USH-Enews February 8, 2007

USH-Enews For February 8, 2007
Jump to: Calendar; What's happening; A matter of opinion; External events; Further down the road; Our roots; The bottom Line

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The USH-Enews is a weekly email newsletter sent to members and friends of the Unitarian Society of Hartford. The USH web address is: http://www.ushartford.com/ Check at the end of this USH-Enews for information on submissions, subscriptions and escape from the mailing list. And, to read the monthly Meetinghouse Messenger (newsletter) on line, or past issues of the USH-Enews click here.

Office hours: M-F 9-3 (excluding W 10 -11); Rev. Jamestone: Phone: 860 233-9897; Email: RevBJ@USHartford.com - Rev. BJ office hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday by appointment.

Worshipping Together Since 1830
Services held at 9 and 11 AM

Learning the Languages of Love! What better place to talk about love than the intimacy of the Chapel? Might this Sunday Feb. 11 be a good time for you to try out the 9 AM service, as we kickoff use of the new location for the 9AM service.

Sunday- Letting them Know: The Languages of Love - A prominent counselor has identified five languages of love. Surveying the vast landscape of relationships, let’s review our multilingual literacy levels regarding the loves of our lives.
Music: - Russ Barrnett from our High School group brings his compositional and acoustic guitar talents to the chancel, singing about manifestations of love. The Chalice Choir children will also sing for this Sunday of love.

RE: held in the usual places and times.

Also - Middle School Parents:The Annual District-wide UU Middle School Youth Rally is happening right here at our Meeting House on Saturday, March 3rd! Here's an opportunity for our children to meet other UU youth from around CT and MA for fun activities and fellowship. To attend, each youth needs a completed set of registration forms and the $15 registration fee. Our Society must register collectively as a group and space is limited, so please tell Nina Binin ASAP if you know your child is attending so we can e-mail the district coordinator, Deb Levering. The registration materials, forms and fees can follow and we plan to send these materials in by Feb. 20th

Let Nina know if you'd like registration forms by e-mail. Starting this Sunday, there will also be sets of printed registration materials in Servetus. Checks for the $15 fee should be made out to the "Clara Barton District", noted on the bottom that it's for "MSYR".

Completed registration materials should be put them in the RE Administrator mailbox in the Church office. You can also mail them to Nina at the Meeting House. Or, they can also be handed to the Middle School teachers and they can put them in this mailbox for you.

If you have any question, contact Nina at NBininBerg(at symbol)aol.com or 673-6180. You can also leave a message for her at the Meeting House office.

Chancel Art:There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread. - Mother Teresa - Dwell not on the past.... From this moment onwards you can be an entirely different person, filled with love and understanding, ready with an outstretched hand, uplifted and positive in every thought and deed. - Eileen Caddy, American Author

In a USH-Enews Special Edition earlier this week, BJ drew attention to a video she hopes you will view before the 14th. She solicits you reaction to the video clip.

New Sermons and related service elements have been published for 01-28-07 and 02-04-07

What Else is Happening & Announcements

Save the Date!! Saturday Evening March 17 “Bringing in the Green” - March will usher in Spring’s warmth and light and also the “greening” of the Meeting House with our 2007-08 Annual Stewardship drive. Look for many surprises during the month (Beware of people in large green hats!) and be sure to come to the main event at the Meeting House on St. Patrick’s Night. We will celebrate “Bringing in the Green” as we are treated to a musical biography of BJ, sample decadent desserts, and pledge our financial support. See you there!!

A Unitarian tidbit: "The arc of the universe is long; but it bends toward justice" is usually attributed to Martin Luther King. So here's your chance to share our faith with others. King borrowed that quote from a Unitarian minister of the 19th century, Theodore Parker, who was a great activists and firebrand preacher:

Marriage Equality Honors All Families - Any and all USH folks are encouraged to join the fun and celebration of ALL relationships and families at the Marriage Equality party this Sunday Feb. 11th after church. Come with a spouse or partner and kids or just bring yourself for a good time and activities for all ages. Also, bring a photo of your family to put up on the "UU Families" Bulletin Board display.

Get a head start on Valentine's Day and show your support of this effort to celebrate ALL families!

Potluck Lunch. If your last name begins with A through J: Please bring a main dish casserole or hearty salad. If your last name begins with K through R: Please bring a side dish. If your last name begins with S through Z: Please bring a beverage. Dessert will be provided.

Take your dish to the kitchen BEFORE the 11:00 AM service. Keep in mind that the capacity to reheat dishes is limited. DO COME! - Traci Hardison

Information and Advocacy Sub-Council to Meet - Sunday, February 11 at noon in the Library. Any and all folks who would like to learn about what we do, and to join in the effort. Come tell us of your interests and we will talk about environmental, peace and justice issues such as universal healthcare, abolishing the death penalty, anti-racism, and more. - Joan Kemble

Cleaning Up the Planet One Can or Bottle at a Time - The returnable bottles and cans that are left at the MH from all sources are regularly collected and given to the Horace Bushnell Food Pantry where they turn them into provisions. You can put these items in the container just outside the louvered kitchen door. Please make sure they are reasonably clean.

Adult Programs: If you haven't done so already, be sure to pick up a copy of the Winter/Spring Programs Catalog at the Registration table in Fellowship Hall during the coffee hours on Sunday. The catalog is also available online at the USH website: along with a PDF registration form.

Coming soon: An Inconvenient Truth, Special free movie showing, Sunday, February 18, 12:30 PM in Fellowship Hall. (See following story) *

The Six Healing Sounds Workshop, Saturday, February 24, 10 AM-12 noon and a Feldenkrais Workshop, Saturday, February 24, 1-3:30 PM. Informational flyers about these two programs will be available at the Registration table.

Helping Katrina Victims, Sunday, February 25, 12:30 PM. Joan Kemble will speak about her recent on site experience in New Orleans with the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. *

Ember Days, Session 1, Wednesday, February 28, 12-2 PM, Friday, March 2 and Saturday, March 3, 6-8 PM. *

* No fee, but please register on Sunday or by calling the office at 233-9897.

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH - Discussion
Sunday, Feb. 18 - Mad as hell about global warming and want to talk about it?

Here’s your chance: Al Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth” will be shown on a large screen in Fellowship Hall at USH at 12:30 PM on Sunday, Feb. 18, followed by discussion.

The movie is free to all members and friends of USH, but the Adult Programs Committee is asking you to reserve a seat in advance, so we know how many chairs to set out. Young people are particularly invited to discuss the world they are inheriting. You can reserve during Sunday coffee hours at the APC registration table or by calling the USH office at 233-9897.

The movie is 1 hour 40 minutes long; Virginia deLima will facilitate the discussion afterwards. The high school group will be selling pizza and cold drinks before the movie, or you could bring a brown bag lunch from home.

Even the Hartford Courant wrote on Feb. 7, “global warming - with all its dislocation and uncertainties - is our destiny. Acting on it is our best (and only) path to the future.” Avid discussions have already been held after showings at the Manchester and Fern Street Societies.

Supper and Games Night - Calling All Diners & Game Players for Supper & Game Night, Feb. 16 - 6 PM.

Gather up the kids, friends & expert Fictionary Dictionary players for a winter's evening potluck supper followed by an array of games (like cards, monopoly, twister) that is only limited by your imagination.

Do not miss out on all the good eats - Get your game on at the USH Meeting House, Fellowship Hall on Friday February 16th, 6PM. Of course we prefer that you sign up ahead of time, but it's also OK to show up at the door on Friday night - As long as you bring food for you family and some to share, a mere $2 gets you dessert and beverages. Y'all come! For more info, contact Esther McKone, ESTMCKONE(at symbol)AOL.com or 677-6682.

Invite Someone New to Sunday Services - more

Caring Network: "No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted." AESOP - The Lion & the Mouse - You are the ears of the Caring Network. Tell Janice Newton 677-1121 when you learn of our members enduring the stresses of life so we can reach out to those in need. - Offer your services. An infinite range of community services are available to help you. Call InfoLine at 211.

ON THE CALENDAR:

Friday, February 9
5:30 pm Dinner and Movie, Pleasantville, Fellowship Hall

Saturday, February 10
10:00 am – 4:00 pm Artist’s Way Workshop, Servetus

Sunday, February 11
8:00 am Music Rehearsal, Sanctuary
9:00 am WORSHIP SERVICE, CHAPEL
10:00 am Coffee Hour, Fellowship Hall
10:00 am Youth Group Soup Making, Kitchen
10:00 am Children’s Choir, Chapel
10:00 am Great Decisions, Library
10:00 am Building and Grounds, Murray
10:00 am Comfort Shawl Knitters, Lower Lobby
10:00 am Council on Social Justice, Channing
10:15 am Music Rehearsal, Sanctuary
10:30 am Chalice Choir, Emerson
11:00 am WORSHIP SERVICE, SANCTUARY
12:00 pm Coffee Hour, Fellowship Hall
12:00 noon Information and Advocacy, Library
12:15 pm "C" Cubed, Minister's Study
1:00 pm Marriage Celebration, Fellowship Hall

Monday, February 12
6:30 pm SIA, Murray
7:00 pm Pathways SGM, Library
7:00 pm Artist’s Way, Servetus
7:00 pm Worship, Minister’s Study

Tuesday, February 13
6:00 pm Caring Network, Servetus
7:00 pm Board of Directors, Library
7:30 pm IASC, Chapel
8:00 pm AA, Fellowship Hall

Wednesday, February 14
6:30 pm Tai Chi, Fellowship Hall
7:30 pm Choir, Sanctuary

Friday, February 16
6:00 pm Supper & Games Main Dish Potluck, Fellowship Hall

Sunday, February 18
8:00 am Music Rehearsal, Sanctuary
9:00 am WORSHIP SERVICE, CHAPEL
10:00 am Coffee Hour, Fellowship Hall
10:00 am Children’s Choir, Chapel
10:00 am Great Decisions, Library
10:00 am Disabilities, Channing
10:15 am Music Rehearsal, Sanctuary
10:30 am Chalice Choir, Emerson
11:00 am WORSHIP SERVICE, SANCTUARY
12:00 noon Coffee Hour, Fellowship Hall
12:30 pm Movie viewing and discussion: “An Inconvenient Truth”, Fellowship Hall

To get on the calendar, call 233.9897

Further Down The Road (About 30 Days Max)

Joan Kemble and the UUSC In New Orleans

UUSC volunteer Elandria Williams (right) of Powell, Tenn., helps load cleaning supplies at the Resurrection of Our Lord School in New Orleans. With her is a member of the school's staff. (Photo by Nikki Rivera/UUSC) (Nikki Rivera/UUSC)

USH social activist Joan Kemble is now in New Orleans volunteering with the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, an independent human rights organization, in the JustWorks work camp. The volunteer workers are there to contribute to the huge task of restoring New Orleans.

Joan will speak about her experiences of heart and hand in New Orleans at 12:30 PM on Sunday, Feb. 25, in the USH Chapel. The program is free and open to all, offered to the USH community by the Adult Programs Committee, co-sponsored by the Council on Social Justice.

People staying after services for the talk may want to bring a brown bag lunch to eat during coffee hour. The UUSC website describes the week-long camp, which concludes Friday, as one of two JustWorks camps the UUSC is organizing this winter to help make the Gulf Coast area more livable. The UUSC has operated more than 40 JustWorks camps across the United States since 1996 as short-term projects that help volunteers examine and understand the root causes and damaging effects of injustice.

One goal of the New Orleans work camp was for participants to go home and spread the word about the needs they saw in New Orleans. According to one of the program coordinators, “Things are going great. . . .People here are happy to see us. . . .Right after the holidays they felt like they’d been forgotten.” Some people think New Orleaners are reasonably settled by now, but that’s not the case. “We’re just starting to get into the repair stage now,” she said. “There will be much more to do.”

Save the Date: SUNDAY, MARCH 4, 1 PM Members and friends, families, children of all ages ~ come to a free interactive intergenerational program featuring drumming! Bring your rattles and percussives to Fellowship Hall at 1 PM on Sunday, March 4.

Alvin Carter Sr, master of Afro-percussion, former artist in the Hartford Schools, will galvanize the assembled crowd, just as he has in the past in programs at USH and other churches, in concert performances, seminars, and lecture demonstrations to adults and children alike. He will share his love for drumming and a message of love and mutual respect.

This is the third and final program presented to the USH community this year by the Women’s Alliance, designed to appeal to those with a keen sense of rhythm, those who like music, those with a heart beat. The first program featured a curator from the Hill-Stead Museum with the unique biography of Theodate Pope Riddle, female architect.

Last Sunday during the second program, our own Bev Prager recounted her pilgrim’s walk in Spain with slides to an audience of over 80 fascinated people.

Clara Barton District Spring Conference April 14th 2007 More Information

From the Editor: Publishing the USH-Enews is a intricate process, so there will be a delay from time to time in getting it onto the web. This issue, as announced earlier, arrives Friday Evening at 6:18 PM.

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This Week’s Feature Articles

Word from BJ: - “Goin’ to the Chapel and we’re gonna get….gonna get…Something!”

Many of us love our Chapel, and the sweet spirit that shimmers there against the outdoor backdrop, overseen by the bust of revered Payson Miller whose robe still hangs in the closet of the minister’s study! I have worshipped there with the “Church of Divine Light” whose congregation has rented our chapel for Sunday afternoon services for many years, and I think that the rest of us might take a turn basking in its simple intimacy and warmth.

So, this Sunday, 2/11, we will worship at 9 AM in our jewel of a Chapel, an open ended experiment in doing things differently. Ed Richardson reminded me recently of the adage, “A definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, while continuing to expect different results.” So, we’re going to do something differently, and expect the SAME results—a warm and inspiring hour together. (We’ll know after a number of Sundays in the Chapel at 9 AM whether THAT is a definition of insanity as well!)

When asked about 9 AM Chapel worship, our president Charles Huntington wrote, “A change in space creates the opportunity to think creatively about changes to the service itself. The dramatically different space of the Chapel invites consideration of other ways in which we might bring meaning to the service while maintaining fidelity to the integrity to our faith tradition.”

When I told our Worship Sub-Council Chair Carol Davidson that I wasn’t’ sure WHY it seems like a good idea, she said we might worship in the Chapel ‘for all kinds of intuitive reasons we don’t have words for.”

So y'all come and let’s see what god (good ordering direction!) might wrought! - Best, Rev BJ

Concert of Organ Music Planned for Feb. 23rd

Vaughn Mauren working with BJ on an organ selection before a service.

The Unitarian Performing Arts Series of the Unitarian Society of Hartford announces a concert of organ music by the Organist of the Society, Vaughn Mauren, on Friday, February 23, 2007 at 7:30 PM. The concert will feature guest artist Anhared Stowe, violinist, in the Rheinberger Suite
for Violin and Organ. In addition, works of Bach, Buxtehude, Alain, Franck and Messiaen will be performed. The concert will take place at the Unitarian Meeting
House, 50 Bloomfield Avenue, Hartford, on the recently refurbished 37-rank Austin organ.

Vaughn Mauren began his musical studies at age eight with Dr. Lloyd Cast as a chorister in the Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys, Albany, New York. Soon after joining the choir, Mauren began piano lessons with Dr. Cast, and organ later on with Neil Keen. He has accompanied the choir of St. Peter's and the Trinity College Chapel Singers on international tours, and will be the resident organist for a week at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, during a St. Peter's choir residency there this summer.

Mauren is currently a student of and Assistant Chapel Organist to John Rose, College Organist at Trinity College, Connecticut. He is also Organist of the Unitarian Society of Hartford. In his final year at Trinity, Mauren recently returned from a semester in Paris where, besides studying art history, he served as Rehearsal Assistant for the Paris Choral Society, and performed a solo recital at the American Cathedral.

For further information about the organ concert, please contact: the Unitarian Meeting House at 860-233-9897. The concert is free and open to the public; donations will be accepted.

$4 A Day? - What if YOU were challenged to live on $4 per day? Could you do it for a day? A week? How about a month? $4 per person per day is the average amount of money afforded individuals and families in Hartford living on a food stamp budget.

During March, a group of individuals and families are choosing to live on a food stamp budget for a week or a month in the upcoming Food Stamp Project. The program is being organized by Charter Oak Cultural Center and Center City Churches. In the end, Food Stamp Project participants will relate in a personal and profound way to neighbors in Greater Hartford who go to bed hungry.

This program is designed to build momentum for change, locally and nationally, and to lessen and, ultimately, eradicate hunger. It also offers an opportunity to build bridges between peoples of different cultures, lifestyles and economic circumstances.

Participants may donate food they “would have eaten” or the amount of money they “would have spent” to Center City Churches’ MANNA food pantry to help people who are hungry not by choice.

Hartford Courant Lifestyle columnist Susan Campbell has signed up. So has state Senator Jonathan A. Harris, D-West Hartford. Click on the link below to read Susan's Wednesday, January 31, column about the project:

Mark you calendar as follows, if you want to join me in a time of limited food intake, or food and cost record keeping, or just attending some of these gatherings for reflection on the reality of resource scarcity and how it hurts:

February 28 - evening meeting at Charter Oak Cultural Center to launch this “food stamp” project, with a blessing for the month.
February 28 - Noon - 2 PM; March 2 &3, 6-8 PM-- USH Emberdays with theme “Hunger.”
March 4 - Launching our congregational participation during USH Sunday service
March 6,13,20,27 (Tuesdays) 5:30-6:30 PM, optional Spiritual Reflection and Support Sessions for participants and for general membership.
March 28 - Conclusion of Food Stamp Project at Charter Oak Cultural Center

RSVP: Thank you for considering participating in this ‘fast’ observance, which coincides with the Lenten season. I look forward to receiving an email from you if you can join me revbj@ushartford.com

A Matter of Opinion: (space for comment on USH issues from members and friends) - Editor retains the right to make minor changes – letters should be issue oriented)

External Events and Educational Notes

The Humanist Association of CT will be trying to hold some of its monthly dinners in Hartford over the next few months. more

A Few Words About Our Roots From The Book, Hartford Unitarianism 1844 -1994 by Freeman Meyer: Rev. Jon Luopa

The Society has thrived in large part because of its strong lay leadership. Since 1987, the Society has been led by Dick Woodhull, Toni Thomas, Sid Garvais, Peter Meny, and our thirty-second President, Peg Van Dyke. During Luopa's sabbatical in 1992-93, the Worship Committee kept the pews filled with its imaginative programming and outside speakers.

The Bottom Line - Look over our budget through December

Nuts and Bolts The member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association covenant to affirm and promote: the inherent worth and dignity of every person; justice, equity, and compassion in human relations; acceptance of one another and encouragement of spiritual growth in our congregations; a free and responsible search for truth and meaning; the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process, within our congregations and in society at large; the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all; respect for the interdependent web of all existence, of which we are a part.

Generally, USH-Enews will be posted on Thursday. Send email related to the USH-Enews to dcnewton at ushartford.com If you have announcements or articles you wish to be published, send them along with the subject line USH-Enews by 4:30 PM Wednesday evening. Comments are always welcome. If you wish to have your name removed from the distribution list or have learned of the electronic publication and wish to have your email address added, just ask. © Unitarian Society of Hartford

Let us know of any comments, errors and corrections - thanks (revised 02/09/07)