Advent Spiral

This Saturday  from 5-7 PM is our Advent Spiral for children. The Advent Spiral is an opportunity for a quiet ceremony of reverence and love for children during this time of year.

We start with a gathering and potluck. When we begin the ceremony everyone is instructed in how it works. The children hear a story. Then, each child receives and unlit candle and walks, one at a time into a spiral made of evergreen boughs. At the center is a lit candle. The child lights their candle and walks back out, leaving their own lit candle at a place along the spiral. During the time the adults are around the spiral singing to each child as they walk the spiral.

The ceremony comes from the Waldorf tradition. It also fits in well with our Unitarian Universalist belief of a light inside each that can guide us on our own search for truth and meaning.  And the light of the chalice that symbolizes our shared community.

It is a lovely ceremony with ancient symbolism for this time of year. Symbolically it is a journey inside, in darkness, an opportunity to receive the light that is within us us, and to carry it out and set this light of ours on a path to light the way.

From Homemade Holidays

Winter Holiday season at FUSS

Please join us for Homemade Holidays this Saturday, December 3, 4-7PM! 
It's an all -ages fellowship event of craft and gift making! Create a wreath or swag from evergreens to take home or decorate the church. Make beautiful gifts to share for the holidays and crafts to decorate your home with.  Enjoy wassail or hot chocolate. The scents of this time of year are enticing!

$5 to make a wreath or swag. $1/ticket/craft to make a craft at the various craft tables. There's a wrapping station too! Childcare is provided. Bring box, tray or laundry basket to bring your treasures home in. Stay for the Holiday party that follows!

Sunday our festivities continue. Our Coming of Age youth will spend 1/2 the day in retreat at Stillpoint Interfaith Retreat Center exploring contemplative traditions. Our 4th and 5th graders will make cookies during the RE time that they will give serve to the congregation after the service and package up and share with our FUSS family at the Glen Eddy.

Stay for lunch then join us for Holiday Caroling - Sunday, December 4, 1 PM at the Glen Eddy, a retirement community where many from our FUSS family live. All ages welcomed! Children need to be accompanied by a parent or guardian

Later in the month is our Advent Spiral Walk for children on Saturday, December 17, 5- 7 PM. Children can experience their own quiet, seasonal ritual! Family potluck @ 5 PM. A story. Then, children can walk a spiral laid out with evergreens and light a candle at the center.

The Mitten Tree is one of our oldest holiday traditions at FUSS. People knit, crochet and purchase hats, mittens and socks we give to two local shelters, Bethesda House & Sojourn House.

We will again support Sojourn House, a second chance home for homeless women with children and pregnant women. Leave new, unwrapped gifts, toys and arts and crafts supplies December 4 thru December 18 @ table in back of the Great Hall. See sidebar for more suggestions.

Celebrating All Hallow's Eve

This Sunday is our annual All Hallow's Eve party!  As has been our tradition, children in our youngest classes rotate by class to different activities: games, stories, crafts and food.  This year our 6th and 7th grade class asked to lead an activity for the children in their classroom.

As I have already written about here, as a liberal religion, we are very deliberate about how we celebrate and share together in celebration. Halloween is a cultural holiday in the United States.  Where the candy that many of us hand out comes from is problematic because it involves child slavery in attaining the raw ingredients.

In pagan celebrations going back many, many years, Halloween, Samhain to the Celts, is an agricultural festival. It is a time when the veil between the living and dead is the thinnest. It is a time to honor our ancestors. Making an Ancestor Altar would be both appropriate to this holiday and important in acknowledging and discussing these big questions about life and death. We are all here only because of those who have come before us. An excellent resource on this holiday and other that I have found is Waverly Fitzgerald's, e-magazine, Living in Season.

A UU response to 9/11: Think Interfaith

“We need not think alike to love alike.” -Francis David, Transylvanian minister and early Unitarian.

This Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on this country. "Standing on the Side of Love," a UU public advocacy campaign that seeks to harness love’s power to stop oppression is asking UU's to Think Interfaith this Sunday.

Most elementary-aged children were not yet born when 9/11 happened. Yet, older children may hear about it in school. To discus the attacks with older children, a book recommended by a number of religious educators is, 14 Cows for America. It is a true story of the heartfelt response by the Maasai people to the attacks.

Religious Education in September

Our religious education programming for fall starts September 18! We will all gather in the Great Hall for worship. After the teacher dedication, children ages 4 thru grade 5 will go to children's chapel, and grades six and up will go to their programs. September 25 all our religious education classes meet in their rooms beginning at 10:30.

Guatemala: A brief photo essay

 July 22- August 1, 2011, 19 FUSS youth and 6 adults traveled to Guatemala to work with an organization called Safe Passage. Guatemala is a country of great beauty and great poverty.

 Our youth worked with children who live with their families around the garbage dump. The garbage dump in Guatemala City is the biggest garbage dump in Central America. Safe Passage provides support for the children in their school work, healthy meals, medical assistance. Most importantly they provide hope and opportunity to families living in extreme poverty. They serve over 500 children in over 300 families.

Our youth and adult chaperones worked all year to be able to make the trip. The money they raised also paid for a Quinceanera, a celebration for girls who were 15 years old. While we were there,  practiced waltzing and took the Quinceanera girls bowling. We also decorated for the celebration. When the day arrived, the 21 girls, their family and friends (170 people in all!) celebrated.

It was a beautiful ceremony and party.

We'll lead a worship service October 16 and share more about our experiences in Guatemala and with Safe Passage.