 the band was at the UUCV auction?
Hearing the Jazz Legends perform, a group of very talented UUCV musicians, was the highlight of the evening!
Back by popular demand, the Jazz Legends will again gather together to play on Saturday, April 28 at a special spring fundraising dinner and dance at UUCV! Mark your calendar now for this date, and watch this space and the next newsletter for more details.
Change For The World Reminder
Do.
UUCV Small Group Ministry Update
In the three years I have served as the chair of the Small Group Coordinating team, I’ve learned a lot. I value the friendship and support I’ve received from the Coordinating Team and especially the facilitators of our small groups. I know it is time to move on and I encourage others to share their talents to maintain and develop new initiatives for our Small Group Ministry Program, therefore I am stepping down as Chair of the Small Group Coordinating Team.
I truly believe that our UU tradition offers the best hope for those seeking answers to the “religious questions.” But this can only happen if each of us takes our responsibilities seriously. This means not only doing our own work individually, but also being part of a program that allows us to articulate our beliefs, listen deeply to others, and develop a supportive community. We are so fortunate to have dedicated facilitators who help to make this happen. I am thankful for each of them and their ongoing work and effort to make the program successful. I am also extremely grateful for all the church members and friends whose participation makes this worthwhile.
Richard Bronakoski
As Rich has “stepped down” from leading our Small Group Ministry (SGM) Program, I decided to “step up”. His decision allows him the freedom that he wants. As I pondered what I wanted at this time of my life, I realized that I was eager to further develop the solid foundation of our SGM Program. Most of my professional life has included development of groups as a means of working toward individual and institutional growth and further improvement. I am reminded that my faculty department at Shippensburg U. would often point out that we had a good department and would question, “Why do we need to develop further?” My response was always, “We don’t have to be sick to get better.” It is still my mantra. For this newsletter, I will offer a few of the ways we will consider to get even better.
Jim Burton will co-lead the program and we will work with the entire committee to explore ways to identify and solve problems. We will continue to reach out to the groups to seek their perspectives and wisdom.
Currently, we have 8 small groups. My hope is that we will increase that number in the coming year. We will need help with training new group leaders. (Let me know if you are interested.)
I will close for now. We will have more to describe as we continue to get better. Our steps, stages, and plans will be described in each newsletter. Feel free to talk with us about what we are planning. We want to hear your thoughts.
We thank Rich for his contributions and hope he uses his freedom to satisfy his creativity. Perhaps he will share some resources with us. Best wishes, Rich.
Anne Gero
Re Classes
Meditation with Bhante – Tuesday, February 6 from 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM in the RE classrooms.:
March 25 – The Swerve, Lucretius and the Nature of Things In his book, The Swerve, Stephen Greenblatt brings the past to vivid life in the exploration of one of the most influential works of literature of all time. Greenblatt writes about the rediscovery in the 15th Century of Lucretius’ book, On the Nature of Things. This book, or rather poem, written in 100 BCE, may be the catalyst that moved Western civilization towards humanism. Join us for an exploration of this important work that in many ways may still be relevant to our own time.
April 8 – Stoicism Zeno of Citium founded the philosophy of stoicism in Athens in the 3rd century BCE. Stoics believe that emotions cause errors of judgment and that one must develop will power to control one’s emotions. The Modern Stoicism movement has gained prominence since the publication of Lawrence Becker’s book A New Stoicism, in 1997. We will discuss how this movement has molded the ancient philosophy to fit modern times and what, if any, are the connections between modern stoicism and UU principles.
April 22 – Epistemology How do we know what we know? What is the difference between knowledge and belief? How do we determine whether something is true? What justification(s) can we use to establish the truth of a belief? Can we identify basic beliefs? Are some beliefs holistic in a way that they depend upon other beliefs? We will explore these ideas and perhaps discuss our personal beliefs, and their foundations.
May 6 – The Historical Jesus and Christian Faith Critical biblical scholarship has come a long way in recent years to give us a new way to see Jesus that radically departs from the literal, traditional reading of the New Testament. We will examine some of the writings of Bart Ehrman, Marcus Borg, John Shelby Spong and others as we discuss the myths and contradictions in the Jesus stories. What can we know for sure and what role does faith play in our understanding? How should we as Unitarian Universalists read and interpret the Jesus stories?
May 20 – Dreams The Do you remember your dreams? Do you try to analyze them? Psychologists, beginning with Freud and Jung, have put forth a number of different theories on the nature of dreams and their significance in relationship to our desires, our personal problems, and recent memories. Is there a proper way to interpret dreams? Should we write down our dreams upon waking? Should we be making significant decisions based upon our interpretation of a dream
UUCV Bad Weather Closing Policy
Looks like the bad weather is upon us which also includes confusion over what is cancelled and what is still on the agenda. To make things as simple as possible, that staff have worked out a plan that hopefully will answer your questions.
During the work week – if the South Middleton School District is closed, the UUCV office will be closed as well as all events scheduled for that day which would have been held at UUCV. If an event is to be held offsite, it’s up to the discretion of the committee chair on whether to hold the meeting and the committee chairs responsibility to notify committee members.
For Sunday Worship or Special Events – there are several places you can check:
Facebook and Twitter
You will receive an email from Pam, the Church Administrator
If we have your cell phone on file, you will receive a text message. If you would like to add your cell to our distribution, contact Pam in the office with your cell #
Call the church office and listen to the recording 717/249-8944
Hopefully this information will be helpful to you and if you are in doubt, use your best judgement.
February Open Auction Events
There are still spaces in the following events scheduled for January:
Breath,
Whalecoast Alaska 2018
Have you ever dreamed of visiting Alaska?
If so, WhaleCoast. Find out more about this Alaskan trip of a lifetime. For complete information go to:, email dfrey@whalecoastak.org or call 907-322-4966. Discount for groups of 8 or more. We would love to share our Alaska with you!
The fast-growing development of nanotechnology support the idea of 'infinitive' data storage. We are able to store more and more information. This leads us to future where we would be able to store everything. My PhD project is focused on exploring future outcomes of such vision. If we could store everything, would we be able to actually retrieve relevant information? If so, how? Would we need tools to clean our digital dirt? How will we interact with our digital world on the individual but also collective, social level if we had no storage limitations?This may be one of the more depressing polls you will see this year..
Only 3% of Americans were very surprised that the president of the United States used his office to pressure another world leader into digging up dirt on a political opponent, man that is just tragic.
If Barack Obama had done this we would be in deep denial and unable to fathom how he could ever do something like that.
But with Donald Trump it seems so onbrand that we barely even raise an eyebrow.
Like I said, this is depressing.
The president by hoax has crossed a serious line. The minions that stay with him will be in serious trouble. It can’t happen soon enough.
Melania Trump helps him by playing the happy, mostly mad/sad, third wife. She is probably innocent as far as knowing much about specific phone calls. She knows his character, bad as it be. She knows how he operates.
As first lady Melania doesn’t have thoughts and can’t speak about reality. A recent post from September 24th
It could be from an old film noir production (crime dramas that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations).
Whatever language she claims to have this week, of course, her tongue is tied.
She speaks through style and her particular fashion.
Tied or forked tongue she posts mood and an escalator.
That says enough.
She’ll go down in history as a nothing.
“We’re painting the roses red! We’re painting the roses red!”
With due apologies to Disney.
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Trench coat ‘close to a spy’
Trump Seeks Treason Inquiry
President demands to meet anonymous