Join us for a lively conversation as we explore The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, by Heather McGhee, a book that invites us to engage in constructive, shared solutions to some of the greatest challenges we face. Contact Elona Meyer to receive additional materials. We are happy to address any questions you may have, as well. If 289 pages seem daunting, and you missed the Random Review of The Sum of Us, offered by the Benton County Library, featuring Dr. Dwaine Plaza, OSU Sociology professor, here is the link to that review: https://us06web.zoom.us/rec/share/DK7C0b9ruC-37ob5954jnUCNZ5wI7V_DAtzDxG8Jdg2JSy-ZOHROfYEI2Yzvzxk-.EUQ0OiyjELjeiUYP. This review summarizes many of the key concepts presented by the author.
The second meeting on October 23rd will concentrate on “The Solidarity Dividend,” the book’s inspirational final chapter.
Contact Elona Meyer to obtain the Zoom link for these events.
Arts and crafts, home decor, jewelry, greenery, baked goods, and so much more! With over 20 local artisans, you’ll find beautiful hand made items for everyone on your list.
An interactive children’s craft table will be available for little ones to enjoy and take home a project!
Lunch is available for purchase from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm.
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED! Do you have a couple of hours to help make the Holiday Fair a success? See below for sign up links for greenery makers, furniture movers, greeters and cashiers.
Vendors
All vendor spots are full! Check back next year.
Featuring over 20 local artisans, including fiber artists, ceramicists, painters and more!
Volunteers on Dec 1st and 2nd
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED! If you are a member of UUFC, we need you! Volunteer to help with set up, clean up, cashiering, or many other roles. We have a job for everyone. Contact Bonnie Morihara with questions.
Thursday, Nov. 30th, & Friday Dec. 1, 9:30 am to 1:00 pm
Love to cook? We’re going to have a fun time in the UU kitchen on Thursday and Friday leading up to the Holiday Fair! Volunteers are needed to help with preparing food and baking items for the “Cafe”. The food will be sold during the Holiday Fair on Dec 2. Please contact Reverend Jill with questions. Sign up below.
Do you have some wonderful breads, cookies, brownies, candies, etc. you’d like to donate for the Baked Goods table? Sign up here with your name, contact info, and what you will make. Contact Elaine Kahn about our requirements for selling to the public (list of ingredients, nothing that requires refrigeration, more). Your donations need to be delivered to the Social Hall by 1:00 p.m. on Friday, December 1.
11/29, 9:00-10:30 am, Bow Making, no experience necessary. Indoors. 3-5 people needed.
11/29, 10:00 – 12:00, 12:00 – 3:00 Greenery making swag and centerpieces in Laura’s unheated garage. 3-6 people needed
11/30, 12:00 – 3:00 Greenery making swag centerpieces in Laura’s unheated garage. 3-6 people needed.
Making greenery will be held at the home of Laura Uhler. The projects will be created in Laura’s unheated garage, so wear a coat! Please sign up below to be notified of the address.
Our September Justice Outreach offerings will support our Partner Congregation in Bozod Korispatak, Transylvania, which is in Romania. Our partnership is 28 years old! In that time we have supported tuition for many students, plus stipends for ministry and elders. Our partners have hosted Fellowship members many times, and we have hosted them as well. The Korispatak congregation is part of the Hungarian Unitarian Church, the ancestral home of Unitarianism.
Information about the Monthly Outreach Offering, as well as about UUFC Justice Teams, is posted on the bulletin board at the northeast corner of the Social Hall. Learn more about our Partner Church there.
Advance tickets $23 – on sale at UUFC Sept. 17 and 24 (cash or checks only), $25 at the door ($26 for credit cards.) Roy Zimmerman’s signature blend of heart and hilarity has never been more necessary. In a career spanning more than thirty years, Roy’s songs have been heard on HBO and Showtime, and his videos have garnered hundreds of millions of views.
No Depression Magazine says, “Without a doubt, Roy Zimmerman is among the most important political commentators of the last few decades, and in the end, it’s the music that unites and disarms. With music this good and humor this insightful, there is good reason to be optimistic.”
The L.A. Times says, “Zimmerman displays a lacerating wit and keen awareness of society’s foibles that bring to mind a latter-day Tom Lehrer.”
Tom Lehrer himself says, “I congratulate Roy Zimmerman on reintroducing literacy to comedy songs.”
Check out his YouTube videos — Roy has garnered hundreds of millions of views. Here are a couple of our favorites (co-written by Roy and his wife Melanie Harber):
Each year we begin again to renew our leadership skills and commitments. This year, we will pay lots of attention to where new ways are needed. Therefore, all leaders of teams, groups, projects, events and councils are invited and needed on September 30. Please rsvp to let us know you’ll attend this all-day Leadership retreat, at this link: https://uufc.breezechms.com/form/d5a3de
Anyone who is not currently leading, as described above, but who is interested in becoming part of this wide leadership team, is welcome. Please reach out to Rev. Jill McA if you have questions. We’ll begin at 9 AM and continue to 5PM. Lunch and snacks will be provided. If childcare is needed for you to participate, please indicate that on the RSVP Form.
Together we will map out the new Fellowship year, learn skills together, and live into our new covenant of Right Relations. We’ll cover some nuts and bolts of facilitation and collaboration, of Fellowship structure, current needs, and new ideas. There is much to both rebuild and build anew. You are needed – please join us! Questions: Contact Rev. Jill McAllister. NOTE: We’ll celebrate a good day with an evening concert by Roy Zimmerman!
I’ve been traveling with family this week, and this morning we woke up to rain. As I paused to listen to the gentle, steady drizzling, and to breathe in and feel the day begin, the listening became its own kind of morning prayer. Do you ever hear or feel a prayer as you begin a day? What words do you say, to yourself, to the day? Or do you enter into quiet, into silence, without words? It makes a difference how we begin, whether or not we make a space, a way, some time to rest our minds from constant grappling and explaining. Whether or not we open the edges of the stories we tell about the way things are within us and around us, to let more in.
One of my teachers says that spiritual growth, or becoming wise, is a process of discovering at your core a story that can hold all the other stories. A foundation that makes room for everything that comes your way, for everything that is. In that place, that story, vulnerability and courage are the same thing. Courage is not simply the energy or power to defend our expectations or habits or “knowledge.” Courage is the ability to keep the doors of our minds and hearts open, to change direction, to leave things behind and keep moving, even – or especially – if we are mourning as we go. “What would it be like to wake into our bodies, our relationships and our work as if seeing them for the first time?”, the teacher asks. Yesterday there was sorrow and joy; today there is sorrow and joy – but today we are not the same as we were yesterday. Nothing is the same.
This is a daily practice – to find ways and time to open ourselves and our stories to the way things truly are. To be willing to be lived by pain and sorrow and fear in all the ways we are willing to be lived by happiness and love and joy. To move as life moves, in us and around us. For the days of this week I wish for you, and for me, the gift of of opening to the day, beginning with breath, and with thanks. Sending love to you all — Jill
~What is love calling you to do? The world needs Unitarian Universalists to show up for justice with spiritual grounding, generosity, humility, courage, and concrete skills. It is a spiritual practice to choose love over fear, to be brave, to show up when we’re called, to occupy space with loving resistance rather than fearful retreat. We are most powerful when we understand that all the issues we care most deeply about are fundamentally interlinked, and that each of us has a role to play in building a world in which all people can be free and thrive. When we bring our best selves to our justice work, whichever specific issue or campaign it might be, we are choosing to Side with Love.
The work that we do together to build a world in which all of us are free and thriving is interrelated. When we ground our spirits, grow our skills, and act strategically for justice in deep relationship with each other and our Movements, we choose to Side With Love.
Action Center is a place where we unite in work towards a world where we all thrive. Together we take action, Side With Love, and make deep impacts in this critical moment. Side with Love Action Center
There is no more important climate work than the influencing of legislation and policy, whether at the national, state, or local level. Climate Action Opportunities, refreshed weekly on Saturdays, provides three or four curated, quick opportunities to do just that.
To help assess the engagement of UUFC members and friends in faith-based climate action and to encourage such action, please anonymously <Share> the number of the actions below you take this week. Optionally, you may anonymously also share other recent climate action.
The organizations whose calls to action we amplify, and the number from each organization, are listed <here>
City of Corvallis, Prioritize Climate Action: Some City councilors and some senior City staff consistently show by their decisions that they do not prioritize action to respond to the climate emergency. For example, the work of the Climate Action Advisory Board has been hamstrung and will apparently go into hiatus due to lack of required staff support. Please email your City Councilor, copying the Mayor and all Councilors, to call on them to prioritize climate action.
A carbon fee and dividend will drive energy innovation, giving every American community access to abundant, affordable clean energy at a predictable price. With a price on carbon, polluters pay, and people get a carbon cashback. It will (a) help low and middle income people afford higher energy prices, (b) keep Americans healthier by reducing air pollution, & (c) help reduce America’s carbon pollution 50% by 2030, putting us on track to reach net zero by 2050. Do your members of Congress know these benefits? Email your members of Congress
Remove Snake River Dams: Indigenous peoples throughout the Northwest have depended on their relationship with Snake River salmon since the beginning of time. But against the wishes of Tribal communities, dams were constructed in the Snake River that threaten endangered salmon.
Native communities along the Snake River are calling on the Biden administration and members of Congress to honor legally-binding commitments that the federal government made to Northwest Tribes by removing the lower Snake River dams in order to restore abundant salmon. Sign & send
Remove Snake River Dams: Indigenous peoples throughout the Northwest have depended on their relationship with Snake River salmon since the beginning of time. But against the wishes of Tribal communities, dams were constructed in the Snake River that threaten endangered salmon.
Native communities along the Snake River are calling on the Biden administration and members of Congress to honor legally-binding commitments that the federal government made to Northwest Tribes by removing the lower Snake River dams in order to restore abundant salmon. Sign & send
Of Note This Week is a source for current climate-change information at the local, state, and national levels. It is refreshed weekly on Saturday.
Eco-municipality Webinar 2: Virtually visit the eco-municipality of Karlskrona in the south of Sweden. Learn about the science-based framework of the Swedish network of ecomunicpalities, SEKOM, and the Karlskrona eco-municipality. Register
