The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis
As strange as it may sound, grieving does not necessarily come to us naturally. And, culturally for most of us, it has not been well-modeled or taught. We need each other in order to learn how to tend to our grief, to practice, and to learn to carry it. When we can’t tend to our grief, our capacity for joy and happiness is too often diminished. What can we learn, and how can we help each other?
UU minister Ralph Roberts has created an Advent series to help us learn and delight in the ways that our Unitarian and Universalist ancestors helped shape many of the winter holidays.
You are invited to engage with this offering in 2 ways:
1. Anyone can register HERE to receive a very short daily email from December 1st through the 24th. Each note will contain a sweet piece of our religious heritage to warm your winter days and help you reflect on your place in this long line of justice makers and creative souls.
2. Children who attend the Holiday Fair on December 2nd will be able to make a UU Advent calendar at our craft table with the fun UU history facts attached to a small daily treat bag.
Thank you to Nick Houtman and Russ Anderson for getting a new, leak-free, skylight installed in the mezzanine of the RE wing. It looks great!
The Secure Housing and Food for all UUFC Team sends a big thank you to everyone who contributed to the South Corvallis Food Bank October collection. Thank you for your support! More than $1,000 was raised to help purchase food for individuals and families who are experiencing food insecurity. To continue helping the community through the winter you could bring a can or a box of food each Sunday and put it in the food basket near the entry to the sanctuary. We will deliver to the food bank. Thank you again!
When food is involved, we have a full house. Attending the October Board meeting/pot luck were Sheryl Stuart (facilitating), Carl English-Young, Jema Patterson, Gavin Araki, Rev. Jill McAllister, Jamie Petts, Mary Craven, Jack Elder, Michael Hughes, John Bailey and Scott Bruslind; joined by two members of the Committee on Ministry: Nancy Kyle and Gary Barnes.
The focus of our October meeting was to begin a conversation on the Charter of Shared Ministry, and the charge to the Committee on Ministry, which has not been updated since 2014.
What does Shared Ministry look like?
It looks like this:
UU congregations call a Minister to help fulfill the Mission of their beloved community.
OUR MISSION… Explore. Love. Act. We gather as an inclusive religious community to search for meaning, build deep connections, and inspire action toward a better world for all.
In Shared Ministry, some responsibilities fall to the Minister while others belong to the board and to all the members the congregation. The Committee on Ministry parses out the thin line between: a line that’s fluid and contingent on the strengths of the two parties.
What are the roles of the Minister and staff and where do Fellowship members (mostly volunteers) fill in? Shared Ministry means partnership, based on covenant – which is much more than a simple employer / employee relationship. Helping and guiding all of us to understand the balance of this important work is the mandate of the Committee on Ministry. Congregations rise and fall on how well a Committee on Ministry navigates the currents of current affairs. The Board is working with the Committee on Ministry to clarify and document their important work.Minutes of Board meetings are posted here. We’ll meet again on November 21, 2023. Visitors are welcome to observe and share in whatever snacks we rustle up. Let us know if you’d like to attend. You are most welcome.
If you have a birthday in October, November, or December, please sign the sheet by the Happy Birthday bag outside the main Sanctuary entrance. We’d like to celebrate YOU when we celebrate the 4th Quarter birthdays.
Are you looking for a meaningful way to celebrate each of your years? One good way that helps our congregation is to write a check to UUFC for the number of years you will be on your birthday, put “UUFC Birthday Club” in the memo line, and mail it to UUFC.
It takes a UUFC village to put on a successful Holiday Fair. We need greenery makers, furniture movers, bakers, greeters, and cashiers. Won’t you volunteer a few hours of your time? Find the sign-up sheets at our Holiday Fair webpage: https://uucorvallis.org/holiday-fair-2023/ Sign up to Volunteer for the Holiday Fair
Our November Justice Outreach offering will support the Corvallis Daytime Drop-in Center (CDDC). CDDC is a community-based resource hub providing information, referral, and direct services for people experiencing homelessness and poverty in Benton County and beyond.
We’re continuing a series of Sundays focusing on values identified by thousands of UUs as central to who we are and strive to be now as we move into the future. We’ve considered love, transformation and pluralism. This week we’ll consider interdependence, which, before it can be considered as a value, must be understood as a fact of life – biologically, ecologically, and spiritually. Join us!
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It is a challenge to be present to the world – a challenge to be willing to acknowledge all that feels frightening and dangerous. If some years ago many of us felt successful and safe in the world, and deserving of it, we do not have that luxury now. We know more, we’ve seen more, we’ve learned more about what is true. As Unitarian Universalists, that has long been our aim – to see and learn more truth. This is not an exercise in intellectual posturing, though sometimes we have been mistaken in that direction.
We’re working with the theme, “Building A New Way,” this year – because we must! If it were only climate change we were facing, it would be immoral to not change the ways we live and interact with everything and everyone else. As we all know, there is more.
I’ll admit, the amount of change which is happening, and the amount which is needed, is daunting, and often, I feel discouraged. Here at the Fellowship, it can feel dizzying: folks who’ve been here a long time miss the way (they think) things were and wonder who will carry on when they are too tired to do everything, while folks who are new wonder what is going on, how to find out, what are the requirements, and where is the calendar of events?
I try to remind myself, every day, that this is exactly what change looks and feels like! We are in fact changing, and that is very good news. But it’s unsettling. Of course it is. I want to remind all of you of this as well. We need to be able to step back from our wonders, worries and concerns, and help ourselves and each other recognize that we have set off from whatever shore (and assumptions) we may have stood on, and now we are in the currents, together.
Together is the most important thing. When faced with this kind of unsettledness (which is increased by all the anxiety we piled up during the pandemic) we too often resort to finding others to blame for our frustrations and fears – the elders, the younger, the new ones, the old ones, etc.
For these times we need as much openness as possible, as much willingness to learn as possible, as much loving-kindness as possible. We need folks who are willing and able to listen and lead and guide for the good of all. We need to help one another live into our covenant of right relations. The future is unfolding between us – may we stay focused on our highest ideals!