Author: Robert

Sunday, 13 September 2026: More Than Ceremony

Robert

Ritual is not unique to religion. From athletes who repeat the same pregame routines before every competition to families who gather around holiday traditions year after year, ritual provides structure, continuity, and meaning. While there is little evidence that a particular ritual improves athletic performance, psychologists have long recognized that ritual behavior can reduce anxiety, focus attention, reinforce identity, and create a sense of belonging. On a cultural level, rituals help communities mark transitions, remember the past, transmit values across generations, and reaffirm who they are.

— Manny Tejeda y Moreno, “More Than Ceremony: New Study Explores Ritual’s Transformative Power”

We currently conduct a full worship service on the first Sunday of each month, and discuss a different short reading each of the remaining Sundays.

At 6:00 p.m. on Sunday, 13 September, we will open with a very brief service and chalice lighting, followed by our discussion. Robert Helfer will lead the service and discussion. This week’s reading is “More Than Ceremony: New Study Explores Ritual’s Transformative Power”, by Manny Tejeda y Moreno, The Wild Hunt, 7 August 2026.

The article, “More Than Ceremony: New Study Explores Ritual’s Transformative Power”, by Manny Tejeda y Moreno, can be found here.

Please Join us for Worship.

Our services are Sundays at 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Google Meet and in person at the Progressive Women’s Association Event Center, 305 Washington Ave. in downtown Clarksburg, behind the Courthouse. A coffee hour, a time for discussion and socializing (including Google Meet participants), follows from the end of the service until 8:00 p.m. More about us.

If you prefer not to be seen, video is optional. If you would like to participate online, please email westforkuu@gmail.com for details and a link, or for help with using Google Meet.

We would love to have you come worship with us.

Children are welcome.

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, or the north, where the reserved spaces are available on Sundays.

Map

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

Changing Times: Beginning on 13 September 2026

Robert

Beginning on 13 September 2026, West Fork Unitarian Universalists services will be held Sundays at 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Google Meet and in person at the Progressive Women’s Association Event Center, 305 Washington Ave. in downtown Clarksburg, behind the Courthouse. A coffee hour, a time for discussion and socializing (including Google Meet participants), follows from the end of the service until 8:00 p.m.

Sunday, 6 September 2026: Spiritual Outing at Valley Falls State Park

Robert
Tygart Valley River
Tygart Valley River at Valley Falls

To Hindus the universe itself was a perpetual motion machine, and there seemed nothing absurd in an endless and spontaneous flow of energy. Bhāskāra speaks of the siphon as though it were a device for perpetual motion, and his fourteenth-century European imitator insists that his mercury wheel is in perpetual motion, even though when he made it experimentally he applied heat to its lower part, and is quite aware that it turned because the heat made the mercury rise. A windmill on a hill with constant breezes, a water-mill in a stream which never runs dry, were, to the Middle Ages, perpetual motion machines. The significant things about the idea of perpetual motion in late Medieval Europe, in contrast to India and Islam, are the indications of the intense and widespread interest in it, the attempt to diversify its motors, and the effort to make it do something useful.
— Lynn White, Jr., Medieval Technology and Social Change (1962).

We have Spiritual Outings on the first Sunday of each month through the summer (very loosely defined). For this year’s September outing, we will gather on 6 September at Valley Falls State Park for a celebration of Autumn, the joys of nature, the perpetual flow of water, and the challenges of fellowship. Come join us on the banks of the Tygart Valley River.

We will meet at 11 a.m. in the picnic area for a short service followed by a potluck picnic, conversation, and perhaps walking — look for the WFUU banner. Bring food to share if you are able and wish to share; otherwise, just bring food for yourself and share our company. In the event of rain we will probably get wet; in the event of clear sky we will probably get hot — bring weather-appropriate clothing.

We would love to have you come worship and share food with us.

Note that Google Meet will not be available for this service.

This link will take you to a map: https://goo.gl/maps/CiiqyDAXiw42

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

A Great Spangled Fritillary (Speyeria cybele) came for the picnic

There Will Come Soft Rains — August 4, 2026

Robert

Ray Bradbury’s short story “There Will Come Soft Rains — August 4, 2026” from The Martian Chronicles reflects the day before the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. This version from BBC Radiophonic Workshop, 1977, titled “August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains”, was adapted for “Narrator, Vocoder and Synthesizer” by Malcolm Clarke.

Someone’s comment on the YouTube page for a different version provides some context:

This Ray Bradbury story is an anti-war message, as is the Sara Teasdale poem with the same title. However, the full title of the story in The Martian Chronicles is “There Will Come Soft Rains — August 4, 2026”. On August 5, 1945 (US time), the USA dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. August 4, 2026 marks the end of a full 80 years after the bombing. The destroyed house repeating “Today is August 5, 2026” endlessly is a warning of what happened when we forgot Hiroshima 81 years before. Bradbury wrote the story in 1950, just after the Soviet Union first successfully tested a nuclear bomb in 1949. The story was right for its time as it is today. It is about what a Cold War brings when it gets hot.

Sara Teasdale wrote her poem around 1918 during a time of total war and pandemic. Perhaps the poem still has something to say to us in our current condition.

(War Time)

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows calling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

—- Sara Teasdale, There Will Come Soft Rains

Sunday, 26 July 2026: Watters Smith Memorial State Park

Robert
Watters Smith Memorial State Park

“I always wondered how a real estate man could buy up a farm and put a whole city on it.” He said. “ I don’t think it’s right. When we first came out here there was just one other house in the whole area. Now there is a subdivision across the street.” “I guess I could have gotten a good price for this place, but when I was young, I used to walk in these pretty woods along Kyte Creek with its clear water and think, “Someday this would make a good park.””

— Norm Skare, talking about a different park created from a different family farm, as quoted in “Norm Skare and an oasis of wilderness”, Rochelle News-Leader (Rochelle, Illinois), May 27, 2022

We currently have a Spiritual Outing on one Sunday of each month during the summer. For this year’s July outing, we will gather for a celebration of outdoors and nature on Sunday, July 26, at Watters Smith Memorial State Park. There will be no Google Meet session this Sunday.

We will meet at 11 a.m. in the Pioneer shelter in the picnic area near the historical area for a short service followed by a potluck picnic, conversation, and fellowship. Bring food to share if you are able and wish to share; otherwise, just bring food for yourself and share our company.

If you are not on the WFUU members email list, or want a ride, please contact us at westforkuu@gmail.com.

We would love to have you come worship with us.

Pickerel frog (Lithobates palustris) swimming in Duck Creek

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

Sunday, 19 July 2026: Somethingism

Robert

Ietsists are often dismissed as lukewarm believers who want nothing to do with a personal God. But considered closely, a culture-critical force lies hidden within ietsism: a resistance against the modern inability to radically think through the meaning of life.

— Theo van de Kerkhof, “The Intuition of Ietsism (Somethingism): Nothingness as Our Safe Haven”, translated by Andrew J. Brown

We currently conduct a full worship service on the first Sunday of each month, and discuss a different short reading each of the remaining Sundays.

On Sunday, 19 July, we will open with a very brief service and chalice lighting, followed by our discussion. Robert Helfer will lead the service and discussion. This week’s reading is “The Intuition of Ietsism (Somethingism): Nothingness as Our Safe Haven”, by Theo van de Kerkhof, translated by Andrew J. Brown, CAUTE — Making Footprints Not Blueprints, 13 July 2026.

The article, “The Intuition of Ietsism (Somethingism): Nothingness as Our Safe Haven”, by Theo van de Kerkhof, can be found here.

Please Join us for Worship.

Our services are Sundays at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time on Google Meet and in person at the Progressive Women’s Association Event Center, 305 Washington Ave. in downtown Clarksburg, behind the Courthouse. A coffee hour, a time for discussion and socializing (including Google Meet participants), follows from the end of the service until 12:00 noon. More about us.

If you prefer not to be seen, video is optional. If you would like to participate online, please email westforkuu@gmail.com for details and a link, or for help with using Google Meet.

We would love to have you come worship with us.

Children are welcome.

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, or the north, where the reserved spaces are available on Sundays.

Map

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

Sunday, 12 July 2026: Looking Closely

Robert

I want to look at the lilies, indeed, all flowers, in a way that helps us understand the profound meaning of the adverb ‘closely’. It is an aspect of Jesus’ teaching that is nearly always overlooked, yet it changes how we see everything.

— Andrew J. Brown, “Looking Closely: The overlooked word in the teaching of the lilies of the field”, CAUTE — Making Footprints Not Blueprints, 4 July 2026

We currently conduct a full worship service on the first Sunday of each month, and discuss a different short reading each of the remaining Sundays.

On Sunday, 12 July, we will open with a very brief service and chalice lighting, followed by our discussion. Robert Helfer will lead the service and discussion. This week’s reading is “Looking Closely: The overlooked word in the teaching of the lilies of the field”, by Andrew J. Brown, CAUTE — Making Footprints Not Blueprints, 4 July 2026.

The article, “Looking Closely: The overlooked word in the teaching of the lilies of the field”, by Andrew J. Brown, can be found here.

Please Join us for Worship.

Our services are Sundays at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time on Google Meet and in person at the Progressive Women’s Association Event Center, 305 Washington Ave. in downtown Clarksburg, behind the Courthouse. A coffee hour, a time for discussion and socializing (including Google Meet participants), follows from the end of the service until 12:00 noon. More about us.

If you prefer not to be seen, video is optional. If you would like to participate online, please email westforkuu@gmail.com for details and a link, or for help with using Google Meet.

We would love to have you come worship with us.

Children are welcome.

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, or the north, where the reserved spaces are available on Sundays.

Map

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

Sunday, 5 July 2026: Live the Questions Now

Robert
Black and white image of fish and birds blending into each other

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue.

Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer

— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, translated by Charlie Louth

Trying to love the questions while not seeking the answers — is this the path we are to follow? Robert Helfer will lead the service.

Please join us for Worship:

Our services are Sundays at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time on Google Meet and in person at the Progressive Women’s Association Event Center, 305 Washington Ave. in downtown Clarksburg, behind the Courthouse. A coffee hour, a time for discussion and socializing (including Google Meet participants), follows from the end of the service until 12:00 noon. More about us.

If you attend through Google Meet ant prefer not to be seen, video is optional. If you would like to participate online, please email westforkuu@gmail.com for details and a link, or for help with using Google Meet.

Classes and worship are replaced by Spiritual Outings on the first Sunday of most months during the summer, with brief worship, a potluck picnic, and outdoor activities. The schedule is in the sidebar.

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

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

Sunday, 28 June 2026: Small Talk

Robert

Exchanging small talk with people we’ve just met may be an unfortunate necessity, but with people we already know, it seems to suggest that they’re people to whom we have nothing to say. And yet if small talk is just talk that’s idle, insignificant and without stated purpose, then surely a substantial portion of the chatter that goes on between couples, friends and (or especially) families must count as small. Banality, however, need not always be insignificant.

— Dora Zhang, “Small Talk”, The Point, 18 May 2013

We currently conduct a full worship service on the first Sunday of each month, and discuss a different short reading each of the remaining Sundays.

On Sunday, 28 June, we will open with a very brief service and chalice lighting, followed by our discussion. Robert Helfer will lead the service and discussion. This week’s reading is “Small Talk”, by Dora Zhang, The Point, 18 May 2013.

The article, “Small Talk”, by Dora Zhang, can be found here.

Please Join us for Worship.

Our services are Sundays at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time on Google Meet and in person at the Progressive Women’s Association Event Center, 305 Washington Ave. in downtown Clarksburg, behind the Courthouse. A coffee hour, a time for discussion and socializing (including Google Meet participants), follows from the end of the service until 12:00 noon. More about us.

If you prefer not to be seen, video is optional. If you would like to participate online, please email westforkuu@gmail.com for details and a link, or for help with using Google Meet.

We would love to have you come worship with us.

Children are welcome.

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, or the north, where the reserved spaces are available on Sundays.

Map

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