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Sun Apr 28 2019 Spring #6
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On the Journey: Renewal (2019 Apr) - HERE
From the Minister: Fri Apr 26 - HERE |
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Practice of the Week: Sacred Reading With sacred reading, the mindfulness given to the text is a reminder of the power and holistic character of the life within and beyond me. Something hitherto silent has been given voice within me. READ MORE |
List of all Practices of the Week -
HERE
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Religious Education
This Sunday the congregation will share in elements of a traditional Passover seder meal with their faith family. At the end of the service, RE students are invited to Fellowship Hall where - in Passover tradition - they will look for the afikoman, the hidden piece of matzo. Who will find it, I wonder? RE This Sunday: Grades 8-9 start in class. All other grades are in the sanctuary for our multigen worship service...
READ MORE
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From the Music Director
Instrumental music in the form of Joseph Achron's "Hebrew Melody" and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's arrangement of the Spiritual "Wade in the Water" are included as part of our Sunday morning Passover celebration. CUUC's choir is on hand with a Psalm setting from Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms and an arrangement of the traditional Hine Matov as a round...
READ MORE.
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Upcoming Worship Services
"Passover Service"
Rev. Meredith Garmon & Friends
We honor and celebrate Passover, the important holiday about freedom, through a service that includes Passover seder elements and seats us at tables in the sanctuary. Enhanced coffee hour follows.
Sun May 5, 10:00 AM
"Flower and Music Celebration"
Rev. Meredith Garmon
Our flower celebration affirms the beauty of both nature and music with a morning featuring the favorite songs of our CUUC Choir. Bring a flower to share!
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A new Afghan family needs an immediate place to live. Can you help us find a 1 or 2 bedroom apartment in White Plains for the family? (Monthly rent capped at $2000.) Please contact Jane Dixon ([email protected]).
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Holiday Buffet, Sun Apr 28, 11:15am, Fireside
After our worship service honoring Passover, stay to enjoy a light buffet of cold dishes, spreads, salads, and refreshments (including whitefish salad and egg cream!) served in the fireside area.
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Newcomers Conversation, Sun Apr 28, 11:20am, 13
Learn more about Unitarian Universalism, and help us learn more about you. After worship, visitors are invited to meet with Jane Dixon, who will lead the conversation this month.
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CUUC Spring Concert, Sun Apr 28, 12:30pm, Sanctuary
Come hear clarinetist Pascal Archer and pianist Adam Kent performing the music of Brahms, Poulenc, and Honegger, plus the CUUC Choir singing pieces by Schubert, Brahms, and Bernstein, including favorites from
West Side Story
and
On the Town.
.
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Wise Aging Group, Tue Apr 30, 3:00pm, Fireside
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Day in Place, Sat May 4
Join the PlaceKeepers to appreciate, improve, and maintain the building and grounds of CUUC, our physical and spiritual home. Contact: Bice Wilson ( [email protected]).
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The Refugee Resettlement team is excited to report that the Interfaith Council for New Americans (ICNA) will be receiving a
new Afghan refugee family
as soon as next month! Want to help us welcome and support the new family? Come to our breakfast meeting on
Sat May 4, 9:30am in Fellowship Hall
. RSVP to Jane Dixon (
[email protected]
), who can tell you firsthand how rewarding this work is!
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CUUC Variety Show 2019, Sat May 4, Sanctuary
Come one, come all to our 7th annual evening of fun! Enjoy performances (kids AND adults), bake sale, and much more as we raise money for PrideWorks. Sign up your act on the board in the RE hallway, contribute treats to the bake sale, and solicit donations from your favorite shops for our prizes. Contact: Kate Breault ([email protected]). Bake sale: Benetta Barnett ([email protected]).
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White Fragility Book Discussion,
Sun May 5
,
11:40am, Fellowship Hall
Even if you haven't read the book, the Racial Justice Team invites you to join this important discussion. Our easy-to-follow presentation will get to the key question: "Where do we go from here?" Read about author Robin DiAngelo's ideas HERE. Or see her video HERE.
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Faith Development Friday, Fri May 10, CUUC
Our evening of learning, spiritual growth, and community. 6:15pm Pizza & Salad Dinner; 7:00pm Programs; 8:30pm Coffee. Programs include "Faith Like a River" Adult RE and Family Journey Group. All are welcome to stay after the programs to share coffee and a chat. RSVP to
[email protected]
by Fri 12:00 noon so we know how much pizza to order.
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Nominating Committee Members Wanted
The Board of Trustees is seeking two members to serve on the Nominating and Leadership Development Committee for a three-year term beginning this June. The role of the Committee is to select candidates, from among the members of the Congregation, for vacancies on the Board of Trustees. If you are interested or would like to recommend someone, contact Board Chair Dean Silverberg ([email protected], 212-351-4642). The deadline for nominations is Sun May 5.
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From the Auction Committee
We Need Sheets
Please donate your gently used sheets so the Auction decorating committee can start working (yes... they really do start this early!). Light colored, flat sheets, any size wanted. Drop off in lobby. Contact: Claire Flower (
[email protected]).
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"Our Dreams Are Inspired"
2019 Annual Giving Campaign
Your contributions of time, talent, and financial resources will continue to power our mission to nurture spirituality, foster compassion, and engage in service in the year ahead. Help make "Our Dreams" come true! Return your pledge form now, or pledge online at
cucwp.org/annual-pledge. Contact: Chris Kortlandt (
[email protected]).
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At its annual fundraising dinner on Sun Apr 28, the White Plains Democratic City Committee will be honoring Joann Prinzivalli for being a "tireless advocate for LGBTQ rights, whose efforts were instrumental in the passage this January of GENDA, the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, by the New York State Legislature."
Congratulations Joann - CUUC is proud to have you as part of our faith family!
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A black Nike women's lightweight jacket was lost on Sun Apr 14 in the sanctuary. Contact: Janet Press ([email protected])
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My Sister's Place
in White Plains is looking for temporary and permanent housing for women coming through their Human Trafficking Project. MSP is particularly desperate to place a young mother with 3 children. If you know someone who can help, contact Nathalie Chara, 214-546-7946,
[email protected]
.
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From Environmental Practices
In honor of Earth Day, the Sierra Club has issued an updated Consumer's Guide to Electric Vehicles. Their first guide in 2013 contained just
two
vehicles. Today there are
more than 40
vehicles on the market.
An interactive guide will match your driving habits and pocketbook to a selection of vehicles that most meet your needs. You can find the guide HERE.
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8th Annual Riverkeeper Sweep, Sat May 4
Come clean your river! Join UUCHV Croton cleaning the Annsville Preserve Park in Peekskill (sign up HERE). Or choose one of the many other Westchester locations listed on the Riverkeeper website HERE.
Parents' Night Out, Sat May 4, 6:00-8:30pm, First Unitarian Society, 25 Old Jackson Ave, Hastings
Drop off your kids (age 5-12) for
dinner and a movie, and enjoy a night out for yourself! Open to families registered in RE. $20/child, $15/sibling. Contact: Erica Jong (
[email protected]). Flyer
HERE.
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Monthly Tidings
UUA President Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray hosts the first in a new series of "thought leadership" messages that will be sent monthly to all UU congregations to strengthen our connections and support shared learning. Click
HERE
to read or view her "Create Climate Justice" message. Enjoy!
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Denomination Happenings
Universalist Convocation, Fri May 17-Sun May 19, Murray Grove Retreat and Renewal Center, Lanoka Harbor, NJ
Learn the history of the other "U" in our UU faith tradition, and help kick off commemorations of the 250th anniversary of Rev. John Murray preaching his first Universalist sermon in Potter's Chapel at Murray Grove in 1770. Details
HERE.
Registration closes Tue Apr 30.
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Share
the Plate for April: Furniture Sharehouse
We share half our non-pledge collection this month with Furniture Sharehouse, an organization that provides free furniture to economically disadvantaged individuals and families living in Westchester, giving them basic household furnishings to enable them to rebuild their lives and live with dignity. Learn more at furnituresharehouse.org.
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Caring & Sharing Circle
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This Week at CUUC
The full calendar can be found
HERE.
Room numbers subject to change; please check the board on Sunday morning. To reserve a room or Zoom online meeting, contact the CUUC office (914-946-1660 x2,
[email protected]).
Sat Apr 27 - 9:00am Rental: Exercise; 10:00am Food Prep for Community Meal; 10:00am Zen; 11:00am Choir Dress Rehearsal
Sun April 28 - 8:45am Choir Rehearsal; 9:30am Nursery Care; 10:00am Worship; 11:00am Choir Rehearsal; 11:15am Enhanced Coffee Hour; 11:20am Newcomers' Conversation; 12:30pm Concert: Spring Choral and Chamber Music Concert
Mon Apr 29 - 10:30am Rental: White Plains Interfaith Council; 5:00pm Rental: Exercise;
Tue Apr 30 - 10:00am Rental: Exercise; 3:00pm Wise Aging Group; 7:00pm Rental: WCSPP; 7:30pm Choir Rehearsal
Wed May 1 - 7:30pm Program Council;
Thu May 2 - 9:30am Rental: League of Women Voters; 7:30pm Journey Group Facilitators
Fri May 3 - 9:00am Rental: Exercise; 12:00pm Variety Show Setup; 4:30pm Variety Show Rehearsal
Sat May 4 - 6:00am Day in Place; 9:00am Rental: Exercise; 9:30am Refugee Resettlement; 10:00am Zen; 12:30pm Journey Group Facilitators; 4:00pm Variety Show Participant Warmup; 5:00pm Variety Show
Sunday, May 5 - 8:45am Choir Rehearsal; 9:30am Nursery Care; 10:00am Worship; 11:15am Coffee Hour; 11:20am LGBTQIA RE Planning Meeting; 11:30am Environmental Practices;11:40am Presentation: White Fragility
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Coordinator of Religious Education: Michele Rinaldi,
[email protected], 914-946-1660 x4
Congregational & Communications Administrator: Pamela Parker,
[email protected], 914-946-1660 x2
Board of Trustees
Social Justice Coordinators
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We made a promise. To mystery. And that promise calls us to neighborliness. I think that is the call that we - we who constitute Community Unitarian Universalist - answer and aspire to answer. It's what we do in our being here, in our participation in congregational life: we answer the call to neighborliness and live into the promise we have made to mystery.
We Unitarians Universalists are a part of a covenantal tradition - a tradition of covenant with something that is more powerful than you or I, something mysterious that calls us to our better selves, something that we all sometimes stray from, but that ever-beckons us back to a truer path -- something that defines us as a people.
We covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person - every being, I'd say. That's the first of our seven principles. We covenant to respect the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part. That's the seventh principle. The interdependence of existence, and inherent worth and dignity, are powerful. There is a quality of mystery and awe there. How could this be, this total interdependence, this inalienability from concern and respect? That's why I say we've made a promise to mystery: because our covenant commits us to principles ultimately inexplicable.
Care, kindness, and compassion are, for us, rooted, after all, in our promise to uphold everyone's worth and dignity because, mysteriously, it's inherent - and our promise to respect the web of existence because, mysteriously, we're an interdependent part of it.
Today, the notion that there are common goods that we can collectively realize, and that the form of our collective action is called government grows increasingly quaint. The trend to privatize everything from schools to prisons to health care means the wealthy get health care and education but no one gets the benefits we would all receive when more of our neighbors are educated and healthy.
We are not ready for details, for we have not yet coalesced around a vision, a dream. Recall that Martin Luther King's dream was articulated in several of his addresses leading up its most famous expression in Washington DC in August 1963. Only after that dream exercised the imaginations of a significant number of people could we then follow with policy: the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the fair housing act of 1968.
For us today, says theologian Walter Brueggemann, "the prophetic task is not blueprint or program or even advocacy. It is the elusiveness of possibility out beyond evidence, an act of imagination."
The name for imagining beyond evidence is: faith. Your presence here to be with each other, to make the unmarketable abundance of community, is the embodiment of our faith and hope.
With the wider culture around us sliding toward despair and desperation, all we need to see hope right now is to look around at CUUC on a Sunday morning.
Yours in faith,
Meredith |
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Your Moment of Zen: Everyday Life Raccoon visited again from Cedarford and said, "My problem is how to use my practice in everyday life." Raven asked, "What is your practice?" Raccoon said, "Lots of zazen." Raven said, "You probably can't use it." Raccoon said, "Then what's the good of it?" Raven said, "Zazen arises from vows; vows arise from an....READ MORE |
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