The irresistible sound of children singing comes to the UU Community of the Mountains! Our goal is to have lots of fun leading up to performances at the Sunday, December 11th service, and again at 5pm on Christmas Eve.
Those interested should join in on for this first gathering where we will determine ongoing rehearsal days and times.
If you have any questions or want more information, contact Music@uugrassvalley.org
Calling all parents and others actively raising children. Join together with your peers in a gathering meant to feed your spirits as well as your stomachs. Come bring your questions, thoughts, desires and plans for the kind of support you need.
We will be meeting in the sanctuary during the lunch hour of noon to 1pm, this gathering will be facilitated by Chanti Smith with support from Lindsay Dunckel. Childcare is NOT provided.
We have distributed almost 12,000 postcards to registered, infrequent Black voters in voter suppression states. AMAZING! Many have asked to have addresses for other states. We have answered the call.
Contact Gail Johnson Vaughan at gailjohnsonvaughan@uugrassvalley.org to request your “made to order packet”. Choose Texas, North Carolina, Florida, or Alabama. Your email should specify which state(s) packet you want, and how many. These state packets are to be mailed by October 27.
Come take a field trip to see our beloved Altar Show at their new location of the ASIF Studio. We will gather on the Front Patio of UUCM at noon after service and either carpool or caravan over to 940 Idaho Maryland Road. If you would rather, you can meet us there. Admission is free.
The UUCM Bending the Arc Task Force invites you to be a member of our “Get Out the Vote – Postcard Club.”
Last Chance for Postcards to “Get Out the Vote”. The UUCM Bending the Arc Task Force encourages you end the Postcard Campaign with a BANG! Our current and last target State is Georgia where critically important Senate and Gubernatorial races are perilously close. Getting out the Vote of registered but infrequent Black voters in Georgia can make the difference.
Our postcards tell them to bring ID and pack water and where to call for info on their polling place.
These voters need our support and encouragement! No matter how many packets you have done we encourage you to stretch yourself do more. Even 1 postcard a day will make a difference!
Last day to mail Georgia postcards is Oct 20 In Georgia, voting early in person is crucial. SB 202 now restricts or bans the safest and most achievable voting practices, even criminalizes bringing food or drink to weary voters in prohibitively long Election Day lines. It undermines the Secretary of State, giving the State Election Board more power to overrule and racially target local jurisdictions. The issues in our script were rated as top issues of concern by Team Unity, a Georgia coalition of NAACP and other voting rights groups.
Postcard Packets
Pick up your packets on Sunday during service hours or M-F from 8:30-noon. If you need help getting yours, contact Gail Johnson Vaughan at gjohnsonvaughan@uugrassvalley.org.
Only want to do a few postcards? Join our pre & post service postcard parties in the UUCM library.
Postcard writing tips:
1. Don’t wait to start.
2. Even putting in 5 minutes a day will get you done soon.
3. If you are using colors for your postcards try this trick. Do the whole pile of cards one color at a time. Seems like it goes much faster.
Getting Out the Vote – Texting
Writing postcards not your thing but still want to help? Structured texting campaign lets you text 500-1000 pre-written texts per hour. Go to: centerforcommonground.org/texting
For more information or to join the club, contact Gail Johnson Vaughan at gjohnsonvaughan@uugrassvalley.org.
Thank you for the wonderful early sabbatical “Bon-Voyage” pizza party, everyone! (With special thanks to René Wiley and Gail Schulz for all the planning and preparation, and to Tom Wernigg for his wonderful song written for the occasion.) You are sending me into these 6 weeks of sabbatical-renewal with much love and genuine support, and I am feeling deeply grateful.
You are also sending me with a warm winter hat and a can of bear spray! I’m grateful for each of those gifts as well.
If you didn’t attend or tune in last weekend, it may help you to know that there is a bigger than life cutout of me somewhere in the building. You may be surprised – or startled – to see me there in October. It was brought out last Saturday as a playful resource should you begin to worry in my absence. Since then, we’ve been having fun laughing about my twin’s potential Flat Stanley adventures while I’m away.
As we all prepare to enter our 6 weeks of Sabbatical-Renewal, it may help you to know a few things:
Most of the out-of-the-ordinary decisions that might typically come to the Minister will go to UUCM’s wonderful and skillful President, Pam Kisor. When in doubt, Pam’s a good starting place. As President, Pam will also oversee staff and will be able to authorize spending from the Minister’s Discretionary Fund. Pam and the Board will have the support of UUA staff, should they need it. You may contact Pam at President@uugrassvalley.org Of course, I know that the Board will have your thoughtful support as well.UUCM’s amazing Lay Pastoral Care Team – George Dunstan, Gwen Eymann, Carol Richey, Corrie Silva, and Tom Wernigg – will be working together to serve UUCM’s pastoral care needs, with the professional support of a ministerial colleague in the wings should they need it. If you find yourself facing a life challenge, don’t hesitate to contact them, individually or via Caring@uugrassvalley.org.The fantastic Worship Team has been working hard to get all the services for the next 6 weeks and beyond prepared in advance. You can expect fabulous services, as always.The Worship Team will be supported by Bob Miller and volunteers in the Audio-Visual department, and through specific support from Siobhan Boylan, who we have hired to create the weekly Tech outlines and to edit and upload the Sunday service videos to YouTube.We will hire the new Music Director in November, after I return. Meanwhile, accompanists are hired through November to work with UUCM musicians and the Worship Team to offer great musical experiences. Alert: We expect to offer both an adult and a children’s choir opportunity in November and December.UU 101 sessions for newcomers will continue monthly, facilitated by Kate Canan and others from the Membership Team. The next Starting Point series for those who want to dig in and/or to consider joining, will begin in November.The Ministry Council – made up of leaders from the various ministry teams – will be co-led by Vice-President René Wiley and Kern Hildebrand. Monthly meetings encourage connection, communication, support and learning, and René and Kern bring complimentary gifts to their shared leadership. The various talented and generous ministry team leaders will continue to offer all of the usual week to week, month to month work that makes UUCM happen.Singing Meditation and the Spirituality Sharing Circle continue as usual.Office Manager Carol Fulkerson will continue to be your primary contact regarding administrative and database information – information about your pledge, your contact information, which mailing lists you are on, etc. Carol also schedules Zoom meetings and manages building scheduling through the website. Carol is the friendly and helpful face staffing UUCM’s office from 8:30 to noon, Monday through Friday, and she will direct you to the best places to get your questions answered: Admin@uugrassvalley.org or 530-274-1675.Communications Coordinator Mary Lindsay handles, well… communication. Mary is responsible for the eChalice, UUCM’s website, Facebook, and Instagram accounts, the content of Sunday slides, and for channeling information to the Mt. Chalice. Mary has created and continues to fine-tune a one-stop-shopping website form through which leaders and organizers can submit information regarding upcoming UUCM events, announcements or articles, and invites you to designate all the places you want that information to show up. Mary will be present this Sunday morning, October 2, so that you may meet her in person! To reach Mary email Communications@uugrassvalley.org.In the event that an internal challenge arises, the Board will gather a wise and skillful team to address it with care, kindness, and clarity.I will be fully (really, completely) out of UUCM action from October 3 through November 14.
Okay, that’s a lot of info. The final thing that it may help you to know, is that “all will be well” and that UUCM is in wonderful hands – and hearts – including yours.
Have a rich six weeks, and if I don’t see you Sunday, know that I look forward to connecting again starting November 15.
With care,
Rev. Kevin
The UUCM Justice Team is hosting a panel forum, along with open live and virtual discussion, on the growing public concern regarding challenges to our US Democracy, and thoughtful ideas of what each and all of us can do to make our Democracy better and stronger. […]
With this Sunday’s theme of “Beyond Welcome,” I had already long intended to share with you this link to Carrie Newcomer’s song, Room at the Table:
Too long we have wandered, burdened and undone
But there is room at the table for everyone
Let us sing the new world in, this is how it all begins
There is room at the table for everyone
Imagining ourselves beyond “welcome” has both close in and out-at-our-edges implications.
Here, close in, as we seek to connect and reconnect as a community, I am aware of the power of bringing who we are to the table – who we are in terms of the gifts we have to offer, and who we are at our most real and honest and imperfect and vulnerable. Again and again I witness it, the willingness to be genuine in an intimate enough circle of others opens and connects people in ways that surprise, move, and strengthen everyone present. It is powerful medicine. And a foundational ingredient of community.
This is why I encourage you, and why it’s one of our goals for this year for everyone, to find at least one small-enough circle of others in the life of the congregation in which you might feel connected, seen, heard, known, and in which who you are and what you bring is appreciated.
Soul Matters Circles, Walking Groups, the Book Group, Men’s or Women’s groups, the Spirituality Sharing Circle, Starting Point, Singing Meditation, the choir (soon, we hope), the various committees and teams and justice task forces, upcoming classes and other circles…or the circle or group you are imagining that is yet to manifest. Look, listen, watch, search, ask on Sunday mornings or via UUCM’s various newsletters and website and communications.
There is room for us all, and no gift is too small…
No matter who you are, no matter where you’re from…
Here and now we can be, the beloved community…
There is room at the table for everyone.
And, important as that is, thinking beyond “welcome” out at our edges is where Carrie’s song actually begins:
Let our hearts not be hardened to those living on the margins…
This is where it all begins, this is how we gather in
There is room at the table for everyone
The appalling disregard for human worth and dignity evidenced in the recent shipping of people seeking asylum at U.S. borders from border states to elsewhere brings such abstract edges closer in. As does The U.S. and the Holocaust documentary airing this week on PBS, linking the past and the present, shedding light on the U.S. unwillingness “to open its doors to more than a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of desperate people seeking refuge . . . as the catastrophe of the Holocaust unfolded in Europe.”
Whether as close as the people in our monthly Soul Matters Circle, or as seemingly distant as the Earth’s many refugees, the ways we practice belonging and extending belonging, and the ways we live into moving beyond a surface “welcome,” grow our capacity to open our hearts across the spectrums of our life connections.
As we seek deep and meaningful belonging – important to so many of us, as last Sunday showed – may we learn at the same time to extend our welcome beyond the easy and the familiar, near and far.
Too long we have wandered, burdened and undone
Let us sing the new world in, this is how it all begins
There is room at the table for everyone
Oh, may it be so. May WE be so.
With care,
Rev. Kevin
Hope to see you at the workshop and party Saturday!
Help Support our Weekly Service
We need YOU to help with the A/V technical needs on Sunday morning. It’s easier then you think!
We know it appears complicated with all the wires and 3 monitors, but thanks to some recent upgrades, all you really need to do is push buttons – and who doesn’t like pushing buttons?! You’ll assist with the PowerPoint slides and camera-switching during the service. We have detailed written instructions, lots of helpful notes, and friendly, forgiving folx to support you every week.
Training is provided along with lots of support so you wont be alone!
Please contact AV@uugrassvalley.org with questions or to get started!
Are we Stopping the Mine? What to do now before it’s too late!
Join in this action forum for justice co-sponsored by the UUCM Stop the Mine Task Force with CEA MineWatch, Earth Justice Ministries, the Elders Action Network of the Foothills, and the Concerned Citizens Roundtable. […]
