This group for mutual support in the realm of living with neurodivergence or mental health challenges is facilitated by Anthony Acquilano.
This group is not intended to be a substitute for professional care, and participants are discouraged from attempting to provide solutions to other members’ challenges. Instead, this is a space to share experiences, feel heard, learn from the experiences of others, and share resources.
Please register here to receive an email reminder on Thursday before each gathering.
All Fellowship families with children in RE are invited to a HEATED pool party on September 29th from 2-4.
If it’s not your child’s weekend with you, but you want to mingle with other parents, come anyway. If you’ve got a baby who’s not ready for swimming, come anyway and meet other families. Deeply connected families are the foundation of Fellowship life!
Location information will be sent to all registered families the week before.
More information can be found at the registration page HERE!
Try, once again, to let everything you do be done in love.
I am inspired by these words Rev. Jill uses to close our Sunday service. What would it be like to live this way? Sometimes I speak or act out of love, and that feels like happiness. But not everything I do or say comes from love, and when an alternative motivation (like ego, obligation, guilt, anger, etc etc) takes over, the results are often not so good.
How can we move closer to this lovely ideal? Buddhist nun and teacher Pema Chodron has a masterful way of explaining Buddhist wisdom in an accessible and compelling way. After reading “When Things Fall Apart” I was intrigued by the idea that in our incessant quest to avoid suffering, we often make a mess of things and cause a lot of suffering for ourselves and others. When I attended a weekend retreat with Pema and learned to meditate, I learned that it is possible to train in loving kindness. Meditation allowed me to take these ideas to heart and start to apply them to actual situations. I then gained a new level of appreciation of the power of Buddhist wisdom.
I’m planning a study group to read and discuss “Welcoming the Unwelcome: Wholehearted Living in a Brokenhearted World”. Here’s a blurb from the cover: In her first new book of spiritual teachings in over seven years, Pema Chodron offers fresh wisdom, heartfelt reflections and the signature humor and insight that have made her a beloved guide in turbulent times. In an increasingly polarized world, Pema offers us tools to find common ground, even when we disagree, so we can build a stronger and broader sense of community. Sharing never-before-told personal stories from her remarkable life, simple and powerful everyday practices, and directly relatable advice, Pema leads the way in showing us how to become triumphant bodhisattvas- compassionate beings- in even the most difficult of circumstances.
Well, reading and understanding is one thing. But taking the advice to heart and trying it out in our everyday encounters is what I’m hoping to achieve in this Adult RE offering. We will read, we will discuss, we will do guided meditations, and we will try out these ideas in real life.
Thank you to everyone who stopped by for a cup of lemonade at our youth-run lemonade stand! The kids got a taste of how the kitchen runs on Sundays (thank you, kitchen crew, for your patience and mentoring!), worked together to make lemonade and signs, and had a crash course on customer service skills.
With your generous support, they raised a whopping $190 for Jackson Street Youth Services! We deeply appreciate you showing up to support the young people in our congregation and beyond!
The Grandfolks Squad is a group of (mostly) older adults who are willing to provide occasional childcare on an as-needed basis so that young parents can attend Fellowship functions without incurring a cost for childcare. This is a great way to get to know younger families and connect deeply with the next generation of Unitarian Universalists. In your free time, you can provide the loving care that we wish for every child and parent in our midst.
If you have extra love to give and time to share, please consider becoming a Grandfolks Squad member.
To join the squad, email Skyla (dre@uucorvallis.org) to set up a meeting. Grandfolks are interviewed and background checked before service, and receive a snazzy button to show the world that they’re proud Grandfolks!
Families, it’s time to register your children and youth for the new year in RE! I know it may feel like you just registered them yesterday (if you’re new, you might have!) but each new Fellowship year brings a new registration form so that we can keep your younglings safe with the most up-to-date information while they’re in our care!
Thanks for helping us out by registering in advance of September 15th, when the new year in RE kicks off.
This year, to make things easier for you, we have one form for all three age groups. So whether your child is in Chalice Children (nursery care for new walkers through preschool), Spirit Play (grades K-6), or YRUU (youth group for grades 6-12), the form is the same.
If you have any questions, please contact Skyla King-Christison (dre@uucorvallis.org)
All ages are invited to join us for a cold treat on the Fellowship lawn on August 25th at 7 PM.
Find out what’s coming up in RE for adults, families, children, and youth in the year ahead. Meet members of the RE Council and special teams. Catch up with old friends and maybe even meet your new Fellowship bestie over a cold treat!
We’ll have gluten-free and vegan options available, as well as board games to share.
While registration at this link is not mandatory, it would be super helpful as we made purchasing decisions for this gathering!
All Fellowship 7th-12th graders and their friends are invited to the annual youth river reunion, to collaborate as a team and connect deeply over some wild water fun. This event is the perfect time for our new youth to get to know their group and advisors for the year ahead, so we hope to see you there!
Join Skyla on the RE playground deck on July 21st at 11:45!
Your kids have been missing the playground and I am looking for feedback about your family’s RE experience as we plan for the upcoming year, so let’s meet up on the playground for lemonade! The kids can play while parents share how the RE programs have been supporting their families and ways we could improve the experience when we are able to return to regular Sunday morning offerings for children and youth.
No need to register. Just come and play, sip, and share!
Who doesn’t love a good story time? Many adults delight in reading to their children or finding their child curled up with a good book. We know that there is so much for our children to learn and be inspired by, but we could never teach it all ourselves. Books are a magic portal to worlds, cultures, and values beyond what we’ve gotten to explore yet with our own life experiences.
Below, you’ll find some ideas for selecting books and reading with your children.
Historically speaking, a lectionary is a collection of scripture, studied and revisited in a cycle for various seasons or occasions. This traditional understanding of a lectionary isn’t common to Unitarian Universalist practices, but many UUs and UU leaders have their own version of a lectionary; a curated set of books or passages that they know they can return to again and again to fill their spiritual cup or be challenged anew. Revisiting a poem or book seasonally gives us an opportunity to dive deeper or to notice what has changed in us since our last reading. Highlighting or underlining in a different color each round can help you notice how the inner landscape of your life changes how you experience the same passages year after year.
Curating a collection of meaningful reads is a great summer project to engage in with your children. Make a list of topics you’d like to dive into, and then hit the library and look for titles to bring home. Bring home more than you think you need, because you want to be able to put down a book that isn’t a good fit and still have more to explore.
Try expanding your exposure to age-appropriate reading materials that have a deeper layer of meaning, and spend time together reflecting on whether it’s worthy of revisiting and why. The process of adding to your list never had to end. Any time you find a book or poem or essay that feels rich with meaning, propose adding it to your family lectionary, and discuss where it fits. Do you want to come back to it every solstice? Is it one to reach for when you’re feeling lonely? How will it serve your spirit?
Finally, consider how you will organize your family lectionary. Will it be a book list by topic or occasion? Will you own a coy of each? Will you have a dedicated shelf in your home? There’s not right or wrong as long as the books that feel worthy of your family’s time and attention are organized in such a way that you can find the words you need with the time is right.
The idea of lectio divina dates back to the fourth century, and means sacred reading. It’s a way of diving deeper into sacred texts, with the idea being to spend time listening intently for what God (or the universe or your intuition) is trying to communicate with you. While this is traditionally practiced with scripture, this way of approaching a text with intention can be highly engaging for almost any kind of text. Okay, maybe it’s not gret for Captain Underpants, but it’s still fairly universal.
Lectio Divina has four parts that work for any age, but here’s a way to think about those four parts with your family.
Read the passage you’ve selected several times. You and your child will mark or write down any words or phrases that jump out at them. No need to know why. Just notice which bits you notice and make note.
2. Reflect on the passage, and in particular, the bits that stood out. Ask yourself questions about what meaning or lessons it might have for your life. Look up the dictionary definition or root words of the key terms that stood out to you. Would you have worded it differently? How would you live differently if you took the possible lesson of the passage seriously?
3. Respond by inviting something bigger than yourself to give you guidance. This could look like prayer or talking to a mentor about your experience with the passage.
4. Rest for a while, living thoughtfully with the passage in mind, giving yourself time to process what you learned not only from the passage, but from your own reflections on it and from your prayer or mentoring experience. Don’t just set the passage aside and move on with your day. Give it time to sink in.
Good Choices for Lectio Divina with Kids
Zen Shorts and Zen Ties, by Jon J Muth
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, by Charlie Mackesy
Hope for the Flowers, by Trina Paulus
Cry, Heart, But Never Break, by Glen Ringtved
The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
When God Was A Little Girl, by David Weiss
HOMEWORK FOR CAREGIVERS
As a parent, creating my own core of useful, spiritually challenging reads has been invaluable in helping me squeeze more meaning out of the seasons and replenish my soul when enduring a period of great challenge. I look forward to gifting my children with a complete collection of my personal lectionary as they become adults. I remember being a teenager and listening to Des’ree sing “read the books your father read,” and wondering if my father read any books at all. I wanted to know what was important to him, what was shaping his ideas.
Consider nourishing your own spirit by working on a separate lectionary for your caregiving heart. Ask people who inspire you which books they return to over and over again and start building your own list. As Rev. Jill turns our attention to the holy days and holidays that are important to us as individuals and as a community, consider what words you need to read over and over again to deepen your connection to the season and occasions that help you mark the passage of time.
As always, if you want help finding inspiring books or anything else relating to your family’s faithful life, my door is always open!
