Sunday, February 5, 2012

Calendar of upcoming events:

Saturday, 2/4
   COA/YRUU Overnight at UUCCSM, 7pm
Sunday, 2/5
   Neighboring Faiths field trip to Taoist Temple in Chinatown
   5th-6th O.W.L. meets
Sunday, 2/12
   5th-6th O.W.L. meets
   Lifespan RE-sponsored Valentine’s Potluck Supper, 5-7pm (see announcement below)
Sunday, 2/26
   Peace Sunday in RE – details to come soon
   5th-6th O.W.L. meets

This Week in RE:

PRESCHOOL (Ages 3-5 at 9:00 & 11:00): “Black is Beautiful” This week our preschool class will experience positive associations with the color black, and will engage in activities that will expand their awareness and appreciation for human diversity. Meets in the NW room of the cottage.

SPIRIT PLAY: (K-1st at 9:00) “A Good Morning’s Work” This week we’ll continue our focus on science and nature with a story about a young boy who cares for many different creatures in our interdependent web of existence. (K-2nd at 11:00) “Life Cycle of a Frog” This week we’ll continue our focus on science and nature with an exploration of the stages of a frog’s life. Meets in the SE room of the cottage.

THEME WORKSHOPS (2nd-3rd at 9:00 only): “Peace Workshop” This week we’ll begin our exploration of February’s theme of PEACE with special activities to engage participants in thinking about inner peace, . Meets in the NE room of the cottage (formerly known as “the couch room”).

UUNIVERSE STORY (4th-5th at 9:00/3rd-5th at 11:00): “Apples & Oranges—How Do We Classify Organisms?” This week in the UUniverse Story program, we’ll begin to explore the wonderful world of biology. Meets in the mural room at the end of the hallway upstairs above Forbes Hall.

NEIGHBORING FAITHS (6th-7th at 9:00 & 11:00): “Taoism Field Trip” This week our Neighboring Faiths classes will continue their study of Buddhism with a field trip to the Thien Hau Taoist Temple in Chinatown. The group will leave from the UUCCSM front courtyard promptly at 9:00 am and expects to return at noon.

COMING OF AGE (8th at 9:00 only): This Sunday in Coming of Age we’re tackling some heavy stuff – we’ll explore suffering and meaning. Meets in Room 2, the second room down the hallway upstairs above Forbes Hall.

YRUU (9th-12th alternates 9:00/11:00): Meets during the 11:00 service only this week. Whether you're sleeping in after the COA/YRUU overnight, or coming just in time for our meeting, join us for some good breakfast, and a chance to work on plans for the YRUU service in March! Meets in Room 1, the first room at the top of the stairs above Forbes Hall.

Announcements: 

NEW Easter Volunteers Needed: Easter’s on April 8th this year, and I’m looking for some volunteers to help with this year’s festivities. We’re especially in need of coordinators for our special after-service egg hunts for the kids, as well as volunteers to hide eggs and supervise the hunts. I’m also building a small team to help plan the Intergenerational Easter service for all ages in the sanctuary. If you’d like to help out, contact Catherinedre@yahoo.com or call me at 310-829-5436 x105. ·

Valentine’s Craft Party & Potluck, 2/12: All families are invited to a very special Second Sunday Supper on Sunday, February 12th, from 5-7pm. At 5:00 we’ll gather for a Valentine-making project – come and make some for your friends and families, as well as some for UUCCSM members who are ill or otherwise in need of special messages of care. Then at 6:00, take part in a potluck dinner – bring a side dish to share, and we’ll supply the main course (pasta). Don’t miss it! ·

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 18 - Monday February 20. Family and Elementary Winter Camp – Treasure Huunting! February 18-20, 2011 Register at www.uucamp.org Dean: Danielle Bell Pricing - Child Camper or Adult: $145.00; Accompanying child: $85.00

Families with elementary age campers (or just the campers themselves) are invited for a weekend of treasure hunting with us up here in the snow. We’ll work on an actual pictorial treasure hunt while discovering what fantastic gifts we all carry, regardless of age or ability. Join us for tons of snow play, hot cocoa by the fire, games, crafts and community worship. Campers grades 3-6 may attend without parents and will be supervised by trained cabin counselors. Come to camp and find your own treasures! ·

Snack Signups for RE Classes: Parents of each RE class will be contacted soon to request that you sign up to bring snack for your child’s class. Snack is a highly valued part of the RE experience – just ask your kids – and we need your help to provide the supplies. If each parents signs up just a few times per year, we can cover all of our classes without placing the burden of bringing snack on the volunteer teachers who are already donating so much of their time to make our RE program happen. Liza Cranis is spearheading the sign-up effort; please make sure to respond to her emails to sign up. ·

RE Wish List: I am currently developing a “master wish list” for the RE program, which includes general and lesson-specific RE supply needs for this year’s classes. While the RE operating budget does have some money for supplies, this year’s budget is very tight and donations are happily accepted. The list so far includes:

RE Furniture:
Kid-size bean bag chair (we’d like to install a reading corner in the Spirit Play classroom)
Roll-up-able rug, medium-sized

General Supplies:
Drawing paper
Candle lighters
Chart markers
Flip chart paper (post-it or standard)
Pipe cleaners

Backup snack supply:
Cheddar Bunnies (like goldfish crackers but with fewer preservatives, additives)
Graham crackers (goldfish crackers okay as alternative)
Granola bars
rice cakes 
other non-sugary dry good snacks
Dried fruit (apricots, raisins, apple rings, banana chips, etc.)

RE Books Wish List on Amazon: Another arm of the “master wish list” for the RE program, is an Amazon Wishlist of books that will be used in RE lessons for this year’s program or that will be valuable resources for teachers & families in our church. We do have some money budgeted for book purchases, but we are running on a tight RE budget since the congregation’s budget cutback a couple of years ago, and donations are happily accepted. If you’d like to help out by donating a book or two 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 our way – they are so appreciated!

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

Chalice Lighting Words of the Week (February’s Theme – PEACE): February 5:

If there is to be peace in the world, 
There must be peace in the nations. 
If there is to be peace in the nations, 
There must be peace in the cities. 
If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors.
If there is to be peace between neighbors, 
There must be peace in the home. 
If there is to be peace in the home, 
There must be peace in the heart.
-- Lao-Tse

For the 2011-12 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. The chalice lighting shared here will be used on Sunday in all of our RE classes, and I hope that your family will also share it at home during the following 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 Ideas to Explore our Congregational Theme for February - PEACE Resources:

Books for Children:
A Little Peace, by Barbara Kerley, National Geographic Children’s Books, 2007
Peace Begins with You, by Katherine Scholes,
The Knight and the Dragon, by Tomie de Paola, Sandcastle Books, 1980
The Quarreling Book, by Charlotte Zolotow, HarperCollins Children’s Books, 1961
The Big Book for Peace, by Amm Durell & Marilyn Sachs, ed., Dutton Children’s Books, 1990
If Peace Is…, by Jane Baskwill, Mondo Publishing, 2003

Resources for Adults:
Explore the following readings in Singing the Living Tradition published by the Unitarian Universalist Association. (Our hymnal):

# 429 by William F. Schulz
#462 by Paul Robeson
#540 by Rabindranath Tagor
#574, from the Hebrew Scriptures:
#577 by Mahandas K. Gandhi
#578 by Olympia Brown
#589 by Pupils of the Lincoln School
#597 from the Dhammapada
#598 Buddhist #602 by Lao-tse
#681 adapted from Gaelic Runes Peace Prayers: Meditations, Affirmations, Invocations, Poems, and Prayers for Peace, edited by the staff of Harper San Francisco Carrie Leadingham, Joann E. Moschetta, and Hilary M. Vartanian, Harper San Francisco, 1992

Peace is in Every Step: the Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life, Thich Nhat Hanh, Random House, 1995
Being Peace, Thich Nhat Hanh, Parallax Press, 2005
Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem, Maya Angelou, Schwartz & Wade, 2008
Cultivating Inner Peace: Exploring the Psychology, Wisdom and Poetry of Ghandi, Thoreau, the Buddha, and Others, Paul R. Fleischman, Pariyatti Publishing, 2004

“Valentine’s Day”: (from The Book of New Family Traditions by Meg Cox):

What’s Sweet About You Poster – This is like giving your kid a giant Valentine card, but much more personal. Make one for each child. If you’re having a special dinner, you could bring the posters out then. Or prop them up against the kitchen chairs, so your kids find them when they come to breakfast or come home from school.

Materials: Large sheets of poster board in white, pink or red (one sheet for each poster); red and pink construction paper; scissors; glue; small Valentine candies, such as chocolate hearts wrapped in foil; markers.

Instructions: Cut 9 to 12 hearts from the construction paper. The hearts should be about 4 inches high and 3 inches wide. On each heart, write one trait you love about that child’s nature. Make it specific, focusing on positive aspects of their personality. Also, praise behavior you’d like to reinforce, such as putting away toys or progress in potty training. Across the top of the poster, write “What’s Sweet About (Child’s Name).” Glue the hearts to the board, but just put glue on the bottom edges and up the sides of the hearts. Leave the top open, so they work like pockets. Put a piece of Valentine candy in each pocket.

The Book of Love – Who wrote the Book of Love? You did. Buy an inexpensive blank book with a heart on the cover, or glue one there. Call it “The Book of (your last name) Love,” and each year, have every member of the family write one loving things about very other member (take dictation for young kids).

Red Food Night– At the Straw household in Plano, Texas, all the food for Valentine’s dinner is red. Sue Straw serves beets or red cabbage, mashed potatoes mixed with red food coloring, and either ham (pink) or pasta with red sauce. Red fruit might include grapes, raspberries or strawberries. Even the milk is red. Dessert can be brown, as long as it’s chocolate and shaped like a heart.

Valentine Tree – Trees are a great centerpiece of ritual action because they grow and change like families do, symbolize life and hope, and can be easily but beautifully decorated for any occasion. Every year, the Dodge family buys a small tree in a pot, and decorates it with a string of tiny white lights. They buy red craft paper and cut out teddy bears and hearts, poke holes in their tops, and use thin ribbon to tie them onto the tree. The decorations stay on until spring, when the family plants the tree in their yard. If you do this every year, you could designate a special Valentine Grove on your property.

Have-a-Heart Awards – Each member of the family gives an award to each other member for a special act of love or kindness. Buy round, fuzzy, ping-pong-ball-sized pom-poms at your local craft store, to which you can glue little eyes and mouths and feet. Cut hearts from a piece of construction paper 4 inches square, and glue the feet to the paper heart. Write on the heart the name of the person getting the award and what they did. Perhaps one child helped a younger sibling learn to tie his shoes. Perhaps Mom or Dad earned an award for coaching Little League last summer.

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

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.

February 3, 1888: Horace Greely was born in Amherst, New Hampshire. At the age of 20, he went to New York City, where he started a small printing office and produced a magazine called the New Yorker, which was published from 1834 to 1841. In 1841 Greely founded the New York Tribune. Greely served in Congress briefly and ran for other offices unsuccessfully. He was an ardent opponent of slavery, though he sought a peaceful solution. After the Civil War, his ardent support of Reconstruction eroded his popularity. He was a stalwart Universalist. Horace Greely died November 29, 1872.

February 4, 1821: Elizabeth Blackwell was born in Bristol, England . Best known as America’s first woman physician, she came to the United States with her family in 1832, living in New York City and then Cincinnati. She became a teacher in the south, started reading medical books and decided to become a physician, in spite of social prejudice and ridicule. She received her medical degree (and was first in her class) from the Geneva Medical School in western New York in 1849. She published a book called The Laws of Life; with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls (1852) and wrote on physical hygiene for women, which in those times were offensive and taboo. She later founded the New York Dispensary for Poor Women and Children and later the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children. She moved back to England and spent the rest of her life promoting health and hygiene. Elizabeth Blackwell was a member of the First Unitarian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, where her family lived when she was a child.

February 4, 1939: The American Unitarian Association sent Martha and Waitstill Sharp to Czechoslovakia to work with refugees from the Nazis. This marked the beginning of the Unitarian Service Committee, which was organized in May 1940 as a standing committee of the association “ to investigate opportunities for humanitarian service both in America and abroad.” The USC became independent of the AUA in 1948. In 1963 it merged with the Universalist Service Committee, which was first organized in 1945, also as a response to the war in Europe. The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee focuses on humanitarian aid, development, and human rights in America and throughout the world.

February 5, 1900: Aldai Stevenson was born in Los Angeles, California. A graduate of Princeton, he studied law at Harvard and Northwestern law schools and joined a law firm in Chicago, Illinois, in 1927. During World War II, he was a special assistant to the secretary recovery of Europe. She was elected Governor of Illinois in 1948 and ran as the Democratic candidate for the U.S presidency twice (1952 and 1956). Stevenson’s mother was a lifelong Unitarian and his father was a Presbyterian, but the family attended the Unitarian Church. He became a member of the Bloomington church in 1952. Adlai Stevenson died on July 14, 1965.

February 7, 1812: Charles Dickens was born in Landport, England. He was reared in great poverty, an experience reflected in his writings, particularly Oliver Twist. Dickens had little formal education but spent his extra time at the British Museum reading. He wrote A Christmas Carol while a member of Little Portland Street Chapel, London. He is well known for numerous other novels, many of which had a profound effect on social changes in early 19th century England. Dickens also wrote factual newspaper and magazine articles with radical reforming intent. He died on June 8, 1870.