Sunday, 30 March 2025: No In-Person or Zoom Service

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

Sunday, 23 March 2025: No In-Person or Zoom Service

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

Sunday, 16 March 2025: No In-Person or Zoom Service

There will be no in-person or Zoom service on Sunday, 16 March 2025. We are supplying a reading suggestion for those who are interested.

“For years, I felt like I’d done enough damage and didn’t want to speak out,” they said. “Then I realized silence was not a moral decision.”

— R Derek Black, quoted by Olivia Empson in “Child of Klan leader on abandoning white nationalism: ‘I am haunted by its legacy’”, The Guardian, 7 Jun 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, “Child of Klan leader on abandoning white nationalism: ‘I am haunted by its legacy’”, can be found here.

Those who live nobly, even if in their day they live obscurely, need not fear that they will have lived in vain. Something radiates from their lives, some light that shows the way to their friends, their neighbours — perhaps to long future ages. I find many men nowadays oppressed with a sense of impotence, with the feeling that in the vastness of modern societies there is nothing of importance that the individual can do. This is a mistake. The individual, if he is filled with love of mankind, with breadth of vision, with courage and with endurance, can do a great deal.

— Bertrand Russell, “If We Are to Survive This Dark Time”, New York Times Magazine, September 3, 1950. This article has been included in his The Basic Writings, which 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

Daylight Saving Time begins (March 9, 2025)

Sundial

 

Daylight Saving Time BEGINS (in those parts of the United States where it is celebrated) on Sunday, March 9, 2025, when 2:00 a.m. is magically revealed to be 3:00 a.m., leaving an hour-long hole in the night, an hour of sleep lost, and tired eyes and slight disorientation among the population for weeks to come.

Please remember to set your clocks forward one hour Saturday evening so you will be on time for all your important appointments on Sunday and during the coming weeks.

In case you’re curious about Daylight Saving Time and its effect on our lives, here are a couple of recent articles:
Why Daylight Saving Time Messes With Your Brain” (Beth Ann Malow)

Who Benefits from Daylight Saving Time?” (Lane Wendell Fischer)

Sunday, 9 March 2025: Medieval Faith or Fiction?

Evidence from the late Middle Ages reveals that even in an era dominated by the Church, there were those who doubted, questioned, and sometimes openly rejected religious teachings.

— “Medieval Faith or Fiction? When Believers in the Middle Ages Questioned Religion”, August 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, 9 March, 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 “Medieval Faith or Fiction? When Believers in the Middle Ages Questioned Religion”, Medievalists.net, August 2024, a summary based on “Religious Faith and Doubt in Late Medieval Spain: Soria, Circa 1450–1500” by John Edwards, in Past & Present, No. 120, 1988

The article, “Medieval Faith or Fiction? When Believers in the Middle Ages Questioned Religion”, 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

Sunday, March 2, 2025: Our UU US Presidents

Jefferson, though a sincere student of the teachings of Jesus and a Unitarian, was denounced as an atheist. We know the contumely, insult, and mob violence to which Priestley was subjected in England. Franklin, the Adamses, and Fillmore were all Unitarians, but they were looked at askance. Lincoln, one of the most deeply religious men, was clearly Unitarian in his faith. In spite of all these illustrious examples, religious prejudices have been played upon in politics to defeat Unitarians and upholders of liberal Christianity and in very recent years; but even in the time my life compasses, I can see a great change for the better.

–President Taft

A bit late for Presidents Day, we will look back at our Unitarian Presidents, from Jefferson to Obama.

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.

**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. 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

Sunday, 23 February 2025: Imagining the End of the World

The Scream, Edvard Munch

The truth is, a world that endures forever actually makes less sense than one that doesn’t. And the same goes for us. We can imagine existing a thousand years, maybe even ten thousand — but a million? Surely Heaven will present us with a few longueurs.

— Arthur Krystal, “What We Learn About Our World by Imagining Its End”

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, 23 February, 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 “What We Learn About Our World by Imagining Its End”, The New Yorker, 27 January 2025, a review by Arthur Krystal of Dorian Lynskey’s Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World..

The article, “What We Learn About Our World by Imagining Its End”, 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

Sunday, 16 February 2025: Five Smooth Stones

Progress is now seen not to take place through inheritance; each generation must anew win insight into the ambiguous nature of human existence and must give new relevance to moral and spiritual values. A realistic appraisal of our behavior, personal and institutional, and a life of continuing humility and renewal are demanded, for there are ever-present forces in us working for perversion and destruction.

— James Luther Adams, “Guiding Principles for a Free Faith”

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, 16 February, 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 Five Smooth Stones of Liberalism”, the fifth section of “Guiding Principles for a Free Faith” by James Luther Adams.

The article, “The Five Smooth Stones of Liberalism”, 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