Windows Weekly March 14, 2019
Albany UU Windows Weekly
Greetings,
Welcome to Windows Weekly, Albany UU's central source for news and updates. Enjoy!

-Blessings
W e welcome everyone. Our Unitarian Universalist community seeks truth and deeper meaning, pursues justice through inspired action, and cultivates compassion and love for all connected by the web of life .
Sunday Service 10:00 AM
March 17, Inclusivity Service  

The Inclusivity Service will feature guest speaker, Lisa Good, founding director of Urban Grief. Urban Grief is a community-based organization that responds in the aftermath of community violence, educates about the effects of violence, supports those affected through crisis/bereavement support, by connecting community members and caregivers with each other as resources and mutual support.

Music: Richard Porterfield , piano

HYMN 1040 “Hush”
HYMN 1010 “We Give Thanks”
HYMN “Spirit of Life”
HYMN 1021 “Lean on Me”
HYMN 1028 “The Fire of Commitment”

Here is a place you might find the words to our hymns.
Sunday Services
10:00 am


March's theme: Journey



March 24, “Pilgrimage,” Rev. Sam Trumbore
 
A sacred journey to a holy shrine or grotto can be a personally transformative experience. Those desiring healing may travel to Lourdes in France or Medjugorje in Bosnia. All Muslims must do the Hajj, a pilgrimage to Mecca. What might a Unitarian Universalist pilgrimage look like?

Music: Albany UU Choir sings "Keep Your Hand on That Plow" 


March 31, “Encountering the Unexpected,” Rev. Sam Trumbore

Leah Purcell, our Director of Religious Education and Family Ministry begins her two month sabbatical. She will be having experiences of rest and renewal as well as engaging in a process of discovery visiting other congregations hoping to learn new thing to bring home. On any journey we encounter the unexpected. The challenge is to expect the unexpected and learn and grow through what is discovered.

Music: TBD




Announcements



Give Away the Plate
All contributions in the plate this Sunday, March 17 , will be given to Urban Grief (a 501©(3) organization) unless otherwise marked. If you write a check, make it payable to Urban Grief. Checks for your pledge should be made payable to Albany UU, and have "pledge" written on the memo line. As always, envelopes will be available for cash contributions that you want to earmark toward a specific fund or pledge.

Urban Grief responds to the traumatic impact of community violence through education, crisis response, victim advocacy and ongoing support. All funds raised will be used for ongoing unmet needs of victims such as funeral expenses, transportation, childcare, recreation and shelter . Learn more here.


Mary Reich Memorial Service 
A Celebration of Mary's Life will be held at Albany UU on Sunday, April 7 at 3:00 pm in the Sanctuary followed by a reception in Channing Hall. Contributions of finger foods for the reception are welcomed and encouraged. Parking is allowed in the UAlbany Hawley Lot for this event.


Respecting Our Renters
When we have renters in our halls, please be respectful of the space they have paid to use. Multiple, unnecessary interruptions are problematic and inconsiderate. Thank you for your attention and consideration of their space. If you have questions, please call the church office.


Warmth for the Homeless
We’re hoping the warmer weather is coming soon but March is still quite cold. Please continue to bring in blankets for our “blanket box” in the coatroom to be given to those who are experiencing homelessness. Thank you for your help!
The shelter is so grateful for the donations to the blanket bin!
Sunday Schedule

9:00 AM
- Mindfulness Meditation, Sanctuary

9:45 AM
- Nursery/Toddler Rooms open

10:00 AM
- Sunday Service, Community Hall
- Programs for Children and Youth

11:00 AM
- Coffee Hour, Channing Hall

11:30 AM
- Annual Dinner Skit Rehearsal, Community Hall
- Social Responsibilities Council, Room B-8





Quick Links



Denominational Affairs Links


Sign up for a class or event

- Send and email to: registration@albanyuu.org
- Sign up at the Sign Up Site in Channing Hall
OR
- Call the church office, 518.463.7135
If childcare is offered for the event, please let us know you need it when you register, including names and ages of children.






Envelopes for your cash donations
A reminder that envelopes are available on the table in the Community Hall Lobby each Sunday for cash contributions that you want to earmark toward a specific fund or pledge. You must use an envelope with your name and pledge year on it, if you wish to have your cash attributed toward your pledge. If you have any questions, an usher will be happy to assist you. 
Growing Our CENT$ of Community
Help us make our April 1st deadline!

We are now at 41% of our stewardship goal. A nice increase from last week. Keep those pledge forms coming in!

Many thanks to all those who have already pledged. If you haven’t already done so, please pick up your pledge packet after the service at the back of Community Hall.

All pledges should be returned by April 1st so don’t delay. Remember to include your UU Bucks raffle ticket when you return your pledge.
To Return Your Pledge by April 1st, you can:
 
Thank you for your support and generosity!
Cure Cabin Fever Auction
The Auction is Coming! The Auction is Coming!
 
Spring out of your winter doldrums and head on over to the Cure Cabin Fever Auction this Saturday at 6:15 PM at Albany UU. Bid on wonderful items and enjoy tasty appetizers, beverages, and desserts. 
 
Don’t have a ticket? No worries. Buy one at the door for $7.
 
Parents: Make this a night out… Free child care will be provided for auction attendees. Thank you for your support of UU Albany’s biggest fundraiser!
 
The UAlbany Hawley Lot at the corner of Robin St. and Washington is available for parking. See you there!
Learning opportunities with our Minister
Letting Go
Sessions on March 26, April 2 and 9; 7:00 pm in Room B-8
Instead of just giving something up for Lent, this class will provide an alternative by diving into the process of letting go itself. A companion book for this class will be Dr. David R. Hawkins, Letting Go: The Pathway to Surrender . Learn more here .

Mindfulness Meditation Workshop
April 12-13, 2019
This meditation training and practice workshop, led by Rev. Sam on Friday 6:00 to 9:00pm, and Saturday 8:00 to 3:00pm, gives the participants an opportunity to learn Buddhist mindfulness meditation techniques and/or refresh and deepen their meditation practice. Learn more here .
Learning opportunity with our Director of Religious Education and Family Ministry
Potluck and UU Family/Household Circle Training - this Friday, March 15

For Families, Couples and Households: Everyone in each household participates in the training - youth and children too!

Potluck at 6:00 programming starts at 7:00; ends at 8:00

There is still time to sign up but please call Leah today if you'd like to participate. Thank you!

Leah will share a tool to use as a family, couple or household to strengthen connections and communication at home.

Learn more here.
From Our Board of Trustees
UUs, Dentistry, and the Upside-Down Year

One of my favorite life-guiding books is How to Want What You Have, by Timothy Miller, PhD, a clinical psychologist. (It’s in our Joy Library.) With numerous examples and anecdotes of human behavior from his clinical experience, he lays out a thoughtful approach to life, distilled down to three principles: Compassion, Attention, and Gratitude, with an emphasis on the present moment. If we can live in the Moment, the “Precious Present,” the greatest rewards and satisfactions in life can be found in small things and simple pleasures. Unfortunately we are all hard-wired to constantly crave more. Let these cravings cease. Try thinking of this earth as the only comfortable home for us in this universe: the Pleasure Planet. “…It’s another gray, rainy day on the Pleasure Planet. What lovely, cool, sweet-smelling fog they have here! [OR: It’s another frigid wintry day on the Pleasure Planet. The sky is blue, the air is fresh and crisp, and the landscape is highlighted with beautiful white snow and glistening ice! ] … I’m going to the dentist on the Pleasure Planet. How nice the dentists are here. How kind they are to provide sterile instruments, music, and Novocaine. Pain here on the Pleasure Planet is hardly ever severe…”

I was thinking about this last week while lying in the dentist’s chair, having new dental fillings placed. Dr Miller was right: you just have to have the right perspective … (although, at times, it was useful also to use a little mindful breath-attention, to avoid over-reacting to something which was almost painful.) Certainly, I am grateful for modern dentistry. (Consider the alternatives.)

And I’m grateful for mindfulness and relaxation techniques I’ve learned. 
     
And I’m very grateful for Unitarian Universalism. It hasn’t always been here, and I doubt that it was pre-destined to exist. I don’t quite know where I’d be without it, since I’m not pacifist enough to be a Quaker, and I’m too far from NYC to have the Society for Ethical Culture as my community. The UU Association came into being in 1961, with the merger of the Unitarians (AUA - American Unitarian Association) and Universalists (UCA - Universalist Church in America.)

It was an unusual event, going against the more dominant trend of schisms and separations which mark much of religious history, especially Christian Protestantism. 

I wasn’t aware of it at the time, in 1961, being only 13 years old. One of my visual memories of that year is the MAD magazine cover proclaiming 1961 as an Upside-Down Year (the first since 1881, the last till 6009.) So maybe the UU merger event was unusual enough to be considered “upside-down”… a statement of creative compromise and commonality, as opposed to proud individuality and independence … the dominant spirit of Do Your Own Thing in the 60’s.

Of course, 1961 was just one point in a long history of particular circumstances and courageous individuals which brought us to Albany UU in 2019. The result is this -- our vibrant community of warmth and shared values, committed to cooperative work for social justice and a better planet. Challenges abound here, but so do inspirational people. For this community I’m very grateful. I have this, and I want it.

Oh, and in dentistry, in 1961 … the first electric toothbrush was introduced. I don’t have one.

And I don’t want one. At least in this, too, I’ll want what I have.

Trustee, Fred Eames

More from our blogs:





Help Evaluate our Professional Ministry
The Board of Trustees and Rev. Sam Trumbore would like to hear from the congregation in order to plan for the future of our shared professional and lay ministry. Here are their key questions:
  • What are the most important things the congregation wants our professional minister to do?
  • How well is Rev. Sam doing at what he does? Where does he excel? Where might improvement be made? Are there other things you would like to see him do?
  • What are the needs, if any, that our shared professional and lay ministry is not meeting?
 
To answer these questions, we invite everyone at Albany UU to complete a questionnaire, and we are also planning to conduct about 40 interviews. You can get the questionnaire:  
  • In print in the church office;
  • As an online form, here, which you can submit online;
  • As a PDF document that you can download, print and complete by hand; and
  • As a Word document that you can download and fill out on your computer.

We will need your completed questionnaire by April 28 in order to include it in our analysis for a report to the Board. If you use a printed questionnaire, you can return it by:
  • Handing it to one of us;
  • Scanning and emailing it to EVALUATION@albanyUU.org;
  • Mailing it to EVALUATION, First UU of Albany, 405 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY 12206; or
  • Placing it in a sealed envelope addressed to EVALUATION in the box labeled “Treasurer” in the Copy Room.

If you prefer to respond orally to the questionnaire, please call the office at 518-263-7135 or email us at evaluation@albanyuu.org .
 
We hope you will join us in this important effort and look forward to hearing from you!
 
Meredith Andrews, Bruce Rodgers, Reese Satin, Nancy Willie-Schiff
UPCOMING EVENTS
Albany UU Humanists meet this Tuesday, Mar. 19 at 7 PM in Room B-8
We welcome all Humanists and those who would like to learn more. We hope YOU will come to share your thoughts! It is an open dialogue which encourages participants exchanging ideas. Please join us as Larry Gambino leads a discussion of the role of ritual and symbolism in the Humanist tradition. Find more here .


Annual Fellowship Dinner
The Annual Fellowship Dinner will be held on  Friday, April 5, 6:00 pm at the Franklin Terrace in Troy. Come join us for an evening of fun, food, fellowship, and frivolity. Find more here.


Getting to Know UU
We invite you to join us Saturday, April 6 for “Getting to Know UU”. This orientation for newcomers is from 8:45 a.m. to noon. Find more here .


The 11th Annual Hudson-Mohawk Cluster Sunday Celebration
Mark your calendars now for the HMUU service - Is It Too Late? Healing the Earth and Our Spirits - Sunday, April 7, 11:00 AM at Doane Stuart School Find out more preliminary details here .


Walker Book Group
Join the Walker Book Group for a potluck and discussion on Sunday, April 14 at 5:30 pm in Channing Hall. We will discuss The Fish That Ate the Whale : Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen. Learn more here .


Spokane in 2019, Providence in 2020
Consider attending General Assembly, the annual meeting of the Unitarian Universalist Association.
In 2019, GA will be held in Spokane, Washington from June 19-23. Closer to home, in 2020, GA will take place in Providence, Rhode Island from June 24-28. Learn more here .
VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES
Sunday Volunteers
Would you like to be involved in the Sunday service in a more meaningful way?
Visit Sunday Hospitality Sign Up to find out about the ways you can volunteer on Sunday morning. We thank you and could not do what we do without YOU!
RELIGIOUS EXPLORATION
-Leah Purcell, Director of Religious Education (RE) and Family Ministry, dre@albanyuu.org

Keep up with what's happening for children and youth , including resources to support parents and caretakers at home by checking out Leah's RE Newsletter!

Find information on Leah's Sabbatical here .

Nursery/Toddler Room opens at 9:45 for children and infants under 2 years old

Faith formation of children and youth this Sunday, March 17:          

The pre-k through 5th graders start the morning in the service in Community Hall with their families and then go to their Sunday school groups.

Crossing Paths (6th/7th) is visiting the Friends Meeting at their meeting house on Madison Ave for their 10:00 service and staying for a pot luck. 

8th/9th grades will not meet.

Youth Group meets at 10:00.

RE Volunteer Brunch - Saturday, March 23, 9:00-N
This is for everyone interested in volunteering in RE next year - or just thinking about it! Learn more here .

Orientation to 2019-20  Rite of Passage Program - March 24
Next church year we'll offer the Rite of Passage program for incoming 9th/10th graders.

Please join Leah Purcell and Rev Sam for an orientation to the program on Sunday, March 24th from 11:30 to 1:00 in room B-8.
Learn more here .
SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES COUNCIL (SRC)
-Matt Lesniak, SRC Chair, email

SRC Recommends the following:


Judicial Forum tonight, Thursday, Mar. 14, 6:00 PM. Questions & Answers with Democratic Primary candidates right here at Albany UU.

Growing Up Homeless and Undocumented by Dan-El Padilla Peralta, tonight, Thursday, Mar. 14, 7:30 pm at the NYS Museum's Huxley Theatre, Empire State Plaza, Madison Ave.

Upper Hudson Peace Action Alert:
Annual Rachel Corrie Memorial Vigil on Friday March 15, 4:30 pm at Dana Park, Albany. Dana Park is on the corner of Delaware, Madison, and Lark in Albany.

Lecture/Inspirational Speech, The New And Unsettling Force, by Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis with Willie Baptist, Saturday, Mar. 16 6:30pm , First Presbyterian Church, 362 State St.
Sponsored by the Capital Region NYS Poor People's Campaign Committee.

Interfaith Community Forum - Monday, March 18, 9:45 am , Bulmer Telecommunications Center, HVCC. Discuss the state of our communities, ways we can help one another grow, and priorities we can work toward together to shape our shared future in the coming year.

Day of Action: Fight Poverty, Not the Poor - Monday, Mar. 18, 4:30 pm , First United Presbyterian Church, 1915 5th Ave., Troy. The NY Poor People’s Campaign will take statewide action, showing that the poor, activists, and faith leaders of all races and in all regions are united in demanding our state government change course and prioritize ending systemic racism, poverty, militarism and ecological devastation. More info .

Women Against War’s Annual Gathering - Thursday, April 4, 5:30 pm , First Lutheran Church, 181 Western Ave. Bring savory or sweet finger food to share, and honor our 2019 Woman of Peace awardee, Marcia Hopple. Donation suggested.

Raise Your Voice for End of Life Choice
Save these Tuesday dates for visiting lawmakers at the Capitol this session to advocate for legalizing medical aid in dying . Death with Dignity Albany will be there on April 9 . Albany UU has volunteered for April 30 . Lobby Day for Compassion and Choices is May 14. Contact: Nancy Willie-Schiff at n.willie.schiff@gmail.com .
Green Sanctuary's Tip of the Week
Living our 7th principle

Sleep under a green roof . Whether or not your hotel has an actual green roof (some do!), find a place to stay that has a commitment to sustainability. Green hotels use water- and energy-efficient appliances and may wash sheets every few days instead of every morning. Find an eco-minded independent hotel or B& B https://www.greenamerica.org/green-business-index  or through the http://greenhotels.com/ .
JOYS and CARING CORNER
To share your Joy or Sorrow with our Albany UU community, you may submit it on a yellow card during the service or by using our online form.

1984 Albany UU Interim minister, Rev. Eileen B. Karpeles , died recently. Click here for the full announcement. Notes of condolences may be sent to daughter, Tamia Karpeles at 8387 Elm Rd. Millersville, MD, 21108.

Need to Talk? Albany UU Pastoral Care Associates are here to listen!
Our Pastoral Care Associates have been trained in compassionate listening skills and are available to all members and friends of our congregation. To contact a Pastoral Care Associate, email: listeners@albanyuu.org , contact Rev. Sam Trumbore , the Albany UU office at 518.463.7135, or one of them personally. They are: Chuck Manning, Phil Rich, Randy Rosette, Sandy Stone, Lisa Barron, Donna Meixner, Dee VanRiper and Sharon Babala.
Regular events and meetings
Check Windows Weekly for changes to date, time and location. 

Sundays        
11:45 AM      Inclusivity Team (1st)
5:30 PM       Walker Book Group (2nd)
11:45 AM      Social Responsibilities Council (3rd)
11:45 AM      Green Sanctuary Committee (4th)
Mondays        
6:15 PM        Religious Education Council (1st)
Tuesdays       
10:00 AM      Philosophy Discussion (weekly)
1:00 PM        Bridge (weekly)
7:00 PM        UU Humanists (3rd)
Wednesdays
10:00 AM      Projects & Quilts (weekly)
7:00 PM        Choir Rehearsal (almost weekly)
Thursdays     
1:00 PM       All Sides Considered (1st & 3rd)
7:00 PM       Program Coordinating Council (2nd)
6:15 PM       Board of Trustees (4th)
Going to miss a Sunday?

You can listen to the entire Albany UU Sunday service at home or on your mobile device. The two most recent services are available as MP3 files on the Albany UU member resource website. Here is how to access:

username: AlbanyUU
password: EEthelredBrown405

Our sermon archive (select Ministry/Sermon Archive on the left website menu) has pdf files of sermons texts (when available) and audio files of sermons. You can also request the office put a service on a CD.
First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany
Parking: Parking is available on the street. On Sundays (and for some special events) Albany UU has permission to use the University at Albany’s Hawley Parking Lot on Robin Street at Washington Avenue.

Office hours (unless otherwise posted)
September-June: Monday-Friday, 9:00-3:00
July-August: Monday–Thursday 9:00-1:00

Websites
General: www.AlbanyUU.org

Building use
To reserve a room for an Albany UU activity or to rent a hall or classroom space , for a personal or non-Albany UU activity, contact Administrative Assistant Sapphire Correa (518.463.7135 or office@albanyuu.org ).
First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany | 518.463.7135| 518.463.1429 | Admin@AlbanyUU.org | AlbanyUU.org