All in-person Services and Circles canceled until further notice
As we all take precautions for the Covid-19 virus spread, UCOT will be cancelling upcoming live gatherings until further notice. We will conduct live-streaming services on Zoom until further notice. If you are not currently getting the weekly email that contains the necessary Zoom link, please visit our “Contact Us” page and we will add you to our mailing list.
Sunday, August 16—Service: Just What Is Normal, Anyway? 11 a.m. – 12 noon
Rev. Munro Sickafoose
We hear the phrase, “the new normal” a lot these days. But like so many concepts, the idea of normal is a pretty slippery one – one that depends on your perspective. Join me as we slide down that slippery slope together.
Services are currently held on Zoom. Submit our contact form for information about how to join us.
Sunday, August 23—Sharing Circle: Thinking About Class, 11 a.m – 12 noon
Class arrived in America with the first European settlers. The passengers on the Mayflower included about one-third Pilgrims (religious dissenters), one-third gentlemen of the London Adventurers (financial speculators) and one-third indentured servants (street children and orphans drafted as labor from the slums.) Today, the vast majority of Americans tell pollsters they are “middle class,” but almost half are living paycheck to paycheck and could not handle an unexpected expense of $400—the cost of a new set of tires or a trip to the dentist.
While the public is intensely focused on racial tension and healing, less attention is paid to class. Is class defined by education? Income? Pedigree? How does it overlap with race or ethnicity? Does class even exist? Our Sharing Circle on August 23 will be on Zoom, moderated by Gary Kowalski. Submit our contact form for information about how to participate.
Sunday, August 30—5th Sunday: Chautauqua discussion, 11 a.m. – 12 noon
Facilitated by Bob Aubrecht
Planning for the future of UCOT 5th Sundays
On Zoom. Submit our contact form for information about how to join us.
Sunday, September 6—Service: Voyagers, 11 a.m. – 12 noon
Rev. Gary Kowalski
“At a certain season of life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of a house,” says Thoreau. This past summer, the world was again racing toward Mars, with the United States, China and the United Arab Emirates all en route. Is the red planet to be our next colony, with a potato patch and aquifer instead of a beanfield and a pond? Whether or not the latest probes find definitive proof of life, they satisfy a cosmological itch: to feel that we are not only voyagers but homesteaders in the starry realm.
Services are currently held on Zoom. Submit our contact form for information about how to join us.
Sunday, September 13—Sharing Circle: Open-mindedness, 11 a.m. – 12 noon
This is an era of polarity in so many arenas—politics, environmentalism, capitalism, socialism, science, religion, justice, and masking in the time of COVID-19 just for starters. In this atmosphere, it can feel downright dangerous to open one’s mind. We are more inclined to look around for evidence that we are right than open our ears and minds to another’s point of view to see if we can enlarge our capacity for new ways of understanding. Open-mindedness takes into consideration some of our other recent topics—risk and judgment. Try to notice until September 13 occasions in which you intentionally open your mind and those in which you either automatically or intentionally close it. Jot it down so you don’t forget it, then share it with us in the online sharing circle.
Submit our contact form for information about how to join us.
Sunday, September 20—Service: TBA 11 a.m. – 12 noon
Rev. Munro Sickafoose
Services are currently held on Zoom. Submit our contact form for information about how to join us.
Sunday, September 30—Special Presentation: The Natural World, 11 a.m. – 12 noon
Beloved Taos singer-songwriter Becky Reardon and Florida writer/naturalist Susan Cerulean will blend their art forms in lyrical homage to wild birds, and the Earth, with prayer for their continuance.
Susan Cerulean’s I Have Been Assigned the Single Bird: A Daughter’s Memoir (2020) trains a naturalist’s eye and a daughter’s heart on the death of a beloved parent from dementia. At the same time, she explores an activist’s lifelong search to be of service to the embattled natural world, especially to declining wild birds.
Becky Reardon’s songs celebrate and explore our relationship with the natural world and our place in it. Her latest album, Here, reminds us to speak not only for endangered rivers, but for all beings whose flowing is threatened. And her song “Earthly Orphans” is inspired by Albert Camus’ philosophy that in the absence of God, we find our meaning in our common humanity and in loving one another.
This program will be in lieu of a Sharing Circle.
Submit our contact form for information about how to join us.
For more information on Sharing Circles, click here.
To view the 2020 Service and Circle calendar, click here.
