Mardi Gras Auction 2023
Between Sundays 5/17/23
Come one, come all, to the Congregational Conversation after the service this Sunday, May 21, at 11:30. We’ll meet in person in the sanctuary or on Zoom at the same link that was sent out for the morning service.
This is your opportunity to hear about the state of budget development at this time. We’ll also discuss a proposal to launch a capital campaign to enhance our grounds security with a fence along our eastern border (by the bike/walking path). Both the budget and the capital campaign proposal will be voted on at our Annual Meeting Sunday, June 11, at 11:30, live and on Zoom. So come this Sunday and be up to date on the issues members will be voting on next month.
Jim Merrill (he/him)
Between Sundays 5/2/23
Kitty and I, along with Bryan and Gretchen Buck, Rev. Carolyn Price and Orval Osborne, and Martha Kazlo, gathered with fellow supporters of Camp de Benneville Pines for the first annual Pacific Southwest Service Area Assembly, in lovely San Luis Obispo.
In case you missed it, the Pacific Southwest District of the UUA (PSWD) has ceased to function as an entity. Its efforts are now to conform to regionalization and merge with the Mountain Desert District of the UUA. It is a slow process. The PSWD exists in name and law only.
Into the breach stepped the Camp de Benneville Pines board and professional leadership. In case you did not know, our camp in the mountains, Camp de Benneville Pines, is owned by all the members of all the congregations of the area included in the PSWD, not by the PSWD or by the UUA. Camp leaders determined that in the void left by the PSWD, they would hold a gathering in the spirit of former District Assemblies, to do camp business, and to bind our 50 congregations together. The camp folks coined the term Pacific Southwest Service Area as a substitute for PSWD, which was the same group of covenanted congregations.
There were compelling keynote speakers, field trips to appeal to a variety of interests, and social times on campus at the Unitarian Universalists of San Luis Obispo to keep us mingling.
One great joy was to hear it announced that the Unitarian Universalist Church of Ventura (Yes, that’s us, UUCV) will host the second annual PSWSA Assembly in April, 2024.
This will be our great honor, and the good people of UU SLO have set a high bar for hospitality. I’m sure that we can limbo under it.
More to come.
Jim he/him
Between Sundays 4/7/23
A note from Rev. Carolyn Price, Sabbatical Minister and Jim Merrill, Board President
Jim: We want to keep you all informed about the upcoming months while the Rev. Dana Worsnop (Rev. Dana) takes an overdue sabbatical leave. As you probably know, Rev Dana will be away until August 1st, 2023. Happily for us, our long-time Affiliate Minister, the Rev. Carolyn Price (Rev. Carolyn), will be with us through mid-July. Your Board, Rev. Dana, and Rev. Carolyn agreed that leading Sunday services is a priority for UUCV, so Rev. Carolyn will cover this at the equivalent of full time. As this is a 2/3rd time position, Rev. Carolyn will not be able to do everything that Rev. Dana does as a full-time minister.
We want to ensure that you know whom to reach out to for various matters during this time when Rev. Dana is not monitoring church email or phone calls. Please do not attempt to contact Rev. Dana during her time of respite and renewal.
Rev. Carolyn: First of all, it is a joy and an honor to be with you during this time. As Jim said, I will focus on leading worship; also on communicating with staff and key congregational leaders, especially the Board President and the Conveners of the Worship Ministry. You may also find me leading community-building events and/or spiritual growth/adult learning groups; and/or participating in UU ministers’ and denominational meetings and assemblies. In the months ahead, I look forward to interacting with many of you!
Jim and Rev. Carolyn: We want to help you understand whom to go to for help or questions these next months, when the usual way of things is different.
Pastoral Care Ministry: Please reach out to our capable and compassionate
Committee on Ministry: For significant concerns about relationships or interactions within our congregation, ask our Congregational Administrator, Jennifer Luce or Board President Jim Merrill how to contact the Committee on Ministry.
Congregational administration issues: Please continue to reach out to our wonderful and talented Administrator, Jennifer Luce. This is the contact for inquiries or input to our weekly email bulletin, UUCV This Week .For other congregational issues, contact Board President Jim Merrill
Worship: Worship Ministry Conveners Celia Ortenberg or Sue Brinkmeyer.. This is the contact to request pulpit announcements for timely congregational activities or to offer significant ideas for future worship programming.
Religious Education: Lily Rappaport, Acting Director of Family Ministry
TO CONTACT ANY OF ABOVE, PLEASE USE OUR CONTACT FORM.
In grateful community,
Jim & Rev. Carolyn
Between Sundays 2/17/23
ATTACK OF THE BRAIN –
What do you do when you discover your brain is working to sabotage you? It’s not fun. Actually, it’s mortifying.
To set the scene – I am sitting with a beloved trans friend, chatting, and I realize that in the back of my mind, I’m judging her without even realizing it. “She would be much prettier if she wore makeup, and got some different glasses,” I hear myself think. I am completely appalled.
Where did I get a 1950s-style gender-repressive brain?
I’m heartbroken. Did I just actually assess her worth as a woman as lacking because of her appearance? I love this young woman, and yet here is my brain is bringing out rules for what she needs to do to be a woman “the right way.” And by corollary, does that mean my brain thinks there are rules for everyone required to perform being a human correctly?
You have to understand how intense the awfulness of this feeling is. I’m a feminist, an ally to people of all modes of gender expression. I don’t wear make-up. And I would never consciously think this thing that just came out of my brain, completely unbidden, completely unwanted and completely consciously rejected.
This is one of the reasons the church’s Equity Ministry is so important to me, and to all of us. I may have grown up rejecting these societal norms, whether of gender or race or any other structural “ism”, but it’s been part of the air I’ve breathed, invisible and unavoidable. Discovering that is both embarrassing and humbling.
I want to do what I can to break that pattern, to find ways to let us all get in the habit of looking at our history, our current experiences, even the media we consume, and holding them up to the light to see what ideas may have snuck in. Are there foundational falsehoods that have corrupted our sense of self-worth? Identity? What we deserve in life?
If we can do this, to train ourselves to look at some of our underlying, unquestioned assumptions, we can expose the hidden messages we have breathed in unawares. Then our conscious minds can help us become the people we think we already are. I hope the Equity Ministry can help us move in this direction.
Kitty – she/her
This is the first of a series of columns from the Equity Ministry. We’ll be taking turns writing about the issues that move us, and to let you know what events will be coming up. In this way, we hope to keep the conversation going as we work to find better ways to be together.
Between Sundays 1/25/23
Dear Ones,
As a Living Tradition and an Evolving Faith, the Unitarian Universalist Association has been undertaking a revision of Article II of the UUA Bylaws. That is where we find our beloved seven Principles and six Sources which were adopted in the mid-1980s.
The first set of UUA principles were written in 1961 at the time of consolidation between the Universalists and the Unitarians bringing both faiths together. Less than 20 years, the world had changed enough (I credit Civil Rights and especially the Women’s Movement) that those principles were too narrow for our blooming new faith. So, we adopted seven principles and six sources that were both richer and deeper.
Those principles are what brought many of us into this tradition. Yet that is almost the problem. They have ironically taken on near-creedal status in our decidedly non-creedal faith. They were never meant to be permanent. How could they be? A core value of this tradition has been a willingness to learn and grow and adapt ourselves and our tradition to what we learn.
Forty years later, Article II has not been substantively revised, though we’re supposed to review it every 15 years. Think of what we have learned and how the world has changed in the last 40 years. As attached as many are to the Principles and Sources, it is time to view them anew.
In June of 2020, the UUA Board established the Article II Study Commission, charged to:
“propose any revisions that will enable our UUA, our member congregations, and our covenanted communities to be a relevant and powerful force for spiritual and moral growth, healing, and justice. Proposed changes should articulate core UU theological values. The Board believes that one core theological value, shared widely among UUs, is love.”
Since then, the Study Commission has reached out to individuals, congregations, UU affiliated groups asking for input and comment. Some members of UUCV joined a Wellspring Covenant Group on Article II and have offered our thoughts and feedback.
The commission has released its Article II Study Report link here:
Article II Study Commission Report. The proposed revision of Article II is on pages 19-22.
The proposed Article II is a dramatic revision. Over time the commission and many others – including myself – came to the conclusion that there was no way to simply edit and ‘fix’ the principles. They are essentially a whole cloth that can’t be snipped and stitched. This is also partly in response to the proposed 8th Principle. It felt awkward to tack it on the bottom, so now it’s woven into the whole document, along with reverence for the earth and one another.
The commission is asking UUs to read the proposed revision 3 times.
First, to observe how it makes you feel.
Second, to observe what it makes you think.
Read it a third time before thinking about any suggestions.
This is still a draft, by our procedure we will need to vote on the revision at two General Assemblies – in 2023 and 2024.
There is still time for all to take this in, offer comment, redraft. And we are continuing to grow, learn, adapt, evolve into a vital faith for the 21st century.
Stay tuned,
Rev. Dana
