Author: johnnyawwsome

Sunday, February 13, 2022

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“American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.” – James Baldwin

The same could be said for Unitarian Universalist History. This Sunday join us as Cricket Hall explores UU History through the lens of Widening Our Circle.

Please Join Us for Worship.

We are forgoing meeting in person during the coronavirus epidemic, meeting on Zoom. We share music, readings, and hymns on our usual presentation slides, have a story and a talk, and share joys and sorrows, as well as a virtual “coffee hour” discussion starting at 10:30, with the service at 11. If you prefer not to be seen, video is optional. If you would like to participate, please email westforkuu@gmail.com for details and a link, or for help with using ZOOM.

If you are a regular attendee, we have added you to our Google Group if we had an email address. If you have not gotten a group email already, please email westforkuu@gmail.com so that we can add you to the group, which we will be using for staying in touch with each other during this time. Public announcements will continue to be posted here on the website and on our Facebook page and Twitter account, as usual.

Email westforkuu@gmail.com or use our contact form for more information or write to us at PO Box 523, Clarksburg WV 26302

How Can We Win

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On Saturday, May 30th filmmaker and photographer David Jones of David Jones Media felt compelled to go out and serve the community in some way. He decided to use his art to try and explain the events that were currently impacting our lives. On day two, Sunday the 31st, he activated his dear friend author Kimberly Jones to tag along and conduct interviews. During a moment of downtime he captured these powerful words from her and felt the world couldn’t wait for the full-length documentary, they needed to hear them now.

Beloved Community and What it Means

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8th Principle: “We the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote: journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountability dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.”

“In progressive religious circles, you will often hear calls to “build the Beloved Community,” but I’m not sure we always appreciate the full historic resonance of that phrase. The term “Beloved Community” was coined by the early twentieth-century American philosopher Josiah Royce (1855-1916). But most of us learned it not from Royce but from The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who often spoke of the “Beloved Community” as his ultimate goal.” In his essay, “What Do We Mean We When Say, “Building the Beloved Community”?” Rev. Carl Gregg expounds upon this idea.

Month of Widening the Circle

johnnyawwsome

Our theme for the month of February is Widening the Circle. We will be posting about it and incorporating it into our services.

While we will be discussing and posting about many things concerning the monthly theme, I think we will start with the report from The Commission on Institutional Change. Widening the Circle of Concern began “At a gathering convened by Unitarian Universalist Association co-presidents Rev. Sofia Betancourt, Rev. William Sinkford, and Dr. Leon Spencer in Atlanta in 2017, Unitarian Universalist leaders of color were asked to share their insights into how the Association could continue moving forward in the midst of another racially charged moment.” Here is the full report both as text and audio. The UUA has also provided a study guide for the book should you be interested.

Here are two songs to think about this month:

Sunday, February 6, 2022

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“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” – Lilla Watson

This Sunday John Hall will explore themes of collective liberation and what that means as we widen our circle.

Please Join Us for Worship.

We are forgoing meeting in person during the coronavirus epidemic, meeting on Zoom. We share music, readings, and hymns on our usual presentation slides, have a story and a talk, and share joys and sorrows, as well as a virtual “coffee hour” discussion starting at 10:30, with the service at 11. If you prefer not to be seen, video is optional. If you would like to participate, please email westforkuu@gmail.com for details and a link, or for help with using ZOOM.

If you are a regular attendee, we have added you to our Google Group if we had an email address. If you have not gotten a group email already, please email westforkuu@gmail.com so that we can add you to the group, which we will be using for staying in touch with each other during this time. Public announcements will continue to be posted here on the website and on our Facebook page and Twitter account, as usual.

Email westforkuu@gmail.com or use our contact form for more information or write to us at PO Box 523, Clarksburg WV 26302

Sunday, January 23, 2022

johnnyawwsome

“The Sabbath is to time what the tabernacle and temple are to space: a cathedral in time. On the seventh day, we experience in time what the temple and tabernacle represented in spaces, which is eternal life with God in a complete creation.” – Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath

This Sunday, Stacey Elza will give a lesson exploring the “cathedral in time” focusing on the spiritual practice of slowing down and taking Sabbath.

Please join us for worship.

We are forgoing meeting in person during the coronavirus epidemic, meeting
on Zoom. We share music, readings, and hymns on our usual presentation slides,
have a story and a talk, and share joys and sorrows, as well as a virtual
“coffee hour” discussion starting at 10:30, with the service at 11. If you
prefer not to be seen, video is optional. If you would like to participate,
please email westforkuu@gmail.com for details and a link, or for help with
using ZOOM.

If you are a regular attendee, we have added you to our Google Group if we
had an email address. If you have not gotten a group email already, please
email westforkuu@gmail.com so that we can add you to the group, which we will
be using for staying in touch with each other during this time. Public
announcements will continue to be posted here on the website and on our
Facebook page and Twitter account, as usual.

Email westforkuu@gmail.com or use our contact form for more information or
write to us at PO Box 523, Clarksburg WV 26302

Sunday Service, January 9th, 2022

johnnyawwsome

Welcome:

Good morning and welcome to West Fork Unitarian Universalists. I’m John and I feel blessed to serve this congregation as a lay leader. I’m glad to see all of you here today.

Thank you for joining us.

 Let us use the prelude for centering. We are about to enter sacred time. We are about to make this time and this place sacred by our presence and intention.

Please silence your phones… and as you do so, I invite us also to turn down the volume on our fears; to remove our masks; and to loosen the armor around our hearts.

 Breathe.

 Let go of the expectations placed on you by others—and those they taught you to place on yourself.

Drop the guilt and the shame, not to shirk accountability, but in honest expectation of the possibility of forgiveness.

Let go of the thing you said the other day. Let go of the thing you dread next week. Be here, in this moment. Breathe, here.

Prelude:

Welcome: Our Lives Intersect and Intertwine by Tania Márquez

Welcome Song:

Chalice Lighting: In This Small Flame Dwell by Jean L Wahlstrom

Continue reading →

Month of Living with Intention

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Our theme for the month of January is Living with Intention. We will be posting about it and incorporating it into our services.

Here is a poem to get us started:

I Will Not Live an Unlived Life by Dawna Markova

I will not die an unlived life
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.

Here’s a song: