In April, Earth Month, members and friends donated $2,441 to the social concerns collection. Thank you! This will provide $250 each to Seeds for the Sol, the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition, UU Ministry for Earth, and UUA Side with Love. The remaining $1,441 will go to the UUFC Carbon Reduction and Responsibility Fund, adding to the proposed $4,000 allocation in the 2024-25 budget. For 2024-25, the Fund will be used to help pay to switch from gas heat to heat pumps in the renovation of the classroom wing.
weekly announcements
Protect Yourself Against Phishing Scams
There has been a recent uptick again in phishing scams across the United States, particularly targeting churches. This is a reminder that the UUFC (and our leadership/members) WILL NEVER ASK FOR YOU TO BUY GIFT CARDS OR SEND MONEY IN AN EMAIL OR IN A TEXT. We only encourage donations sent directly to the Fellowship address or contributed via our https://uucorvallis.org/donate/ page.
We encourage you to double-check with us if you are unsure of a request. Please visit this helpful website from another congregation to familiarize yourself with how these scams work and how to protect yourself!
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Celebration of Life for LMarie Murphy, 6/27
2:00 PM at the Fellowship
Family and friends of “Murphy” invite you to share in the celebration of her life on Thursday, June 27th, at 2 PM at the Fellowship.
Celebration of Life for Louise Ferrell, 8/11
2:00 PM at the Fellowship
All are invited as we gather to remember and celebrate the life of Louise Ferrell on Sunday, August 11 at 2 PM, at the Fellowship.
Between Us
The 63rd UUA General Assembly will take place virtually this week, from Thursday June 20 to Sunday June 24. GA is the annual meeting of the Unitarian Universalist Association in which participants worship, witness, learn, connect, and make policy for the Association through democratic process. It is also an opportunity to explore the theological underpinnings of our faith, and lean into our mission and principles. Anyone may register to attend; all certified congregations also send delegates to vote on Association business.
Representing UUFC as delegates this year are: Susan Christie, Karishma Gottfried, Diane Conrad, John Bailey, Mary Craven and Priscilla Galasso, plus Skyla King-Christison and Rev. Jill McAllister. As voting delegates, we will attend the General Sessions (the business sessions) and we’ll “spread out” virtually to attend a wide variety of workshops, presentations, discussions and worship services along with several thousand other UUs from congregations across the country.
I attended my first General Assembly as a young member of this Fellowship almost forty years ago (!) – when it was held on a college campus. I took my 9 month old baby, and shared a room (in a dormitory) with a beloved elder from the congregation, who helped me navigate the meetings and the parenting. The feeling of being part of a huge community of religious liberals while being supported by my own congregation was a new and exhilarating experience, and was a big part of the inspiration I gathered as I began to consider the UU ministry. Looking back now over the more than thirty GA’s I’ve attended, I am so grateful for this living, changing tradition and for the several generations of UUs who have continually inspired me.
For anyone interested, the General Sessions and the Sunday Worship will be live-streamed publicly. Find out more at uua.org / General Assembly.
UUA Common Read Book Group 7/15-8/5
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Mondays July 15-August 5th, 11-12:30 on the social hall deck.
REGISTER HERE!
The 2023-34 UU Common Read is On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World (Beacon Press, 2022).
This Common Read offers a glimpse into one of our faith’s foundational sources, Judaism. Readers follow the author, Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, into a framework for making amends offered by the 12th century Jewish physician and scholar, Maimonides.
Written for people of any or no faith tradition, On Repentance and Repair introduces practices for accountability that can bring us into wholeness and make a difference in our personal, community, and national relationships.
This 4-part book discussion is offered as a brown bag lunch series, so bring your lunch and join us on the back deck for discussion.
Session 1: Meet Maimonides
Session 2: Repentance and Repair in Our Lives and Relationships
Workshop 3: Repentance and Repair in Our Covenanted Communities
Workshop 4: Repentance and Repair to Transform Our World
Contact Skyla King-Christison with questions or if you need assistance with the purchase of the book.
Multigenerational Magic
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Our necessarily abrupt move to multigenerational worship has caused me some apprehension. Children do as the spirit moves them, so the power of my careful planning has its limits. While I’ve been focused on trying to mitigate all the ways this experiment could go horribly wrong, I hadn’t yet let myself dwell in all the ways it could go beautifully right until this past Sunday, when I experienced a magic so unmanufacturable that I find myself suddenly very willing to trust this process.
One of our smaller members spent the service at my feet, giving me the warm feeling of being chosen even though it certainly had everything to do with my proximity to the Soul Work shelf. He was engrossed in pipe cleaner construction as our choir sang a song called Glenda and Lauree: Certain Kinds of Love. The song was painfully beautiful, about two women who loved one another in a time when their love was discouraged.
The song was too much to bear. A dear friend sitting in front of me left the sanctuary to cry alone. The woman beside me audibly sobbed, as did I. Of all the days to be this achingly moved in the service, did it have to be the day I couldn’t flee because I’d committed to sitting here at the Soul Work shelf in case a wee one needed help cutting yarn?
The child at my feet occasionally looked up at the two of us ugly-crying above him, all snotty and wet-faced, but he didn’t look distressed. Near the end of the song, I put my arm around the woman beside me. You can only cry with someone for so long without at least sharing a half hug. When I let go, the child stood up, leaned in with a hand on my knee, and whispered, “I know it’s sad. It’s really sad,” and then went back to work on his pipe-cleaner creation.
How different his experience in the world is from the one I was given as a child! I seldom saw adults in my life cry, and when I did, they made every effort to hide it, to protect me from witnessing big emotions, as if feelings were something shameful. What might it be like to grow up in a world where you feel what you feel out loud, and let your people sit with you in that? To not have to figure that out as an adult, but to just always know it?
Some of us talked about it afterward, the way he participated in the tending of his fellow community members, not only as a child who was learning about how to be in community but as one of us, seeing grief and acknowledging it. And maybe even as a teacher. He didn’t, as many adults have a habit of doing, try to fix it or say it would be okay. He simply said, “I know. I know,” which is all most of us really want when we’re feeling big feelings.
So I saw the magic of multigenerational worship with my own eyes and heart, as did several folx seated near the Soul Work shelf. Were there distractions? Yep. But the impromptu learning community that explored our shared humanity near the back corner felt more transformative than any sermon or RE lesson. It appeared to be less remarkable to the child than to us adults. We’re still talking about it days later over coffee and during commercial breaks. Perhaps it will be the adults who have the most to gain from this summer in service with our children. If this is what we have to look forward to, even only once in a while, I’m here for it!
*This story and image was shared with permission from the child’s family, who asked that his name not be used online.
Celebration of Life for Joyce Spain, 6/29
Jim Spain and his family invite Fellowship members to join them in a Celebration of Life for Joyce Spain, who died in February.
The service will be at the Fellowship on Saturday, June 29, beginning at 11 AM.
EDI Read and Discuss Event, 6/24
June 24th, 7-8:30 PM, we’re exploring the multiple award-winning and NYT best-seller book, The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson, to help us grasp more fully how the “great migration” changed America. Please contact Elona Meyer for more information and the Zoom link.
Sip & Snack Sunday 6/9
June 9th, 11:30 AM
Break out the sunscreen and join UU’s for an afternoon at BENEDITTO VINEYARD for wine tasting on their beautiful deck. Beneditto’s was a surprise winery last year and definitely worth visiting. They are west of Dallas just off Hwy 22 at 14020 Orchard Knob Road. They open at noon and it takes about 45 minutes to get there.
Bring food to share with the group and if you have a wine passport, the tasting is free. We will plan to leave UUFC after the service. You might consider carpooling. Please contact Heather E if you plan to attend so she can alert the Vineyard of our numbers.
Hope to see you for a fun connect up outing. Heather E
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