​These words had meaning for us since, like me, several of my friends were also great- grandchildren or grandchildren of immigrants, and several of their ancestors had started local businesses in our small Ohio town. In the 1950s and 1960s, few new immigrants settled in our town, but those that did were welcomed.

During the past two decades, immigrants have been the primary driver of demographic growth in the U.S. We will continue to need immigration as the number of U.S.-born working-age adults decreases as the baby boom generation retires.

We will face many challenges during the next four years, but we Unitarian Universalists must keep the faith. We must affirm that all people are sacred beings with inherent dignity and worthiness and work to be a diverse, multicultural, beloved community where all thrive.

​Therefore, we Unitarian Universalists need to join with other faith-based groups in a long-term effort to change the overall narrative about immigrants. We must stay focused on our long-range goal of a comprehensive update of our immigration system that reflects our values.

This week's Adult Forum:
Alex LeCure will speak about advocating for children in crisis and listening to the child’s voice.

Next week's Forum: February 16
Rod Chapel, Missouri NAACP President

This week’s sermon:
“Out of the In-Between” By Rev David Schwartz

UU Moment:
“Unitarian Universalism's Heresy - Love at the Center of Living”
By Rev. David Schwartz

Children's Religious Education - 10:30 am
Children attending in-person are welcome to join
RE Instructor Dr Samantha Porter for a lesson during the service hour.
This month's theme: Inclusion

Lunch After Services
Please join us for lunch after the service. This week’s lunch is at Dragon
Kitchen.

Book Club
The Intergenerational Classical Book Study has a new facilitator in Josh Swart!! The
next great read is Roots by Alex Haley. Next meeting date is February 9, 2025, at
2:00 pm, in the Forum Room in our UU Building

5th Annual February Baby Wipes Drive
Common Ground partners with Capital City Diaper Bank to provide diapers and
wipes onsite for our clients. For the past four years, Common Ground with partner
churches has held a drive for Baby Wipes and Pull-Ups. Since the Diaper Bank
spends all of its cash donations on purchasing regular diapers, Common Ground
hosts this annual drive to ensure that the Diaper Bank has wipes and Pull-Ups to
supply to its partner agencies.You can bring your donations to Common Ground or
To UU. There is a place to put them in the entryway. Read more about the Diaper
Bank at https://capitalcitydiaperbank.org/

Blessings Always,
Mary Jo LaCorte
Administrator

​When I was sent to the principal’s office in the second grade for pointing out my teacher’s conspicuous favoritism, my parents wondered aloud what to do with me. What followed was a lifelong lesson about the tricky balance between message and method: how not to deliver the right message in the wrong way.

My parents have taught me, sometimes using words, that telling the truth will cost me something; that wisdom is the negotiation of minimizing or avoiding that cost. “Be careful with the truth,” they said. “People who don’t like it will just call you angry.”

When the United States elected its 45th president, I encountered something for which my parents’ lessons had not prepared me: People rarely wanted to hear the truth about a man as told by a woman. I learned that women who share their truth are dismissed as being “dramatic” or “too angry.” It took so little to be ignored yet so much to be heeded.

I did it anyway. I named the willing seduction of American evangelicalism, already one of the most powerful religious institutions in the world, greedy for more power. I pointed out the silent moderacy of the Christian majority as the enemy of their purportedly beloved gospel. I also examined my contribution to American evangelicalism, silent moderacy, and quests for power and stability.

I've received countless reminders to be a Christian, a godly woman, and to show grace, terms describing something more like a sedated animal disconnected from its own sense of anger than a human afraid about the future. These people read my anger as a disqualifier of reasonableness. Even in monstrous times, I expected to be respectable and respectful, my anger dissolved in a string of soft words.

But anger is not at all what people think it is. Anger has been kind and caring to me. When, as an undocumented woman, I felt most vulnerable to the former-and-future President rhetoric and policies, anger was the sign of my will to survive. Outrage on my behalf was hope for our collective futures.

More often than not, in the secret center of anger is not a desire to destroy but to protect those it loves. It wraps itself around a vulnerable area, like a body turned into a shield for its friends.

Prayer

God who inspires and anoints our anger, give us the ability to discern this gift, to discipline and harness it with righteousness. Just as joy without spine and love without resolve are empty, so too is struggle without anger. Teach us this lesson; give us this gift. Amen.

​   Inclusion is the practice of including and accommodating people who often face discrimination and exclusion due to race, gender, ability, sexuality, or identity. In light of the current racial climate, many settings are becoming increasingly aware of their lack of diversity and representation. Such organizations have failed to represent people of all backgrounds, genders, etc.

This has left the most oppressed folks feeling undervalued, ignored, erased, etc. Despite often being used interchangeably, the terms diversity and inclusion indicate different efforts. Diversity efforts can often be focused on representation while inclusion practices tend to be more about how to help groups feel as if they belong.

In other words, inclusion involves more than just making sure that people are represented in a group. Instead, it refers to how diversity is utilized to create healthy, fair, and equitable spaces that help people to feel included and respected.

From the preface of their 2020 book, Organizing Inclusion: Moving Diversity From Demographics To Communication Processes, authors Doerfel and Gibbs name the institutional biases of white supremacy, sexism, settler colonialism, homophobia, etc. which have contributed to inequitable outcomes within groups, organizations, and society itself. In doing so, they make the case for why organizations must communicate differently if they are invested in inclusion efforts given how much of the status quo poses barriers.

​In their work, these authors encourage communication that identifies the forces of oppression that can be insidious and require targeted efforts to combat. While it can feel daunting to become more aware of all the ways in which society fails at inclusion of the most oppressed groups, that ability to recognize such gaps can be a big part of taking action.

​Just as the problematic status quo was developed over a long period of time, investing in inclusion will take a great deal of work, but it is well worth the effort.

Active Inclusion

​To get meaningful responses about what needs to change, organizations need to start by asking the right questions. This includes recognizing and understanding that BIPOC and LGBTQPIA+ folks have often been left out of such discussions.

​Experts suggest that such efforts are unlikely to succeed unless they are enforced from the top of the organization all the way through.

What You Can Do to Promote Inclusion

Here's some ways in which you can help to promote inclusion in your daily life:

• Ask yourself which marginalized folks may not feel welcome in a space, and make an effort to change that.
• Identify the barriers to inclusion to those in leadership positions when it is safe to do so to address them.
• Assess how much privilege you have and how much space you hold and amplify more oppressed voices.

Keep in Mind

​As you have probably gathered, it would be impossible to explain all that inclusion is in one article. Every setting you encounter may be one in which you have an opportunity to promote inclusion. If you have the capacity to do so, that effort could benefit the lives of those who may not otherwise have access to those spaces.

​Fam, Family, Familia.

There are mornings when I wake with a deep need for wisdom that comes from sources beyond my own individual self -- times when the struggle toward justice and the next faithful action eludes me and I find myself grateful that I am able to turn to the larger community, the legacy of my ancestors, and the shared values of our faith tradition that I hold dear.

I wonder if, like me, you have experienced such mornings over the course of the last week -- rising to the knowledge that we cannot do this alone. The extraordinary good news, even amid so much pain, is that we don't have to.

Each and all of us is in fact a vital part of the fabric of this nation, deeply beloved and deserving of protection, safety, and belonging.

We should not need to repeat the basic truth that Trans people exist in this world. That our Transgender and Nonbinary beloveds -- my family and yours -- are not only real, but sacred. That each and all of us is in fact a vital part of the fabric of this nation, deeply beloved and deserving of protection, safety, and belonging. That Earth itself cries out for restitution, and we must not turn away from the fight for climate justice. I send love upon love to the interconnected family that we are for one another, knowing that none of us goes it alone in these destabilizing and complex times. We are real. We are here. Together, in all the ways we can be. And we will remain committed to the struggle ahead and the future we will make together.

As the executive orders rolled out of the office of the US President on Monday, we witnessed the attempted unravelling of decades of work for a more fair and free nation. Among the documents signed this week was an unconstitutional executive order challenging the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, which enshrines the right of citizenship to those born in the United States. Passed in 1868, the 14th Amendment has been the lasting bulwark against the Jim Crow laws designed to dehumanize Black communities in the South. These executive orders pave the way for large-scale deportations, the separation of families, and the unjust exercise of power in ways we can expect and ways we will discover in the years to come. We know they are already being challenged in the courts. Our work must be to challenge the bad theologies and oppressive systems that support them.

I am the daughter of immigrants. Both countries of my parents' heritage -- Chile and Panama -- have been held under the control of US trained dictators. This shapes my analysis, as do all our relationships, identities, and commitments. And I know that for many of us, these new executive orders do not contain abstract human rights violations, but very real harm that will impact us and those we love in our daily living.

​We Unitarian Universalists are people with diverse identities, stories, and experiences. Yet we are personally, theologically, and covanentally bound together by the expansive Love that has always been the animating center of our faith. Far more powerful than any faction, leader, nation, or creed, it is this fierce Love that compels our deepest loyalty and our most courageous action. And it is this Love that moves through and between us, enabling us to nurture wisdom, guidance, courage, and grounding in ourselves and in one another.

​We must respond with action. I encourage you to reach out to your local communities, support organizations that are long established in the fight for justice, and make your voices heard. Together we can build a future where love and justice reign.

In these days I send my love and solidarity -- to each of you and to your families, communities, and organizing networks. To our faith, our nation, and the world. May that love take the form of courageous and faithful resistance and renewed commitment, today and in the days and years to come.

With faith and renewed purpose,
Sofía

Resources for Taking Action

Support the Pink Haven Coalition. Founded and led by 2STGE+ organizers, the Pink Haven Coalition has built an international mutual-aid network that provides life-saving aid to those living under hostile governments in the U.S.

Support the We Are Home Campaign. Over 20 immigrant-led coalitions have come together to deliver a clear message rooted in each person's undeniable humanity and worth—We are Home. 

​February Adult Forums

February 2nd
Raylene Duckworth, with Rise Up Foundation on healthy masculinity & preventing sexual violence.

February 9th
Alex LeCure, an advocate for children in crisis & listening to the child’s voice.

February 16th
Rod Chapel, President of state NAACP

February 23rd
Betty Cooper, “What Do You Believe?” A culmination of years of thought brought together after an emergency medical incident.

Lunch After Services
​
If you would like to join other members and friends for lunch, watch for postings and announcements, or ask about each week's lunch location. If you have a particular place you'd like to recommend, please let us know.

​Joys & Concerns
​
Please submit your Joys & Concerns to our website  by noon on Friday or on paper forms for in person contributions as early as possible on Sunday mornings. See Heidi Atkins-Lieberman for assistance.

Insight Meditation
Thursday evenings at 7 pm
​
A meditation group led by Joe McCormack meets weekly in our building, when possible.
​Zoom may also be available. Contact Bob Antweiler.

On Thursday, February 13, at 6:30
​Bill Zimmerman, a local volunteer with the Farmer- to-Farmer program, will be giving a presentation at First Presbyterian Church. The Farmer-to-Farmer program is a federal initiative funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). It offers free expert technical assistance to farmers in developing countries around the world. Bill was the program's Volunteer of the Year in 2024! He will be speaking about how the program works and the experiences and insights he has gained in other countries

UUFJC Board of Directors
​
President: Logan White
Vice President: Lisa Sanning
Secretary: Amanda Landrum
Treasurer: Bob Antweiler
Director of Religious Education: Samantha Porter
Administrator: Mary Jo LaCorte

Cold Poem. 
Mary Oliver
​
Cold now.
Close to the edge. Almost
unbearable. Clouds
bunch up and boil down
from the north of the white bear.
This tree-splitting morning
I dream of his fat tracks,
the lifesaving suet.
I think of summer with its luminous fruit,
blossoms rounding to berries, leaves,
handfuls of grain.
Maybe what cold is, is the time
we measure the love we have always had, secretly,
for our own bones, the hard knife-edged love
for the warm river of the I, beyond all else; maybe
that is what it means the beauty
of the blue shark cruising toward the tumbling seals.
In the season of snow,
in the immeasurable cold,
we grow cruel but honest; we keep
ourselves alive,
if we can, taking one after another
the necessary bodies of others, the many
crushed red flowers.

This week's Adult Forum: Raylene Duckworth, will educate us about Rise Up Foundation, which promotes healthy masculinity and prevents sexual violence.

Next week's Forum: February 9: Alex LeCure will speak about advocating for children in crisis and listening to the child’s voice.

This week’s sermon: Light of Truth by Rev Beth Dana
This sermon explores the power, complexity, and necessity of truth in our lives. Reflecting on timeless wisdom—such as the saying from Mark Twain, “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.” Dana delves into the challenges of truth-telling in a world where misinformation spreads rapidly.

UU Moment: Practicing Hope by Rev Wendy Bartel
Children's Religious Education - 10:30 am
Children attending in-person are welcome to join RE Instructor Dr Samantha
Porter for a lesson during the service hour.
This month's theme: Inclusion

Common Ground is running low on a few things. If anyone would like to pick up anything from the list below and bring it to church on Sunday, Lisa Sanning would be happy to drop it off on Tuesday evening when she goes to Common Ground for board training. What they need: breakfast bars gloves, hats, socks, ravioli, (I assume the single serving cans), feminine hygiene products, canned meats (tuna, Spam) deodorant for men & women

The Intergenerational Classical Book Study has a new facilitator in Josh Swart!! The next great read is Roots by Alex Haley. Next meeting date is February 9, 2025, at 2:00 pm, in the Forum Room in our UU Building

This week's Adult Forum: Leader Shanon Hawk will talk about food allergies and share her personal story of a tick induced allergy.

This week’s sermon: Unjust Measure of Human Worth by Rev Joanna Fontaine Crawford

UU Moment: A World Made of Stories by Rev Gail Marriner

Children's Religious Education: Children attending in-person are welcome to join RE Instructor Dr Samantha Porter for a lesson during the service hour. This month's theme: Story

Lunch after Services: Please join us for lunch after the 10:30 service. This week’s meeting place will be
The Landing Zone at the Jefferson City Airport.

Common Ground is running low on a few things. If anyone would like to pick up anything from the list below and bring it to church on Sunday, Lisa Sanning would be happy to drop it off on Tuesday evening when she goes to Common Ground for board training.

What they need:
breakfast bars
gloves
hats
socks
ravioli (I assume the single serving cans)
Feminine hygiene products
canned meats (tuna, Spam)
​deodorant for men & women

Book Club: The Intergenerational Classical Book Study has a new facilitator in Josh Swart!! The next great read is Roots by Alex Haley. Next meeting date is February 9, 2025, at 2:00 pm, in the Forum Room in our UU Building.

​
​This week's Adult Forum:
Officer Markita Hitt with the Jefferson City
Police Department will speak on her work with the homeless.

Next week's Forum:
Leader Shanon Hawk will talk about food
allergies and share her personal story of a tick induced allergy.

This week’s sermon:
​The Oldest Story in the World by Rev David Schwartz
What do you do next with your life after you have come face to face with tangled,
unavoidable reality of loss? The oldest story ever written down is a guide.

UU Moment:
​What does worship mean in UUism?

Children's Religious Education 10:30 am:
​This month's theme: Story
Children attending in-person are welcome to join RE Instructor Dr Samantha
Porter for a lesson during the service hour.

Book Club
The Intergenerational Classical Book Study has a new facilitator in Josh Swart!! The
next great read is Roots by Alex Haley. Next meeting date is February 9, 2025, at
2:00 pm, in the Forum Room in our UU Building.

​Support Your UU Community
Please help us keep going and connecting by donating at
uufjc.org, or by mail: UUFJC- Attn: Treasure, PO Box 1245,
Jefferson City, MO 65102

An Elemental Body Blessing
By Noel Lemen

In neo-Pagan traditions, we recognize five elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit. We call
on these Elements to help us in a variety of ways, and I invite you now to invoke the Elemental
Blessings within your own body:

Settle comfortably in your body, in whatever way that means for you.

Earth: For the Element of Earth, I ask you to consider your bones. Protein, collagen, and
minerals make them up- mostly the mineral calcium. Calcium, formed in supernovas racing
across the Universe billions of years ago, making up leaves, shells, and the limestone and
gypsum of the Painted Desert, and the White Cliffs of Dover. Your bones are kin to the crust of
the Earth and every seashell in the ocean. May your bones remind you of your strength.

[pause]

Air: Take a deep breath with me, hold it a moment and feel the pressure of air in your lungs.
Every red blood cell in your body carries oxygen, the basis of all energy transfer reactions on
Earth. You are holding in your lungs a piece of the Earth’s atmosphere, nitrogen and oxygen and
others; nitrogen from the outer reaches of our solar system, formed as the Earth Herself grew
from nothingness. Breathe out, and may that breath remind you of your own adaptability and
movement.

[pause]

Fire: Your body is powered by fire. Listen, for a moment, for your own heartbeat. Lay your
fingers on your wrist and feel it. Every beat creates electrical impulses which power your heart-
enough each day to drive an electric truck 20 miles. Your brain, which controlled that touch and
that awareness, fires electrical impulses at a rate of 500 signals per second per nerve cell- all
powered by fire. Your mind is made of lightning, and your heart is a wildfire. May that fire
rekindle joy and passion in every place where the flames have been guttering.

[pause]

Water: Continue to feel your pulse, the liquid life under your skin. We are born of water, cradled
in amniotic fluid the same salinity as the ocean. We remain made of more than half water, and
our blood moves in tides like the ocean Herself, carrying nutrients and waste across each of our
internal shores. Our plasma has nearly the same salt and ions as the sea, and our white blood
cells and platelets are as ceaselessly vigilant for potential harm to us as the most loving mother.
May the tides of your own blood wash away that which is unneeded, and return to you all that
you require.

[pause]

Spirit: The elements of our bodies lay inextricably intertwined with our spirit. We are living
temples, the stardust embodiment of the joy of the Universe Itself. We carry in ourselves oceans,
mountains, lightning, and sky. Every photon of light which has ever touched our faces will exist
in a hundred thousand sunrises forever, every Btu of heat radiating from our bodies right now has
been around since the creation of the Universe itself. We are the manifestation of Cosmos’s
laughter, and may we hold that knowledge close as we share ourselves with our patients and the
world.
​
May it be so. Ashe. Amen. Tathaastu. Sathu. Shalom. Ameen. 

May We Be the Blessings
By Rebekah Savage
​
Spirit of Life, Eternal Beloved of Mystery and Grace;
Receive our prayer:

We come before That Which is Greater than ourselves in
gratitude for the fullness of our lives.
For the anguish and grief that inform our mission to Side with
Love again and again.
For the suffering and disenfranchisement of our people that foment our
passion for Justice and wholeness.
For complex lives, for hard lives, for real, full and overwhelmed lives, we
give thanks for the blessings that we have been given:
the reassurance of community, the steady warmth of hope, and the
unwavering faith that There will be better days.
We give thanks and seek your grace.
​
Spirit of Love, come alongside with all the holy nudges that we need,
So we may live in such a way that we celebrate all the blessings that we have
been given.
So we may Be the blessings in the world.

Sundays Adult Forum 9:15-10:15
To schedule a Forum, please contact Frank Rycyk 

12-1 - Mayor Ron Fitzwater shares information on what’s going on in The City of Jefferson

12-8 - Shanon Hawk, will discuss her work with the MO Legislature and tell us what to expect for 2025

12-15 - Ken Hussey with MO Assoc of YMCA”s will discuss the organization’s work, including immigrant settlement

12-22 - Stephana Landwehr will discuss a history of integration at Lincoln University
​
12-29 - Alyson Rose with Parent’s as Teachers will discuss how this program educates new parents about how to recognize “teachable moments.”

​Remember to submit your Joys & Concerns: http://uufjc.org/joys--concerns.html
Please make web submissions before noon on Friday. We also have paper forms available for in person contributions. Please submit these on Sunday morning before the service begins.

​UUFJC Board of Directors
President: Logan White
Vice President: Lisa Sanning
Secretary: Amanda Landrum
Treasurer: Bob Antweiler
Director of Religious
Education: Samantha Porter
Administrator: Mary Jo LaCorte

This week's Adult Forum: Right before election day!

Leader: Frank Rycyk
Title: Discussion based on a Gerald Seib article, “The Bright Spots in the Doom & Gloom
of our Politics”

Next week's Forum: November 10
​
Leader: Stephen Stark
Is Missouri still fighting the Civil War? Stephen will present about the Civil War in
Missouri
​
Service and Religious Education: 10:30 am

This Sunday’s Message: Soul Stories & Ego Stories by Rev. David Schwartz

Children's Religious Education: 10:30 am
​
Children attending in-person are welcome to join RE Instructor Samantha Porter for a
lesson during the service hour.
This month's theme: Repair

Lunch after Service: If you would like to join other members and friends for lunch, watch for
postings, announcements, or ask about the weekly lunch location. Suggestions for places to
gather are always welcome.

UUFJC News and Events this week​:

The Intergenerational Book Study will meet Sunday, November 10 at 2:00 pm. The selected book is Dracula by Bram Stoker and the location this month will be at Betty Cooper’s house. If anyone has questions, they can contact Emma Regnier.
​
On November 24, we will be having a Bread Communion.

From the UUA:

In bread communion, people bring different kinds of bread to share. Some bring breads that are part of their cultural heritage, like pita bread from the Middle East, or Irish soda bread.

Breads around the world are very different, but every civilization that has ever lived on the earth has made some type of bread. This communion reminds us that we all need food to live, that we must share our one earth which feeds us all. It also reminds us to share our unique gifts with one another, so all can be fed.

So if you have a bread that's special to your family/heritage, plan to bring some to share, homemade or store bought. Or, if you just have a favorite style of bread you would like to share, bring that. Interpret "bread" as loosely as you would like.

We'll have toppings such as butter, honey and jam available but feel free to bring anything that you especially like with your bread. We also traditionally serve apple cider with the bread so that will be available as well.​

Greetings from the Inn!

Despite the temperate weather, Jefferson City Room at the Inn is gearing up for our winter season! We will open to guests on December 1, but before we can open we need to train our volunteers! Our two training dates: November 14 and November 19, both at 6:30pm in First Baptist Church's Fellowship Hall.

In case someone asks, both dates will have the same content, so volunteers need only attend one or the other. Also, attending a training is recommended but not required in order to volunteer at the Inn.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions!

Peace,
​Sarah Hamilton, JCRATI Chair

This Week's Joys and Concerns:
If you have a joy or concern that you would like to have read during a service or shared in our weekly email, please submit it by noon on the Friday before through our website: http://uufjc.org/joys--concerns.html

We will also have paper forms available Sunday morning for submissions. Zoom participants, please use the web form. Submissions made after noon on Friday may not be read or shared until the following week.

Blessing to you all!

​Mary Jo LaCorte
Administrator, UUFJC

Of Rising Rivers and Democracy
 Karen G. Johnston, October 2, 2024

“Remember to imagine and craft the worlds you cannot live without, just as you dismantle the ones you cannot live within.” —Ruha Benjamin

Eerily, the same date, one year later. Extreme rain. Flooding again.

After seeing a notice on social media, I joined a small and determined stream of volunteers who spent the morning emergency-harvesting at a local community farm collective.  With the rising river expected to flood the fields, there were just hours left before the crops would likely be lost. Just like last year.

With wellies and heavy-duty hiking boots and galoshes (and at least one set of fluorescent crocs), this ragtag group did the needful: Pull the beets. Twist off the greens. Pile gently in a milk crate. Laugh. Leave the tiniest in the ground. Move to the next row. Offer a steadying hand. Hydrate. Stop when the body says enough.

Eerily, here we are four years later. Or eight, depending on which election disaster is the point of reference.

I care about the outcome of the presidential election. Though I must admit, I am put off by small data points sensationally enlarged by pundits and memes, abandoned just as quickly as the next gaff or horror emerges. I’d rather follow the wisdom from Adrienne Maree Brown’s Group Agreements for Emergent Spaces: engage the tension; don’t indulge the drama.

I care that fascism is not just approaching, but is already here, rising, like this cresting river.  Flooding all I care about with an oversaturated authoritarianism, thick with the muck of it, deepening the damage of it.

I give thanks for teachers and companions who remind me that democracy is a practice (thank you again, Adrienne Maree Brown) and that citizen is a verb (thank you, Baratunde Thurston).  Sooner or later (though not soon enough for those who have already paid too high a price), I believe that our “big D” Democracy will be saved. However, though such efforts have their time and place, writing postcards or from GOTV campaigns is not enough.

It is by acts of “small d” democracy. Ones that look like getting to know neighbors, when we might otherwise scroll endlessly. When we not only offer help, but accept it as well. It looks like creating systems of support and strategy with people who share vision and values: people whom we discern as worthy of risking trust.

And on some mornings, it looks like a socially-awkward band of strangers wearing rubber boots who heed an emergency call and harvest a field of beets.  

Prayer - Spirit of Life and Love and Resistance: may we find within us and around us, the resources, inspiration, and insistent invitations to be the ones we have been waiting for. May there be joy. May there be justice. May there be amiable companionship. May there be more joy. So be it. See to it. Amen.

About the Author -Rev Karen G. Johnston (she/her/hers) is the Senior Minister at First Unitarian Universalist Society Burlington in Vermont. Before becoming a minister, she spent 20+ years as a clinical social worker.

The Intergenerational Book Study will meet November 10 at 2:00pm. The selected book is Dracula by Bram Stoker and the location this month will be at Betty Cooper’s house. If anyone has questions, they can contact Emma Regnier

​We will be having a Bread Communion on November 24th

In bread communion, people bring different kinds of bread to share. Some bring breads that are part of their cultural heritage, like pita bread from the Middle East, or Irish soda bread.

Breads around the world are very different, but every civilization that has ever lived on the earth has made some type of bread. This communion reminds us that we all need food to live, that we must share our one earth which feeds us all. It also reminds us to share our unique gifts with one another, so all can be fed.

If you have a bread that's special to your family/heritage, plan to bring some to share, homemade or store bought. Or, if you just have a favorite style of bread you would like to share, bring that.  Interpret "bread" as loosely as you would like.

We'll have toppings such as butter, honey and jam available but feel free to bring anything that you especially like with your bread. We also traditionally serve apple cider with the bread so that will be available as well.

A Cause for Thanksgiving?
Daniel Gregoire, November 21, 2018

“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without
roots.” — Marcus Garvey

Living in the beautiful hill country of central Massachusetts, in the very heart of New England, it feels like history is very close to the surface: ever present and alive.

History is very present with me now, as we approach an anniversary in our national and religious history: 2020 will mark the 400th anniversary of the landing of the May ower at Provincetown, and then Plymouth, here in Massachusetts.

The mythos attached to that fateful day serves as the basis for the Thanksgiving holiday many of us will celebrate this week — although others will rightfully mark the holiday with mourning, and with tributes to the peoples who were nearly wiped out by imperialism.

All of this converges into history that is still present and impossible to escape. Most of us are not Pilgrims, Puritans, Colonists or even Christian, yet the legacy of those traditions are still with us.  They compose the roots of the institutions we have built up and sustain.

Still, too many would prefer to ignore certain aspects of Thanksgiving. Why mar the image we have of ourselves as blameless, as good people, by bringing up this complex and tragic chapter — one of far too many — in our history?

This intersection of history and culture leaves me with ambivalence and discomfort, but it feels generative. I’m strangely excited about this particular moment of discomfort, because something new could come out of it; something like healing. This is our opportunity to reimagine what Thanksgiving could be — and by extension, who we could be.

What would it mean to mourn with those who are mourning? What would it mean to jettison the mythos of Thanksgiving, and even replace the traditional meal with a vigil in Plymouth led by the United American Indians of New England? (If you can’t join me in Plymouth, perhaps you’ll join me in spirit by asking these questions.)

Our knowledge of the wrongs of the past, and the knowledge of the unearned bene ts that inevitably come from those wrongs, might help us to build true, lasting, and more authentic relationships both today and in the future... and that will be a cause for thanksgiving.

Prayer - Spirit of Life, God of roots and branches, we don’t know how we’ve come to this place, but here we are. Help us to be wise as well as compassionate, persevering, and courageous in this moment, so that we might be worthy of the challenges that lay before us, and grateful for the communities we are called to restore. Amen.

About the Author - Rev. Daniel Gregoire is the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Grafton and Upton in Grafton, MA. He loves being a guide to those on spiritual journeys and a companion to all in life transitions.

Lunch - after services
If you would like to join other members and friends for lunch, watch for postings and announcements, or ask about each week's lunch location. If you have a particular place you’d like to recommend, please let us know.

Insight Meditation, 7 pm
A meditation group led by Joe McCormack meets weekly in our building, when possible.  Zoom may also be available. Contact Bob Antweiler.

UUFJC Board of Directors
​
President: Logan White
Vice President: Lisa Sanning
Secretary: Amanda Landrum
Treasurer: Bob Antweiler
Director of Religious Education: Samantha Porter
Administrator: Mary Jo LaCorte

This Week's Joys and Concerns:

If you have a joy or concern that you would like to have read during a service or shared in our weekly email,
please submit it by noon on the Friday before through our website: http://uufjc.org/joys--concerns.html

We will also have paper forms available Sunday morning for submissions.Zoom participants, please use the web form. Submissions made after noon on Friday may not be read or shared until the following week.

For more events, see our online calendars:
UUFJC Events
Virtual Gatherings
Af liated Events
Religious Education
Building Use (other)
Community Events

And visit us online at http://uufjc.org/

“There is a voice that doesn’t use words. Listen!” Rumi

"My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-
violence is the means of realising Him.” Mahatma Gandhi

​Blessing to you all!
​
Mary Jo LaCorte
Administrator, UUFJC