Dear Friends,
Even in troubled times, we can practice gratitude. Last Sunday, we gave thanks and celebrated the success of our capital campaign and the memories and hopes of congregants from the 2013 time capsule. It was a wonderful service and potluck. It is simply so good to be together! I give thanks for you all.
Looking ahead to 2025
As successful as our capital campaign has been, it is typical when a congregation launches a capital campaign for contributions to the annual pledge drive to struggle. The 2025 Pledge campaign stands at about $169,000 with 71 households contributing. Our typical yearly budget approaches $200,000, and we’d love to see another dozen households participating.
Even with trimming every expense, cutting back where possible, and freezing staff salaries, the Board currently anticipates a deficit of twelve thousand dollars or more for the 2025 fiscal year.
If you have made a pledge for 2025, I am very grateful. If you’ve not been able to make a pledge yet or if you’d like to increase your pledge, you can do so by filling out the form you’ll find here and at the bottom of this page. I’m sure the Board and Finance Committee would welcome re-drafting the budget to restore funding to program areas and to express our gratitude for our staff for the ministry they provide to us all. Our shared UU values inspire us to be the best employer we can be. I know you are doing all you can, and I am thankful for all of you.
Looking ahead to this Sunday
This Sunday, Dec 1st, the UU minister, eco-activist and singer-songwriter Fred Small will be in our pulpit sharing his music and stories, and sharing his heart with us. He’s also playing a full show at Caffe Lena Sunday evening! I hope to see you there. Learn more here.
Looking ahead to next week
Next Wednesday, December 4, I’ll be facilitating two opportunities for religious exploration and spiritual centering.
Bright and early at 8:30am is a Braver/Wiser session. Its focus is on spiritual grounding and plumbing Unitarian Universalism for spiritual resilience and inspiration. We make use of the Braver/Wiser reflection and prayer that the UUA sends out every Wednesday. Today’s (Nov 27) offering is “Living Abundantly” by a UU religious educator named Rayla Mattson, and you can find it here. On Wednesday morning, we’ll meet in person in the King Room at the meetinghouse as well as on zoom. Connection info is here.
At 5:30pm, the first Wednesday series I call “Leaning Into Meaning” with gather. In the wake of the election, I’ve been thinking a lot about liberal religion and the strength a liberal faith needs in the face of growing authoritarianism, anti-intellectualism, and the marginalization of people for their perceived race or refusal to abide by an orthodox gender binary.
I’ve been looking in particular at the Unitarian (and later Unitarian Universalist) theologian James Luther Adams. Adams was easily the most influential UU theologian of the 20th century. But I’m also interested in Adams because he developed his understanding of theology and in particular the importance of a liberal theology beginning in the late 1920’s and 1930’s. He developed his thinking about liberal religion in the face of Nazism and fascism. German theologians were the pinnacle of liberal theology, and yet liberal theology as they practiced it seemed to offer little bulwark against fascism.
I’d love having your company in exploring Adams’s ideas together.
As an introduction to James Luther Adams, I suggest listening to a sermon by Rev. Leslie Takahashi. She gave it more than a decade ago, so her context is different than ours today. I would love to wonder together with you about how we might redraft such a sermon for today.
On Wednesday, I’ll share some snippets from JLA’s writings: stories of his time in Germany while fascism was ascendant as well as selections where he questions and explores theological ideas. Please join me! We’ll meet in the King room and on Zoom.
Looking to give thanks
I know that for many of us, navigating a family gathering this week will be difficult. Please take good care of yourselves and maintain the boundaries that will nurture health for you and for your family and friends. Our time of thanksgiving is also a time of thanks-grieving, a term first used by indigenous people of this continent as they defy the mainstream images of our national holiday, and as they defy the forces that continue to oppress native peoples with poverty and prejudice. If you are grieving, I hope that you can feel the loving that is behind that grief. May we remember and honor that loving. May we all have the strength and resilience to act in ways that are loving to all around us and to ourselves. May we be generous with our gratitude. May we all be open to grace.
In the love that holds us all, I give thanks for you.
Rev. Joe
2025 Annual Pledge Campaign form: