The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis
Are you feeling the tender ache of absence as the winter holidays approach? Or perhaps feeling lonely, anxious or depressed? Join us for an online Blue Holidays Vesper Service, followed by an optional time of sharing, at 6 p.m. Monday, Dec. 16. Rev. Leslie Chartier and Susan Sanford will facilitate. Please register in advance so we can send you the zoom link and suggestions for preparing your space for our time together. Contact Susan for more information.
Catherine Whiting has been a pediatric occupational therapist for 41 years and specializes in sensory processing and self regulation at home and in schools. She is offering a workshop geared towards parents (grandparents also welcome) about how to identify the sensory needs of a child and to help them by modifying the environment for self regulation. Dynamics of family members having different needs will also be explored.
January 2nd at 7PM in the UUFC social hall.
Please help us plan by registering here by December 30th.
The members of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis ceremonially welcome babies and older children into this world, and into the community which holds them, offering our lifelong commitment to the nurture of each child. This dedication is a joyful ritual which affirms that each young soul is a gift, and which celebrates the covenant of family and community. Each child will receive a decorative certificate as a record of their formal welcome into this circle of care.
While we are happy to provide a child dedication any time a family requests one, it is our custom at UUFC to perform this communal ceremony on our near Christmas Eve.
This year’s child dedication will be offered during the service on Sunday, December 22nd. If you would like to have your child dedicated in this ritual, please contact Skyla (dre@uucorvallis.org) no later than December 18th.
This time of year can be a lot for parents as we try to maintain all the rituals, magic, and meaning of the season. To honor all you do, we’d like to offer you a break! Drop off school-aged (k-8) children in the social hall from 1-4 on December 27th. We’ll have a thank you card writing workshop (with helpers for those who haven’t mastered the pen yet), eat snacks, and settle in for a movie while you take a few hours to recover from the holiday hustle. To make the most of the thank you card workshop, please send your child with a list of specific people & gifts for which to offer thanks.
Thanks to a generous grant from the Benton County Foundation, this event is free and open to the public, so invite your friends and family to take advantage of this opportunity!
Registration is required for this event, and will close on 12/20. Space is limited.
At least once a year our outreach offerings support Unity Shelter, a local non-profit organization which provides emergency shelter and supported transitional housing, plus wrap-around services, for people who are without safe shelter or housing. Unity Shelter programs include the Corvallis Men’s Shelter, the Hygiene Center, Room at the Inn and SafePlace. The Fellowship helped launch the collaborative project of providing shelters which later became Unity Shelter. Unity Shelter’s mission is to provide safe shelter through community care. The level of need around housing and shelter has not decreased in our community, and support continues to be crucial. Our outreach offering in December will support Unity Shelter.
Members and friends who celebrated November birthdays or will celebrate ones in December are invited and encouraged to make “your age” contributions (ex: $76 for a 76th birthday) to the UUFC Birthday Club. Contributions can be made via check payable to the UUFC with memo “Birthday Club” or the Birthday Club button within Breeze. Donations are allocated 50% Operations, 20% Endowment, 20% Reserves, and 10% Justice Outreach. Thank you! Questions: Michael Hughes treasurer@uucorvallis.org
At this time of year, many people are planning for the upcoming holidays, looking back at the year that has passed (and what a year it has been), and pondering how they can have a positive impact on our community and world in the year(s) to come. And yes, the holiday season is coming as well. If you are thinking about making year-end gifts to the organizations you appreciate and the UUFC is among those, thank you!
Year-end gifts to the UUFC can be made in many ways:
We thank you for your efforts to make our Fellowship and world a better place for all. May you and yours have a joyous holiday season.
Your UUFC Finance Council
Every Sunday we go back out into the world with a renewed intention to stay aware of the way things truly are. To cultivate this awareness, within us and around us, is a path of learning to feel how things are happening in many directions at one time. Life, a day, a moment, is not merely either /or. In every moment there is yes and no, good and evil, pain and joy, past and future. From a Taoist perspective this is recognition of polarities. In yoga, this is learning to feel energy moving in opposite directions at the same time. Not to choose one side, one view, one position, one direction, but instead to feel where the sides, views, positions, directions meet and how they are related to each other. It’s not easy. Sometimes it is a luxury. Often it seems impossible. In a hurricane, it may be improbable or feel impossible to move to the center, the calm eye of the storm, and yet the calm center exists as much as the storm does. From the safety of the calm center, one cannot deny the destructive power of the storm all around.
Yes and no, good and evil, pain and joy, past and future. Whether we know it or not, see it or not, this is always where we begin when we pause to become aware of our breath. The breath itself is a guide. It can never go in only one direction – a whole breath is always made of in and out. Once again, may we allow ourselves to settle into the motion of our breath, the motion of Life as it lives through us, the stillness of resting within the motion. May we become aware enough of this motion, of its necessity, that the only thing we can do is give thanks. May we begin the day in gratitude – in calm awareness, in rest, and with thanks.
Sending love to you all – Jill
Our builders are scheduled to begin their work the third week of January. Between now and then we have LOTS to do – including packing and moving everything out of that part of the building, and doing some removal and demolition.
You can help! Here’s how:
SPACE — Do you have unused, dry, rodent-free attic space, garage space, shed space with easy access to store boxes for 5-7 months?
PACKING MATERIALS needed (donations) — Medium-sized cardboard boxes, Medium-sized plastic tubs with sealing lids, large-size bubble wrap HELP MOVE – Can you loan the use of a pickup truck or open trailer? ~Move boxes and load vehicles in parking lot Saturdays January 4th and January 11th ~Move furniture and load vehicles in parking lot : end of December, Saturdays January 4th and January 11 ~Transport boxes and furniture from parking lot to private and commercial storage locations
VOLUNTEER SIGN-UP SHEETS will be in the foyer under the bulletin board, or click the button below to sign up online:
Stay tuned for more information about this big project.
