Sunday, January 17, 2021

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Welcome:

Good morning and welcome to West Fork Unitarian Universalists. I’m John and I feel blessed to serve this congregation as a lay leader. I’m glad to see all of you here today.

Thank you for joining us.

[If guests] I’d like to welcome our guests. Thank you for taking a chance and taking the time to walk through our doors and join us for worship.

Let us use the prelude for centering. We are about to enter sacred time. We are about to make this time and this place sacred by our presence and intention.

Please silence your phones… and as you do so, I invite us also to turn down the volume on our fears; to remove our masks; and to loosen the armor around our hearts.

Breathe.

Let go of the expectations placed on you by others—and those they taught you to place on yourself.

Drop the guilt and the shame, not to shirk accountability, but in honest expectation of the possibility of forgiveness.

Let go of the thing you said the other day. Let go of the thing you dread next week. Be here, in this moment. Breathe, here.

Prelude:

Opening Words: Call to Worship and Action by Sharon Wylie

Continue reading →

Contemplating death and being a good ancestor

johnnyawwsome

“In this new world, you and I make it up as we go along, not because we lack expertise or planning skills, but because that is the nature of reality. Reality changes shape and meaning because of our activity. And it is constantly new. We are required to be there, as active participants. It can’t happen without us and nobody can do it for us.” – Margaret J. Wheatley

Why contemplating death changes how you think by Jonathan Jong 

Unitarian Universalists Denounce Complicity with Extremists, Call for Courageous Action by National Leaders

CZ

“The Unitarian Universalist Association joins leaders across this country in calling for the immediate removal of Donald Trump as U.S. President.

As a religious institution, we live faithfully our role as a part of the critical fabric of our country’s moral conscience. And as Unitarian Universalists, we hold democracy as a central principle for our faith. We must use this moment as an opportunity for profound reflection and awakening, not just in a momentary outcry, but as a basis for significant and lasting change.”

For more please read the press release here

Birth of The Unitarian Church in Transylvania

Robert

“Dávid Ferenc” (@unitariandavidferenc) posted this earlier today (6 January 2021) on Facebook:

On this day, January 6, in 1568 king John Sigismund assembled a Diet to be held in the town Torda (today Turda in Romania). At this Diet our Bishop Francis David inspired the delegates to later approve the first toleration edict of freedom of faith among the Christian religions.

This was a new and revolutionary idea of freedom of religion at that time, and therefore January 6 1568 also is considered by tradition to be the birth of The Unitarian Church.

Here’s the famous painting by Aladár Körösfői-Kriesch showing Bishop Francis David at the Diet of Torda. A painting well known by Unitarians.

Francis David at the Diet of Torda, 6 January 1568

Sunday, January 10, 2021: Where Are We Going?

LdeG

Unitarian and Universalist ideas have a 2,000-year history. Lisa deGruyter will review where we have been, what is meaningful to her from that history, and ways forward.

Please Join us for Worship.

We are forgoing meeting in person during the coronavirus epidemic, meeting on Zoom. We share music, readings, and hymns on our usual presentation slides, have a story and a talk, and share joys and sorrows, as well as a virtual “coffee hour” discussion starting at 10:30, with the service at 11. If you prefer not to be seen, video is optional. If you would like to participate, please email westforkuu@gmail.com for details and a link, or for help with using ZOOM.

If you are a regular attendee, we have added you to our Google Group if we had an email address. If you have not gotten a group email already, please email westforkuu@gmail.com so that we can add you to the group, which we will be using for staying in touch with each other during this time. Public announcements will continue to be posted here on the website and on our Facebook page and Twitter account, 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

Imagine New Beginnings

johnnyawwsome

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundation under them.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“The prophet engages in futuring fantasy. The prophet does not ask if the vision can be implemented, for questions of implementation are of no consequence until the vision can be imagined. The imagination must come before the implementation. Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing. The same royal consciousness that makes it possible to implement anything and everything is the one that shrinks imagination because imagination is a danger. Thus every totalitarian regime is frightened of the artist. It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing futures alternative to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one.” – Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination

A Month of Imagination

johnnyawwsome

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.  Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope.  Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.” – Theodore Geisel (better known as Dr. Seuss)

This month we will be focusing on imagination in our services and our posts. We will have meditations about imagination posted on Wednesdays and articles/information about the spiritual practice of imagination on Saturdays. We hope you will join us on our imagination journey.

Here are some spiritual practices to consider –

The practice of waking up to possibility.

The healing practice of putting ourselves in other people’s shoes

                  The practice of completing the world by conjuring up its missing parts.

                 The practice of allowing hope to widen our view.

Sunday, January 3, 2021

johnnyawwsome

“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.” –

This Sunday, John Hall will give a lesson titled “Expect the unexpected.” J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan


We are forgoing meeting in person during the coronavirus epidemic, meeting instead through the magic of ZOOM. We share music, readings, and hymns on our usual presentation slides, have a story and a talk, and share joys and sorrows, as well as a virtual “coffee hour” discussion starting at 10:30, with the service at 11. If you prefer not to be seen, video is optional. If you would like to participate, please email westforkuu@gmail.com for details and a link, or for help with using ZOOM.

Please Join us for Worship. And make sure you have a candle for a special meditation.


If you are a regular attendee, we have added you to our Google Group if we had an email address. If you have not gotten a group email already, please email westforkuu@gmail.com so that we can add you to the group, which we will be using for staying in touch with each other during this time. Public announcements will continue to be posted here on the website and on our Facebook page and Twitter account, 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