Monthly Theme

How Can We Win

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On Saturday, May 30th filmmaker and photographer David Jones of David Jones Media felt compelled to go out and serve the community in some way. He decided to use his art to try and explain the events that were currently impacting our lives. On day two, Sunday the 31st, he activated his dear friend author Kimberly Jones to tag along and conduct interviews. During a moment of downtime he captured these powerful words from her and felt the world couldn’t wait for the full-length documentary, they needed to hear them now.

Beloved Community and What it Means

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8th Principle: “We the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote: journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountability dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.”

“In progressive religious circles, you will often hear calls to “build the Beloved Community,” but I’m not sure we always appreciate the full historic resonance of that phrase. The term “Beloved Community” was coined by the early twentieth-century American philosopher Josiah Royce (1855-1916). But most of us learned it not from Royce but from The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who often spoke of the “Beloved Community” as his ultimate goal.” In his essay, “What Do We Mean We When Say, “Building the Beloved Community”?” Rev. Carl Gregg expounds upon this idea.

Month of Widening the Circle

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Our theme for the month of February is Widening the Circle. We will be posting about it and incorporating it into our services.

While we will be discussing and posting about many things concerning the monthly theme, I think we will start with the report from The Commission on Institutional Change. Widening the Circle of Concern began “At a gathering convened by Unitarian Universalist Association co-presidents Rev. Sofia Betancourt, Rev. William Sinkford, and Dr. Leon Spencer in Atlanta in 2017, Unitarian Universalist leaders of color were asked to share their insights into how the Association could continue moving forward in the midst of another racially charged moment.” Here is the full report both as text and audio. The UUA has also provided a study guide for the book should you be interested.

Here are two songs to think about this month:

Sunday Service, January 9th, 2022

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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.

 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:

Welcome: Our Lives Intersect and Intertwine by Tania Márquez

Welcome Song:

Chalice Lighting: In This Small Flame Dwell by Jean L Wahlstrom

Continue reading →

Month of Living with Intention

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Our theme for the month of January is Living with Intention. We will be posting about it and incorporating it into our services.

Here is a poem to get us started:

I Will Not Live an Unlived Life by Dawna Markova

I will not die an unlived life
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.

Here’s a song:

Month of Opening to Joy

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Our theme for the month of December is Opening to Joy. We will be posting about it and incorporating it into our services.

Here is a poem to get us started:

Joy is Hard by Rev. Joe Cherry (Permission secured by Soul Matters)

Joy is hard.

Joy requires us to feel safe enough,

to be safe enough, to open to vulnerability.

To feel joy, you must be brave.

Joy walks into a room after the space has been cleared

Cleared of shame,

Cleared of doubt

Cleared of self-recrimination.

Joy is hard.

Joy is hard

and joy is worth the hard work of preparation.

Preparing oneself and setting down all the defenses

all the shoulds and could’ves,

all the should not haves and might haves.

Joy is worth the work.

You are worth the work.

You can start small:

the simple pleasure of your favorite tea,

the grand freedom of a full belly laugh.

Invite Joy to be your companion.

Here is a song:

Sunday, June 27, 2021

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“From the Greek word selig (which means blessed) comes the English word silly. I like to think that there is something sacred about the ability to be silly – to play – to laugh and be child-like.” – June Mack Maffin

Join us for Worship:

This Sunday, Cricket Hall will present a service about Play as a spiritual practice.

We are excited to be returning to in-person meetings on May 23 after meeting virtually since March 2020. We are experimenting with a simultaneous Zoomof the service.. If you would like to participate by Zoom, please email westforkuu@gmail.com for details and a link.

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.

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.

Map

Email westforkuu@gmail.com or use our contact form for more information or write to us at PO Box 523, Clarksburg WV 26302

Sunday, May 30, 2021

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“Writers imagine that they cull stories from the world. I’m beginning to believe that vanity makes them think so. That it’s actually the other way around. Stories cull writers from the world. Stories reveal themselves to us. The public narrative, the private narrative – they colonize us. They commission us. They insist on being told. Fiction and nonfiction are only different techniques of storytelling. For reasons that I don’t fully understand, fiction dances out of me, and nonfiction is wrenched out by the aching, broken world I wake up to every morning.” – Arundhati Roy

Join us for Worship:

This Sunday, Cricket Hall will present a service titled “Writing our Own Stories”.

We are excited to be returning to in-person meetings on May 23 after meeting virtually since March 2020. We are experimenting with a simultaneous Zoomof the service.. If you would like to participate by Zoom, please email westforkuu@gmail.com for details and a link.

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.

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.

Map

Email westforkuu@gmail.com or use our contact form for more information or write to us at PO Box 523, Clarksburg WV 26302