In this season of the Spring Equinox, we open more deeply to Nature's invitation to find balance inspired by Her systems. We explore human ways of envisioning a sustainable future using Nature as a guide, including Permaculture, Emergent leadership strategies, and Paganism. What wisdom does the natural world have to offer our visioning process?
Piper Swim is a student at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley.
The Sunday Circle is held from 9:00 am to 10:00 am each Sunday in the Fireside Room.
Notes Along the Way (Members' Version)
Dear Ones,
The equinox has arrived, the starwheel turns, and with it much is turning and churning within our community. As many of us begin to plan for the next program year, there are few things happening in the coming weeks I offer for your attention:
The Mission Task Force is reaching out to various committees to seek input in their process of an inspiring and succinct statement of our mission. Reach out to chair Wendy Meluch, or committee members Carol Kerr, Kim Holscher, Ted Gaebler and Mikey Songster if you have thoughts to share about how to describe the purpose of our community.
It's Stewardship season! We've received pledge forms from about half our households. Please get those in ASAP (by the end of the month at the latest) so we are able to accurately plan for next year's budget.
Now is the time to sign up for our All Church Retreat, happening the first weekend of May.
In every congregation I've served, Spring is recruitment season for new leaders to step into important roles. We are looking for leaders to serve in wide-ranging capacities. If you have been looking for a way to be more involved, please reach out to me so we can meet and discover what kind of service here might light you up!
We will ritually welcome new members with an Ingathering Ceremony during the service on March 31st. If you've been thinking about making UUMarin your spiritual home, now is a great time to join our community. Schedule a meeting with me to deepen your connection here and become a member.
Our Hopes and Histories conversations have begun, but it's not too late to sign up to attend a group. If you haven't yet, reach out to a host (below) to see if there's room to join their group. If you're having trouble finding a group that will work for you, let me know so I can make sure I have the opportunity to hear your stories.
Our lives are filled with meaningful opportunities, with constant tugs on our hearts, spirits and time. As we continue to explore the theme of Balance this month, with all these things happening in our community, I offer this prayer for each of us:
May we be nourished by meaningful connection in this community
in balance with the sweetness and demands of our lives beyond this congregation,
and with the soul's thirst for time unplugged, time of solitude and rest, time with rivers and mountains, forests and sea.
Balancing takes effort, finesse, and intention.
On the theme of balance, I have been engaging the children and youth in various concepts through kinesthetic play and mindfulness practice. Balancing our lives and relationships in this modern era takes a focus of intention and living our values in order to feel the satisfaction of a life well lived. What three values are most important to you? How can you clearly exemplify these to your children and grandchildren? Which UU principle might help you lift up your deepest values?
RSVP ASAP for the Youth Game Night with dinner - March 23rd.
We are now opening up the Saturday, March 23rd event to make a special invitation to youth. They can come
without
their parents to hang out and play games. $5 for a dinner with chicken and rice with vegetables. Chocolate dipped churros and fruit for dessert. Yes, parents, you are still welcome to take part in the amazing Paella Dinner, but
you can drop off the teens for the evening. 6:00-8:30 (ages 12-17). Buy a meal for your teen at this event HERE. The game room is ages 10-17 and will be staffed by Luka Coole and Jef Melcher. We will go up and watch the flamenco dancer for a bit too.
Retreat Registration. The first deadline is March 25th. One evening, one day, or the whole weekend. All these options are available. Maybe the Friday night campfire with smores and singing is your interest. Maybe it is the Saturday night all-ages Barn dance? This is one of the best weekends of the year for building UUCM friendships between children, youth, parents, and the whole community.
Family Outreach.
Looking to gain an insight into how to better serve families at UUCM, Rich Cohen, a new member of the RE Steering Committee, or I will be getting in contact with many of you in the next few weeks to have a short interview. Please help us help you by participating in this conversation.
Tickets available for sale at the door. All seafood will be sustainably sourced.
Don't miss out on a chance for amazing raffle prizes:
Gift certificate at Barcino Restaurant in San Francisco ($200 value)
Gift certificate for a month at Body Kinetics Gym ($250 value)
2 chances for a Pair of Tickets to the Harmony Sweepstakes A Capella finals at the Marin Civic Center, May 19, 2019 (value $120.00 each)
BBQ Dinner for up to 8 by chef Susan in the late Spring (priceless)
Spanish picnic lunch for 4 by chef Lynne delivered to you (valued at$100)
And other wonderful items
* Dinner will accommodate vegan as well as gluten-free diets.
For carb-free and allergy needs, it is recommended to purchase a ticket and notify us ahead so that we will know how to best make the event special for you as well.
Film - "Seared Souls: SC Voices of the Holocaust"
"Seared Souls: SC Voices of the Holocaust," Board member Rich Panter's powerful 90-minute documentary will be shown by the Adult Ed. Committee on
Sunday, March 24th in the Fireside Room from 12:15 - 2 pm. The film traces the experiences of sixteen survivors and five liberators, neither minimizing the horror, nor relying on graphic archival images, it contains clips from the feature films "Schindler's List"
and
"The Wannsee Conference."
Narrated by NPR's Brooke Gladstone, and winner of six national awards, including a CINE Gold Eagle and an Emmy nomination, Rich made it in the 1990s when he was a producer/director at South Carolina Public TV and will discuss it after the screening.
Dinners for Eight
Our next dinner is April 6th. Please join us for an informal potluck dinner which is held at members' homes. New attendees are always welcome. Please let Sher Sheldon at [email protected]know if you can come or host.
Touch of Beauty Volunteers Needed for June
We are looking for volunteers to bring flowers (or other Touch of Beauty) on Sundays in June. No experience necessary! Please email[email protected]if you're interested.
Refreshment Provider Openings
Teams of two people are needed to bring light refreshments for about 100 people for our coffee hour on the following dates: March 31, April 14, May 5, May 12, and May 26. These two people will also set up and clean up.
We're also looking for a third person (those new to the congregation especially welcome!) to help with clean up in the kitchen from about 12:30 pm to finish (usually by 1pm with three people helping). We'd like to begin this Sunday, March 24 and continue through mid June.
Please remember -- light refreshments with coffee are only possible if people are willing to provide them!
Note: Board agendas are not officially final until the Saturday prior to the meeting. Please check [this page] closer to the meeting date for the final agenda.
Partial agenda below - see
link to PDF for entire agenda.
3. Fundraising Events: a. Kudos for Paella event 3/23; b. plans for 2019-20 fundraising as outlined by Lynne Scarpa
4. Update on Solar: Margaret
5. Status of Finances: Treasurer's Report: Margaret
6. Second Service Opportunities: Planning issues: budget, RE, music, space, etc.
7. Long-Range Planning Committee Ideas for Appointments: Kim and Dick, board; Doug Kerr (chair) + proposed members
8. Select Volunteer of the Month for February and March
9. Janice's feedback on Governance and Ministry book
10. New Business and Dates for Future Meetings
11. Annual Report Format Choices
Frances Harper (1825-1911)
In celebration of Women's History Month, we're highlighting Unitarian women who were agents of change. An excerpt from Frances Harper's poem "Bury Me in a Free Land" is on a wall of the Contemplative Court, a space for reflection in the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. The excerpt reads: "I ask no monument, proud and high to arrest the gaze of the passers-by; all that my yearning spirit craves is bury me not in a land of slaves." At the age of fourteen, Frances found a job as a domestic in a Quaker household, where she was given access to their library and encouraged in her literary aspirations. Her poems appeared in newspapers, and in 1845 a collection of them was printed as Autumn Leaves (also published as Forest Leaves). Following the passage in 1850 of the Fugitive Slave Law, conditions for free blacks in the slave state of Maryland deteriorated and the Watkins family fled Baltimore. Frances Watkins moved on her own to Ohio, where she taught sewing at Union Seminary. She moved on to Pennsylvania in 1851. There, alongside William Still, Chairman of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, she helped escaped slaves along the Underground Railroad on their way to Canada.
Harper first became acquainted with Unitarians before the Civil War, due to their support of abolition and the Underground Railroad. When Harper and her daughter settled in Philadelphia in 1870, she joined the First Unitarian Church. With slavery a thing of the past, Harper turned her energy to women's rights. She spoke up for the empowerment of women and worked with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to secure votes for women. Unlike Anthony and Stanton, Harper supported the Fourteenth Amendment, which, together with the Fifteenth, granted the vote to black men but not to women. In 1873, Harper became Superintendent of the Colored Section of the Philadelphia and Pennsylvania Women's Christian Temperance Union. In 1894, she helped found the National Association of Colored Women and served as its vice president, 1895-1911. Along with Ida B. Wells, Harper wrote and lectured against lynching. Although busy as a writer and active in public life, Harper continued to engage personally in social concerns at the local level. She worked with a number of churches in the black community of north Philadelphia near her home, feeding the poor, preventing juvenile delinquency, and teaching Sunday School at the Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church. Both Unitarians and the AME church have claimed Harper as a member. She was reluctant to choose between the two.
Register for the Retreat - May 3-5
If you missed last year, no worries, this year's retreat will be held
May 3-5, 2019 and will be here before you know it!
Paper copies of the Retreat form are now available on the Retreat poster in the foyer at UUCM. Please fill one out and return it to Thomas Ervin.
Consider what workshop you may like to offer the congregation at this year's retreat. Here is a
sample schedule from last year.
The Retreat is an all-congregational event running from Friday afternoon through Sunday morning at Walker Creek Ranch in West Marin. We offer a flexible attendance/pricing plan to ensure that everyone can attend as their time and budget allows. You can stay in a semi-private lodge or family style dormitory with separate bedrooms for each family and bathrooms down the hall. Meals include Friday night dinner; Saturday breakfast, lunch, and dinner; and Sunday breakfast. We have a campfire on Friday night, a Barn Dance on Saturday night, worship services, discussion groups, hiking opportunities, a ropes course, arts and crafts, and many more fun activities for young and old. This is a chance to connect with those in your community at a deeper level and enjoy the fresh air and lovely grounds of Walker Creek Ranch. We are taking reservations now. Additional details will be available as we get closer to the event. Questions? Contact Thomas (
[email protected]).
General Assembly is the annual meeting of our Unitarian Universalist Association. Attendees worship, witness, learn, connect, and make policy for the Association through democratic process. Anyone may attend; congregations must certify annually to send voting delegates.
The 2019 General Assembly will be June 19-23 in Spokane, Washington. Most General Assembly events will be held in the Spokane Convention Center.
https://www.uua.org/ga
If you are not already receiving emails from the social justice committee and wish to receive them along with information about social justice actions/rallies in and around Marin, please send your email address to:
[email protected]
Do you want to make a difference in our county and the world?
We focus on local issues which are relevant to all of us. Bring your ideas and concerns to the UUCM Social Justice Committee.We meet the third Sunday of each month at noon.
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Continue your commitment to environmental and economic justice by shopping at
http://shop.uusc.org
