The Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Santa Monica

Featured Articles - April, 2007

Coming of Agers Prepare for May Ceremony

This year’s Coming of Age group consists of all girls who have been close friends since most of us were in the nursery. We are Colette Fletcher-Hoppe, Jessie Geoffray, Madeline Hero-Steinicke, Angelica Jue, Rachel Moore, and Elizabeth Saldo. Some hobbies shared are music, reading, and sports.

Over the past church year we have done many things. We always start class with joys and sorrows, followed by various curriculum lessons. We have completed many activities, such as taking a tour of the church, building a tower without speaking, and spending a weekend with Las Vegas YRUU members. In January we had an all-class breakfast with our mentors, who are Felicity Nussbaum, Margot Page, Peggy Kharraz, Barbara Kernochan, Bronwen Jones, and Karen Lang.

In addition, in Coming of Age we have discussed many heavy topics along the lines of death and funerals, evil, loss of innocence, morality and ethics, spiritual places, gods and goddesses, and literature. We have covered the Seven UU Principles, the Ten Commandments, and the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, and we have talked about what’s morally right and how to be ourselves.

An especially enjoyable activity was watching the movie “Mirrormask” and then, the week after, discussing the movie and the spirituality portrayed in it with the Rev. Silvio Nardoni.

In the next several weeks, we’re going to be planning our credos to be announced to the church. Once we’ve done with that, we will prepare to host the Coming of Age service on Sunday, May 20. At some point in the upcoming weeks we will be joining together at the home of the Rev. Judith Meyer for a teen/adult meeting.

We do plan on eating and sleeping a lot, so we won’t die from a lack of self-care.

— Coming of Age group

What Do We Mean By Displaying Banners? - Town Hall Meeting, Sunday, April 15

For more than a generation, this church has had banners hanging in our sanctuary. They became part of our identity. When they wore out, for many of us, the first reaction was essentially to maintain the status quo with a new set more or less like the old.

The time spent in considering a new set of banners may have had an unintended consequence: more time for reflection, time for some people to move beyond the “just fix it” response, to “What are we saying with these things anyway?” And eventually the letter written by one congregant to the board raised deeper questions still: “Who are we who appear to give unqualified support to religions with historical and even present-day behavior that is dissonant with our own principles?” Of what are we being tolerant?

Although we do have a set of replacement (plus Pagan) banner designs, we are still free to determine whether we want to use these designs, this theme, or banners at all. We can decide that we want non-religious banners or no banners. We can decide to exercise symbolism of whatever kind wherever we want, not just the sanctuary. We can decide to give ourselves more time to decide.

This will be a meeting to hear people’s thoughts and feelings about things that have been associated with banners — things like being welcoming, tolerant, diverse, and inclusive — and about our place in the community of faiths.

Please come and share your thoughts and feelings following services on April 15 at 12:30.

— Dan March, Chair Committee on Religious Symbolism

Carmen Haley Joins UUCCSM Staff

Carmen Haley has joined our staff as part-time Office and RE Assistant. Carmen is a native of Huntsville, AL, and is the daughter of a Church of God minister. She recently moved here from Birmingham, AL, and has a B.S. in Business Management from Alabama A & M University and an M.S. in Counseling and Psychology from Troy State University (Dothan Campus) in Alabama.

She is currently in her second year of a Ph.D. program in Industrial Organizational Psychology at Alliant International University (Alhambra campus), and hopes to pursue a career in either government or non-profit organizations. Holly Nguyen has been promoted to Finance Assistant, reporting to Administrator Melinda Ewen.

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