Author: Robert

Sunday, 27 July 2025: No In-Person or Zoom Service

Robert

There will be no in-person or Zoom service on Sunday, 27 July 2025. We are providing a reading suggestion for those who are interested.

The great inspiration Thomas Jefferson drew from Jean Jacques Rousseau’s writings on the “social contract” before penning one of mankind’s most eloquent documents in July of 1776 was based on his belief that people would make rational, indeed democratic, decisions if they had the right information.

— Jim Branscome, “Commentary: The Tragedy of the Commons — From Overgrazing Pastures to Exhausting Our Reservoirs of Hope and Trust” The Daily Yonder, 3 July 2025 

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.

Although we will not be meeting either in person or on Zoom this Sunday, we are offering this reading for those who would like to participate in our weekly readings.

The article, “Commentary: The Tragedy of the Commons — From Overgrazing Pastures to Exhausting Our Reservoirs of Hope and Trust?”, 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. There are activities available for toddlers 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, 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, 20 July 2025: 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 the third 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 20, at Watters Smith Memorial State Park. There will be no ZOOM 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 walking. 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 13 July 2025: The Sacred

Robert

Where does this leave secular societies in which technological or policy-focused solutions to environmental problems are not working, but where identification with the sacred has waned over time? Can something as deeply personal and experiential as the sacred be meaningfully shaped by design? Could mundane, often thankless tasks — cycling, tree-planting, recycling — be reframed not as chores, but as rituals of care and connection that inspire deeper commitment to environmental stewardship?

The sacred need not be confined to formal religion. While the Grand Bassin’s significance is rooted in Hindu mythology and practice, the orientation it reflects — a sense of reverence, moral weight and emotional resonance — can arise in many forms. Sacredness emerges wherever people set something apart as meaningful beyond its utility: a forest grove, a war memorial, a national flag, a moment of collective silence. What matters is not the doctrine behind it but the way it shapes how people think, feel and act.

Of course, one might ask whether it’s even possible to promote rituals of care in the absence of care itself. Wouldn’t such efforts ring hollow or fail to resonate with those who feel disconnected from the natural world in the first place? But this is precisely where sacralization matters most. Sacredness does not only emerge from what people already revere — it actively helps generate that reverence. Rituals can bring people into a different frame of mind, one in which meaning accumulates through repetition, symbols take on weight and ordinary acts begin to feel purposeful. If environmental stewardship is to take root, it may not be enough to wait for people to care. Sometimes the path to care begins with practice.

“Simply being in a setting marked as sacred seems to trigger a shift in moral orientation, nudging people toward more prosocial behavior.”

— Dimitris Xygalatas, “To Save Nature, Make It Sacred”

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, 13 Julye, 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 “To Save Nature, Make It Sacred”, by Dimitris Xygalatas, Noēma, July 3, 2025.

“To Save Nature, Make It Sacred”, can be found here.

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. There are activities available for toddlers 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, 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 July 6, 2025: The Courage to Be Disliked

Robert


In a world the human inhabitants of which are currently being polarised into either the fiery or the ice-bound there often seems no longer to be any point in adopting a more temperate approach. After all, at the moment, those of us who do try to make temperate points in the public space often quickly find their arguments (and nearly always themselves) simultaneously attacked by the fiery from one side and the ice-bound from the other. It can be — indeed, it often is — highly dispiriting. So, what on earth are those of us with a more temperate spirit to do?

Rev. Andrew Brown, ”A passionately cool political/theological meditation on Robert Frost’s poem ‘Fire and Ice’”

Lisa deGruyter will lead a service on principles in difficult times:

Something I have been thinking about also lately is how I believe our first principle, the inherent worth and dignity of every human being, an antidote to what I think I am seeing as an underlying problem in our culture, as expressed in a T-shirt I saw the other day “Calvinism #somelivesmatter”. I think we sometimes take that principle for granted and believe that it must be a principle that is taken for granted by every religion. But it isn’t.

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.

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 29 June 2025: Not Being Offended

Robert
Calvin and Susie arguing

Naturally, life is happier if you’re not being offended. One strategy is to try avoiding anyone who might offend you and put up barriers against any exposure to them. If this involves curating your friendships to shun someone who’s liable to hurt your feelings repeatedly, that’s fine. But if taking measures against being offended means shutting down free speech on your college campus, that is less likely to go well for you or serve your purpose.

— Arthur C. Brooks, “The Strength You Gain by Not Taking Offense”

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, 29 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 Strength You Gain by Not Taking Offense”, by Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic, June 19, 2025.

“The Strength You Gain by Not Taking Offense”, can be found here. This is a gift article; you do not need a subscription.

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. There are activities available for toddlers 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, 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

Juneteenth

Robert

The people are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property, between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them, become that between employer and hired labor. The freed are advised to remain at their present homes, and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts; and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.

— General Gordon Granger, “General Order No. 3“, June 19, 1865, Galveston, Texas

Sunday, 22 June 2025: Republics and Tyranny

Robert

When I started seeing some of the earliest readers of Machiavelli and the earliest comments you get from republican authors, they all see Machiavelli as an ally and they say it. They say he’s a moral writer. 

— Erica Benner, quoted by Sean Illing in “Are We Reading Machiavelli Wrong?”

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, 22 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 “Are We Reading Machiavelli Wrong?”, an interview with Erica Benner by Sean Illing, Vox podcasts: “The Gray Area”, 30 May, 2025

“Are We Reading Machiavelli Wrong”, can be found here.

All are welcome to participate.

**If you wish to join by ZOOM and do not already have the link, please email us at westforkuu@gmail.com**

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.

Children are welcome. The building is wheelchair accessible, with an accessible restroom. You may park in the lot on the west side of the building; DO NOT PARK in the Washington Avenue pay lot. Please enter through the door at the back on the west side of the building.

Map

A half hour for coffee, discussion, and socializing, including those who attend through ZOOM, follows from the end of the service until 12:00 noon. More about us.

If you have been a regular attendee and we had an email address for you, we have added you to our Google Group. If you have not gotten a group email already, please email westforkuu@gmail.com so that we can add you to the group. We encourage members to continue discussions through the week using the WFUU email group. Public announcements will continue to be posted here on the website and on our Facebook page 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, 15 June 2025: 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), but this month it will be on the third Sunday. For this year’s June outing, we will gather on 15 June at Valley Falls State Park for a celebration of summer, 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 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 eat with us.

Note that ZOOM 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

Sunday, 8 June 2025: Is It True?

Robert

The ability of religious social practices to serve their purposes does not depend on their myths being literally “true,” or even being believed. In the light of this usefulness, secularists might respect religion, even practice it in some sense, even though these days there are also non-religious ways of meeting these needs. 

— Winston Higgins, “Ask Whether It Works, Not Whether It’s True”

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, 8 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 “Ask Whether It Works, Not Whether It’s True”, by Winston Higgins, Tricycle, November 12, 2021

“Ask Whether It Works, Not Whether It’s True”, can be found here. This is a gift article.

All are welcome to participate.

**If you wish to join by ZOOM and do not already have the link, please email us at westforkuu@gmail.com**

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.

Children are welcome. The building is wheelchair accessible, with an accessible restroom. You may park in the lot on the west side of the building; DO NOT PARK in the Washington Avenue pay lot. Please enter through the door at the back on the west side of the building.

Map

A half hour for coffee, discussion, and socializing, including those who attend through ZOOM, follows from the end of the service until 12:00 noon. More about us.

If you have been a regular attendee and we had an email address for you, we have added you to our Google Group. If you have not gotten a group email already, please email westforkuu@gmail.com so that we can add you to the group. We encourage members to continue discussions through the week using the WFUU email group. Public announcements will continue to be posted here on the website and on our Facebook page 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, 25 May 2025: To Stand in the Middle of All This

Robert
The Great Wave off Kanagawa -- Hokusai

Equanimity is said to be an anchor. It protects you against the “worldly winds” — pleasure and pain, praise and blame, gain and loss, and fame and disrepute — by keeping you anchored so you’re not tossed about by those winds. Or hurricanes.

— Daisy Hernández, “The Noble Abode of Equanimity: On not getting swept up in the political storm”

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, 25 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 “The Noble Abode of Equanimity: On not getting swept up in the political storm”, by Daisy Hernández, Tricycle, Summer 2019

“The Noble Abode of Equanimity: On not getting swept up in the political storm”, can be found here. This is a gift article.

All are welcome to participate.

**If you wish to join by ZOOM and do not already have the link, please email us at westforkuu@gmail.com**

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.

Children are welcome. The building is wheelchair accessible, with an accessible restroom. You may park in the lot on the west side of the building; DO NOT PARK in the Washington Avenue pay lot. Please enter through the door at the back on the west side of the building.

Map

A half hour for coffee, discussion, and socializing, including those who attend through ZOOM, follows from the end of the service until 12:00 noon. More about us.

If you have been a regular attendee and we had an email address for you, we have added you to our Google Group. If you have not gotten a group email already, please email westforkuu@gmail.com so that we can add you to the group. We encourage members to continue discussions through the week using the WFUU email group. Public announcements will continue to be posted here on the website and on our Facebook page 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