Maypole Dance

UUP's kids participated in a wonderful Maypole weaving dance on Sunday, May 20, 2007, on a perfect potluck afternoon at the home of Steve and Carol West. Take a look at the photos by clicking on the picture!

This Week at UUP: May 18-25

The Unitarian Universalists of Petaluma
An Oasis for Heart and Mind Every Sunday in Downtown Petaluma


For complete up-to-date info on the Unitarian Universalists of Petaluma, see our website: www.uupetaluma.org

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SUNDAY SERVICES

(Social time with refreshments begins at 10:00 am , at the Petaluma Woman's Club, 518 B Street. Worship service begins at 10:30 am. )

Sunday , May 20: "Taize Prayer Service"
Guest: Ministerial Student Matt Alspaugh
For millennia, various traditions and cultures have used repetitive singing forms--chants, mantras, niguns, and rounds--to help people center themselves and transcend the ordinary experience of their daily lives. This service will explore one of these traditions as practiced today by the Taize Christian community in France. How can we adapt this -- or any tradition or practice -- into our community? And we will sing!

Sunday , May 27: "TBA"
Guest speaker: Earl Cruser

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Come, Come, whoever you are!...

The materials for the Chalice Light mailing have arrived. There are 480 letters to get out ASAP, complete with reply envelope. Opportunities to work together next week are: Monday 21st 1 - 3 p.m.; Wednesday 23rd 1 - 4 p.m., and if needed Thursday 24th 10-12 N. We will meet at Jean Conrad's house.

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Maypole Dance and Headwreath-Making Potluck Lunch – this Sunday, May 20

Come to the West's beautiful yard after church this Sunday to celebrate the merry month of May. After a potluck lunch, children and adults can try a Maypole Dance or create a headwreath. We will need donations of any type of fresh flowers for the headwreaths. We'll supply the raffia. All members and friends of UUP are welcome! The party will be from 12:30-2:30 p.m. Carol and Steve West live at 64 Century Lane, off Skillman, not far from Cinnabar School. See Marlene Abel or Carol West for more information.

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"New to UUP" Visitors' Orientation - this Sunday, May 20

Curious about UUism? About our congregation? Want to ask some questions? Please join with a small group of UUP members to hear about our congregation, ask questions about Unitarian Universalism, and generally get acquainted with UUP. We'll hold these sessions on the third Sunday of each month. Meet in the fireside room immediately following the service.

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Call for Nominations for UUP Board of Trustees

Our elected Nominating Committee, consisting of Nancy Blake, David Dodd, and KC Greaney, is accepting nominations for up to three spots on the UUP Board. If you are interested, please speak with any of the three committee members. We will elect new Board members at our annual congregational meeting, tentatively scheduled for Sunday, June 3, following the service.

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Regularly Scheduled Gatherings
- UUP Board of Trustees: Meeting Sunday 8:30 am at the Woman's Club.
- Love All (UUP Tennis Group): Friendly drop-in tennis game Sunday from 1:30-3:30 pm at the Petaluma High School courts.
- UUP Women's Group: Monday 7:30 pm at Jean Conrad's home. This month's topic: Gender

If you have changed your email address or would like to be added to or removed from the UUP list, please email us at uupetaluma at gmail dot com.

Religious Education Update: May 20, 2007

Hospitality as a Spiritual Practice

When I attended District Assembly recently, I was deeply moved by the keynote address delivered by the Rev. Peter Morales, minister of the Jefferson Unitarian Church in Denver. He described how Americans are becoming increasingly isolated. In addition, households are becoming ever smaller. For example, at the end of the second World War, half of Americans lived in households that included three generations under one roof. Today almost none do, and those who do are mostly recent immigrants. The percentage of single person households is growing larger.

Rev. Morales also shared that in this time of cell phones and email and presumably constant connections, Americans increasingly report that they have few close friends or relatives. Some report that they have no one in whom they can confide details of their personal life. Many Americans hunger for community today. As a result, many visitors to UU groups are looking for a place which will provide these essential social connections and friendship.

So, what is hospitality in the spiritual sense? In Rev. Morales’ words,

“True hospitality is a spiritual practice, a religious practice. Like meditation or prayer, it is a practice that connects us with a deep truth. Our sense of isolation, our sense of individualism, is ultimately an illusion that cuts us off from what is real and true and loving in life. Our disconnection places us in opposition to each other and causes untold suffering.

How can we practice religious hospitality? There are a thousand ways. We practice hospitality, first, by being open and loving with those we already know. We practice it right here beginning with our friends. We practice hospitality when we ask “How are you?” and really want to know. We practice hospitality when we smile across the room and rush to embrace a friend.

We begin with those we already know and love, but we can not and must not stop there. If we stop there we draw a circle that keeps others out, a circle that disconnects us. We begin with those we know and love, but we must go much farther.

A religious hospitality reaches out to those it does not yet know. This can be as simple as the practice of greeting those seated near you on Sunday morning and actually getting up the courage to talk to someone you do not know during coffee hour. Here at church it means being open and warmly welcoming to those who are visiting, to those looking for a religious home. Part of our work as a religious community is to create a place, a safe place, where we can come to know each other deeply. We do this in small groups, in committees, in the choir, working together in social action, working with children in religious education. We do it by listening and by sharing. We do it by opening our hearts.”

When I first came to UUP, I felt warmly welcomed, particularly by one of our former members who has since moved to another state, BJ. She practiced true hospitality every Sunday morning by sitting on the porch of our building and greeting people as they entered. BJ continued her practice inside our space by making coffee and organizing the bagelistas. The warmth and love she expressed helped me feel at home here.

I don’t remember BJ ever using the words “religious hospitality”, but she knew the practice and lived it well. Others at UUP were also practitioners in those early days when I was a stranger here. They embraced my daughter Lara and me as new members and encouraged our participation in the life of the church.

We practice hospitality at our coffee hour, of course, when we listen deeply to our friends and newcomers alike. However, the coffee hour isn’t enough for me. I need to participate in other community events where I can share my thoughts and build relationships. I’ve observed that friendships can grow over the board table or during choir practice. Adults and children can get to know each other better in religious education classes or intergenerational events. All of these activities build our community.

There is a UUP Potluck and Maypole Dance today. Next weekend, many of us will be at the Retreat. It would be easy for me to think of these type of events as just great fun, which they are. However, they also provide wonderful opportunities to practice religious hospitality and build the bonds that create a deeper spiritual, caring, loving and embracing community.

As we build a more connected community at events like these, we can then return to our Sunday morning worship services and extend our embrace to those newcomers who are searching for community, a safe place for their children to ask difficult questions, and a home where they may freely search for deeper meaning in their lives. That would be a gift to newcomers, but it would be a far greater spiritual gift to each of us and to UUP. The love we would extend would multiply and return in abundance. Blessed be.


Marlene Abel
Director of Religious Education

"How Can I Keep From Singing?"--Hymn of the Month, May 2007

UUP's Hymn of the Month for May is "How Can I Keep From Singing." However, you won't find it listed under that title in our hymnal, because of the lack of a title index. Instead, the hymn is called by its first line: "My Life Flows On In Endless Song." It is Hymn Number 108.

An old hymn, originally published in 1860, with words by Robert Lowry, and music by Ira D. Sankey, it was given a new lease on life in the McCarthy era by Doris Plenn, who wrote a new third verse to honor those who refused to sign loyalty oaths, and were, therefore, often punished.

When tyrants tremble, sick with fear,
And hear their death-knell ringing,
When friends rejoice both far and near,
How can I keep from singing?
In prison cell and dungeon vile
Our thoughts to them are winging.
When friends by shame are undefiled,
How can I keep from singing?

"How Can I Keep From Singing?" is the title of Pete Seeger's biography, by David Kay Dunaway.

Religious Education Update: May 13, 2007

Don’t Underestimate Mom

Julia Ward Howe, a Unitarian and author of the words of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, issued a Mother’s Day Proclamation in 1870. She had seen the injuries caused by the Civil War, and wished to unite all mothers against war. She wrote:

Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of
charity, mercy and patience.

"We women of one country
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day for Peace lasted for thirty years. Mother’s Day as we know it today was begun by Anna Jarvis in 1907, and was officially proclaimed by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914.

Unitarian Universalist women have continued Howe’s tradition with their own efforts to protect the health and safety of their children. Today’s UU’s are active in groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, Code Pink, and the Million Mom March. Other UU’s work to save our environment and build safer communities.

I wish a Happy Mother’s Day to all our UUP moms for all you do for your families, for our community and for the planet. We love you all and would never underestimate your power to change the world.

Marlene Abel
Director of Religious Education

This Week at UUP: May 10-16, 2007

The Unitarian Universalists of Petaluma
An Oasis for Heart and Mind Every Sunday in Downtown Petaluma


For complete up-to-date info on the Unitarian Universalists of Petaluma, see our website: www.uupetaluma.org

**************************************************************************
SUNDAY SERVICES

(Social time with refreshments begins at 10:00 am , at the Petaluma Woman's Club, 518 B Street. Worship service begins at 10:30 am. )

Sunday, May 13th: "M.O.M. -- My Own Mother"
Guest Speaker: Leland Bond-Upson
On Mother's Day, we will honor mothers and motherhood, we will imagine all that goes into it, and recall our own, specific mothers. Furthermore, we will evoke the mother within each of us, our own mothers in a different, forward-looking sense.

Sunday , May 20: "Taize Prayer Service"
Guest: Ministerial Student Matt Alspaugh
For millennia, various traditions and cultures have used repetitive singing forms--chants, mantras, niguns, and rounds--to help people center themselves and transcend the ordinary experience of their daily lives. This service will explore one of these traditions as practiced today by the Taize Christian community in France. How can we adapt this -- or any tradition or practice -- into our community? And we will sing!

Sunday , May 27: "TBA"
Guest speaker: Earl Cruser

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Share-The-Plate This Sunday!

May's share-the-plate beneficiary will be the Redwood Empire Food Bank. The mission of the Redwood Empire Food Bank (REFB) is to build partnerships to end hunger. Founded in 1987, REFB is Sonoma County's largest hunger-relief organization. REFB acquire foods and distributes it through a network of charitable agencies and their own food assistance programs, and also provides food to Lake, Mendocino, Humboldt, and Del Norte Counties through five smaller food banks. In addition, the REFB advocates for effective legislation that will provide long-term solutions to hunger in our community. Visit www.refb.org for more information.

Please come to the service ready to make an offering that can be shared with this wonderful group.

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Maypole Dance and Headwreath-Making Potluck Lunch - Sunday, May 20

Come to the West's beautiful yard after church on Sunday, May 20 to celebrate the merry month of May. After a potluck lunch, children and adults can try a Maypole Dance or create a headwreath. We will need donations of any type of fresh flowers for the headwreaths. We'll supply the raffia. All members and friends of UUP are welcome! The party will be from 12:30-2:30 p.m. See Marlene Abel or Carol West for more information.

**************************************************************************
"New to UUP" Visitors' Orientation - Sunday, May 20

Curious about UUism? About our congregation? Want to ask some questions? Please join with a small group of UUP members to hear about our congregation, ask questions about Unitarian Universalism, and generally get acquainted with UUP. We'll hold these sessions on the third Sunday of each month. Meet in the fireside room immediately following the service.

**********************************************************
Call for Nominations for UUP Board of Trustees

Our elected Nominating Committee, consisting of Nancy Blake, David Dodd, and KC Greaney, is accepting nominations for up to three spots on the UUP Board. If you are interested, please speak with any of the three committee members. We will elect new Board members at our annual congregational meeting, tentatively scheduled for Sunday, June 3, following the service.

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UUP's Annual Memorial Day Retreat - May 25-28th!

Sign up NOW! Be sure to have this on your calendar, and sign up as soon as possible, as spots are limited. Cost is dependent on the number of people who sign up, but usually around $120/adult, $50/child for the weekend. See sign-up and info at Sunday Service. E-mail or call T Hathaway to sign-up or with any questions.

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Regularly Scheduled Gatherings

- UUP Board of Trustees: Meeting Sunday, May 20; 8:30 am at the Woman's Club.
- Love All (UUP Tennis Group): Friendly drop-in tennis game Sunday from 1:30-3:30 pm at the Petaluma High School courts.

If you have changed your email address or would like to be added to or removed from the UUP list, please email us at uupetaluma at gmail dot com.