Importance of Heroes
How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these. George Washington Carver, 1864–1943 As a girl, I had access to a small library at my parochial school. One of my favorite books was a biography of George Washington Carver. Professor Carver was an African American who was born into…
Rev. Sian on Sabbatical
The Committee on Ministry and the Board of Trustees reminds the congregation that Rev. Sian began her sabbatical on June 30th. Originally scheduled to start May 30, this sabbatical provides Rev. Sian time for reflection, renewal and recharging, all of which is much needed after the incredible effort shepherdessing our Beloved community into the virtual world that we now inhabit. As was the case when Rev. Sian took a sabbatical in the summer of 2017, we have a plan for…
RE Summer Program
Chalice Camp: Identity, Race and Justice is going great! Thank you, Maria Goode, for creating our camp lessons with an emphasis on fun and learning. Last week we made our own tee shirts, played 20 Questions, distributed prizes and expressed our own identity. We learned why that is important for ourselves and that we need to create space where others, who are different from we are, can do the same. Our inherent worth and dignity. Over the course of the…
Relationship to Singing
What is your relationship to SINGING? Over the years, I’ve run into so many people who proclaim that they just aren’t singers, or that someone suggested that they shouldn’t sing in public. Many of us have shut down our voices, quite literally. It’s really unfortunate that in our culture, only “great” singers get to participate in singing. Before recorded music was invented, everyone sang—with their families, at special celebrations, and at worship. I’m sure not everyone was a “great” singer,…
A Busy Summer
Jennifer Abt has been the editor of this publication for many years. Effective this edition, Jennifer turned over the editor position to Linda Clough. Jennifer did an outstanding job as the REACH editor on top of her many duties as bookkeeper for OCUUC. We at OCUUC are all grateful to Jennifer for her generous gifts of time and talent. A big thank you also to Linda for volunteering to be the new editor. I hope you are all doing well…
Chalice Camp: Identity and Justice
I’m excited to share news of our 2020 RE Summer Program, Chalice Camp: Identity and Justice. So relevant for our time, we will talk about integrity and courage. Our Sunday morning camp will cover self-identity, difference, the historical and recent background of racism and resistance movements that fought and continue to work to dismantle oppression. What would camp be without arts and crafts? Decorate your own tee shirt, assemble your own identity mosaic, make your own Femo beads and embellish…
Music in the Zoom Era
Zooming our worship services has definitely been a challenge, but there are some really positive things that have benefited the Music Ministries because of the need to Zoom. Several of us have learned (or refined our use of) audio and video editing software. The only way to create ensemble music right now is to compile individual videos together, because Internet latency is too long and too inconsistent to be able to sing or play together live, even (or actually, especially)…
Beginning of a New Term
Here we are already in July and beginning our new fiscal church year. We are off to a great start thanks to all of you who pledged generously to our 2020/2021 operating budget demonstrating your love of our community and commitment to continuing the mission of OCUUC. July 1 marks the beginning of a new term of service for many elected positions including the Board of Trustees, Nominators, and Stewards. We are welcoming four new members to the Board this…
Essential
As many of you are very aware, there is a lot of talk in the news about the “opening” of churches. What does that mean for OCUUC? It will mean a lot of things. First, you need to understand that OCUUC will use federal, state, and municipal guidelines as a bare minimum. We will also be following the dictates of science and Love in making our decisions. As I mentioned recently in a service, we will not gather for Sunday…
Compassion
Compassion is our theme this month. I learned the distinction between empathy and compassion from reading our Soul Matters materials. “Compassion (to suffer with) is an innate part of human response to suffering, which is comprised of a three-part experience of noticing another’s pain, feeling with another (empathy), and responding in some way.” So, compassion is feeling with and then acting on alleviating suffering. It’s the action part that makes compassion different. When I read that it made me even…
Join the Choir
Music has saved my life many times. It gave me a voice when I was a painfully shy child. It’s given me companionship when I’ve felt alone. It connects me to my spiritual path. And it brings me peace and joy when sometimes very little else will. I wonder if music or other art forms have been saving your life lately, with the pandemic weighing heavily on all of us. What can we do as a church community to provide…
From our Interim President
I somehow thought retirement would look something different than this. Oh well. As my friend Sheri has told me, “We make plans; God laughs”. May has been quite busy as we deal with all the end of year activity compounded by the open questions of when and how and if we can re-open for whatever the new normal looks like. PUG has met to talk about these issues with no clear resolution yet. We know it won’t be soon and…