Roy Zimmerman Returns to the Fellowship – Sept 30

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.

Joni Mitchell says, “Roy’s lyrics move beyond poetry and achieve perfection.”

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):

For more about Roy Zimmerman: https://www.royzimmerman.com/

Concert sponsored by the UUFC.

Fellowship Leadership Retreat on September 30: RSVP Now

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!

9-24-2023, Daily Practice: A Weekly Reminder

Rain Meditation

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

Side With Love, September 24

~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

“Of Note” – Faith-Based Climate Action Team 9-9-2023

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.

Sat 9 Sep

Cosmos

Climate change is messing with photosynthesis

IEEE Spectrum

African Hydropower Confronts Cheap Solar and Wind

Inside Climate News

Green Groups Are Divided Over a Proposal to Boost the Nation’s Hydropower. Here’s Why

Katharine Hayhoe

Weekly Newsletter, 9/2/23

Politico

How the power grid survived a hot, hot summer

Popular Science

What’s the most sustainable way to mine the largest known lithium deposit in the world?

SciTechDaily

Climate Change’s Deadly Legacy: How Rising Temperatures Fueled Ancient Aggression

The Conversation

Research reveals who’s been hit hardest by global warming in their lifetime – and the answer may surprise you

The Guardian

Anger is most powerful emotion by far for spurring climate action, study finds

More news from the Faith-Based Climate Action Team can be found here:

Harvest UU-Pick

Pick fruits and vegetables at our mini farm for your dinner table & join us in a glass of wine or home made peach or grape juice.

The Biegel’s mini farm and orchard, 33073 SE Peoria Road. (.2 miles past Peoria market)

Come visit any day you like, until harvest ends… Call Craig to schedule your visit!

Faith Based Climate Action 9/20/23

In Roraima, Indigenous communities forge sustainable solutions amid threats

Researchers make surprising discovery about lifespan of EV batteries

New Consortium To Make Batteries For Electric Vehicles More Sustainable

A bright spot at the intersection of farming, electric vehicles and solar energy

US Crosses the Electric-Car Tipping Point for Mass Adoption

Research: Consumers’ Sustainability Demands Are Rising

Discovery Education and Leading Corporate and Nonprofit Partners Launch

            First-of-Its-Kind Initiative Supporting Sustainability

EPA emissions report shows ag advancements in sustainability

Florida is now adding more solar power than any other state

Renewable power expected to grow as Louisiana marks clean energy transition

How rural southwest Utah is proving the potential of renewable geothermal Landmark Wave Energy Legislation Heads to California Governor Newsom’s Desk after 

           Unanimously Passing California Legislature

Germany to Surpass 50 Percent Renewable Power This Year, Official SaysEurope’s Europe’s largest solar thermal energy plant opens in BelgiumSolid-state and sodium-ion batteries spark hope amidst the lithium supply crunch

Minesto preps seabed connection system for 1.2MW tidal energy device

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>

Sat 23 Sep

Climate Action Team

  • Sign up for the Climate Action Team’s Influence and Towards Net Zero Projects 
  • 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.

Citizens’ Climate Lobby

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

Native Organizers Alliance

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

Native Organizers Alliance

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.

Sat 23 Sep

Care.org

Climate change & the floods in Libya

Citizens’ Climate Lobby

Africa Climate Summit calls for global carbon tax

Native News Online

Reasons to be Cheerful

Getting the Soil Right: How Carbon Farming Combats Climate Change

We’re asking the wrong question about EVs and grid resiliency

Wed 18 Oct, 7:00 – 8:30 AM, online

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

Silent Supper 10/29

Sunday, October 29th

6:30 pm – 8:00 pm

Around the time of Samhain, or All-Hallow’s-Eve, we take time to remember those who have died. We honor our ancestors through a ritual supper, eaten in silence. A time for conversation and reflection will follow.

RSVP required, so we have enough place settings! Register here: https://uufc.breezechms.com/form/5fd6ba

Participants should bring:
1. an item for the altar; such as a photograph or small token that reminds you of someone who has died
2. food to share; can be homemade using a recipe from your ancestors, or it can be store bought, such as your grandpa’s favorite brand of potato chips.

An event in collaboration with the Wheel of the Year Samhain service.

Family Faith Formation Toolkit

Maybe you’ve got an awesome minister (If you’re at UUFC, you do! ☑️), and a caring Religious Exploration team (Lucky you! You’ve got that too!☑️), and excellent friends and family support (I sure hope you do! ?). Did you know that even with all that, parents and grandparents are still a child’s first and most influential spiritual guides? Yes, YOU! You’re the biggest factor in your child’s spiritual growth and development. How cool (and maybe scary) is that?

In an effort to support families as they raise faithful and spiritually grounded children, we offer you the Family Faith Formation Toolkit with you! On the 4th Sunday of each month, I’ll be adding a new tool to our toolkit below. Each tool will come with resources and practical ideas for how to explore matters of the spirit with your family, and grow in confidence as a spiritual leader. As always, if you have immediate needs relating to your family’s faith formation, I’m available to chat. Just reach out to dre@uucorvallis.org to set up a time.

  1. Discussing the G-word (answering questions about God when you’re not sure yourself)
  2. Prayer as a Family Practice
  3. Meditation with the Kiddos
  4. Service with the Family
  5. Gratitude with the Kiddos
  6. Building a Family Lectionary
  7. A Family Sabbath Plan
  8. UP NEXT: Retreat