People from time out of mind have built altars. People who didn’t have permanent homes, who gathered around campfires, or in rock shelters, built shrines. They were rocks carefully placed, or circles drawn in sand, or handfuls of wildflowers carefully placed. All of the civilizations we know of had altars in or near their homes – in the dooryard, or a niche or a table somewhere in their space.

Please join us for Worship

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 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.

We currently have 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**

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 coffee hour, a time for 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 are a regular attendee, we have added you to our Google Group if we had an email address. If you have not gotten a group email already, please email westforkuu@gmail.com so that we can add you to the group.

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

The Tigers and the Strawberry

There was a man walking across an open field, when suddenly a tiger appeared and began to give chase. The man began to run, but the tiger was closing in. As he approached a cliff at the edge of the field, the man grabbed a vine and jumped over the cliff. Holding on as tight as he could, he looked up and saw the angry tiger prowling out of range ten feet above him. He looked down. In the gully below, there were two tigers also angry and prowling. He had to wait it out. He looked up again and saw that two mice, one white, the other black, had come out of the bushes and had begun gnawing on the vine, his lifeline. As they chewed the vine thinner and thinner, he knew that he could break at any time. Then, he saw a single strawberry growing just an arms length away. Holding the vine with one hand, he reached out, picked the strawberry, and put it in his mouth. It was delicious.

Koans, of course, are meant to be enigmatic. This particular one is not just mysterious, it is an open-ended story – we are left with the man neither up nor down, hanging on by a thread which is visibly being nibbled away, with danger above and below.

One interpretation is that the cliff is life. We cannot reverse time and go back to the womb, and at the bottom is death. We hang on to the vine, all of the things that sustain our lives from day to day – our jobs, the cooking, the cleaning, the caring for others, knowing that climbing is useless, because at the top is a tiger, that letting go is useless, because at the bottom are more tigers – stuck in the middle again. And we see the mice, nibbling at the vine.

But there is the strawberry. Why not, in that moment, enjoy that strawberry? Eating it, or not eating it, will not make one bit of difference to the situation – it will not make the vine thicker. It will not make the tigers go away. It will not make the mice go away. Neither will it make the vine thinner, or bring on more tigers – and more tigers would not make the situation worse.

Maybe the key to this story is that we are here, somewhere on a cliff, with no much that we can do about it but hang on. The ending, bar a miracle, is inevitable.

In a time when much is driven by anger and fear, this service will consider the teachings of the Buddha, the Stoics, Jesus, and modern psychologists and theologians such as Alfred Adler and Reinhold Niebuhr about the cause of suffering and how we can find strength and comfort.. Lisa deGruyter will lead the service.

Please join us for Worship:

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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.

**If you wish to join by ZOOM and do not already have the link, please email us at westforkuu@gmail.com**

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 coffee hour, a time for 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 are a regular attendee, we have added you to our Google Group if we had an email address. If you have not gotten a group email already, please email westforkuu@gmail.com so that we can add you to the group.

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

There was a Door to which I found no Key;
There was a Veil past which I could not see:
Some little talk awhile of ME and THEE
There seemed — and then no more of THEE and ME.

— Edward FitzGerald, translation of a poem attributed to Omar Khayyam

We are told that there are certain times of the year when the veil between the world of the living and that of the dead becomes thinner. The end of October and beginning of November — the time of Diwali, Halloween, Samhain, All Saints Day, All Souls Day, Día de los Muertes — is one such time. This Sunday we will reflect on this veil and its thinning. Robert Helfer will lead the service.

This is a time to remember those who have passed from our lives, and for this reason, we create an altar, a table of remembrance, to help us feel the presence of those we miss. Please bring a momento that connects you to a person whose memory is dear to you — a photograph or some other object — for display on our table of remembrance.

Please join us for Worship:

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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.

**If you wish to join by ZOOM and do not already have the link, please email us at westforkuu@gmail.com**

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 coffee hour, a time for 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 are a regular attendee, we have added you to our Google Group if we had an email address. If you have not gotten a group email already, please email westforkuu@gmail.com so that we can add you to the group.

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

Wisdom has built her house;
she has set up its seven pillars.
She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine;
she has also set her table.
She has sent out her servants, and she calls
from the highest point of the city,
“Let all who are simple come to my house!”

— Proverbs 9:1-4 (New International Version)

Unitarian Universalist congregations affirm and promote seven Principles, which we hold as strong values and moral guides. We live out these Principles within a “living tradition” of wisdom and spirituality, drawn from sources as diverse as science, poetry, scripture, and personal experience. Robert Helfer will lead the service.

Please join us for Worship:

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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. If you wish to join on ZOOM, please contact us for logon information. A coffee hour, a time for discussion and socializing (including ZOOM participants), follows from the end of the service until 12:00 noon. 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.

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

stoic: a person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining

Oxford Language

stoic: one apparently or professedly indifferent to pleasure or pain

Miriam-Webster

When considering the doctrines of the Stoics, it is important to remember that they think of philosophy not as an interesting pastime or even a particular body of knowledge, but as a way of life. They define philosophy as a kind of practice or exercise (askêsis) in the expertise concerning what is beneficial (Aetius, 26A). Once we come to know what we and the world around us are really like, and especially the nature of value, we will be utterly transformed. This therapeutic aspect is common to their main competitors, the Epicureans, and perhaps helps to explain why both were eventually eclipsed by Christianity.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Stoicism was not so much eclipsed by Christianity as many of its practices were absorbed. Stoic ideas have much in common with Buddhist thought and continue today in many contexts — for instance, the Serenity Prayer. Lisa deGruyter will talk about Stoic practices.

Our services are Sundays at 10:30 a.m. at the Progressive Women’s Association Event Center, 305 Washington Ave. in downtown Clarksburg, behind the Courthouse.  A coffee hour, a time for discussion and socializing, will follow from the end of the service until 12:00 noon.

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. 

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

There was a Door to which I found no Key;
There was a Veil past which I could not see:
Some little talk awhile of ME and THEE
There seemed — and then no more of THEE and ME.

— Edward FitzGerald, translation of a poem attributed to Omar Khayyam

We are told that there are certain times of the year when the veil between the world of the living and that of the dead becomes thinner. The end of October — the time of Diwali, Halloween, Samhain, All Saints Day, All Souls Day, Día de los Muertes — is one such time. This Sunday we will reflect on this veil and its thinning. Robert Helfer will lead the service.

This is a time to remember those who have passed from our lives, and for this reason, we create an altar, a table of remembrance, to help us feel the presence of those we miss. Please bring a momento that connects you to a person whose memory is dear to you — a photograph or some other object — for display on our table of remembrance.

Please join us for Worship:

---

Our services are Sundays at 10:30 a.m.  at the Progressive Women’s Association Event Center, 305 Washington Ave. in downtown Clarksburg, behind the Courthouse. A coffee hour, a time for discussion and socializing, will follow from the end of the service until 12:00 noon. 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.

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