Summer Unitarian Universalist Thread - All Welcome - Page 3

[Adele_Mommy]

Those blog posts are amazing. I've only read a few so far but they are powerful and incredibly moving. You can get there by clicking the Standing on the Side of Love link in my last post and then clicking on "Blog" on the menu bar.

I couldn't find the "Prayer for those arrested in protest" . Could you please post a link, ziggy?

[ziggy]

http://www.standingonthesideoflove.o...ed-in-protest/

[Adele_Mommy]

That prayer is beautiful.

[Ianthe]

Hi Everyone! I came to the spirituality forum looking for more info on UU, and here you are!

We are interested in starting to attend the local UU church.. It's where DS1 is going to be going to preschool, and we recently met a family at our CSA who goes there. So I started to look it up and it seams like a good thing for us.

DH and I both grew up mormon (LDS), and haven't attended a church in a very long time. I am agnostic with pagan and buddhist leanings, and DH is leaning more towards atheism, with buddhist leanings, lol (is that possible?).

Anyway, it seams like our local UU church is very much into environmentalism and political activism, which we LOVE. And we just moved to a new town where many of the people here are LDS and we'd like to make some friends who aren't (not that there is anything wrong with being LDS, it's just that a friendship can only go so far when you don't share the same lifestyle choices and ideals, IMHO).

I don't know if I have any questions, but I want to sub this thread and learn lots.

[Adele_Mommy]

LizzyQ!

It's great to have you here. It sounds like you and your local UU church will be an excellent fit.

There is a young couple at my church who were in a Small Group I facilitated and the man was raised LDS. At first it seemed to me such an extreme change to go from Mormon to UU, but for him it was completely natural. I learned a lot from them and now they are extremely active, involved members of the church.

As you have probably noticed from this thread and/or your local church, a lot of UU congregations are kind of on hiatus right now, but soon we will be gearing up for a new church year. (My minister returns from his summer vacation for his first sermon of the year tomorrow - ) Many churches have a water communion service early in the fall when the congregation "comes back together". If your local church does this and you happen to visit on this day you will probably have a wonderful experience, but be aware this is not a "typical" service.

Thank you for posting and letting us know you found us. I hope you do visit your local UU and please let us know your reactions!

Peace.

Adele

[Ianthe]

Originally Posted by Adele_Mommy

LizzyQ!

It's great to have you here. It sounds like you and your local UU church will be an excellent fit.

There is a young couple at my church who were in a Small Group I facilitated and the man was raised LDS. At first it seemed to me such an extreme change to go from Mormon to UU, but for him it was completely natural. I learned a lot from them and now they are extremely active, involved members of the church.

As you have probably noticed from this thread and/or your local church, a lot of UU congregations are kind of on hiatus right now, but soon we will be gearing up for a new church year. (My minister returns from his summer vacation for his first sermon of the year tomorrow - ) Many churches have a water communion service early in the fall when the congregation "comes back together". If your local church does this and you happen to visit on this day you will probably have a wonderful experience, but be aware this is not a "typical" service.

Thank you for posting and letting us know you found us. I hope you do visit your local UU and please let us know your reactions!

Peace.

Adele

Thanks for the welcome!

The woman that I met who attends the local UU church says they are having a "kick off" party on the 22nd, I think. Is that the same kind of thing as you are saying with the coming back together in the fall?

I will probably go to that with the people that we met, and start seeing if it's a good fit for us for Sundays after that.

My biggest hesitation is that I haven't attended a church in a very, very long time, and I feel a little weird about it. Even though it seams like a great thing, I'm still a little nervous about the whole thing. Have any of you dealt with that? Was it easy to overcome?

[ziggy]

I hadn't been to church in a long time except for a couple of weddings and a funeral. I went to shul with my partner and her family every so often, but I was there for her, not for me.

But I learned quickly. It's not like you're thrown in there to sink or swim. You'll get an order of service, somebody will recognize that you're new and help you out, things like that. And if the first service feels disorienting then go back the next week. sometimes coming into a "special" service can be weird because you're like, "ew, if this is what they are all like I am SO not coming back."

[thelocknestmother]

Originally Posted by LizzyQ

I am agnostic with pagan and buddhist leanings, and DH is leaning more towards atheism, with buddhist leanings, lol (is that possible?).

Yup...I am a Theistic Buddhist UU and DH is an Atheist Buddhist.
Sounds like we are quite similar...

[Ianthe]

Originally Posted by thelocknestmother

Yup...I am a Theistic Buddhist UU and DH is an Atheist Buddhist.
Sounds like we are quite similar...

awesome!!!

[treehugz]

I just posted this question on the atheist/agnostic tribe thread, but then realized that you all might have some great ideas! Anybody have any fun alternate non-religious lyrics for "Jesus loves me" that I can teach to my 2-yr old? After dd spent an afternoon with her cousins, she was singing it on the car-ride home. This bugs me... would any of you be bothered? I know the UU song book has some Christian songs in it, but do UU's sing this song? Do they have their own version to that tune? Anybody know a different version?

Originally Posted by Adele_Mommy

On Pandora I listen to a custom station I created. I like folk songs and traditional spirituals, so there actually is some Christian music on my station, but whenever it starts to head toward Christian inspirational I am persistent about clicking the thumbs down until Pandora gets the idea and goes back to what I like.

P.s. - Thank you Adele-Mommy for the info about Pandora... I tried to find the songs you mentioned, but no real luck. I tried creating a Peter Mayer station (love his "Holy Now"), but just not wild about some of the stuff that Pandora comes up with.

[Adele_Mommy]

Guess what! Peter Mayer is coming to our church in September for a concert Saturday night and then to provide music at the service Sunday morning!!!

Yeah, Pandora is annoying at first and I had to do a lot of thumbs down. It took awhile to get the station I have now that plays mostly stuff I like.

My daughter's absolute favorite hymn in the new teal hymnal is Peter Mayer's "Blue Boat Home". It would probably bug me if my daughter were to sing "Jesus Loves Me", but she would never do that because singing that kind of song bugs her. She has even had issues with some of the songs they do sing at our church's children's choir. She is in a stage where she is super-senstive to "god language" even in songs.

There are several UU books of children's songs and I am sure a good substitute for "Jesus Loves Me" could be found in one of them, but I don't have any with me at the moment and I don't know of any off the top of my head. I will look into it and post again.

[unschoolinmom]

We love our UU church. We tried to one I had mentioned, but found one in the opposite direction that is just perfect. The kids have a blast with RE and dh even loves it. We just enjoy ever aspect of the UU church and look forward to going every Sunday.

[Adele_Mommy]

That is wonderful news, unschoolinmom!

I am so happy for you! Thank you very much for posting and letting us know.

[mammal_mama]

Subbing.

[treehugz]

Originally Posted by Adele_Mommy

Guess what! Peter Mayer is coming to our church in September for a concert Saturday night and then to provide music at the service Sunday morning!!!

Lucky you! (isn't there a green-with-envy smily??) I'm so jealous. I agree with your dd ... Blue Boat Home is one of my favorites too. I hope my dd will have a critical ear like yours. Right now she repeats everything... from amen ... to bless you ... to jesus loves me ... to the little fingerplay that goes here is the church and here is the steeple. We're surrounded by fundamental Christians.

[Adele_Mommy]

mammal_mama!

[Adele_Mommy]

Originally Posted by treehugz

Anybody have any fun alternate non-religious lyrics for "Jesus loves me" that I can teach to my 2-yr old?

The words to this hymn from StLT can be sung to the tune of "Jesus Loves Me"

"As We Leave this Friendly Place"
As we leave this friendly place,
Love give light to ev-'ry face
May the kindness which we learn
Light our hearts till we return.

This works too, but it is more specifically designed for a chalice-lighting:

Flaming chalice, burning bright
Now you share with us your light.
May we always learn to share
With all people everywhere.

The music director at my church suggested you could just make up your own words. For example, this easy modification occurred to me this morning:

Mommy loves me, this I know
For she often tells me so.
With my mommy I belong,
Safe and happy all day long.

Have fun!

Adele

[spedteacher30]

sorry for crashing your thread. I was hoping some of you might have some suggestions for resources:

http://www.mothering.com/discussions....php?t=1257438

[mammal_mama]

Originally Posted by Adele_Mommy

mammal_mama!

Thank you, Adele_Mommy! I'm very glad to be here.

We've been out of church again for a few months now. We were going to an Episcopal church for a while which is neat in a lot of ways ... but I keep moving more and more into a whole different way of looking at life.

I've lately been reading a book by Steve Taylor titled, The Fall: The evidence for a Golden Age, 6,000 years of insanity, and the dawning of a new era. It's really resonating with me.

I feel like, over the past few years or so, I've been moving from the fundamentalist Christian view, to the Universalist Christian view (because I realized I could never send my own children to hell so why would a totally loving God need to punish us?), to a Universalist view that embraces many other views...for instance, I love Tao Te Ching, and lately I am wondering if I might even be some sort of spiritual atheist.

And yet I feel so much more in tune with Love than I ever did before, and believe that this Love is a strong force at work in the world...

I've actually been feeling okay about not going anywhere. But then my 10yo, the other night as we were walking home from the playground and walked past a church we used to visit, questioned me about why we weren't going there anymore and she started remembering some stuff she liked about this church...

And this made me feel like maybe I really do need to resume the effort to get us plugged in to some kind of spiritual community. Treehugz' comment kind of reminded me of this just now. I worry about our girls feeling a need for something more, and possibly getting sucked into fundamentalism since it's the fundamentalists who keep reaching out into the community and offering fun activities and free food and so on.

There is a UU church near us (All Souls -- we are in Kansas City) which sounds really cool. There was actually a boy that dd had heaps of fun playing with when they took a class at the nature center together a couple of years ago, and his mom was really cool and she mentioned that All Souls is their church. So maybe we could hook up with them again there.

[Stargirl]

Love the "Jesus loves me alternatives", especially your own Adele!

A very moving post mammal-mama! I encourage you to try the UU congregation for a good month to get a good sense of the rhythm. Best of luck!

Has anyone read "The Cathedral of the World: A Universalist Theology" by Forrest Church? I just picked up a copy and I would love to read it as a book club. Anyone interested?