Lifespan Religious Exploration News
Personal and Spiritual Exploration for Adults, October 2020
Learning and exploration are about the transformation of the individual, our community, and the larger society. Participation helps us grow in wisdom, compassion, and ethical living. See below our October activities, programs, and workshops for adults.
To contact the facilitator in regard to any offering, you may email AdultRE@UUSM.org with the title of the group in the subject line. Your email will be forwarded. Please note that currently, all offerings are facilitated through Zoom. Contact Teri Lucas for more information and the link to the Zoom meeting.
Do you have a passion or an expertise? Are you a chef or a gardener, a historian or an actor? Would you like to offer some help, support, or some frivolity to our UU community via Zoom? We’re seeking programming that is fun, informative, and engaging. Please let us know if there’s something you’d like to offer and the Adult RE Committee will help you to do it. Email the Adult RE Committee (AdultRE@UUSM.org) or Teri Lucas (uusmREassist@uusm.org) and we can work with you on presenting your ideas.
Community Building Through Personal Development:
Come and join us in observing, learning about, and enjoying nature. Whether you are spending your days mostly outdoors or not stepping out your front door you can still enjoy and appreciate nature. This session will focus on seedpods and fruits, the containers of life and the future. We’ll do a little botany and we’ll do some drawing and writing. You are welcome to join even if you have no knowledge of nature, botany, drawing or writing, in fact you are encouraged to join. People who attend these groups remark that they are reminded of times in childhood when they had the time to get lost in wonder at the natural world. As adults, we rarely give ourselves that permission. A lifelong lover of the outdoors, Dorothy Steinicke has more than twenty years experience encouraging people to a love of the natural world. She leads hikes for children and for adults in Topanga Canyon, Ballona Wetlands, and Dockweiller State Beach. We will meet from 2:30 – 4:00 pm. Contact: Dorothy Steinicke.
Come and play ukulele with us or join with another strumming instrument. We recommend a familiarity with the ukulele for this online format but all levels are welcome (beginner to advanced). Bring a ukulele to our Zoom meeting and chords and lyrics will be provided in advance with a few folks prepared to lead some songs. We will share tips and support each other, pulling from a wide range of music. This event is for ages 15 and up, or 10 and up if accompanied by a guardian. We will need your email contact information by October 22, so that we can send you the music ahead of time. We will gather from 9:30 – 10:30 am. Contact: Kim Kalmanson.
Exploration of Ideas:
Join AAHS (Agnostics, Atheists, Humanists & Secularists) for a conversation about the legacy of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — feminist icon of the Supreme Court, transformative intellect for human, women’s and LGBTQ+ rights in modern history, champion of church/sate separation, and a pop culture phenomenon unto herself. We will reference recent commentary from feminist and Humanist sources, and consider what a paradigm shift to the right for the highest court could mean for Ginsburg’s legacy and for the endangered progressive values that we cherish. For many, atheism/agnosticism is a first step; Humanism is the thousand steps that come after. We’ll meet from 12:00 noon – 1:30 pm via Zoom. Contact: James Witker.
We will discuss Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, by Jared Diamond. Although this book was published some time ago, it contains some very interesting ideas as to why some cultures have so much “cargo,” and why only certain animals, from limited locations, have been domesticated – and much more. All are welcome. To receive the link, you will want to be on the group email list. We meet from 7:30 – 9:00 pm. Contact: Rebecca Crawford, sci-nonfiction@uusm.org All are welcome.
The Men’s Group offers a special opportunity to the men of the congregation and other like-minded men to join our welcoming group in provocative and stimulating discussion and to get to know others with UU perspectives in a more meaningful way. The topic for Thursday, Oct. 1 is: How do you define peace of mind? Do you have it? If so how did you find it? What are things that bring you peace of mind? Have you been able to bring peace of mind to others? The two topics for Thursday, Oct. 15 are: If you could send a message back to yourself as a kid, what would you say, and what’s the best piece of advice anyone ever gave to you? We meet the first and third Thursdays of the month at 7:30 pm via Zoom. For more information, contact Richard Mathias.
Meditations:
We gather twice a month to sit together quietly for 20 minutes, to walk with gentle awareness for seven minutes, and to explore the integration of meditation with ordinary life through reading and sharing. Anyone who senses they would benefit from 20 minutes of silent, non-guided sitting is welcome to join us. We have found that this time of quiet meditation and shared exploration can be deeply nourishing – a time of simply “being” amidst all the “doing” of our lives. We meet from 7:30 – 9:00 pm. Contacts: Bev Shoenberger or Carol Ring.
These are exceptional times. Taking this time for quiet meditation and sharing in the intimacy of having sat in silence together can help sustain and ground us during these difficult days. We trust each of you will use this group in the way that fits your needs. We listen to brief readings, sit together quietly for twenty minutes, journal and share with each other what’s on our hearts. We simply sit together in our shared humanity. We call off the struggle to become other than we are. These are drop-in groups. You are welcome to join us when it feels right to you. If you come in late or need to leave early, just do so quietly. We meet every Wednesday and Friday afternoon from 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm online. Contact: Bev Shoenberger.
Join us for a weekday morning short meditation and check-in session to encourage connection and accountability around mindful presence and daily action. We will meditate for 10-15 minutes and share priorities, victories, and stumbling blocks in our work-at-home life in this unprecedented time. We meet from 9:00 – 9:30 am. Contact: Jacki Weber.
Fall News for Children and Youth RE
GROWING ANTI-RACIST UUS
Elementary School programming begins in November
We’ll be using a curriculum created by UU Charlottesville called Growing Anti-Racist UUs. It’s geared for ages 4-11.
Pre-School (3-4 y/o) lessons will take place from 11:15 am-12:00 pm for five weeks each Sunday. The lessons are approximately 30 minutes long but I’m sure Zoom will add time to it, so we’re padding the end time. We also may find the kiddos are a tich too young to do Sunday school online. If so, we’ll pivot and find something they can participate in and have fun.
Grades K-2 will have 12 lessons for 12 weeks each Sunday from 12:45 pm-1:30 pm. Again, the time is padded because Zoom is finicky.
Grades 3-5 will have 12 lessons for 12 weeks each Sunday from 1:45 pm-2:30 pm.
It is imperative that you REGISTER your kids for Sunday school (click the button); this is how we keep track of attendance.
Middle School
This church year we will be doing a deep dive into anti-racism, what it looks like when you’re a tween and how being anti-racist ties into the 7 Principles. We’ll be using the book “When They Call You a Terrorist” YA Edition by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele.
PLEASE NOTE: The book club will initially be limited to the first 12 kids ages 11-14 (roughly grades 5-9 depending on birth date) who can commit to meeting every other Friday evening beginning on October 16th. After that we will start a waiting list and evaluate starting a second group.
Each student who can commit to the Friday evening meetings will be given a copy of the book to keep. We’ll ship it directly to your home.
High School
This church year we will be doing a deep dive into anti-racism, how it feels to live in a world that’s on fire, and how being anti-racist ties into the 7 Principles. We’ll be using the book “When They Call You a Terrorist” by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele.
PLEASE NOTE: The book club will initially be limited to the first 12 high school students who can commit to meeting every other Saturday starting October 17th. After that we will start a waiting list and evaluate starting a second group.
Each student who can commit to the Friday evening meetings will be given a copy of the book to keep. We’ll ship it directly to your home.
Emerging Adults
In a world where the greatest athlete (Serena Williams) is a woman, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and the #Squad are running Capitol Hill and female led movies like The Spy Who Dumped Me and Crazy Rich Asians are box office hits, it seems like feminism is finally diversifying itself. In her book “Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That the Movement Forgot”, author Mikki Kendall invites us to look around and see not just who doesn’t have a seat at the table, but who wasn’t even deemed worthy of an invite.
PLEASE NOTE: The first 12 Young Adults (18-21 for our purposes) who commit to meeting every other Saturday starting October 17th will receive a copy of the book to keep. We will ship it to your house.