UUA

Sunday, February 18, 2018: Our UU Presidents

LdeG

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

On this President’s Day weekend we will look back at our Unitarian Presidents.

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 is a discussion time 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

Lent 2018- Day 1- Love

CZ

Today is the first day of lent. It’s also Valentine’s Day. So it is appropriate that the word for today is love.

Here is a meditation about love …

https://www.uua.org/worship/words/meditation/meditation-hope-and-love-time-struggle

I also wanted to include music so here is Bon Voyage singing “Though I May Speak” at UUCC.

To close I would like to leave you with this prayer.

This Is Our Calling
By D. Scott Cooper

The world aches for us to join together and bring about healing, toil for justice, and produce ever-increasing love. This is our calling. Go forth and act accordingly. Amen.

Namaste,

Cricket

UU Lent 2018

CZ

In Christian churches there is a 40 day period beginning Ash Wednesday and leading to Easter, that is full of meditation, prayer, and sacrifice. This is act of devotion and a spiritual practice.

While this is not a practice that all UUs participate in, it is something from our history and something that we may wish to participate in. The question might come up, “is there a Unitarian Universalist way to practice Lent?” The answer is yes. A calendar has been created by Mr. Barb Greve and Alex Kapitan. The idea is to focus on a particular word each day during lent and on the Sundays we are to reflect on the word and encourage each other to enact it in our lives. Should you choose to participate you can share your reflections with the hashtag #UULent

Here is the calendar for reference.


We aim to have a devotional about the daily word each day.

May your day be filled with light and the coming weeks be filled with introspection and healing. May we all use this time to nurture other spirits as well as our own, so that we are strong enough to help heal the world. May we use this time to connect with each other as we work towards beloved community and collective liberation. Blessed Be. Amen.

Namaste,

Cricket

Sunday, January 28, 2018: 1800 years of UU History

Robert
Francis David at the Diet of Torda

The Christian roots of Unitarian and Universalist ideas go back to the first centuries of Christianity. Today we will watch a presentation by Sarah Lewis briefly over-viewing all of our past.

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, January 21, 2018: 1800 years of UU History

LdeG

The Christian roots of Unitarian and Universalist ideas go back to the first centuries of Christianity. Today we will watch a presentation by Sarah Lewis briefly over-viewing all of our past.

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 24, 2017: People, Look East

LdeG

People, look east. The time is near
Of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able,
Trim the hearth and set the table.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the guest, is on the way.

Join us for a service of songs and readings. Come early for an extended coffee and cookie hour.

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

3rd Sunday in Advent

CZ
Advent is the season of waiting. In the Christian year, it is the four Sundays before Christmas. Each Sunday there is a candle lit. They symbolize Love, Hope, Joy, and Peace. This week is about Joy. The reading below found on the UUA Worship Web is about waiting and Joy. What are we waiting for? What are we Joyful about?
Season’s Blessings,
Cricket
When Merry Meets Mess
By Erika A. Hewitt

“Use loneliness. Its ache creates urgency to reconnect with the world.”
— Natalie Goldberg

I know a little about “merry” meeting “mess” at the holidays — and by a little I mean How much time have you got?

Four Christmases ago, a painful break-up sent me spinning into a long tango with depression. Two Christmases ago, I came down with the stomach flu. Last year, as tears streamed down my face, friends cut off my long hair in preparation for my first round of chemotherapy. And this year? Like many, I’m grieving an election that, I believe, has already damaged the hearts and bodies of our country’s most fragile people.

I haven’t soured on the holidays, however — and I will not give up on Christmas — for two reasons.

First: long before my heart was broken and I lost my hair to chemo, I learned to shape the holidays to fit into whatever-shaped hole is in my heart.

At times, this has required ingenuity and vigilance. The holidays, laden as they are with traditions and sacred cows, can pull us into programmed ruts rather than genuine wonder. To ask, What do I truly need? and How can I claim my longing for joy? can happen only when we allow ourselves to practice vulnerability and take mindful pauses.

The other reason I won’t give up on Christmas is its central message: the Holy will never give up on us, her people. In fact, from Hanukkah to Solstice, that’s the message of most winter holy days: the Holy — call it God, call it The Force, call it Love’s Impulse — will never give up on us, even when we feel like curling up in a dark room and revoking our membership in the human family.

If I believe that your love will never let us go, I imagine saying to the Great All That Is, the least I can do is be your spy on the ground. I’ll keep watch for love, for compassion, for magic, for awe; and I’ll report back regularly, just to feel close to you.

Every one of you, Sugar Plums, has a story about the holiday blues: crisis, loneliness, wanting to give up. Telling our stories helps restore our wholeness. Tell yours. While you’re at it, form a plan for the coming weeks so that on the other side of this winter, you can look back  and say, “Here’s how I made it gentler on myself, and here’s where I remembered that love will show itself, again and again.”

Prayer

You reveal yourself to us in myriad ways, Gentlest of Ways, and at this time of the year you remind us that you’ll never turn away from us. Whether our hearts are merry or miserable, may our longing keep turning us toward you, and toward the presence of your Love among us.

2nd Sunday in Advent

CZ
Advent is the season of waiting. In the Christian year, it is the four Sundays before Christmas. Each Sunday there is a candle lit. They symbolize Love, Hope, Joy, and Peace. This week is about hope. The reading below found on the UUA Worship Web is about waiting and hope. What are we waiting for? What are we hoping for?
Season’s Blessings,
Cricket
We Are Waiting (a reading for Advent) By Leslie Takahashi

When used as a responsive reading, “We are waiting” is the congregational response.

This is the season of anticipation,
Of expecting, of hoping, of wanting.
This is the time of expecting the arrival of something–or someone.
We are waiting.

This is the time of living in darkness, in the hues of unknowing.
Of being quiet, of reflecting on a year almost past.
Waiting for a new beginning, for a closing or an end.
This is the time for digesting the lessons of days gone past, anticipating the future for which
We are waiting.

Waiting for a world which can know justice
Waiting for a lasting peace.
Waiting for the bridge to span the divides which separate us.
Waiting for a promise or a hope.
For all of this
We are waiting.

Chalica 2017 Day Three

CZ

For each day of Chalica we will offer activities, some are fun and some are more reflecting, a chalice lighting, and a meditation. Gather everyone together, light the chalice, and breathe into the principles with us each day.

Activities:

  • Cook a meal you’ve never made before, especially one from another culture
  • Attend a lecture, visit a museum, or go to see a play. Discuss the event with someone around you.
  • Discuss your religious beliefs and how they have changed over the years.
  • Write a journal entry about acceptance and spiritual growth
  • Play a board game with family or friends that none of you have ever played before
  • Meditate on something from each of the Six Sources

Chalice Lighting: (If you don’t have a chalice at home, remember that the point of a chalice is that it is a symbol so any candle will work.)

Thirsty By Gregory Pelley

And so we gather, from the ebb and flow of our lives
Thirsty for connection to ourselves
Thirsty for connection to others
Thirsty for connection to the larger life.

As we light this chalice
May all who gather here be filled:
Filled with joy and hope
Filled with compassion and love

Here, may we be filled
So that we may pour ourselves out
into the world.

Meditation:
There are two meditations today one about building spiritual walls and one about choice.

Towers of Babel by George A. Tyger

Choice by Alex Kapitan

 

Here is a musical meditation as well. U2’s “Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” is about doubt, which is part of Acceptance and Spiritual Growth.

Season’s Blessings,
Cricket

Chalica 2017

CZ

Chalica is a week-long celebration of our Unitarian Universalist Principles. The holiday first emerged in 2005 out of a wish to have a holiday organized around Unitarian Universalist values.

Chalica begins on the first Monday in December and lasts seven days. Each day, a chalice is lit and the day is spent reflecting on the meaning of that day’s principle and doing a good deed that honors that principle. Not all Unitarian Universalists celebrate Chalica, but it has a growing following. There is a Chalica Facebook page, blog, and many Chalica-themed videos on YouTube – from the UUA Website. 

This year we will share some activities and meditations everyday to help us all celebrate Chalica. 

Season’s Blessings, 

Cricket