There will be no in-person or Google Meet services at West Fork Unitarian Universalists until September 2026. Please watch this space for further information.
Please consult current posts for readings and other news.
“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
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.
Email westforkuu@gmail.com or use our contact form for more information or write to us at PO Box 523, Clarksburg WV 26302
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.
Email westforkuu@gmail.com or use our contact form for more information or write to us at PO Box 523, Clarksburg WV 26302
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.
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.
Email westforkuu@gmail.com or use our contact form for more information, or write to us at PO Box 523, Clarksburg WV 26302
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.
Email westforkuu@gmail.com or use our contact form for more information or write to us at PO Box 523, Clarksburg WV 26302
I may have been shocked by the poster, but I was not surprised by it. For a long time, I have been privately lamenting the instrumentalisation of everything: how nothing seems to be of value in itself any more but is only seen as useful in the service of some utilitarian function..
— Julian Baggini, “Art, sex, nature: why is everything sold to us as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself?”, The Guardian, 14 April 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, 21 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 “Art, sex, nature: why is everything sold to us as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself?”, by Julian Baggini, The Guardian, 14 April 2026
The article, “Art, sex, nature: why is everything sold to us as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself?”, by Julian Baggini, 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.
Email westforkuu@gmail.com or use our contact form for more information or write to us at PO Box 523, Clarksburg WV 26302
We believe that the heights and depths of existence, its sorrows and joys, cannot be expressed in formulas or eternal doctrines, but must be lived and experienced throughout life. And we believe that human beings are born open, questioning, and with an innate capacity for goodness. We have no sure, common answers to life’s great questions.
— “The “Foundation of Faith” of the Danish Unitarisk Kirkesamfund (Unitarian Church Community)”,translated by Andrew J. Brown, CAUTE — Making Footprints Not Blueprints, 16 May 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, 14 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 “The “Foundation of Faith” of the Danish Unitarisk Kirkesamfund (Unitarian Church Community)”, translated by Andrew J. Brown, CAUTE — Making Footprints Not Blueprints, 16 May 2026,
The article, “The “Foundation of Faith” of the Danish Unitarisk Kirkesamfund (Unitarian Church Community)”, translated 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.
Email westforkuu@gmail.com or use our contact form for more information or write to us at PO Box 523, Clarksburg WV 26302
We have Spiritual Outings on the first Sunday of each month through the summer (very loosely defined). For this year’s June outing, we will gather on 7 June in Shinnston at Ferguson Memorial Park for a celebration of early summer, the joys of nature, and the challenges of fellowship. Come join us in the park.
We will meet at 11 a.m. in the picnic area for a short service followed by a potluck picnic, conversation, and 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.. [Note that the Shinnston pool is closed.]
We would love to have you come worship with us.
Note that Google Meet will not be available for this service.
For a map and directions, please use this link: goo.gl/maps/enAartS4VNE2
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 deepfake video looks exactly like something we have actually seen, or could see (ken [見]); an AI-generated voice sounds exactly like something we have actually heard or could have heard (bun [聞]). Yet neither is truly real. Social media algorithms now hijack our eyes and ears with fabricated or decontextualised clips designed to trigger emotional responses and compel us toward actions that are as undesirable as they are destructive. Through Tamura’s translation, the word kenbun [見聞] — seeing and hearing — helps to reveal the very faculty under attack today, namely, our direct perception.
— Andrew J. Brown, “Seeing and Hearing: A free-religious response to the information crisis”, CAUTE — Making Footprints Not Blueprints, 8 May 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, 31 May, 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 “Seeing and Hearing: A free-religious response to the information crisis”, by Andrew J. Brown, CAUTE — Making Footprints Not Blueprints, 8 May 2026,
The article, “Seeing and Hearing: A free-religious response to the information crisis”, 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 ZOOM 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 ZOOM 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 ZOOM.
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.
Email westforkuu@gmail.com or use our contact form for more information or write to us at PO Box 523, Clarksburg WV 26302
West Fork Unitarian Universalists 