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And here we are. A very problematic story attached to a communal call to give thanks for what is good, and to celebrate. A terrible memory of the possibility of evil, and its actual manifestations. And the sense of powerlessness while also wishing for some reconciliation among people and this little planet upon which we live, and breathe, and from which we take our being.

— James Ford, “A Zen Meditation on our American Thanksgiving”, 2023

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. But because of scheduling problems this week, we have moved our usual full service to a later date. Instead we will discuss a short reading.

On Sunday, 1 December, we will open with a very brief service and chalice lighting, after which Robert Helfer will guide us through our discussion. This week’s reading is James Ford’s 2023 meditation, “A Zen Meditation on our American Thanksgiving”, published on his blog “Monkey Mind“.

“A Zen Meditation on our American Thanksgiving” 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.

Please note that this Sunday we will be on the second floor. Please enter, as usual, through the door at the back on the west side of the building, then go to the second floor. There is an elevator in the hallway.

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

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Utter ignorance, however, for which the dictionary offers the term ignoration, is yet more profound: The prisoners in Plato’s Cave do not know what they do not know; they do not even know that they do not know. They dwell in ignorance, but cannot recognize it. Ignoration is thus a predicament, a trap — one that is not comprehended by those who are caught in it and dwell there. In a sense, they are not in a place at all: Theirs is rather a placelessness in which one doesn’t even know one is lost.

— Daniel R. DeNicola, “Plato’s Cave and the Stubborn Persistence of Ignorance”

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, 24 November, we will open with a very brief service and chalice lighting, after which Robert Helfer will guide us through our discussion. This week’s reading is Daniel R. DeNicola’s study of knowledge and ignorance, “Plato’s Cave and the Stubborn Persistence of Ignorance”, excerpted from his Understanding Ignorance: The Surprising Impact of What We Don’t Know, 2018.

“Plato’s Cave and the Stubborn Persistence of Ignorance” 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

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A particular collectivity, the army or the warring nation, is given the name and, along with the name, the attributes of a single person, in order that we may be able to love or hate it more intensely than we could do if we thought of it as what it really is: a number of diverse individuals. In other cases personification is used for the purpose of concealing the fundamental absurdity and monstrosity of war. What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood. By personifying opposing armies or countries, we are able to think of war as a conflict between individuals.

— Aldous Huxley, “Words and Behaviour”, The Olive Tree and Other Essays (1936)

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, 17 November, we will open with a very brief service and chalice lighting, after which Robert Helfer will guide us through our discussion. This week’s reading is Aldous Huxley’s 1936 essay on the nature and behavior of words, “Words and Behaviour”, The Olive Tree and Other Essays, 1936.

The Olive Tree and Other Essays can be found here, then select the desired format and search for “Words and Behaviour”. Or just go 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

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What I have always found attractive about the Panchatantra stories is that many of them do not moralise. They do not preach goodness or virtue or modesty or honesty or restraint. Cunning and strategy and amorality often overcome all opposition. The good guys don’t always win. (It’s not even always clear who the good guys are.) For this reason they seem, to the modern reader, uncannily contemporary – because we, the modern readers, live in a world of amorality and shamelessness and treachery and cunning, in which bad guys everywhere have often won.

— Salman Rushdie, “‘The good guys don’t always win’: Salman Rushdie on peace, Barbie and what freedom cost him”, The Guardian, 8 November 2023.

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, 10 November, we will open with a very brief service and chalice lighting, after which Robert Helfer will guide us through our discussion. This week’s reading is Salman Rushdie’s 2023 reflection on good and evil, peace, and the values of myth, “‘The good guys don’t always win’: Salman Rushdie on peace, Barbie and what freedom cost him”, The Guardian, 8 November 2023.

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