Late winter happenings...

Hope this late winter-time, and for many a school-vacation break, finds you with time and space to enjoy what is most important to you! FUSS is still busy with opportunities to gather, serve, learn and grow in community.

This Sunday we have religious education classes for children and youth!

This Sunday night, February 26,  from 5-7 PM we are showing the film,  The Other Side of Immigration. This award-winning film asks why so many Mexicans leave home to work in the United States and what happens to the families and communities they leave behind. Through an approach that is both subtle and thought provoking, the film challenges audiences to imagine more creative and effective immigration policies. The film will be shown in the Great Hall and followed by a discussion. The film is free and open to everyone.

Sunday, March 11th, the Trevor Lifeguard Project is coming!  Welcoming Congregation and RE are partnering to host this workshop for youth in grades 6-12 during regular RE hours. Morning sessions for youth will be followed by a luncheon and panel discussion for youth, their parents, and interested allies in the FUSS community. There will be an opportunity to ask questions with guest professionals from the greater Capital District, including Chad Putman, Board President of Rainbow Access Initiative and local coordinator for The Trevor Project. The luncheon is free; please RSVP to Melissa by March 8th. Look for a fuller description in the March issue of Circles.

Sundae Sunday is coming!  Our annual multi-generational event, Sundae Sunday, will take place Sunday, March 18 this year. Senior youth will scoop ice cream to raise money towards their trip to New Orleans.

Happy New Year!

This Sunday, uh, tomorrow, is our young adult worship service. This is our second year offering this service. We will also have a lot of music that will include our youth as well.

The service is titled, Being and Becoming. I am looking forward to hearing what some of our young adults will share during their reflections.

As I thought about it, I think we are always always in that process. No matter what our age, we can change and grow. At some ages it is more transparent than others, like when we're younger. We also all need to learn how to just "be," right here right now. Honestly, I think that's the harder part these days. A lovely book for children and interested adults on this very topic as it relates to our animal pets is, Guardians of Being: Spiritual Teachings from Our Dogs and Cats.

As I reflected on this some more, I realized that what I wanted to share during our story for all ages time is not really a story, but a metaphor, about our relationships to each other. It's called Indra's Web.

Our 6/7 class will meet Sunday to plan for their roles the following Sunday, January 15, in the worship service and Children's Chapel.

The rest of our RE classes and senior youth group will resume for 2012 on January 15!

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.