Blessed Thanksgiving

CZ

May your Thanksgiving be full of blessings, thanks, and love. What are you grateful for?

Lillian Nye offers thoughts on Thanksgiving, our tables, altars, and spirituality in her sermon Let Our Table Stand Like an Altar.

“Sean Sherman, an Oglala Lakota chef and founder of The Sioux Chef, shares his perspectives on Thanksgiving.

“The thing is, we do not need the poisonous “pilgrims and Indians” narrative. We do not need that illusion of past unity to actually unite people today. Instead, we can focus simply on values that apply to everybody: togetherness, generosity and gratitude. And we can make the day about what everybody wants to talk and think about anyway: the food.”” Article Found Here

Transgender Day of Remembrance

CZ

It is Transgender Day of Remembrance. Here are some thoughts: from Rev. Sean Dennison

Today is a sacred day,
a day to remember and mourn,
a day to count the cost of so much hatred.
But don’t think that saying the names
of my 368 siblings–
(a number that rises so fast that by the time
we are done with our rituals, it may be more,
and more again)
almost all of them my sisters,
black and brown sisters–
don’t think saying their names
is enough.
It will never be enough.
Each year I am asked to absorb
the losses of hundreds
of my people, my family.
To use the word “tragedy,”
instead of genocide.
To express grief
instead of rage.

I am tired.
For decades now, I have mourned.
For decades now, I have politely
listened to lists of names, mispronounced
and loved too late, honored only
posthumously.

I want to know.
Can you love me while I live?
Can you love my siblings?
My black and brown sisters?
Can you love them no matter
the choices they made to survive?
Can you love them politically?
Can you love them personally,
allowing them to come into your church?
your home?
your heart?

I am tired.
Because these hundreds of names
are not even all.
These are only the ones who died
at the hands of someone else’s hatred.
That number does not count the ones
I have lost to self-hatred, to despair,
to hunger and cold.
It does not count the ones who are dying inside
because seeing all this,
they don’t dare to live.

So today, when you ask me to perform
my grief and sorrow on your stage,
Do not be surprised if it comes with
rage. If it comes with weeping so fierce
that I cannot speak, cannot breathe.
If it comes with wailing so loud
that (if only, if only) it could wake the dead.

And tomorrow, when the world moves on,
and I am left alone again,
with all of this,
all my beloveds dead
all my people endangered,
all the pieces of my broken heart
still piercing and bleeding,
still enraged
still heavy with grief,
Will you still remember?
And more importantly,
What will you do?

 

TRUUsT calls on Unitarian Universalists everywhere to take immediate action to live out the above truths and directly support trans UUs. #TDOR #WontBeErased

This evening there is a vigil for Transgender Day of Remembrance this evening in Morgantown at the Morgantown Church of the Brethren-Mennonite at 6pm.

Sunday, November 25, 2018 [postponed from 18 November]

CZ

“You were put on this Earth to achieve your greatest self, to live out your purpose and to do it courageously.” Dr. Steve Maraboli

“Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” – Jesus – Matthew 17:20 

We would love to have you come worship with us.

The story of the mustard seed has been shared many times. We have been programmed to be successful. Sometimes we wonder what success truly means. This Sunday, Cricket will explore all of these ideas in her lesson, “What if we are the mustard seed?”

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.

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

Month of Gratitude Day 8

CZ

What book are you most grateful for?

I Opened a Book
By Julia Donaldson

I opened a book and in I strode.
Now nobody can find me.
I’ve left my chair, my house, my road,
My town and my world behind me.

I’m wearing the cloak, I’ve slipped on the ring,
I’ve swallowed the magic potion.
I’ve fought with a dragon, dined with a king
And dived in a bottomless ocean.

I opened a book and made some friends.
I shared their tears and laughter
And followed their road with its bumps and bends
To the happily ever after.

I finished my book and out I came.
The cloak can no longer hide me.
My chair and my house are just the same,
But I have a book inside me.

 

Sunday, November 11, 2018: Interdependent Web [postponed from 14 Oct]

LdeG
Seven Principles Wheel

Definition of interdependence

1 : the state of being dependent upon one another : mutual interdependence of the two nations’ economies … a form of symbiosis, of close mutual interdependence of two species of organisms.— Marston Bates … the deep psychological interdependence between ourselves and those we love.— Judith A. Savage … understood the interdependence of mental, physical, and spiritual health.— Donald N. Levine But plants happen to grow in these little universes we call ecosystems, where they are sustained by complex webs of interdependency with fungi, microbes, animals, and other plants.— Kenneth Brower

2 : a mutually dependent relationship Growing global interdependencies further muddy the debate, making it harder to know who “we” are and what “our” national interests really are.— Peter H. Schuck There are complex interdependences among these factors …— Victor H. Benenberg

 

We would love to have you come worship with us.

Our 7th and newest principle is “Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” We often talk more about nature than the “we are a part”, and the interdependence of people, countries, life, the universe, and everything. Lisa deGruyter will share some thoughts on that.

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.

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