Sunday, March 11, 2012

Date: 
Sunday, March 11, 2012

 

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Daylight Savings Time starts this Sunday – don’t forget to set your clocks FORWARD an hour tonight!

Calendar of upcoming events:
 
Sunday, 3/11
   Daylight Savings Time begins
   UUniverse Story class field trip to Natural History Museum
   Neighboring Faiths field trip to Guru Ram Das Gurdwara
   YRUU Trip to Phoenix Info Meeting, 10-11
   5th-6th O.W.L. meets
Sunday, 3/18
   RE/Pulpit Switch Sunday – Rebecca visits RE classes, Catherine leads adult service
   COA parent meeting, 10-11
   5th-6th O.W.L. meets – final class
Sunday, 3/25
   YRUU Sunday Service – “Balancing Acts”
   K-1st O.W.L. mandatory parent orientation, 12:30-3
Sunday, 4/8
  Easter Intergenerational Service & Egg Hunt
Sunday, 4/15
   K-1st O.W.L. mandatory parent/child orientation, 1-4
 
This Week in RE:
 
PRESCHOOL (Ages 3-5 at 9:00 & 11:00): “Spring Makes our Earth Beautiful with Color” This week our preschool classes will take part in activities that celebrate the beauty of springtime.  Meets in the NW room of the cottage.
 
SPIRIT PLAY:  (K-1st at 9:00) “Sacred Spaces” This Sunday we’ll be sharing a story about the many different kinds of sacred spaces there are in our world, where people gather in communities to celebrate the spirit of love and justice and the mystery of life.  (K-2nd at 11:00) “Creation” This week we’ll begin our exploration of our Jewish & Christian Heritage with the sharing of the Biblical creation story.  Meets in the SE room of the cottage.
 
THEME WORKSHOPS (2nd-3rd at 9:00 only):  “Brokenness Workshop” This week we’ll begin our exploration of March’s theme of BROKENNESS with special activities to engage participants in thinking about brokenness, healing, and finding new meaning or usefulness despite brokenness.  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):  “Natural History Museum Field Trip”  This week in the UUniverse Story program, we’ll take part in a special field trip to the dinosaur exhibit at the LA Natural History museum!  There will be ONE TRIP for both classes, so place plan to meet the group in the front courtyard at 8:50am.  Children who do not go on the trip today are invited to attend the service with their parents.  The group plans to return to UUCCSM by 12:30. Will meet in the front courtyard at 8:50am.
 
NEIGHBORING FAITHS (6th-7th at 9:00 & 11:00): “Sikhism Field Trip This week our Neighboring Faiths classes will continue their exploration of with a field trip to the Guru Ram Das Ashram.  Will meet in the front courtyard at 10am.
 
COMING OF AGE (8th at 9:00 only):  This Sunday in COA we'll be exploring our relationships – with friends, with our families, with all other we’re connected to - and how they bring meaning to our lives. 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 9:00 service only this week. 
This Sunday we’ll be working on the 3/25 YRUU Sunday service, and saving some time for games – please make sure to come! Meets in Room 1, the first room at the top of the stairs above Forbes Hall. And don’t miss the 10-11 YRUU parent/youth meeting for the June trip to UU General Assembly in Phoenix!
 
 
Announcements:
 
·         NEW Nursery Assistants Needed 1x per month: As our nursery program has grown this year (in leaps and bounds!), so has our need for assistants on Sunday morning.  Would you enjoy spending one morning per month playing in the nursery with our younglings?  We are particularly in need of volunteers for the 11:00 program, but need at least one more volunteer for 9:00, too.  This is a GREAT opportunity for adults – or teens – to get to know our wonderful babies and toddlers.  It is such fun, and such a service to our UUCCSM parents.  Can you help?  Please contact catherinedre@yahoo.com or 310-829-5436 x105 for more information or to volunteer.
 
·         HELP NEEDED Help Provide Hospitality for DRE’s at UUCCSM from 3/22-24: A dozen DRE’s from UU churches near and far will be converging on our campus for a training on developing UU Identity in RE programs later this month.  Please help us welcome them by volunteering as you can. We’re in need of a few more people to provide home hospitality, which helps make coming to the training affordable (attendees are coming from as far away as Missouri to attend) – do you have a guest bedroom that you’d be willing to open to a friendly UU for two nights (Thursday 3/22 & Friday 3/23)?  We also are looking for a couple of folks who would be willing to do airport pickups on Thursday afternoon, and/or drop-offs on Saturday afternoon.  And while we have coordinators for all of the meals, we’d like to have at least one more volunteer to help prepare and serve each meal (Thursday dinner, lunch or dinner on Friday, or Saturday lunch).  Let’s show our visitors how warm and welcoming we are here at UUCCSM; please contact catherinedre@yahoo.com or call me at 310-829-5436 x105 if you’d like to help out.
 
·         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.  If you’d like to help out, contact Catherinedre@yahoo.com or call me at 310-829-5436 x105
 
·         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
      • 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 (March’s Theme – BROKENNESS):
 
 
March 11:
Help us to be the always hopeful
gardeners of the spirit
who know that without darkness
nothing comes to birth
as without light
nothing flowers.
                        --May Sarton
 
 
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 March - BROKENNESS
 
  • Sit down with your family or a friend. Each of you takes a piece of paper and folds it in half. On one side of your paper list how you see yourself. What are your gifts? What do you do well? Now fold under the piece you have written on. Exchange papers and on the other side write down how you see the other person. When you are done, give the paper back to the original person. Take a look at the paper you began with. Compare how you see yourself, and how the other person sees you. Have they seen a virtue, skill or value that you had not been able to see?
  • Explore the values and history of organizations such as Goodwill Industries (http://www.goodwill.org/page/guest/about/whatwedo) to explore how these organizations can help people who are often not seen as useful members of a community to become so.
  • This is an opportunity to examine things in your home that may seem useless or broken. Can they be reused in some other way and put to another use? Could someone else use it? Can it be repaired for your use, or the use of another? Can it be recycled into some other form for reuse? Sometimes it just needs being looked at in a different way.
  • Many artists have used their artistic vision to turn broken pottery and ceramics into new works of art. A Google search can turn up numerous artists today who make art from such broken items. Two examples can be found at http://www.chinamosaics.com/gallery.html, andhttp://www.e-creativeunion.com. Try your hand at turning a broken item at your home into a piece of art.
 
Resources:
 
Books for Children:
The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams Bianco, Harper Collins, 1999
 
The Velveteen Rabbit (Board Book), Margery Williams Bianco, HarperFestival, 2004
 
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Virginia Lee Burton, Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 1939
 
Further Reading for Adults:
 
The Velveteen Principles: A Guide to Becoming Real, Hidden Wisdom from a Children’s Classic, Toni Raiten-D’Antonio, HCI, 2006
 
In the Simple Morning Light: A Meditation Manual, Barbara Rohde, Skinner House Books, 1994
 
“The Theology School of Hard Knocks” in Roller-skating as a Spiritual Discipline, Christopher Buice, Skinner House Books, 2002
 
“Prayer for Healing” in Glory, Hallelujah! Now Please Pick Up Your Socks, Jane Ellen Mauldin, Skinner House Books, 1998
 
The chapter entitled “The Place of Self Discovery” in the book Women Pray: Voices through the Ages, from Many Faiths, Cultures, and Traditions, edited by Monica Furlong, Skylight Paths Publishing, 2001
 
The Book of Psalms in the Hebrew Scriptures
 
“Help and the Human Condition: What can we do to help?” by Victoria Safforduuworld.org, Fall 2005,http://www.uuworld.org/ideas/articles/1809.shtml.  
 
The film Babette's Feast, Distributor: Festival Films, Story by Isak Dinnesen, film directed by Gabriel Axel
The New Grove Gospel, Blues and Jazz by Paul Oliver, Max Harrison and William Bolcom, W. W. Norton, 1980, 1986
 
 
This Week in UU History: (From This Day in Unitarian Universalist History, by Frank Schulman)
 
March 10, 1660:  A conference between Roman Catholics and Unitarians took place at Roznow, Poland.  Andrew Wissowatius took the lead for the Unitarians.  July 10 of the same year had been fixed as the date by which all Unitarians who refused to conform to the Catholic religion would have to leave the country.  John Szafraniec Wieolopolski, a senator of the kingdom, presided over the conference.  He said, “If all Hell had been let loose, the whole infernal host could not have defended the cause of the Socinians more valiantly than Wissowatius had done, standing alone.”  The Unitarians lost the debate and they were forced to leave the kingdom in what became known as the Great Exile.
 
March 11, 1965: James Reeb, a Unitarian minister, died in Selma, Alabama, after a civil rights march.  Two days earlier, segregationists had attacked Reeb and the two ministers he was with, hitting Reeb on the head with a club.  He was one of more than 125 Unitarian Universalist ministers who answered Martin Luther King’s call to march in support of voting rights for black Americans.  Two other civil rights activists were killed during the Selma protest – Jimmy Lee Jackson, an African-American farm laborer and church deacon, and Viola Liuzzo, a Unitarian Universalist layperson from Detroit.
 
March 13, 1733: Joseph Priestley was born in Fieldhead, Yorkshire, England.  He was educated for the Dissenting ministry and became an outstanding theologian.  He wrote many books on religion, including the influential History of the Corruptions of Christianity (1782), which Thomas Jefferson credited with his conversion to Unitarianism.  Priestley also became a successful preacher, despite a marked and painful stutter.  However, he is best known for chemistry, the hobby he took up in his mid-thirties.  He took part in a group of accomplished liberal religious thinkers (called the Lunar Society because it met when the full moon promoted safe travel) who also engaged in science.  Priestley is credited with a number of discoveries, including oxygen and a method of curing scurvy at sea, which was used by Captain Cook on his voyages.  His inventions included anesthesia, carbonated water, and pencil erasers.  Supported in these interests by his wife’s brothers, Priestley made his inventions available to the public and received no money for any of them.  Priestley’s major ministries were in Leeds and Birmingham in England, and then in Philadelphia.  He taught at Warrington Academy, a Unitarian school for training ministers and a predecessor of Harris Manchester College at Oxford.  There he conducted many of his scientific experiments and wrote science textbooks. Extremely liberal in his politics, Priestley was forced to leave England for America in 1794 after a mob burned his home and laboratory over his support for the principles of the French Revolution.  He received numerous honors during his lifetime. Priestley died on February 6, 1804.  [Catherine’s note: Joseph Priestley makes an appearance on our mural in Room 4 upstairs! His dual role as minister and scientist is depicted through clothing him on one side in a lab coat and holding a beaker of chemicals, and on the other side he wears a minister’s robe and holds a Bible.]
 
March 13, 1906:  Susan Brown Anthony, a Unitarian and American leader for women’s suffrage, died at age 86.
 
March 14, 1571:  Prince John Sigismund of Transylvania died at age 30 from injuries in a horse-riding accident.  He was a champion of Unitarianism and religious toleration in Transylvania.
 
March 14, 1583:  Faustus Socinus debated former Jesuit Christian Francken on the honor due Christ.  Like Frandis David, Francken considered God alone to be due worship, and not Christ.  Francken’s debating style was reportedly abrupt and impetuous.  Socinus answered in so scholarly and thorough a manner that Francken conceded defeat and withdrew.
 
March 14, 1945:  The American Unitarian Association voted to establish fellowships, or lay-led groups.  The fellowship movement encouraged individualism and in many cases stressed social commitment.  Although many fellowships grew into churches, many preferred their lay status and its varying forms of worship.  Munroe Husbands and Lon Ray Call guided the movement.  Call had notices during his pastorate in Louisville, Kentucky, that several small churches continued with lay leadership after they could no longer support clergy.  From 1948 to 1958 the number of people joining fellowships accounted for one third of the denomination’s increase in membership.