the Boston public schools.  In 1888 she married Ulysses A. Ridley, who owned a tailoring shop in Boston.  They lived in Brookline, Massachusetts, and became members of the Second Unitarian Church.  Ridley became interested in African-American history and literature and was a founder of the Society for the Collection of Negro Folklore.  She founded the Society of Descendants, Early New England Negros, and served as president from 1931 to 1940.  A strong advocate of women’s suffrage, Ridley also helped found women’s clubs and founded and worked with the League of Women for Community Service.  She wrote both fiction and nonfiction, especially describing African-American life and race relations in New England.  Ridley died on February 25, 1943.

February 1, 2003:  Laurel Salton Clark was killed with six other astronauts when their spaceship Columbia disintegrated 39 miles above north Texas as it was coming in to land.  A native of Ames, Iowa, Clark had wanted to be a veterinarian but instead became a surgeon for NASA.  She was a member of the Olympia Brown Unitarian Universalist Church in Racine, Wisconsin.

February 2, 1875:  Henry Wilder Foote Jr. was born in Boston, Massachusetts.  Foote, a Unitarian minister, was chairman of the Unitarian Commission on Hymns and Services, which, in a cooperative effort with the Universalist Commission on Hymns and Services, chaired by L. Griswold Williams, produced Hymns of the Spirit in 1937.  This hymnal was an important early milestone on the road to consolidation of the Unitarians and Universalists in 1961, designed as it was to appeal to both denominations.  Many of the resources were nonscriptural and included material for humanists.