spiritual practice

Sunday, September 23, 2018

CZ

“O Spinner, Weaver, of our lives,
Your loom is love.
May we who are gathered here
be empowered by that love
to weave new patterns of Truth
and Justice into a web of life that is strong,
beautiful, and everlasting.” Rev. Barbara Wells

We would love to have you come worship with us.

This Sunday Cricket will explore creativity and art as part of spiritual practice.

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

Sunday, September 16, 2018: Letting Go

LdeG

Over time, demanding constant certainty from yourself and others can be tiresome – and frankly – annoying. Perfectionism, anxiety and anger are all associated with a high need for control, which can obviously interfere with your relationships and happiness in a big way.

Forbes 3 Simple Steps To Stop Being A Control Freak

From the Buddha to Christianity’s “Let go and let God” to self-help advice, we are told not to cling. Lisa deGruyter will talk about letting go.

We would love to have you come worship with us.

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

Sunday, June 3, 2018: Valley Falls State Park

Robert
Tygart Valley River

Tygart Valley River at Valley Falls

We have Spiritual Outings on the first Sunday of each month during the summer. For this year’s first outing, we will gather for a celebration of summer on Sunday, June 3, at Valley Falls State Park — picnic and hiking on the banks of the Tygart Valley River.

We will meet at 11 a.m. in the picnic area for a short service, followed by a potluck picnic, conversation, and walking.

We would love to have you come worship with us.

For a map, please use this link: https://goo.gl/maps/CiiqyDAXiw42

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

Sunday February 11, 2018: Enshrining Our Values in Our Housekeeping

LdeG

A song at even time before the little ones say Good night; the habit of together saying a Good morning grace to God; perhaps a silent grace among the other greetings of a happy breakfast table; a picture in that bare niche of the wall; a vase of flowers on the mantel piece; well matched colors under foot.

— these all are little things; you would hardly notice them as single things; you would not call them religion; they are not morals; they scarcely even class under the head of manners.

Men and women can be good parents and valuable citizens without them. And yet and yet one cannot forget that as the years run on these trifles of the home will make no little of the difference between coarse grain and fine grain in us and in our children when they grow up.

The House Beautiful by William Channing Gannett

No matter how little we have or how temporary our lodgings, we can enshrine our values in our everyday life. And no matter how much we have, we can live in ways that don’t enrich our lives. Lisa deGruyter will talk about living in ways that remind us of the beautiful and holy.

Our services are Sundays at 11 a.m. at the Progressive Women’s Association Uptown 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. You may park on the south side of the building, which is marked reserved for the PWA.

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

Sunday, December 10, 2017: Extreme Practices

Robert

Prelude: Avanti – Corvus Corax
https://youtu.be/Zyu9ur8iX4g

Welcome: To learn more about being human – Erika A. Hewitt

Welcome to this morning, this day, and this opportunity to be together in community — which is a time of joy, comfort, and sometimes challenges. This Unitarian Universalist congregation is a place where we come to learn more about being human. We’re not here because we’ve figured out life’s questions, or because we think we’ve got it right, or even because we think we know what the questions are.

We come here to learn more about being in relationship together: how to listen, how to forgive, how to be vulnerable, and how to create trust and compassion in one another.

Let us move into worship, willing to be authentic with each other, honest within ourselves, and open to connection in all its forms.

Come, let us worship together.

Chalice lighting: Blessed is the fire that burns deep in the soul – Eric A Heller-Wagner

Blessed is the fire that burns deep in the soul. It is the flame of the human spirit touched into being by the mystery of life. It is the fire of reason; the fire of compassion; the fire of community; the fire of justice; the fire of faith. It is the fire of love burning deep in the human heart; the divine glow in every life.

Continue reading →

Sunday, December 3, 2017: Revelation Is Not Sealed

LdeG

…the heretic, acquainted with loneliness, has nothing to offer but himself. He has no claim to present but that of his own soul, and its right to recognition. He is convinced that not through churches, or books, but men, does God speak His word and reveal His will. He does not deny that revelation has come to other men in earlier times, and that what they saw has become the precious tradition of a church, or the holy testimony of a Bible; but he insists that this “Revelation is not sealed; Answering unto man’s endeavor. Truth and right are still revealed.”

-John Haynes Holmes

Perhaps the greatest function of Unitarian Universalist congregations is the relief of the loneliness of the heretic. Lisa deGruyter will lead the service.

Our services are Sundays at 11 a.m. at the Progressive Women’s Association Uptown 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.

This Sunday we will be learning UU songs at 10, and perhaps trying some singing meditation.

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. You may park on the south side of the building, which is marked reserved for the PWA.

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

Sunday, November 12, 2017: Extreme Practices

Robert

Over centuries, people have developed many practices intended to help them develop and maintain connections to the spiritual, to God or the gods, however that might be defined. Most of these practices imply a certain regularity, a discipline, maybe training. Some of these practices are, perhaps, too easy; many other practices are difficult. And some practices might seem unnecessarily extreme. This Sunday we’ll talk about some of these. Robert Helfer will lead the service.

Our services are Sundays at 11 a.m. at the Progressive Women’s Association Uptown 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. You may park on the south side of the building, which is marked reserved for the PWA.

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

Sunday, September 17, 2017

CZ

“Tell me the facts and I’ll learn. Tell me the truth and I’ll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in heart forever.” – Native American Proverb

 

Our services are Sundays at 11 a.m.  at the Progressive Women’s Association Uptown 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.

This Sunday, Cricket will give a lesson entitled, “Tell Me a Story: storytelling as a spiritual practice”

dalailama storytelling.jpg

We would love to have you come worship with 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

Namaste,
Cricket

Image Credit: Dalai Lama picture from http://www.ideachampions.com/weblogs/archives/2015/11/post_140.shtml

Sunday, August 13, 2017: Weeding and Not Weeding

Robert
Self-Heal

Self-Heal

The summer routines of yard maintenance bring us into direct contact with nature, with the living things that inhabit the space around us. Some can bring us great joy, others perhaps less so. And so we must decide when to weed, and when not to weed. These decisions we make are part of our spiritual journey.

Peace, joy, and love,
Robert

We would love to have you come worship with us.

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.

Map

Our Religious Education/ Life Long Learning Class will meet at from 10am to 10:45 am with a coffee gathering before the service. More about 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.

You can park on either side of the PWA building. The lots are marked as private, but are available on Sunday mornings.

Email westforkuu@gmail.com or use our contact form for more information

or write to us at PO Box 523, Clarksburg WV 26302

Sunday, July 16, 2017

CZ

“Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future; live the actual moment. Only this moment is life.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh”

Our services are Sundays at 11 a.m.  at the Progressive Women’s Association Uptown 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.

This Sunday, John Hall will give a lesson entitled, “Mindfulness: Being Aware of Ourselves” 

We would love to have you come worship with 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

Namaste,
Cricket