Justice General Assembly, June 2012
Unitarian Universalist General Assembly. It is a huge gathering of UUs from all over the country; from all over the world, really. I love going to our UU General Assembly. As an employee of the church, it is now an expectation that I go, but I started loving GA long before I began working as our OCUUC Director of Religious Education. My very first two General Assemblies were in Phoenix, where this year’s GA will be held and in our…
Our Whole Lives
Our Whole Lives (OWL) is coming up for grades 10-12 at OCUUC! OWL provides accurate information to young people so that they can make informed decisions about their bodies and their lives. It’s a lot of fun too! We still need one male facilitator for a Saturday if anyone from another UU church is available who has had the OWL training. Mandatory Parent meeting Monday March 26 6pm-10pm Friday March 30 5:30 (potluck 5:30-6:30) pm through Saturday March 31, 6…
The Year of the Dragon and the OWL at OCUUC
The New Year is a time of reflection and celebration for many of us. Reflecting back on our growth and expanded activities over the past year is a great source of joy for me. The months of January and February also held so many fun and activities for our children, youth, parents and volunteers at OCUUC. Our families and volunteers make it all happen! Our Year of the Dragon is off to a great start. Thanks to the help of…
Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and the Four Noble Truths
Dear OCUUC Community- Our December 2011 worship theme at OCUUC is world religions. Here is my Time For All Ages presentation that compares Unitarian Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and the Buddhist Four Noble Truths. Dickensians around the globe will celebrate his 200th birthday in February 2012. Happy Holidays to All! Rayna Hamre, OCUUC Director of Religious Education ~~~~~~~~~~~ Once upon a time there was a man named Ebenezer Scrooge. He has become famous, many of the grown ups know…
Exploring Our UU Heritage, 1st Sundays, History with Some Zip!
Unitarian Universalists have a wonderful and inspiring heritage. We have many people in our denominational past who have been in the forefront and the background fighting for both public and private good. It is my pleasure this year to introduce our children and youth to some of those people during our Religious Education 1st Sundays together. Our 1st Sunday format is for all our children and youth to gather together for about 20 minutes, then to break out into smaller…
Embracing Change
Fall is a time of change for most American children. Moving up a grade can be a challenge and can be fraught with a mix of excitement and anxiety. AT OCUUC we hope to help our children with transitions in their Sunday classes, and to create a warm caring environment for them to feel safe as they explore new UU territories with their classmates. We have had a wonderful changes in the past year in our program. We have steadily…
Summer 2011
The summer days are racing by for many of us. OCUUC Religious Educaiton has had some great moments for our Going Green Summer. Water day, recycling sorting, and mask making have been just a few activities our children and youth have participated in over the past month. Some of us are able to travel and get away for a time. My husband and I were visiting Oslo about two weeks before the tragedies there began, and we were very saddened…
Standing On The Side of Love 2011 and 2012
Standing on the Side of Love. Powerful words, and I can feel the love and strength of our denomination when we sing this song together. One of the great things about being a Unitarian Universalist is that we don’t simply sing lines to our shared songs, we are called to live out the values of those words in our daily lives. And we are obligated to share those values with our young people. As I return from this year’s General…
Religious Education Summer 2011
Please join OCUUC Religious Education for our 2011 Going Green Summer! We will take a look at ways to save energy, how we use water, what happens to the things we throw away and more! Note our time change for summer services and Religious Education for Children and Youth. OCUUC will transition to our summer schedule of one service only. RE will gather from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. Sunday mornings in July and August 2011. Rayna Hamre, Director of…
June DRE Report
June is the time of year to extend thank-yous to the many people who make our OCUUC Religious Education program vibrant and exciting for our youngest UUs. It takes many people to provide our Sunday RE classes and other activities throughout the year, and 2010-2011 was very busy. Our social justice work took some of our youth and chaperons to San Francisco for the April Faithful Fools Street Retreat. We had other opportunities for families to have hands-on work with…
May DRE Report
Traditionally, when we weave a Maypole on Beltane, or May Day, we visualize and then weave in our intentions for the upcoming year. As I taught our OCUUC children to weave a Maypole on May 1, I found myself reflecting on what we have woven together as a religious community over the past months. Our weave is something lovely. Our grades 7-12 youth group, led by Merrie Lee Wooten and Mike Scott, looked for the UU Messages in Music. Along…
April DRE Report
An umbrella. Six dollars. Dry shoes. These are items that middle class people don’t think very much about, that we can easily take for granted. After spending a day in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco on a Faithful Fools Street Retreat, I now see them very differently. The Faithful Fools Street Retreat program is designed for participants to step out of their everyday world and to directly experience the world of the homeless. I had the privilege of participating…