Author: CZ

Chalica 2017 Day Three

CZ

For each day of Chalica we will offer activities, some are fun and some are more reflecting, a chalice lighting, and a meditation. Gather everyone together, light the chalice, and breathe into the principles with us each day.

Activities:

  • Cook a meal you’ve never made before, especially one from another culture
  • Attend a lecture, visit a museum, or go to see a play. Discuss the event with someone around you.
  • Discuss your religious beliefs and how they have changed over the years.
  • Write a journal entry about acceptance and spiritual growth
  • Play a board game with family or friends that none of you have ever played before
  • Meditate on something from each of the Six Sources

Chalice Lighting: (If you don’t have a chalice at home, remember that the point of a chalice is that it is a symbol so any candle will work.)

Thirsty By Gregory Pelley

And so we gather, from the ebb and flow of our lives
Thirsty for connection to ourselves
Thirsty for connection to others
Thirsty for connection to the larger life.

As we light this chalice
May all who gather here be filled:
Filled with joy and hope
Filled with compassion and love

Here, may we be filled
So that we may pour ourselves out
into the world.

Meditation:
There are two meditations today one about building spiritual walls and one about choice.

Towers of Babel by George A. Tyger

Choice by Alex Kapitan

 

Here is a musical meditation as well. U2’s “Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” is about doubt, which is part of Acceptance and Spiritual Growth.

Season’s Blessings,
Cricket

Chalica 2017 Day Two

CZ

For each day of Chalica we will offer activities, some are fun and some are more reflecting, a chalice lighting, and a meditation. Gather everyone together, light the chalice, and breathe into the principles with us each day.

Activities:

  • Write a Letter to an elected official about an injustice
  • Pay for the person behind you in the drive-through line
  • “Want me to pick something up for you?” If you know someone is overwhelmed – perhaps by a new baby, family health issues, or something else – give them a call when you’re going out to the store. Ask if they’d like you to pick something up. We’ve been the beneficiaries of this random act of kindness, and it’s great.
  • Try to go the whole day without arguing with anyone
  • Go out to eat and tip the server double
  • Go to the store or mall with the family and stand outside and open the doors for people
  • Find a social justice cause and/or a new way to support it.
  • Educate yourself and your family on a social justice issue. These Youtube channels are a great way to start.
  • Write a journal entry about what Justice, Equity, and Compassion mean to you.
  • Write a poem about being kind.

Chalice Lighting: (If you don’t have a chalice at home, remember that the point of a chalice is that it is a symbol so any candle will work.)

Justice, Meaning, and Purpose By David Breeden

We light this chalice
remembering and honoring our own tradition
and celebrating the rich diversity of traditions among us.

As we search for justice, meaning, and purpose,
may we remember that justice, meaning, and purpose
live first in deeply listening to one another.

This chalice lighting was written for a multifaith gathering.

Meditation:
Our Meditation today is about Love. Focusing on love helps us to remember that each person is important.

May We Reach Out in Honesty and Love by Dennis McCarty

Here is a musical meditation as well. This is “Do What the Spirit Say Do” as performed by Sweet Honey in the Rock.

Season’s Blessings,
Cricket

Chalica 2017 Day One 

CZ

For each day of Chalica we will offer activities, some are fun and some are more reflecting, a chalice lighting, and a meditation. Gather everyone together, light the chalice, and breathe into the principles with us each day.

Activities:

  • Watch a Christmas Carol. (Scrooge learns an important lesson)
  • Make “I am Thankful for you because” cards for your friends and family.
  • Make nice notes, cookies, or a small craft for your neighbors, especially the ones you don’t get along with.
  • Write in a journal what the first principle means to you.
  • Spend time with people you don’t usually get along with, those with different religions, political views, or cultural identities. Find things you like about them
  • Go serve at a homeless shelter
  • Donate toys, blankets, or clothes to a shelter (do it in person so you can see who you are helping).
  • Write an apology letter to someone you hurt this year.
  • Write a letter of forgiveness to someone who hurt you this year.

Chalice Lighting: (If you don’t have a chalice at home, remember that the point of a chalice is that it is a symbol so any candle will work.)

Love can transform the world By Maureen Killoran

Love is the aspiration, the spirit that moves and inspires this faith we share.
Rightly understood, love can nurture our spirits and transform the world.
May the flame of this chalice honor and embody the power and the blessing of the love we need, the love we give, the love we are challenged always to remember and to share.

Meditation:
Our Meditation today is about Love. Focusing on love helps us to remember that each person is important.

Psalm 23 for This Moment by Kevin Tarsa

Here is a musical meditation as well. “Perfect” by P!nk is about knowing that you have worth and others have worth. Enjoy.

Season’s Blessings,
Cricket

Chalica 2017

CZ

Chalica is a week-long celebration of our Unitarian Universalist Principles. The holiday first emerged in 2005 out of a wish to have a holiday organized around Unitarian Universalist values.

Chalica begins on the first Monday in December and lasts seven days. Each day, a chalice is lit and the day is spent reflecting on the meaning of that day’s principle and doing a good deed that honors that principle. Not all Unitarian Universalists celebrate Chalica, but it has a growing following. There is a Chalica Facebook page, blog, and many Chalica-themed videos on YouTube – from the UUA Website. 

This year we will share some activities and meditations everyday to help us all celebrate Chalica. 

Season’s Blessings, 

Cricket

Sunday, November 26, 2017

CZ

“Unitarian Universalist congregations affirm and promote seven Principles, which we hold as strong values and moral guides. We live out these Principles within a “living tradition” of wisdom and spirituality, drawn from sources as diverse as science, poetry, scripture, and personal experience. These are the six sources our congregations affirm and promote:” Where do African Proverbs fit into our sources? Cricket Hall will answer this question on Sunday.

Our services are Sundays at 11 a.m. at the Progressive Women’s Association Uptown Event Center, 305 Washington Ave. in downtown Clarksburg, behind the Courthouse. There are classes for children and adults 10 to 10:45 am, and a coffee gathering before the service. More about us.

We would love to have you come worship with us.

Children are welcome. There is childcare and an activity for young children during the service.

The building is wheelchair accessible, with an accessible restroom. You may park on the south side of the building, which is marked reserved for the PWA.

Map

The schedule for the current adult religious education class is here.

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

 

Image Credit

Viewing of Documentary 13th at UU Fellowship of Morgantown

CZ

At the UU Fellowship, Morgantown on November 9, at 6:30 p.m. Free. This movie has been well received, receiving praise from the Washington Post (some of their words below). The movie was nominated for an Oscar.
“Slavery technically ended over 150 years ago. But Ava DuVernay wants you to take another look at the amendment that abolished it. Her documentary “13th” is a powerful look at how the modern-day prison labor system links to slavery. The film offers a timely and emotional message framed by the election and the Black Lives Matter movement.
“13th” received a standing ovation at the New York Film Festival, where it became the first documentary to open the prestigious festival. The title refers to the 13th amendment, which formally abolished slavery. But DuVernay zeroes in on the amendment’s exception clause, which states that slavery and involuntary servitude are illegal “except as a punishment for crime.”

Sunday October 29, 2017

CZ

“I have found, through years of practice, that people garden in order to make something grow; to interact with nature; to share, to find sanctuary, to heal, to honor the earth, to leave a mark.  Through gardening, we feel whole as we make our personal work of art upon our land.”

–  Julie Moir Messervy, The Inward Garden, 1995
Our services are Sundays at 11 a.m.  at the Progressive Women’s Association Uptown Event Center, 305 Washington Ave. in downtown Clarksburg, behind the Courthouse. There are classes for children and adults 10 to 10:45 am, and a coffee gathering before the service. More about us.

This Sunday, John will give a lesson entitled, “Tending the Garden of Our Faith: a look at the 3rd principle.”

We would love to have you come worship with us.

Children are welcome.  There is childcare and an activity for young children during the service.

The building is wheelchair accessible, with an accessible restroom.

Map

The schedule for the current adult religious education class is here.

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

Namaste,
Cricket

Sunday October, 15, 2017

CZ

Prelude –  Medley of “Oh God Our Help in Ages Past” and “Come Holy Spirit”

Welcome–  Words of Welcome for a Difficult Morning By Erika A. Hewitt   

Welcome Song:  #361 “Enter Rejoice and Come In”

Chalice Lighting: Global Chalice Lighting for August 2017

Song #1 – It is Well with My Soul with  New lyrics by Kimberley Debus, 2009

Story for All Ages – Part of Unitarian Universalism is a Really Long Name by Jennifer Dant

Offering:  Quiet meditative moment with music

Song #2 – Hymn #318 We Would be One

Responsive Reading –

Before we begin our responsive reading I would like to ask each of you, in your own way to join me in prayer.

As we read or watch the news each day and we see continued hate and violence, may we remember that we are not alone.  As our hearts break and we are faced with the reality that we have not come nearly as far as we need to, may we speak out. As others defend or explain away the problems facing our nation and our world, may we continue to encourage them to wake up. As we wonder if our ideals and expectations are doomed to fail, may remember that none of us are free until all of us are free. May we continue to answer the call of love and fight for the lives that need us most. May our voices continue to rise until they are heard above the hate.
May it Be,
Amen

We Answer the Call of Love By Julia Corbett-Hemeyer

Continue reading →

Meditation Monday for Indigenous People’s Day

CZ

Today we celebrate the Indigenous People’s of the world.

In honor of Indigenous Peoples Day, our Monday Meditation is “We Are Not Guests” by UUA staff member Alicia Forde. It reads, in part:

“Am I a guest here. Here in this House. Are you?

Are we guests here. Here in this House. And, whose House do we inhabit?

In the small world of our lives the borders between us: easements, fences, gates, hedges—serve to delineate, to separate us. To remind us of where my property begins and ends…

Whose House do we inhabit?

For we are not hosts. We are not owners.

Nor are we guests.

What, then, is our responsibility?”

Read it in full from WorshipWeb: http://tinyurl.com/y9rnyvkw

Have a Blessed Day,
Cricket
Image from https://www.highline.edu/event/celebrate-indigenous-peoples-day/