Lent for UUs

CZ

In Christian churches there is a 40 day period beginning Ash Wednesday and leading to Easter, that is full of meditation, prayer, and sacrifice. This is act of devotion and a spiritual practice. 

While this is not a practice that all UUs participate in, it is something from our history and something that we may wish to participate in. The question might come up, “is there a Unitarian Universalist way to practice Lent?” The answer is yes. A calendar has been created by Mr. Barb Greve and Alex Kapitan. The idea is to focus on a particular word each day during lent and on the Sundays we are to reflect on the word and encourage each other to enact it in our lives. Should you choose to participate you can share your reflections with the hashtag #UULent

Here is the calendar for reference. 


May your day be filled with light and the coming weeks be filled with introspection and healing. 

Namaste, 

Cricket 

Sunday February 26 2017: Church! What Is It Good For?

LdeG

Church! What Is It Good For?

Prelude: Closer to Fine – Indigo Girls

And I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains
There’s more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line…

Welcome

Let our church be a gift from each of us to the other.
But even more let it be a gift from each of us to our community.
Let us be a gathering place for the spirit, a refuge for hope, a beacon of inspiration, and a dynamo of life and justice for all.
Let faithful community be the ground of commitment and action to enrich the world.

Dennis McCarthy

Chalice Lighting

For me the essence of Unitarian Universalism is the responsible search for my personal spiritual truth in a loving and supportive community that values that search. The analogy I use is the campfire or hearth. When the cold, existential winds of the uncaring universe blew hard and bitter, it was all that was between our ancestors and the outer darkness. But it was enough, and they thrived. It was the center of life. Children heard the stories of the people from the elders. How to find food was discussed. Strangers were welcomed around the flame. We learned to take care of the weak and infirm, the young and helpless, but also that if everyone did not tend the fire and fetch the wood, that there was no survival. For me our Chalice symbolizes that flame that was the center of community. Today, it is the center of where I find, explore and celebrate my own spiritual truth and continue to grow as a person of faith.

From Bob Hurst, First Unitarian Church of Oklahoma City Continue reading →

Sunday February 19, 2017

CZ

“Indeed our survival and liberation depend upon our recognition of the truth when it is spoken and lived by the people. If we cannot recognize the truth, then it cannot liberate us from untruth. To know the truth is to appropriate it, for it is not mainly reflection and theory. Truth is divine action entering our lives and creating the human action of liberation.”
― James H. Cone

This Sunday we will explore the connection between liberation theology and the Unitarian Universalist Association.

We would love to have you come worship with us.

Our services are Sundays at 11 a.m. at the Progressive Women’s Association Event Center, 305 Washington Ave. in downtown Clarksburg, behind the Courthouse.

Our Religious Education/ Life Long Learning Class will meet at from 10am to 10:45 am with a coffee gathering before the service. More about 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

The schedule for the current adult religious education class is here.

Email westforkuu@gmail.com or use our contact form for more information

or write to us at PO Box 523, Clarksburg WV 26302

~
Namaste
Cricket

Image Credit – http://www.slideshare.net/chaoxine/liberation-theology-34109525

Sunday February 12, 2017

CZ

Prelude: P!NK “Don’t Let me Get Me”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asaCQOZpqUQ

Welcome: “All That Lies Within You” by Angela Herrera

Consider this an invitation
To you.
Yes-you
With all your happiness
And all of your burdens,
Your hopes and regrets.
An invitation if you feel good today,
And an invitation if you do not,
If you are aching-
And there are so many ways to ache.

Whoever you are, however you are,
Wherever you are in your journey,
This is an invitation into peace.
Peace in your heart,
And peace in your heart,
And-with every breath
Peace in your heart.

Maybe your heart is heavy
Or hardened.
Maybe it’s troubled
And peace can take up residence
Only in a small corner,
Only on the edge,
With all that is going on in the world,
And in your life.
Ni modo. It doesn’t matter.

All that you need
For a deep and comforting peace to grow
Lies within you.
Once it is in your heart
Let it spread into your life,
Let it pour from your life into the world
And once it is in the world,
Let it shine upon all beings.
 

Song: Gathered Here

Chalice Lighting:  A Spark of Hope By Melanie Davis

If ever there were a time for a candle in the darkness,
this would be it.
Using a spark of hope,
kindle the flame of love,
ignite the light of peace,
and feed the flame of justice.

Continue reading →

Blessed Imbolc

CZ

Today is a special day. We are halfway through winter. The world is starting it’s wakeup cycle. Imbolc, also known as Candlemas and Groundhog’s Day, occurs at the beginning of February. It marks the middle of Winter and holds the promise of Spring. The Goddess manifests as the Maiden and Brigid. It is a festival of spiritual purification and dedication. There are many different rituals and activities to do for this holiday, some can be found here. One of my favorites is “waking up the trees“.

Here is a small devotion or meditation for the day.

Prayer in Winter By Deborah Weiner

Oh spirit of life and love,
We pause for a moment on this snowy day to reflect on the changes one week can make in our lives.

We celebrate the feast of Imbolc, the pagan holiday that heralds the coming of spring.
Our hearts stir with the thought that lambs are being born, that the light is increasing, that—if not here, than in other parts of our country—the earth has begun to stir from its winter sleep.

We bow to the forces of nature that have stirred, again and again, and reminded us, through storms and sudden changes in our weather, that we are not in charge—that earth is moved by jet streams, polar vortices, and Alberta Clippers and we must endure and be patient.

And through it all, we are reminded, again and again, that we are not alone:
May we continue to recognize that in this spiritual home, we are held.
In this house of memory and hope, we will be welcomed and supported.
In this temple of celebration and contemplation, we may bring all of who we are,
and be both honored and affirmed.

For all this and all that will come in the days ahead, we say “Amen” and Blessed Be.

 

Namaste,
Cricket

Holding Reality and Possibility Together

CZ

I invite you now into a time of gratitude, reflection, renewal and hope.

What an unearned blessing to delight in the calming peace of this space;
to hear the robin’s song again at daybreak;
to feel the warmth in this room,
and to enjoy the promise of summer almost upon us.
Each moment of wakefulness has so many gifts that offer energy and delight.

Yet, too often they seem unavailable
as the weight of our troubles press down on us.
The threats to our well being, real or exaggerated,
feel like mosquitoes in the night looking for a place to land.
Minds become captive to rising flood waters: forceful, murky, threatening and ominous.

Even in moments of great danger, the direction of attention is a choice.
Fear can dominate the mind, binding it like a straitjacket.
Or love can unbind it and open it to resource and opportunity.
The soil of the mind can be watered with kindness.
The thorns can be removed one by one to appreciate the buds ready to flower.

Great possibilities await us even if all we can see is the cliff before us.
The grandeur of life, of which we are a part,
scatters rainbows in every direction, even as the deluge approaches.
Holding reality and possibility together is the holy, hope-filled work of humanity

If…we choose it, again and again, in love.

About the Author

Sunday February 5, 2017: Democratic Process

Robert

Prelude: Heyr himna smiður – Árstíðir

[Heyr, himna smiður (Hear, Smith of the Heavens) was written by the Icelandic chieftain and poet Kolbeinn Tumason, according to tradition, on his deathbed in 1208 AD. Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson set the poem to music in 1973. This recording features the Icelandic “Indie Rock” group Árstíðir. For more information, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolbeinn_Tumason.]

Welcome: The beauty of the whole, By Meg Barnhouse

We gather to worship, our hearts alive with hope that here we will be truly seen, that here we will be welcomed into the garden of this community, where the simple and the elegant, the fluted and frilled, the shy and the dramatic complement one another and are treasured. May we know that here, each contributes in their way to the beauty of the whole. Come, let us worship together, all genders, sexualities, politics, clappers and non-clappers, progressive or conservative, may we root ourselves in the values of this faith: compassion and courage, transcendence, justice and transformation.

Chalice lighting: Afraid of the dark, By Andrew Pakula

In sightless night, terrors draw near
Nameless fears of talon and tooth
Hopelessness yawns before us—an abyss
Alone and unknown in the gloom, longing for the dawn
O sacred flame blaze forth—wisdom brought to life
Guide us—
With the light of hope
The warmth of love
The beacon of purpose and meaning
Because we are all afraid of the dark
Let there be light

Continue reading →