Trust is a necessary component in every relationship. Without it, we’re unable to be vulnerable, to share our dreams, to hold secrets, to feel safe. Hardly anyone would prefer to be made the fool — healthy skepticism can prevent you from clicking on a phishing link in an email or joining a multilevel marketing scheme — but a life of cynicism isn’t preferable either.

— Allie Volpe, “The secret to actually trusting each other”

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, 18 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 secret to actually trusting each other”, by Allie Volpe, Vox, 7 May 2025

“The secret to actually trusting each other”, 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

We all have things that we don’t want other people to know about us. Things that might be hard to explain, even to ourselves. The world can be an unforgiving place, quick to judge, and friendships can be fleeting. Would the people whose regard means the most to us look at us differently if they learned of our hidden selves? Would they abandon us? Surely God knows our secrets. What does He think of us?

— Mark Warren, “Right-Wing Media and the Death of an Alabama Pastor: An American Tragedy”, Esquire, 3 April 2024

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, 11 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 “Right-Wing Media and the Death of an Alabama Pastor: An American Tragedy”, by Mark Warren, (Esquire, 3 April 2024)

“Right-Wing Media and the Death of an Alabama Pastor: An American Tragedy”, can be found here. Note that the article might take a few seconds to display; scroll down to read it.

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

Everyone believes they are capable of behaving reasonably themselves. If they think laws and police are necessary, it is only because they don’t believe that other people are. But if you think about it, don’t those people all feel exactly the same way about you?

— David Graeber, “Are You An Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You!”, 2000

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, 27 April, 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 You An Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You!”, by David Graeber (2000)

“Are You An Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You!”, 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

In a certain kingdom there lived a rich peasant, who had three sons — Simeon (a soldier), Tarras-Briukhan (a fat man), and Ivan (a fool) — and one daughter, Milania, born dumb. Simeon went to war, to serve the Czar; Tarras went to a city and became a merchant; and Ivan, with his sister, remained at home to work on the farm.

— Leo Tolstoy, “The Story of Ivan the Fool”

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, 20 April, 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 Story of Ivan the Fool”, by Leo Tolstoy (1886), translated by Adolphus Norraikow.

“The Story of Ivan the Fool”, 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

There will be no in-person or Zoom service on Sunday, 30 March 2025. We are supplying a reading suggestion for those who are interested.

… everything is seemingly up for grabs. In theory, a lack of consensus on so many subjects should mean that we live in a time of widespread intellectual foment, in which we turn over the fundamental questions, exploring them in earnest, searching deeply for durable answers. But is that what we’re doing? Or have we mistaken a simulacrum of thinking for the real thing?

— Joshua Rothman, “Should You Question Everything?”, The New Yorker, 21 January 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, “Should You Question Everything?”, can be found here.

Socrates: There was a tradition in the temple of Dodona that oaks first gave prophetic utterances. The men of old, unlike in their simplicity to young philosophy, deemed that if they heard the truth even from “oak or rock,” it was enough for them; whereas you seem to consider not whether a thing is or is not true, but who the speaker is and from what country the tale comes.

— Plato, Phaedrus, translated by Benjamin Jowett (5th/4th century BCE; 1892)

The entire dialogue 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.

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

There will be no in-person or Zoom service on Sunday, 23 March 2025. We are supplying a reading suggestion for those who are interested.

Adding to the internal tension was something I’d observed among my beetles: the spectre of evolved selfishness. What looked like coöperation was, I discovered, laced with sexual conflict. The female beetles, when they had a size advantage, ejected their male partners; the males evidently stuck around less to help than to insure future mating opportunities. Where I first saw biparental collaboration was instead a complicated waltz of organisms seeking to perpetuate their own interests. Was I one of them — another gene machine bent on favoring itself?

— Manvir Singh, “Are Your Morals Too Good to Be True?”, The New Yorker, 9 September 2024

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, “Are Your Morals Too Good to Be True?”, can be found here.

Science has taught me that everything is more complicated than we first assume, and that being able to derive happiness from discovery is a recipe for a beautiful life. It has also convinced me that carefully writing everything down is the only real defense we have against forgetting something important that once was and is no more, including the spruce tree that should have outlived me but did not.

— Hope Jahren, Lab Girl (2016)

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