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E-mail UU-Valdosta at uuvaldosta@yahoo.com
Phone: 229-242-3714
Page down or click the links to go to specific sections:
| Thank You! Thank You! | Religious Education | |
| President's Portion | Social Action | UU Activities and Announcements |
| Social Events!! | Board Notes | |
What’s going on... October 2004
| Sun |
Oct. 3 |
9:30
AM |
Young
Children and Adult R. E. |
| Sun |
Oct. 10 |
9:30
AM |
Young
Children and Adult R. E. |
| Mon. |
Oct. 11 |
11:00 AM |
Break Bread delivery |
| Wed. |
Oct. 13 |
5:30 - 8:30 PM |
Special
Evening for Members and Friends: Potluck and discussion with
Rev. Barbara Child (details in
the flyer at the end of the newsletter) |
| Th |
Oct. 14 |
6:00 PM |
Board of Trustees Meeting in the R.E. wing at the church |
| Sun |
Oct. 17 |
9:30
AM |
Young
Children and Adult R. E. |
| Sun |
Oct. 24 |
9:30
AM |
Young
Children and Adult R. E. |
| Sun |
Oct. 31 |
9:30
AM |
Young
Children and Adult R. E. |
October…
As I look out
across the Pamlico River in eastern North Carolina on this glorious, early
fall morning it is difficult to imagine envying anyone. Indeed it is you
who should envy me! However as I
have been putting this October newsletter together, with information from
various people about your first days with out new minister, Rev. Barbara
Child, I am indeed envious that I was not there to also enjoy, what sounds
like, wonderful beginnings for our congregation.
This month promises to continue what has begun, with plans for a
leadership retreat, an evening potluck, and a Sunday religious education
session with Rev. Child along with three intriguing Sunday sermons.
Two Sundays in October speakers, we have enjoyed in the past, will
bring us, once again, interesting and thought provoking presentations. Plans are afoot too for, what sounds like, several
interesting adult religious education experiences with Stephanie Kiyak, linking art, creativity, meditation, and spirituality.
Join in when you can and invite your friends to experience what our
small congregation has to offer south Georgia.
I am coming back soon to join in myself, even though part of me wishes
to stay in this idyllic place where my soul resides.
MED
Rev. Child Visits Three Sundays in October
On
October 10 the title of her sermon is “The Rules We Are Sure to
Forget.” Some rules are really
orders or directions. Others are
down-home truths. They just are. And it may not matter whether we remember them
or not. Then again, it may.
October
17 Rev. Child will speak on “Differences
That Make a Difference: Life in a Company of Strangers.” It is common these days to talk about “our
church family.” Let’s explore some
of the effects of regarding a congregation as a family, and then let’s consider
a perhaps surprising alternative, proposed by the Quaker teacher Parker
Palmer – a congregation as a “company of strangers.”
“A Day of Stepping
Over Thresholds” will be her topic on October 31. The Halloween costumes most in keeping with
the holiday are skeletons and ghosts, since Halloween, like All Saints Day
and All Souls Day on different people’s religious calendars, celebrates
a day devoted to the dead. On the
Day of the Dead, Mexicans pay tribute to their lost loved ones while at
the same time they put death in its place.
Today’s service will bring to Valdosta the spirit of the Mexican
celebration. Please bring a picture of your dead loved one
or some other memento to share during the service.
Other Sunday Services
Fred Howard,
one of our members who has spoken often in the last several years, will
speak on October 3. His presentation
is entitled “Emerson Lives! Transcendentalism for the Twenty-first Century.” Fred says if you have ever wondered how transcendentalism
fits into Unitarian Universalism and what Emerson might say to us today,
if he were still around, then this program may interest you. Dr. Howard will portray Emerson, weaving together some Emerson quotes
with some of his own ideas about how Emerson might speak to these questions.
Fred says this presentation was inspired by reading “Emerson - The Mind on Fire” by Robert Richardson. Dr. Fred Howard is currently a student at the
Emory School of Theology. He is a
physician.
On October 24 Dr. Richard Saeger, Valdosta State University Political Science
professor will deliver "Dick Saeger's Quadrennial Election Sermon."
Dick says that the Puritan “divines” used to deliver an annual election
sermon, so the idea is hardly original. What Dick says he will try to do
is to handicap the relevant federal, state, and local elections with rational-albeit
highly speculative-analysis of each. Needless to say many of us have enjoyed Dr.
Saeger’s insightful observations through the years.
INVITATION
TO MEMBERSHIP
If you are interested in becoming a
member of our fellowship, we encourage you to talk with Betsy Thompson,
Membership Ministry Committee Chair, or any of our church officers. We welcome
your questions, and we extend an open invitation to all who want to join
our liberal community of faith.
Rev. Barbara Child
When
I drove into the church parking lot my first day here in September, I noticed
right away the sign that says: “Welcome” and then indicates the direction of
“traffic flow.” At first I chuckled
at the thought that you would want to avoid directing people to go “one
way.” But the more I think about it, the more I think
that sign is after all a reflection of an important truth about Unitarian
Universalism as well as about this church.
After all, the Universalist part
of who we are recognizes that there isn’t just one way, one truth, one right
belief – and that new truths may come our way any day and even from some
surprising direction. That is one
of the reasons Unitarian Universalism is truly a liberal religion. It saddens me that these days “liberal” is a
common term of derision. One of my
favorite books about our faith is Being Liberal in an Illiberal Age
by Jack Mendelsohn. It’s in its second
edition now, but it may give us some perspective to notice that he first
wrote it in 1964. In other words,
this “illiberal age” is not new.
Still, with Jack Mendelsohn, I
celebrate and practice “the importance of persons: their inherent freedom
to think, speak, associate, hear, read, see, and learn…” The liberal spirit calls us to be open and generous,
to be curious about others, even those very different from ourselves, and
to keep the latch open on our own minds and hearts, so that we might discover
change in ourselves as well.
I must tell you that something
in me cringes when I hear people say they come to a Unitarian Universalist
church to be with people “of like mind.”
Yes, I do understand how it feels to feel yourself in a minority,
even a dismissed or persecuted minority, and to be grateful for safe harbor. And I am glad if our church can serve as harbor
when harbor is needed. But it is
also true that boats aren’t made to stay in harbors. And it is also true,
thank goodness, that not all Unitarian Universalists are alike. As the November election approaches, that may
be an important reminder – just as it is important to keep in mind that
liberal religion does not necessarily imply liberal politics. Yes, there does seem to be a traffic flow, but
a truly liberal church knows better than to direct its people to behave
– or vote – any one way.
Partisan activities relate specifically to supporting
or opposing candidates for public office.
There is no prohibition of our speaking and acting consistent with
our values on issues rather than candidates.
This is a tough but important distinction always to keep in mind. If you would like to read more detailed coverage
of our rights and duties at election time, I have posted on the bulletin
board in the Religious Education Building a detailed Action Alert from the
UUA Washington Office for Advocacy. You
can also read there about how you can receive these Alerts yourself online.
This
is an important time in our national life to be a religious liberal, whether
or not you are a political liberal. Noting
how the traffic flows is indeed quite a bit different from ordering people
to go one way!
about our members
From
Halim and Diane: “We would like you to know that we had a wonderful time
"exchanging vows" after the service on August 8, 2004. The service was more wonderful than we could
have ever imagined. We would like
to thank you all for supporting us and supporting a place where we can do
this. We especially want to thank
Charles Judah, Betty Derrick, Virginia and John Branan, Betsy Thompson,
and Joan Cline. We know we are leaving someone out, but we appreciate you
all for letting us share this time with you.”
For those who could not be there Halim and Diane led the service
after which they exchanged vows and we all celebrated together with a reception
after the service.
Dee Tait
Well, pat yourself
on the back! We certainly had a productive 12 days of September. from the
8th through the 19th. We met one-on-one and in groups with Rev. Barbara Child,
our new minister. We got to know her better as we talked with her and listened
to her sermons, and she learned more about us.
It occurred to me
that these 12 days were a little bit like the anticipation of the 12 days
of Christmas, when many people look forward to the next day and what it brings.
We are welcoming some new faces and the faces of some of the people we have
been missing for a while. We are talking about ideas for the coming year.
There is something
special in the air. Working together and listening to each other is such a
good thing. Thank you for being part of the process.
Adult
and Young Children Religious Education will meet each Sunday at 9:30 AM in
the R.E. wing. Contact: Anne Zipperer.
Leadership
Retreat
Sunday, October 10: A
Leadership Retreat with Reverend Child for board members (past and present),
committee chairs, website manager and newsletter editor will be Sunday, October
10 directly following the service. Pack
your own lunch, bring it with you and be ready to begin.
Our date for meal deliveries with the Break Bread Together program is the 2nd Monday of each month. If you can deliver meals on this day beginning about 11:00 AM, please contact Dee Tait.
FLORIDA DISTRICT HURRICANE RELIEF FUNDS
From Rev. Barbara Child: I
mentioned during the Sunday service on September 12 my gratitude to the congregation
for your contributions to the Florida District for the benefit of the victims
of the recent hurricanes. You might like to know more about how the
funds are being distributed. Rev. Mary Higgins, the District Executive,
and a needs-assessment team have gathered as much information as possible
about both churches and individual Unitarian Universalists who are in need
of financial assistance. The collected donations are being distributed
in view of the needs assessment. Therefore, you can know that your donations
are being distributed wisely and thoughtfully by going through the District
rather than directly to individuals or groups in need.
The District
is managing a separate fund for aid to the Florida farm workers who have not
only suffered their own personal losses from the hurricanes but have
also lost their work because of the damage to the citrus crops. Anyone
who would like to contribute to that relief is encouraged to send a check
to the District office with the notation on the memo line that it is for hurricane
relief for farm workers.
Checks
for both the UU fund and the farm workers fund may be sent to UUA Florida
District, 1901 E. Robinson St, Suite 18, Orlando, FL 32803. Those devastated
by the hurricanes will doubtless appreciate every penny you can send.
Social Action Committee
The Social Action Committee met on September 29th at CiCi's Pizza
to discuss and plan social action activities for the upcoming months.
As this meeting was after the newsletter went to press, please watch your
email box and the orders of service for social action announcements and the
date of the next meeting. All who are interested in social action are
invited to be a part of this committee. Contact Anna Mitchell Hall.
For working so hard to clear the overgrowth around the church: Jim Ingram
For building cleanliness and maintenance: John Tait, Rosie
and Frank Asbury, and Jim Ingram
For lay leading services in September: Randy Thompson,
Lars Leader and Virginia Branan
For providing music support for church
services: Anna Mitchell Hall and Betsy Thompson
For printing and mailing the September
newsletter: Virginia Branan
For delivering Break Bread meals: Christopher Tait and Dee Tait
For setting up Reverend Child’s full September
schedule of meetings with members and friends: Virginia Branan
For organizing a reception to welcome Reverend
Child: Betsy Thompson and Dee Tait
For providing and for and organizing Meet
and Greet following Sunday service:
Joan Cline
Special THANK YOUS from Barbara Child
o
For welcoming me that morning
I arrived and staying around for hours to help me get settled into my office:
Dee Tait
o
For assembling the wonderful
new office furniture in my office: John Tait
o
For making sure my compensation
arrangements were taken care of right away and taking care of office expenditures
so that I could easily get to work. Also for serving as Service Leader
at my first service and taking special care to have things go smoothly:
Randy Thompson
o
For making me beautiful business
cards and letterhead, and for getting a copier set up in the church
office: Betsy Thompson
o
For providing delicious refreshments
for the reception for me after my first service:
Betsy Thompson and Dee Tait
o
For their participation in
a productive meeting to get the Religious Education program well underway
for the year: Anne Zipperer, Sarah Tait, Emily Segrest,
Dee Tait, Jennifer Glapion, and Betsy Thompson
o
For taking on the larger agenda
my presence brings and working through it with good will and good humor:
The Board
o
For arranging my calendar
for my time here in September to include lots of conversation meetings for
me to get to know as many people as possible as quickly as possible:
Virginia Branan
o
For taking special care to
choose music for Sunday services that fits with the theme of the day: Anna
Mitchell Hall
For all that you do that goes unnoticed: Mention it to a
board member or our newsletter editor.
Restoration
Funds
Board
and Special Congregational Meetings Announcement
Your Board of Trustees has called
for a special Board meeting on November 4, 2004 to hear from all concerned
members about the spending of the Restoration Fund. All members are invited to come to the meeting
and be heard. The meeting will therefore
be formatted as a hearing. The Board
of Trustees will be in a listen only mode.
Any member who has submitted a written proposal
by the deadline of November 1, 2004 is invited to come before the Board and
make a verbal presentation.
|
November 1 – written proposal deadline November 4 – Board meeting presentations
and discussion November 7 – Congregational meeting
to vote on Board proposal |
Please
Note: Reverend Child
has just completed during September a full 12 days of dedicated work for us
here at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Valdosta. At the request
of our minister, it is essential that we remember that she works
for us part-time and is "off the clock" when she returns to Gainesville,
FL each month. She will be available to us again when she returns on
October 10. She will be here through October 17. Thank you for
meeting and talking with Reverend Child on business and personal levels, for
your support of her during her first segment of work here, and for your continuous
support of the UU Church of Valdosta.
UU
NOTABLE NEWS: Unitarian Universalist
ministry via Harvard Square Library now provides new offerings being seen
by viewers in 65 nations on six continents via www.harvardsquarelibrary.org 1.
More than 100 color illustrated Notable American Unitarians, 1740-1900 are
celebrated for their contributions to civilization. They include John and
Abigail Adams (government), Susan B. Anthony (women’s suffrage), Ralph Waldo
Emerson (literature), Charles W. Eliot (education), and William Ellery Channing
(religion). 2. Nineteen other People
of Power now honored online include: Marian Anderson, Robert Frost, Rachel
Carson, Duke Ellington, Marilyn Monroe, Eleanor Roosevelt, Howard Thurman,
and Abraham Lincoln. 3. We have just
released an online color illustrated edition of the first biography of Charles
Hartshorne (the Unitarian Universalist philosopher) by Donald Viney. Also
new is our presentation of A New World View by Hartshorne, plus a 481 item
bibliography of his writings. 4. Three
additional new projects now available with color illustrations are (1) Tagore:
Poet of Power; (2) Bright Heraclitus, celebrating the
pre-Socratic philosopher whose liberating wisdom shaped Western civilization;
(3) a glimpse of Cambridge on the Charles by Alan Seaburg.
5:30-8:30
p.m.
·
You would like to make a deeper connection
with others in the church.
·
You have been attending services or other events
or activities here for awhile and wish you knew more about Unitarian Universalism.
·
You are not sure whether becoming a member
of any church is for you, but you are wondering about joining this one.
·
You attended the recent Sunday morning series
here on “Articulating Your Faith,” and you would like a chance to practice
what you learned.
·
You have been a Unitarian Universalist, or
a member of this congregation, for about a thousand years, but you still aren’t
sure what it means to be a Unitarian Universalist.
·
You would like to get to know the new minister,
Rev. Barbara Child, better and get her “take” on this radical faith.
If any of these statements
applies to you, then this special evening is for you!
Here’s the plan –
5:30 Pot luck supper
6:00 “Getting to Know
UU” facilitated by Barbara Child
8:30 Leave for home
in time to watch the Presidential Debate at 9:00
To plan for the evening, Barbara
needs to know if you’re coming – and so does Betsy Thompson, who is organizing
the potluck supper. So please sign
up on the sheet on the bulletin board in the Religious Education Building.
And please do come for this special evening in the life of this church!
Editor: Betty Derrick
Production/Mailing: Virginia Branan
Website: Carol Stiles
October 15: deadline for the November newsletter
UU Activities and Announcements
Further information is posted on the bulletin board at the church.
September 26-October 2
Florida District Leadership School,
Oviedo, FL
October 16 Managing Differences led by Mary Higgins,
Community UU Church, Daytona, FL
Oct. 22-24 “Creating Harmony, A Musical Rendezvous with
Spirit,”
Nov. 13 Fall Leadership Conference facilitated by Wayne Clark, UUA Congregational Fundraising consultant
At the Church-in-the-Woods
Tai Chi
– Monday and Thursday Evenings. Beginner’s
Class 5:30-6:30 PM; Intermediate Class 6:30-8:00 PM. Contact Dennis Bogyo.
New Hope Christian Fellowship - Sunday evenings: Choir practice at 5:00 PM. Service at 6:00 PM.
UUA TRUSTEE TIDBITS-Joan Lund
October
is the time I make two trips to Boston, the first for the UUA Trustee meeting
during the middle of the month, and then because I am the Board’s liaison
to the Annual Program Fund, the last weekend of the month I will be there
for an executive committee meeting of that group. The old saying, “it is better
to ask forgiveness than permission”, may apply in the timeliness of getting
a BOT report to you. October also sees me traveling to visit relatives and
having company at the beginning of the month so you may not read about the
BOT meeting until December.
This month I am writing about the Commission on Appraisal,
referencing the UUA Annual Report, 2004. The COA was created in 1934 by a
resolution of the American Unitarian Association at its annual meeting. The
first question the seven members of the COA decided was whether the organized
movement known as Unitarianism had any real function to perform in the modern
world, and if not, would it be better to liquidate the organization and resources?
In 1936 the Commission presented a comprehensive evaluation of the state of
the denomination and a series of specific recommendations for the reorganization
of the AUA. Their report put forth a bold vision and program for the future
and became a blueprint for the resurgence of American Unitarianism for many
years.
With the 1961 consolidation of the AUA and the Universalist
Church of America, new by-laws instituted an ongoing internal review process
by establishing a standing COA, with its broad charge to “review any function
or activity of the Association which in its judgment will benefit from an
independent review and report its conclusions to a regular General Assembly”.
As a Standing Committee, the COA’s nine members are elected by the delegates
to the GA and funded from the UUA budget. The President of the UUA serves
in an ex officio role. Since 1961 the COA has delivered a major report
approximately every four years; the most recent report, Belonging: the
Meaning of Membership in 2001.
The current COA study question is “Where is the Unity
in Our Theological Diversity?”, and although it can be seen as a continuation
of the previous two reports, it is more explicitly religious in its focus
as it seeks to address a fundamental and ongoing issue of religious liberalism.
In other words, what holds us together as a religious movement considering
the extent of our theological diversity? Or, if we are a religious movement,
should we be able to articulate what we hold in common in religious
terms? Without going into detail, the COA has initiated discussions at G.A.
and in regional hearings, plus last winter a survey was sent to every congregation
and returned by well over one third of our societies. A draft report will
be published from the distillation of gathered information and presented at
our next General Assembly in Fort Worth.
I look forward to hearing from you at my email address,
jlund@uua.org, if you would like to talk
with me. Thanks for your continued support and communications.
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