New floor tile in upper level kitchen
Some Facilities Team volunteers worked on installing new floor tile in the upper-level kitchen. Be sure to check it out. Many thanks to Lynn Hostetler, Kevin McKiernan and Jeff White, as well as the whole Facilities Team, for their hard work.
Finding Our Way Forward Team plans 3 activities in June-July
Following up on our February “Empowered Resistance” workshop led by Jen Hofmann of Americans of Conscience, our Finding Our Way Forward (FOWF) Team is planning three activities centering on the book Social Change Now by Deepa Iyer:
- An online book study that began Sunday, June 8 (the cost is on a sliding scale, so don’t let finances deter you from participating).
- A Zoom meeting from 4 to 5:30 p.m .Sunday, July 6 to discuss the book.
- An in-person gathering at church from 1 to 2:30 p.m. Sunday, July 13 to watch Jen Hofman’s interview of Deepa Iyer.
These activities will be helpful if you:
- Want to make a sustainable, strategic impact.
- Prefer depth, reflection and community over urgency.
- Want to respond to current events, but aren’t sure how.
- Feel overwhelmed, guilty or stuck in inaction.
- Wonder whether you’re “doing enough.”
- Seek clarity about your unique strengths and role in social change
No activism experience is required – just a curious heart and willingness to try new ideas.
Social Change Now is the 2025 UUA “Common Read, so copies are available from the UUA Bookstore and elsewhere. The FOWF Team also is acquiring several copies of the book for checkout in our library.
You can register for the online book study here or by scanning this QR code with your smartphone:
The FOWF Team asks that you email the team if you sign up for the book study and/or plan to attend the July 6 and July 13 activities so the team will know you are participating and can send you the Zoom link for the July 6 discussion.
For those wanting to register for the online book study, here is the schedule:
- June 8 – Overview, Ecosystems and Values; Meet Your Peers
- June 15 – Roles Questions, Roles 1 and 2
- June 22 – Rules 3, 4 and 5
- July 29 – Roles 6, 7 and 8
- July 6 – Roles 9 and 10
- July 13 – What’s next? Author interview with Deepa Iyer
“Work That Reconnects” workshop planned July 4 weekend
Along with the book discussion of “Social Change Now” organized by our Finding our Way Forward Team, UUCC member Caya Tanski and her UU colleague Allison Wonderland invite you to a workshop of deep connection, reflection, community building and visioning called “The Work That Reconnects” (WTR) the weekend of July 4. It is deeply nourishing to be with each other in this way and there is potential for much good to come out of our time together.
Please join us for this alternative 4th of July event! Join us any or all days:
- Friday, July 4 – 6 to 8 p.m. – Meet, Greet and Intro to WTR.
- Saturday, July 5 – 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- Sunday, July 6 – Interactive WTR worship service: 10:30 a.m., followed by brown bag lunch (bring snacks to share)
Please note: Attendance for all three days is not required – come to one, two or all three. However, if you come on Saturday, we request that you plan to stay the full day so as not to disrupt the flow of everyone’s experience.
“The Work That Reconnects” is a framework for personal and social change developed by Joanna Macy, a scholar of systems theory, deep ecology, and Buddhism. It is designed to help individuals and communities confront and process the ecological, social, and political crises of our time-such as climate change, species extinction, and systemic injustice-without becoming paralyzed by despair or denial. WTR helps empower us to act by reconnecting us with feelings of care and concern for the world, strengthening our sense of belonging and interconnection with all life, cultivating resilience and clarity in the face of global crises.
For a long time so many of us have had concerns about the direction of our country but we often don’t have ways to fully express ourselves with each other. We have a range of emotions (including despair and grief, gratitude, anxiety, outrage, among others) that often don’t have an outlet that feels satisfying or productive. The Buddhist scholar Joanna Macy developed a series of practices that help us get in touch with the emotions related to the challenges of our time at the same time that we connect deeply with each other and find creative ways to transform our thoughts and emotions into transformative action.
One of our visions for our community is “deep connection.” How wonderful would it be if we could build deep connection at the same time that we participate in co-creating a new model for our future?
During our time together we will focus on practices for cultivating interbeing, deepening our connections, practice emergent wisdom, and strengthening our resilience and our effectiveness in our communities and world.
We will have time in nature, solo time, and conversations with partners, in small groups and in the larger circle.
We acknowledge that our dominant economic, political and social system is not providing the sustainable quality of life we all need. Let’s open and create more love in action to the end that all can mutually flourish.
Donations are greatly appreciated to cover Allison’s travel costs and to support her to do this work full-time.
Allison Wonderland is an artist, spiritual activist, death midwife and long-time UU from Colorado. Caya Tanski is a natural health physician, former political economist, an emerging “Awake in the Wild” facilitator and meditation teacher, and also long-time UU and lives and works here in Columbia.
Email Caya Tanski with questions. For more info, see https://www.joannamacy.net/main#work and https://workthatreconnects.org/.
