Chalica is a week long holiday celebrating the Seven UU Principles. It is a time of reflection, community, and living our faith.
Here are some ways to help you celebrate.
Two Meditations:
God of all Oppressed Persons by Robin F. Gray
To Right the Wrongs of our Kin by Leslie Takahashi
A Thought to Ponder:
If you had a magic wand, what would you do to make this world a better place?
A Song:
Indigo Picture Credit: Kris Nobis Cervantes
Chalica is a week long holiday celebrating the Seven UU Principles. It is a time of reflection, community, and living our faith.
Here are some ways to help you celebrate.
A Meditation:
Reflections from Standing Rock by Kristin Grassel Schmidt
A Story to read:
The Great Pie-Rat Controversy by Naomi King
A thought to Ponder:
What would you do if you were president?
A few songs:
Blue picture credit: Kris Nobis Cervantes
Chalica is a week long holiday celebrating the Seven UU Principles. It is a time of reflection, community, and living our faith.
Here are some ways to help you celebrate.
A few Meditations:
Meditation on Opposites by Alex Kapitan
All This Talk of Saving Souls by Linda M. Underwood
A thought to ponder:
What do you know to be absolutely, unequivocally true?
A Song:
Green picture credit:
Chalica is a week long holiday celebrating the Seven UU Principles. It is a time of reflection, community, and living our faith.
Here are some ways to help you celebrate.
A Meditation:
Marginal Wisdom by Leslie Takahashi
A thought to Ponder:
The adult version of this principle states we accept one another. Who do you have a hard time accepting?
A Song:
A Story:
Yellow picture credit to Kris Nobis Cervantes.
Created by Ralph Roberts
WorshipWeb is delighted to offer these images, created by Unitarian Universalist (UU) minister Ralph Roberts, to count down the days in December to Christmas Eve (December 24).
Chalica is a week long holiday celebrating the Seven UU Principles. It is a time of reflection, community, and living our faith.
Here are some ways to help you celebrate.
Two Meditations:
A Prayer for Rising to the Occasion by Laura Horton-Ludwig
To the People who Have Mistaken Freedom for Justice by Theresa I. Soto
A Thought to Ponder:
Should you be kind to people who hurt you? What about people who commit really terrible crimes?
A Song:
Orange picture credit: Kris Nobis Cervantes
Chalica is a week long holiday celebrating the Seven UU Principles. It is a time of reflection, community, and living our faith.
Here are some ways to help you celebrate.
A Meditation: Prayer of Storytelling by Mandie McGlynn
A thought to ponder:
What makes someone important? Is it their abilities, their job, their status? Or, is it something more?
A Song:
Red Image Credit: Kris Nobis Cervantes
October’s theme was “Belonging.” Sometimes, when most people around us seem to believe differently, we feel we don’t belong. Unitarian Universalist seems like a new and different belief here, now – but for a century and more, Universalism was alive and well in our area, rising from the beliefs of some of our earliest settlers. Rev. Quillen Shinn, born and raised in Bingamon, was a Universalist minister and well-traveled missionary, is known as the “St. Paul of the Universalist Church.” He has been credited with starting at least 40 churches and inspiring nearly 30 persons to enter the ministry. He also founded the Ferry Beach UU camp and conference center in Maine.
Lisa deGruyter will talk about Rev. Shinn and early Universalism in Harrison Co. – and we will sing the Quillen Shinn song which is still sung by campers at Ferry Beach.
[Postponed from October 26]
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. There are classes for children and adults 10 to 10:45 am, and a coffee gathering before the service. More about us.
Classes and worship are replaced by Spiritual Outings on the first Sunday of each month during the summer, with brief worship, a potluck picnic, and outdoor activities. The schedule is in the sidebar.
We would love to have you come worship with 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.
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
“One of the tragic ironies of history is that such original and creative geniuses as Buddha and Jesus have been extolled as perfect patterns for all to emulate. In the very struggle to be like someone else rather than to be one’s own true self, or to do one’s own best in one’s own environment, a child is in danger of losing the pearl that is really beyond price – the integrity of his (or her) own soul.” – Sophia Lyon Fahs in Today’s Children and Yesterday’s Heritage (1952)
This Sunday, our youth and children will present a service on the revolutionary religious educator Sophia Lyon Fahs.
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. There are classes for children and adults 10 to 10:45 am, and a coffee gathering before the service. More about us.
Classes and worship are replaced by Spiritual Outings on the first Sunday of each month during the summer, with brief worship, a potluck picnic, and outdoor activities. The schedule is in the sidebar.
We would love to have you come worship with 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.
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
The Marginal Mennonite Society is a loose association of people who identify themselves as Mennonites but hold a number of principles similar to those held by many who identify themselves as Unitarian Universalists. At the end of each month, the Facebook page “Marginal Mennonite Society” posts its Declaration. This Declaration, it seems to me, is a good summary of much of my own religious attitude, even though I have no connection to Mennonitism.
— Robert Helfer
We are Marginal Mennonites and we’re not ashamed. We’re marginal because no respectable Mennonite organization would have us. Yet we are also, we believe, amongst the legitimate heirs to the Anabaptist tradition.
We are inclusive. There are no dues or fees for membership. The only requirement is the desire to identify as a Marginal Mennonite. If you say you’re a Marginal Mennonite that’s good enough for us.
We are universalists. In our view, everyone who’s ever lived gets a seat at the celestial banquet table. We claim kinship in this belief with Anabaptist leader Hans Denck, Brethren leader Alexander Mack, and Quaker leader Elias Hicks, among many other universalists throughout history.
We reject creeds, doctrines, rites, and rituals. Because they’re man-made, created for the purpose of excluding people. Their primary function is to determine who’s in and who’s out.
We see God as Mother as well as Father, a heavenly parent who cares for all her children. (Isaiah 49:15: “Can a woman forget her nursing baby, or show no compassion for the child who came from her womb? Even these may forget, yet I won’t forget you.”)
We like Jesus. A lot. The real Jesus. The human teacher who moved around in space and time. The Galilean sage who was obsessed with the Commonwealth of God. The wandering wise man who said “Become passersby!” (Gospel of Thomas 42).
We believe the Commonwealth of God is a state of being, a state of transformed consciousness, available to everyone. (Luke 17:21: “People won’t be able to say it’s over here or over there. For God’s Commonwealth is inside you and around you now.”)
We oppose the proselytizing of non-Christians. For us, religious diversity is beautiful. It would be a shame if all Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Jains, Pagans, Rastafarians, Pastafarians, Sufis, etc., were converted to Christianity. So we reject evangelism and missionary programs, no matter how well-meaning they claim to be.
We endorse the “Sermon on the Mount.” In particular the sayings identified by modern scholarship as most authentic. Especially the ones on the following themes:
1. Nonviolence (Matthew 5:39-40/Luke 6:29);
2. Generosity (Matthew 5:42a/Luke 6:30);
3. Unconditional love (Matthew 5:44/Luke 6:27-28);
4. Universalism (Matthew 5:45b/Luke 6:35d);
5. Mercy (Matthew 5:48/Luke 6:36);
6. Forgiveness (Matthew 6:14-15/Luke 6:37c/Mark 11:25);
7. Non-attachment to things (Matthew 6:19-21/Luke 12:33-34/Gospel of Thomas 76:3);
8. Freedom from anxiety (Matthew 6:25-30/Luke 12:22-28/Gospel of Thomas 36:1-2);
9. Non-judgment (Matthew 7:3-5/Luke 6:41-42/Gospel of Thomas 26:1-2);
10. Compassion (Matthew 7:9-11/Luke 11:11-13).
We are pacifists, in the tradition of Bayard Rustin, Vincent and Rosemarie Harding, Cesar Chavez, Dorothy Day, A.J. Muste, Kees and Betty Boeke, Peter Maurin, Mahatma Gandhi, Jane Addams, Leo Tolstoy, Adin Ballou, Lucretia and James Mott, Hannah Barnard, the nonviolent Anabaptists, and of course Jesus.
We are humanists, feminists, and freethinkers. We are gay, carefree, and fabulous. We believe in art, evolution, revolution, relativity, synchronicity, serendipity, the scientific method, and putty tats. We value irreverence, outrageousness, and a strong cup of tea.
We don’t want to take ourselves too seriously. As someone once said: “God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.” For us, hilariousness is next to godliness.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
This declaration is not a creed or doctrinal statement. It carries no weight of authority. We are anti-authority. The above “beliefs” are suggestions only. We could be wrong.
The Marginal Mennonite Society was created in February 2011. Declaration last revised April 1, 2018. Charlie Kraybill, MMS Page administrator.
For more information, see marginal-mennonite-society.mn.co/ or the Marginal Mennonite Society on Facebook: www.facebook.com/marginalmennonitesociety/
West Fork Unitarian Universalists 