The First Church in Belmont

THE UNITARIAN  March 17, 2015

In This Issue
Calendar 

Next Issue: March 24

Deadline: 3 pm March 19

 

March 17                                    

7:30 pm   Program Council-Parlor

7:30 pm   SGM (PS)-Lib

 

March 18                                       

12:00 pm   Belmont UU Alliance-UH

7:30 pm   A Path Appears Planning Committee -  Cl 3

7:30 pm   Prequel to Major Music-PH

7:30 pm   Women's Gr-Lib

7:30 pm   Youth Cte-CR

8:00 pm   Men's Group

 

March 19                                       

6:45 pm   Nova Choir-Sanct

7:00 pm   Sr Choir-PH/S

7:30 pm   Sci&Spirituality-cl5

7:30 pm   SGM (ES)-Lib

8:00 pm   Knitting Circle-cl4


 
March 20                                     

4:00 pm   SGM (CS)-Lib

 

March 21                                       

9:30 am   Morning Travelers (NG)-cl1 & 9

9:30 am   Sr Choir-PH/S

11:00 am   AR reh-Sanctuary

 

March 22                                     

8:30 am   CRE-Library

9:25 am   Sr Choir-PH

12:30 pm   Religion and Violence-Lib

12:30 pm   YG Service Trip Reflections-PH

4:00 pm   Men's Gr-Parlor

4:00 pm   Spiritual Autobiography-cl5

4:30 pm   OWL-Lib

6:00 pm   YAC/YG-Parl/Lib/CR/cl5

 

March 23                                    

9:30 am   Jobseekers-Library

6:30 pm   YouthChrs-S

7:00 pm   SAC-cl5

7:30 pm   Min Prog-CR

8:00 pm   Meditation-Lib

 

March 24                                       

7:30 pm   Breast Cancer Journey-Lib

7:30 pm   Worship Cte-CR

 

Looking Ahead

April 3: Seder  

April 24: Women's Potluck.

The complete church calendar

This Sunday
Music: March 22, 2015

Prelude: Largo
 G. F. Handel (1685-1759)
Alfa Joy Radford, organ
9:00 & 11:00 Duet:
Ariane Frank and son, Valentin Frank
9:00 Youth Choir: With Songs of Rejoicing
J.S. Bach (1685-1750)

9:00 Postlude:
Mary Beekman, organ
11:00 Sr. Choir:
Come Into This Place
Words: William Schulz
Music: Clif Hardin
(contemp. UU composer)
11:00 Postlude: Ripple
Jerry Garcia (20th c.)
Roger Miller & Gerri Strickler, folksingers

 

The flowers are given by Martha Spaulding in joyful celebration of the fourth wedding anniversary of her daughter, Rachel, and son-in-law, Cristiano.
 
Ushers:
 Kurian Thomas, Phil Thayer, and David Warner
  
Welcome & Announcements: Penny Schafer and Anne Donohue
Nominating Committee Seeks Candidates for Church Offices 2015-16
The Nominating Committee is currently in the process of forming a slate of candidates to be voted on at the Annual Meeting on May 17th for the following: Parish Board, Finance Committee and Nominating Committee. We will be filling the Vice President and Trustee-at-Large positions for the Parish Board and two vacancies on the Nominating Committee. Further information is here or e-mail [email protected] .
Nomination are due Monday, March 23.
Caring Connection  

The Caring Connection is a group of Church members and friends who provide support to members of our community who find themselves in some difficulty and need short-term help. Please let us know if you could use some assistance, or know of someone who would benefit from our support. You may fill out a Caring Connection card, available in the hymnal holders and drop it in the collection basket, or contact Laurie Graham at [email protected] or Janice at the Church, 617.484.1054 x201.

Lay Pastoral Care Team 
As members of the lay pastoral care team we are called to be present with you, members and friends, when you wish a compassionate listening ear during times of transition and stress whatever form it might take. We support those who are adjusting to change, loss, illness or death. We share in moments of celebration and happiness. We reach out to those who are unable to get out and who would like a visit. We share in situations that require a special touch of human kindness and an open ear. Please contact us if we might be of help or comfort. We count on the congregation to keep us in touch with pastoral needs of our community.   - Janet Amphlett, Devon Beckett, Nancy Davis, James Hencke, Abby Jacobs, Steve Saar, Martha Spaulding, and Tom Neel

Social Action Corner

ACTION IS OUR PRAYER

Grow Clinic! Grow Clinic!  

Only a couple of weeks left to cap off a great campaign to make this an extra bountiful drive.  Please remember to toss some MAC & CHEESE boxes into your shopping cart this week-leave the boxes in your car -- then bring them to church this Sunday. Think MAC & CHEESE. Thanks so much!

Save the Date!!   

All Church Rummage Sale, Saturday, May 9
The Sale provides critical funds for the Stained-Glass Window Fund (e.g. Tiffany repair and new exterior storm), the Partner Church Committee (travel expenses), and the Social Action Committee (interfaith programs). As you sort and clean out during these cold days, please save your saleable items for donation: 3-season clothing for all, jewelry, household goods, small working electronics, tools, small furniture, books and media, toys, etc. Thanks!

     (Recycle TVs and monitors, computers, and peripherals through the Town of Belmont in April.)


Spring Housecleaning 
At this time of the year we have a lot of activity related to our church annual pledges (thank you!). In order to keep accurate records, we need to know exactly which pledge period your check covers. Our current church year is July 2014 - June 2015, next year's pledge year is 2015-16. Please indicate on your check whether it's for the current church year (2014-15) or prepayment for next year's pledge (2015-16). Many thanks.

UUSC.org

Monthly Unitarian Universalist Service Committee Note

 March 22 is UUSC's Climate Justice Sunday at UU churches throughout the country. To accomplish a few good deeds on behalf of the coming service and the environment, visit UUSC.org/action-center to sign the petitions on fracking and ozone. What could be easier? Then click on "Climate Justice Sunday" in "take action" to read about the blue buckets campaign for water rights, and donate if you are so moved. (See more about the March 22 service elsewhere in this newsletter.)

From the UUA Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministries

Have you heard of Faith Architects? It's a new organization that grew out of our national UU young adult network and their mission is to strengthen the foundation of Unitarian Universalist young adults' religious identities by furnishing tools to build spiritual homes in our faith. Their very first event is in nearby Nashua, NH March 27-29th.  Please encourage young adults in your congregations and communities to get involved!  For more information on this event, visit their website.

 

The Unitarian Newsletter 

Submission Guidelines

 

Please submit articles for the newsletter to Janice Zazinski in the following format: 

- Times New Roman font, 10 point. 

- jpeg for photos

- pdf for attached documents 

- [email protected] for e-mails.  

- avoid phone numbers unless their owners don't mind them being published on the FCB website. 

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First Church Office
:: 617-484-1054
Things To Know This Week
  • Stewardship Update
  • Adult Programs Spring Brochure is here
  • "FIELDS OF BLOOD" March 22

  •  First Church Book Group, March 25

Sunday, March 22

Let Justice Roll Like Waters ...   

Sushma Raman, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee Vice President and Chief Program Officer

Sushma Raman leads the organization's creative and effective approaches to advancing human rights. She has served the Ford Foundation, Open Society Institute, and Southern California Grantmakers (as president) working variously in public policy, fundraising, launching and growing foundations and civil society organizations, and worldwide social justice issues. 

 

9:00 & 11:00 Church Service                           

Childcare for infants and young children

(For weather-related Service and Children RE class cancellations, please check 617.484.1054 x250.)   

 

This week we welcome Sushma Raman. "The sermon will focus on the human right to water and climate justice and will draw in stories of change and hope from UUSC's work with partners around the world: Detroit, where we work with grassroots groups and members to ensure that low-income, elderly, families with young children were being protected during mass water shutoffs; Mexico, which I shared with you last year and I will provide an update on the victories and setbacks; Guatemala, where we are working with indigenous communities to ensure access to safe, clean drinking water; and Tanzania, where we are working with women leaders to ensure the human right to water is enshrined in the constitution and the government's work.  I will also highlight our work with the Blue Buckets campaign and our collaborative work with the UUA and other UU and faith based organizations on C2R."

 

** Next Sunday, March 29**

SPECIAL SPRING MUSIC SERVICE:

Palm Sunday, MARCH 29th, 10:30 a.m.

Please note different Service time!

Franz Josef Haydn - "THE CREATION"

with choir, soloists, and orchestra. 

 

Sermons in text and audio format can be found at uubelmont.org/sermons

Reflections from Rev. David Bryce, Senior MinisterRev. David Bryce

Transitions

 

Change is always difficult, especially change unsought.  (How many times have I said that.)  And we at The First Church In Belmont are undergoing a number of staff changes this year.

There is sadness in saying goodbye to someone we have known for many years. You will read this column after the farewell event for Susan Street, who started in the spring of 1985 and so will have been with us for three full decades. The depth of knowledge she has, the great skills she has, and the easy way in which she gets so much done behind the scenes so that others need not think about it is nearly magical.  It is among the staff where her absence will be most keenly felt. She will be deeply missed.

 

But transition also brings new relationship and new possibilities.  Each change opens up new vistas and visions.

 

As most of you know by now, we do have a new Church Administrator.  Janice Zazinski started with us Monday, March 9, 2015.

This is a new beginning for First Church, one which I am confident will be wonderful in its own way.  Janice brings with her a wealth of talent and knowledge.  I have asked her to introduce herself to you through this column, and so I am giving the rest of my "space" to her for a brief hello.

 

Hello!

I'm thrilled to be your new Church Administrator. I come to you from First Parish in Cambridge, where I was the Assistant to the Congregational Administrator. I also worked in public relations for many years at MIT, Boston University, a major NYC agency, and a private nonprofit in Boston. Coffee and tea fans among you may recognize me as the manager of Peet's Coffee in Lexington and Harvard Square, where I worked for eight years.

     I live in East Arlington with my fiance, Rob Kinslow (a marketing guru by day, an MDiv candidate at Andover Newton by night), his sons Danny and Jay, and our rescue puppy, Daisy. I'm a longtime vegetarian, do crochet, play ukulele, and ride my bike for fun, and am also a Certified Small Animal Massage therapist with my own (extremely part-time) practice.

     Please come by and introduce yourself! I'll be in the office from 8 - 4 on Mondays, and 8:30 - 4:30 the rest of the week. You can reach me at [email protected]. Hope to meet you soon!

Alfa Radford Music Notes from Alfa Radford

ROSES to the Nova and Sr. Choirs for their beautiful music last Sunday.

 

SPECIAL SPRING MUSIC SERVICE:

Palm Sunday, MARCH 29th, 10:30 a.m.

Please note different Service time!

Franz Josef Haydn -"THE CREATION"

with choir, soloists, and orchestra.

"CREATION" CHOIR SCHEDULE:

Thurs Mar 19th 7pm S/A sec'l; All 7:30-9:30

Sat, March 21st 9:30 am T/B sec'l; All 10 - 12

Thurs March 26th 7 pm Soloists (TBD)

Sat, March 28th 9:15am Choir (w. Orch)

Sun, March 29th Choir Call 8:15 am warmup/rev:

Service 10:30 am. 

FUTURE DATES for CHOIR PARENTS' CALENDARS:

Chancel Choir (Gr.5-6) sings at 9am Serv. May 10

Youth Choir (Gr.7-up) sings 11am March 22 & May 10

Jr. & Chancel Choirs sing on June 14th

Joy and Blessings-Alfa

 

Stewardship Update

THANK YOU to all parishioners who have responded promptly to the call for pledges to support the church's 2015-16 operations. Later this week, the Stewardship Committee will communicate the results to date from this year's March Stewardship Drive. We will also be reaching out to all parishioners from whom we have not yet heard as we strive to reach our $605,000 pledge target. If you have not yet made your pledge, please respond thoughtfully and promptly, and in any case no later thanMarch 31. To make your pledge:

Our church's operations depend overwhelmingly on annual pledge commitments from current members and friends. We can continue to thrive, and to offer the rich and broad range of programs and services that today's parishioners demand, only if we all join together by offering generous annual increases consistent with our pledging guidelines. Thank you for your consideration and your generosity. Questions? Contact us at [email protected] or call the church office. - The Stewardship Committee (Roger Read, Chair)

Congratulations! Nanny & Eric Almquist happily announce the birth of their first grandchild, Julian Wolf Almquist, born February 11, 2015, to Adam and Jenny Almquist, in Santa Rosa, California. Julian weighed 9 lbs. and 2.9 oz and was 21 1/2" long.

Children's Religious Education: It Takes a Congregation

Last month I joined the Nashoba Valley Chorale. Two things motivated me to do this. First, I've wanted to sing more regularly. Second, Carmina Burana. They, we are singing Carmina Burana by Carl Orff! I remember the first time I ever listened to a recording of it. I was blown away. I've always thought I'd like to sing it, but little did I know just how complex it is. And I had no idea about its origins either: the text is from a medieval (circa 13th c.) manuscript of secular satire (songs, poems and prose) written by reform-minded clergy/students, and found in a Bavarian monastery in 1803.

 

Also on the program for the concert will be a piece by Ola Gjeilo "Dark Night of the Soul" - a setting of the poem by Saint John of the Cross, a 16th c. Spanish mystic, about the stages of the soul's growth and transformation.

 

Both pieces are incredibly moving to me. Profane and sacred writings. But are they really not two sides of the same coin? Is it really possible to tease them apart? More and more, I think we are returning to an understanding that the secular and sacred are not separate ends of a dualistic reality that we live amidst. They are, instead, a finely woven fabric, each giving color and texture to the other.

 

The concert program will also include a children's choir. I love that all three of these are on one program: children's songs, the profane (Carmina Burana) and the sacred (Dark Night). Children have not yet learned to separate the sacred from the profane. The perception and perspective that children bring to adult lives is illuminating. I find that children, and those with a child-like sense of wonder, have a way of flipping on its head many of the concepts that adults have grown attached to. The presence of children and our engagement with them teach us to be open to Spirit wherever, whenever, and however it decides to show up.

 

Where does the sacred show up in your life? When does the ordinary and mundane take on meaning? How can the profane be made profound? What have you learned from the children in your lives?

 

~ Charlotte

 

Highlights from Our Religious Education Wing

Pre-school and kindergarten classes continue to explore the joys of being together. Eleanor Sugarman and Kate Searle will be leading these children in Spirit Play beginning in mid-April. CRE needs adult volunteers to assist Eleanor and Kate for those ten weeks.

 

During the month of March, children in grades 1-6 are exploring poverty through topics such as the basic human needs for and rights to food, shelter, and water, through understanding hunger, homelessness, and water and climate justice. They are learning about sharing our resources and making a difference in the lives of others. CRE still needs the help of many adult volunteers to teach classes between now and the end of the year.

 

Neighboring Faiths (grade 7) has three faith communities visits left on their schedule for this year. The kids learn, visit, and process their experience; so each faith tradition requires at least three weeks of study. Additionally, they explore ethical questions on some Sundays through the use of popular movies. Donna Ruvolo is also looking for more volunteers to help with this CRE class, which meets at 11 o'clock.

 

If you'd like to volunteer in any of the CRE classes, please send e-mail to Wendy and me (see e-mail addresses below).

 

Our OWL programs are very popular; nearly 50 kids are signed up this spring. If you are interested in being a trained OWL facilitator next year or the year after, please let Wendy Conroy ([email protected]) know now so CRE can send you to a UUA-sponsored training this summer or fall. ~ Charlotte Lehmann, Acting Director of Children's Religious Education

 

Office hours (generally): Sundays 8 am-1pm, and Tues/Weds/Thurs 10am-6pm. E-mail: [email protected].

ALLIANCE LUNCH & PROGRAM AT FIRST CHURCH

Wed, March 18, 12:00 Noon - All Women and Men Welcome!

The Alliance lunch and program will be here at The First Church in Belmont. The Alliance lunch begins at 12:00 and the program at 1:00pm. Our program will be a talk by Gladys Unger about her trip to Turkey last year. All men and women are invited to join us.To help us prepare and set up for the number of attendees, please call Susan Street, 617.484.1054 x201 and let her know that you will attend and also the number of guests you will bring. Bring your own sandwich; we will provide soup, beverage, and dessert. Suggested lunch donation $1/pp.

The Adult Programs Spring Brochure is here!

 

Prequel to Major Music

Ian Garvie

Wednesday, March 18, 7:30 pm, Parish Hall

Inspired by The Messiah during his second London visit, Haydn vowed to compose his own oratorio. Based largely on Paradise Lost, "The Creation" is a masterpiece of the form, both luminous and powerful.

 

Science and Spirituality

Ken Bernstein and Edwin Taylor

Thursday, March 19, 7:30 pm, Classroom #5

Rick Eastwick will continue our discussion of E. O. Wilson's book The Meaning of Human Existence, examining three chapters: Chapter 4. The New Enlightenment, Chapter 5. The All-

Importance of the Humanities, Chapter 10. A Portrait of ET.

 

"Fields of Blood" - The relationship between Religion and Violence

Doris Hunter and Edwin Taylor

Sunday, March 22, 12:30 pm, Library

Karen Armstrong's book "Fields of Blood" notes that not until the 1700s was religion ejected from political life in the West. John Locke believed that the separation of church and state was the key to peace." Modern wars have proved him wrong too. What is the source of the evil of war? Doris and Edwin will start our discussion. Refreshments served.

 

First Church Book Group, Karl Klasson and Anne Stuart

Wednesday, March 25, 7:30 pm, Library

The First Church Book Group will discuss James Howard Kuntsler's dystopian novel World Made by Hand. Kunstler has written nonfiction books describing the potential dire results of climate change and the decline of oil production, and in World Made by Hand he explores the deterioration of civilization that could be brought on by these changes. After roads crumble and other infrastructure is lost, people return to raising their own food, crafting what they need, and depending on horses for transportation. The Book Group is always open to new members and does not require a commitment to attend future meetings. Please contact Anne Stuart at [email protected] if you are interested in participating or would like to be on their mailing list.

 

The Breast Cancer Journey, Melanie Deveikas

Tuesday, March 24, 7:30 pm, Library

An educational series focusing on life & wellness during and after breast cancer treatment. Melanie Deveikas, PT, MHA is a physical therapy graduate of the University of Vermont. For more information or to sign up please contact Melanie at [email protected].

 

The Wi$dom Path, Tom Neel and Martha Read

Thursday, March 26, 7:30 pm, Library

The Wi$dom Path is for adults, and it is about money. Some of our topics will include 1) The Meaning of Money in Our Lives: consider how childhood & family values influence us. 2)What cultural teachings about money do we share, and what is unique to the individual? All are welcome. For more information contact Tom at [email protected].

 

Facilitator's Training and Group Skills, Rev. David Bryce and Lillian Anderson

Tuesdays, March 31 and April 7, 7:30 pm, Library

In many types of group situations, especially where people express differing views, good facilitation can make a difference in the success of the experience for everyone. Perhaps you have been eager to try to facilitate a group or lead a project but don't feel you have the necessary skills. This two part workshop will examine aspects of facilitation, how facilitation is different in a church setting, as well as how to participate and communicate effectively in a group. We will also identify problems that occur in group situations and discover effective ways to handle them.

FIRST CHURCH SEDER

Friday, April 3, 6:00pm

Please join us in a simplified Haggadah (readings and blessings) and meal in celebration of Passover. A Passover Seder is a retelling and celebration of the story of Exodus and reminds us all of ongoing global struggles for freedom. We are hosting a potluck Seder on Friday, April 3 at 6pm in the Parish Hall. This is a very kid-friendly (and delicious) event. We ask $3 child, $5 adult, $12 family donation, and we are looking for help with set up and clean up. We have recipes for traditional dishes. Please RSVP to Eleanor Sugarman, [email protected] or look for the sign up at coffee hour.