The story of David and Jonathan is one of great friendship. David made a covenant with Jonathan that he would take care of him and his family and he did that long after Jonathan had died. What does it mean to be a friend? What lessons can we learn from this story?

*Please stay after service for the Group Photo of UUCSR and the Town Hall Potluck!

Service Leader: Rev Dave Clements

Worship Associates: Veronica Jordan

Music: Alan Bell and Sally Jones

Pianist: Roger Corman

The Basket: Our Own Saturday Breakfast for Our Neighbors

In a sense, we all have a terminal diagnosis from the moment we're born. But most of us humans deny death through most of our lives. Yet, if we're lucky, we'll be able to experience the reality of approaching death as a great teacher that paradoxically enhances and illuminates our life.

Service Leaders/Guest: Ben Ford

Worship Associate: Susan Thollaug

Music: Gage Purdy & The Choir

Pianist: Roger Corman

Share The Basket: Disability Services & Legal Center (DSLC) has served as Sonoma County’s Independent Living Center since 1976, in Napa, Lake and Mendocino Counties. DSLC aims to advance the rights of people with disabilities and aging adults to equal justice, access, opportunity, and participation in our communities

As Unitarian Universalists, we are firm believers in acceptance. Yet for many of us our acceptance will be tested this Thanksgiving as we sit down to share a meal with "that" relative (or perhaps you are "that" relative). How do we hold grace for those we disagree with while still standing up to oppression and prejudice?

Service Leaders: Era Capone

Worship Associate: Jonathan Choe

Music: Crystal McDougall Purdy

Pianist: Gage Purdy and Jake Hobbs

The Basket is highlighting : Our Own Religious Education

Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) is an annual observance that honors the memory of the transgender people whose lives were lost in acts of anti-transgender violence.

This evening, we will be honoring the transgender lives lost this year with a ceremony in our sanctuary. After the ceremony, the social hall will be open for people to grieve, seek comfort in their community, learn about resources available to trans people and their allies, and engage in the catharsis of art and creativity.

November 26th

Gratitude is when you feel thankful for the good things in your life. It can also be an emotion that rises up when things have not gone so well in your life. Gratitude can be described in three stages: Feeling Grateful, Expressing gratitude, adopting new behaviors. This is the time of year where we have the opportunity to express gratitude.

Service Leader: Rev Dave Clements

Worship Associate: Clare Whitfield

Music: Gage Purdy & the Choir

Pianist: Roger Corman

Share the Basket: The Children’s Foundation of Native Daughters of the Golden West serves children who require medical care, but whose parents both need financial support to provide care and are not eligible for any other existing aid.

The events that have been unfolding in the Middle East and now here at home (in Maine) have caused me to pause and stop and to ask what is the reason for these world conflicts? Religion, Governance, and Politics: these issues, and their allied topics of human rights, justice, and so forth have historically caused many of the world's most significant conflicts and continue to do so. There will always be conflicts unfolding in the world around us. What can we do as Unitarian Universalists to respond? We can seek for unity.

Unitarian Universalists, as part of our 8 principles and our mission we strive to seek unity. Unity does not mean that we all agree but what it does mean is that we all work together for common goals and purposes. Disagreements and conflicts will always be a part of our faith tradition. We pride ourselves on being unique individuals with the right and the privilege to chart our own course and determine our own destiny. This is a good thing, and this is part of the power of being a Unitarian Universalist.

Remember that Unitarian Universalism is a liberal religious movement characterized by a "free and responsible search for truth and meaning". As Unitarian Universalists we assert no creed, but instead we are unified by our shared search for spiritual growth. In these times of conflict in the world and here in our own country, may we all remember that in Unitarian Universalism we can find a sense of peace and a sense of hope.

I do not have the answers of how the conflict in the Middle East will resolve nor the pain that comes from one individual, in Maine, taking matters into his own hands and choosing to harm others. What I do know is that each of us have the power and the opportunity in our own lives and families to lead forth with love and understanding. If there is going to be peace in the world it needs to start with us.

As Unitarian Universalists, let's learn to celebrate our differences and find ways to lead forth with love and understanding, recognizing that we don’t always have to agree with each other but that we as a liberal religious movement are unified by our shared search for spiritual growth.

Peace,

Rev. Dave

Each month, I will be putting the board goals on the Board Agenda to remind us what we are focusing on in this church year. Our goals are: Envisioning the Future and Preparing for a New Chapter for UUCSR, Engagement Within Our Community and in the Larger Community, and Fundraising. Although I have heard stories about the difficulties former Boards of Trustees have experienced, this particular board works so well together, it has been a pleasure to be a part of it! We are all looking forward to the work ahead, including forming a search team for a new permanent minister who will be with us starting in the late summer of 2025!

We look forward to a Town Hall Meeting on November 5th and I am sure that we will have a lot to talk about at our November Board meeting, just two days later!  We also had a preview of our new website, which will be launched shortly. I know that the website workgroup is looking to receive great photos that give a flavor of who we are, especially to folks who are looking for a spiritual community. There were a few costumes at the website preview meeting, including Lucille Ball playing Harpo Marx; Annie Hall was also there, as well as a gentleman who we have not been able to fully identify who was wearing a mask with a small handlebar mustache. In addition, someone resembling Captain Kirk was in attendance. But the main star was the new website that is so well organized, attractive, and easy to use. That website team, headed by Maria Praetzellis, has been working on this for just about a year. I hope that we will be able to introduce all the members of the team at our Town Hall meeting. They deserve a prize!

On behalf of the Board, it is with sadness we receive the news of Rev Bev's resignation as Community Minister and worship leader, and we understand her need to step back. We thank her, and look forward to her continuing contributions as a beloved member of this congregation. Be well, stay well, Rev. Bev.

We’ve had our share of grief- both within our community and in the world. The intentional spiritual community is here to nurture us through hard times and happier times.

Holidays are coming. There are lots of activities coming up. I will get to as many as I can, and of course, there are so many to choose from…yes, we are a very active and caring community. Thanks, all

Leslie

Treasurer’s Report

July-September 2023

Regrettably our pledges continue to be below budget. Large pledges usually start coming in September, but we did not see that, pledges came in at approximately $89,500, (19,200 below budget). For the year in Realm total pledges came in at $7-8K above budget.

Unrestricted Donations were also low, but the Stewardship Committee has two campaigns planned, Giving Tuesday and Holiday Gifts. It is hoped that the donations will be back to budgeted amounts by early January.

Rental Income for Glaser Center was high for September, but few events have been scheduled through the end of December. This is of high concern and hopefully they can increase rentals soon. The GC Committee has lost two members and really needs some (young) new members with energy and creativity. We are considering asking them to work as consultant type members that work on specific projects.

Fundraising activities should begin soon. The Board has a list of what they are proposing. Members are needed to help make these activities work successfully. If you have worked on a fundraiser and would like to help, please send an email to the Board President, Leslie. Thanks, together we can all help increase our needed revenue.

General comment: Revenue in the above three categories should be our major concern. Questions can be sent to me, and I will get the answer if I don’t have it. (hess-aguirre @msn.com)

Jan Hess, Treasurer

Hello all,

We've had a wonderful and busy October this year, with RE, OWL, D&D, and youth group all having stellar attendance and lots of fun! Our youth overnight was tons of fun thanks to the amazing help of David Pillard, Rev. Dave, Monica and Bob Anderson, and the whole Saturday morning breakfast team!

November and December will see a slight lull in programming in RE as we take time to celebrate the holidays, but we still have plenty of exciting events, including our Children and Youth Cake Auction and Holiday Pageant!

Feel free to email me with any questions about upcoming programs, our calendar, or special events. There's a little something for everyone in RE, and we can't wait for you to join us!

In love and gratitude,

Era

On Sunday December 3rd, children and youth are invited to join us for the return of our cake auction!

If you would like to donate a cake, frosting, sprinkles, or other edible goodies for the auction, please contact Era at [email protected].

This Sunday, the kids of RE are learning about our 4th principle: the right to a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Based on the story of Stone Soup, they'll discover that each person's quest for understanding is made greater when taken with others.

This Sunday, kids are invited to join us for a multigenerational service led by Era nd Jonathan Choe. Infants, toddlers, and kindergarteners are welcome to stay in the RE wing with Zoe and Rowan for stories, play, and art projects.

RE, Childcare, and D&D will be on break this Sunday as we take time off for Thanksgiving break. RE will return the following Sunday, December 3rd.

Sunday, November 5th, 12:15-1:45 pm

Sunday, November 19th, 12:15-1:45 pm

Thursday, November 9th, 6:00-7:30 pm

Thursday, November 2nd, 7:00-8:30 pm

Thursday, November 16th, 7:00-8:30 pm

Thursday, November 30th, 7:00-8:30 pm

Tuesday, November 14th, 5:30-8:00 pm

Tuesday, November 28th, 5:30-8:00 pm

Friday, November 17th, 5:00-8:00 pm

Sunday, November 12th, 12:00-3:00 pm

Sunday, November 26th, 12:00-3:00 pm

Celebrating Life

Empowering People

Caring for One Another and

Helping to Build a Better World

This inspiring vision is realized every day of the week through the services and programs offered to UUCSR members and community. All of this important work is made possible by a dedicated staff that is supported by many volunteers and the generous contributions through the pledge drives and other annual fundraisers.

Although less visible, the UUCSR Endowment also plays an important role in the realization of this vision by providing financial stability and growth, as well as the resources for emergencies and unexpected opportunities.

UUCSR has the very good fortune to maintain an Endowment Fund. Formed in 1993 UUCSR endowment has served this Congregation in so many ways beyond our annual operating expenses. In 2003 it played a vital role in helping us purchase our new spiritual home at 547 Mendocino in downtown Santa Rosa. Over the years our Endowment Fund has helped to remodel the kitchen, fund web site updates, fund an Intern Minister, funds for first year of a new assistant Minister, support to open up the upstairs, install acoustic panels in social hall, help with roof replacement, ladies bathroom upgrades and other projects. Funds spent from endowment are voted on by UUCSR members at an annual Congregational meeting.

When you make a Legacy Contribution to the Endowment you are assisting with the financial well-being of UUCSR long into the future. Your Endowment Committee is hard at work and we welcome your conversation. We plan to reconstitute some of our fun parties and also our learning events. Look for more to come.

UUCSR Endowment Team - Debby Belansky, Linda Lampson, Kirsten Olney, Michael Randolph, and Clare Whitfield

Giving Tuesday, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, is an international day of generosity, unleashing the power of people to transform their communities. It was created as a simple idea: a day that encourages people to do good and to give back. Over the last 10 years, this idea has grown into a global movement that inspires hundreds of millions of people to give, collaborate, and celebrate. As an antidote to the consumerism represented by Black Friday, Cyber Monday and countless other marketing ploys designed to make us want to buy “stuff”, your UUCSR Stewardship Team invites you to join in Giving Tuesday.

During this holiday season, why not take a moment to give thanks for all the important things in your life? Not the material possessions that our consumer society constantly pressures us to accumulate. Rather, the deep connections and friendships that give true joy and meaning to our lives.

For many of us, it is our beloved congregation that gives us the precious gift of those connections and friendships. A community that accepts us as we are. A place where we can become a better person – more generous, more loving. A place where we can belong to something bigger than ourselves. A place where we work together to celebrate life, empower people, help one another, and help to build a better world.

Please support UUCSR with a special extra gift - right now - at the beginning of this holiday season. Do it before you get involved in the annual frenzy of holiday shopping. Your heart will be singing. And we guarantee one thing – you will feel happier! – because you’ll know you did a wonderful thing for our beloved community.

The first Thursday of every month from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. UUCSR offers an hour-long contemplative service in the spirit of the French monastic Taize tradition. Each service begins as one enters the quiet candlelit sanctuary with Tibetan chanting in the background. After an opening reading, we alternate between short periods of silent meditation and Gage Purdy singing hymns and chants. During the service everyone has the opportunity to light a candle to mark a joy, or sorrow. The service ends with a benediction.

UUCSR’s Taize services are non-denominational, free of charge and open to the entire Sonoma County community. Coming services will be on Thursday November 2nd and December 7th. For questions, please contact Judy Withee at [email protected].

Join us for an island of tranquility in a challenging world.

I joined the CUUPs group because I thought I was a pagan as I didn’t believe in a god or anything magical. Now as I become more familiar with the group I’m learning more. The last book I read was a thorough discussion of all the characteristics of Paganism. Witches and magic were listed as important parts of it. There is a developmental history in paganism which includes magical sayings and processes. Witches are valued more than I realized.

This new information causes me to think carefully about what I really feel. For me nature is the basis of any belief system I might accept. I find many occurrences in life on the planet that are remarkable. One could feel them as actually magical.

Take, for instance, the development of a butterfly from a caterpillar. The caterpillar comes to a time when it rolls itself up its own web for transformation. It grows wings and legs; it will fly about and find its mate for sexual reproduction. What I find amazing is how developmental information of the body is accurately transferred to the new being through tiny cells. Thinking about this will lead you to the miracle of birth in any animal. Who needs fairies when the real world is so magical and wondrous?

Digging deeper I asked my computer about the first forms of life on earth. At 3.5 billion years there is evidence of chemolithotrophs, one celled primitive rock eating bacteria. And then, 600,000 years ago, there were microbial communities harvesting sunlight rather than rocks. These cells organized themselves into three dimensional bodies where cells had different jobs. Also, there is the collaboration of algae, a plant, and fungi, an animal, to make lichen. One need not look very far to find miraculous happenings in the study of life.

Paganism is an understandable explanation by mankind as it tried to describe the wonders of nature in its infancy. Now with many years of scientific discovery we can describe the processes of living cells as they really occur. I find this as astounding as any magical explanation. And I, also, can refer to the earth on which life began as the Goddess, mother of the living.

Important Holiday Calendar news!!

Save Friday, December 22 for the CUUPs annual Winter Solstice/Yule

celebration and potluck. Potluck begins at 5:30pm.

The Adult Education Committee offers a wide variety of courses and programs in such areas as film, science, current social and political issues, skill development, personal growth, and forms of religious understanding. We always welcome suggestions from anyone who would like to present or participate in a program. Our members are Steve Sweaney (chair), Nadene Carroll, Carol Daeley, Linda Lambert, and Clare Whitfield.

Because detective fiction emerged as a defined genre in the 19th century, its affinities with scientific realism, close observation, and rational thinking are often stressed. But there is also a close association between detective fiction and what is, or appears to be, supernatural. Many detective novels build their plots around specific religions. We will discuss three novels in the fall and four in spring 2024. Religions central to the selected novels include various forms of Christianity, Islam, Navajo, Hopi, Crow, and Cheyenne religions, and Shinto.

If you would like to be on the course mailing list, email Carol at [email protected]. She will be sharing course material ahead of class sessions. The last fall session will discuss Deborah Crombie’s A Finer End.

Carol Daeley is a Congregation member and a retired professor of literature, though professors of literature never actually retire. She developed several kinds of courses in detective fiction because she wanted, once in a while, to talk in the classroom about literature that students read when nobody made them do it. Presenting this material is even more fun through Adult Education, because there are no tests or papers to grade.

Broadcast news—i.e., news sent out electronically over the airwaves—may have started with a boat race in Ireland in 1898. Now, broadcast news unites and divides billions around the world. So, how did we get from there to here?

This lecture series will take you from Samuel Morse and Alexander Graham Bell (no relation—that we know of) through the parallel developments of the newsreel and radio, converging in mid-20th century with TV news and further evolving into 24-hour cable news.

It’s a story as interesting as the news itself, filled with adventure, treachery, sacrifice, ego, commitment, and of course, money ... lots and lots of money. And featuring some fabulous characters: D.W. Griffith, Walter Winchell, Lowell Thomas, H.V. Kaltenborn, Edward R. Murrow (and his “boys”), Walter Cronkite, Barbara Walters, Connie Chung, Ted Turner, and dozens more. The class will include numerous excerpts and examples from newsreels and radio & TV news over the past 100+ years.

Alan Bell is a long-time Congregation member with 20 years of experience in television, mostly as a public TV producer, and 15 years as a professor of communications.

‘Climate Safe California’ is the topic of the Advocates’ Climate Action Group’s presentation on Sunday, November 19, 12:00p-1:30p, Founder’s Room. Light lunch provided.

Sonoma County’s prestigious Climate Center (the people who brought us Sonoma Clean Power) has a plan toward achieving our state’s ambitious climate goals. It’s called Climate Safe California, and their Rapid Responder Volunteers will share the plan and give us a clear path to make our voices heard.

Come to hear and discuss the “Climate Safe California” plan with former Santa Rosa mayor Jane Bender and Bill Montgomery.

The campaign is based on the latest science by The Climate Center’s eminent climate scientists. Then their policy analysts create and follow promising bills and climate issues through the state legislative processes. Building on that evolving knowledge and policy base, we have effective ways to tell our Electeds and other pivotal decision makers to support the best efforts to fight climate change in California.

Please come, especially if you want to act.

Our Advocates Climate Action Group invites new members. Just talk with one of us about our work and come to a monthly meeting: Kathy Albury, Linda Bell, Chlele Gummer, Elaine Wellin, and Shirley White.

Preview it and find great resources and zoom seminars. Go to https://theclimatecenter.org/

In this month's newsletter:

In this month's newsletter:

Women Together

Join us for our annual one-day retreat and potluck lunch at Friends House Saturday Nov 4th 10AM-3PM! For those who missed the Spring Retreat and for those who want a little more of it, please join us for this annual event filled with conversation, exploration, friendship and relaxation that is not to be missed! Our theme this year is “Out on a Limb”. There are sure to be some amazing conversations and a chance to deepen our friendships with each other.

We will be sharing a PotLuck lunch so bring food to share and a beverage if you wish. There will be paper products and utensils, but please bring your own place setting if possible so we can minimize our waste.

This will be a wonderful opportunity to meet new folks and reconnect with old friends. We hope to see you there!

Katie Trieller: [email protected] 707-329-5083.

To make a suggestion for a non-profit for our Share the Basket, please contact Mary Louise Jaffray; email [email protected] or 707 695-9348.

Be aware that we continue to have congregants who contract COVID. Please take appropriate precautions, such as masking, based on your personal situation. If you test positive and had any close or prolonged contact with other congregants we encourage you to notify them yourself.