You are welcome here! Interested in learning more about the congregation, our faith, and our community? Would you like to join with us for online Sunday worship services? We invite you to check us out! Contact us here or email Sheri Blanchette.

I Can't Imagine, Rev. Nancy McDonald Ladd, Senior Minister

Link in the Saturday email; Recording will be posted on YouTube

Has anyone ever said, “I can’t imagine,” in response to the hardest stories you have to tell? Ever wonder if they really mean that – that they can’t? Or maybe they don’t want to? This week we’ll explore the ways in which imagination serves as a gateway to empathy

30 Days of Love, January 17 to February 14

Join us as we Side with Love to intentionally deepen our resolve to embody the values of love. Let’s learn and grow together. Each day we’ll post an activity suggested by Side with Love on our social media (Facebook, Twitter) and our website. “How do we live into LOVE?”

Families are invited to come to RRUUC and follow either this document or this audio recording to explore our beautiful grounds. You may wish to invite another family to join you and participate at the same time socially distanced and masked. Please re-seal and replace all boxes. If a box is running low on supplies, please email Beth Irikura.

Grounding: Geology - What Lies Beneath RRUUC?

You'd have to have rocks in your head to miss out on Joe's blog this week! Check out his collaboration with Andrea Mangum and Dr. Craig Schiffries in this week's Grounding at: https://www.rruuc.org/connect/grounding/.

Find information curated by our COVID-!9 Team here.

Join us for the first meeting of 2021! Email Sheri for the zoom link. We'll discuss choosing a new EM co-chair, updates on the building energy tuneup and solar panels, Green Sanctuary Plans for 2021, and environmental legislation we might want to support.

The Three Lynchings, Viewing & Panel Discussion, Sun., Feb. 7, 2pm, Zoom

Learn more about “who we are.” Join Educating4Change (E4C) in a Zoom viewing of “The Three Lynchings,” a documentary about these three horrific events that took place in Montgomery County in the late 1800’s. The 45-minute film viewing will be followed by a panel discussion. Details and registration here. Co-sponsored with our colleagues at Westmoreland Congregational United Church of Christ. 

Join the RRUUC team to help distribute food to families in need beginning at 8:30am, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, as well as the Friday before the first Saturday of the month, and on the first Saturday itself. Just show up and introduce yourself, or contact Engaging Communities’ David Ward for information.

La Clinica del Pueblo is a fully accredited, independent clinic in Columbia Heights, DC, that provides high quality, professional, and culturally appropriate health services to persons in the Latino community, regardless of ability to pay. Please support this organization throughout the month by contributing online, Text-to-Give (732-56 then RRUUC) or through check donations to RRUUC (designate La Clinica).

As part of our ongoing commitment to the activists who are interrupting gun violence on the streets of our cities, we are saddened yet honored to memorialize the names of those in our area lost to gun violence over the last week. These lives continue to matter: Baltimore: Dante Barksdale, Markeese Stanford, Terrell Scott, Damen Fortson, Marvin Dessaure, and Curtis Berry. District of Columbia: Inmar Edenilson Arias Hernandez. Riverdale: Carlos Garcia Morales. Every life lost to gun violence shatters the world for each of us, and every life saved by those who interrupt the violence helps knit us back together.

And, with great grief – we mourn the death of our partner in the prevention and interruption of gun violence Dante “Tater” Barksdale. Tater was the heart and soul of the McElderry Park violence interrupters who have partnered with and inspired us for years. After tirelessly fighting his way out of a system of violence and dehumanization, he dedicated the last decade of his life to physically and emotionally blocking the path of bullets that continued to fly in his neighborhood. This week, he died as a result of that same gun violence – giving his life to the work he spent his days and nights dedicated to. We honor his life, his commitment, and his legacy. Dante had a seemingly simple yet elusive dream – that kids in Baltimore can stay alive long enough to make their own mark. In our prevention of gun violence initiatives and spiritual lives, we hope to carry his dream forward in the days and years to come.

One special feature will be the proposed new MD song and keynote by the Senate President Ferguson. See "Look Ahead" at https://www.uulmmd.org/ for more info and to register.

Please join Cedar Lane UU for a forum where we will learn about this topic from experts from the Tahirih Justice Center, The Human Trafficking Legal Center and the Laboratory to Combat Human Trafficking. Click here to register for the event. We hope to see you there!