Rev. Addae Kraba holds office hours in the Fellowship on Tuesday and Thursday each week from 10 AM to 2 PM, or by appointment if necessary.
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The Board of Trustees appointed Larry Miller to be Vice-President of the Fellowship at the board meeting Sunday, June 12. Congratulations, Larry, and thanks for your willingness to serve our beloved community.
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| Children's Religious Education Update |
Our Children's Religious Education (CRE) program is divided into two groups by age. In CRE, which meets each Sunday at 11 AM, we challenge our children with interactive studies about religion and science.
The nursery group topics change according to individuals who attend and cannot be listed in advance, but they fall under the curriculum Celebrating Me and My World.
During June, the elementary students will be learning about:
June 19: Fathers June 26: Our Solar System (continues)
Contact: Tori Saker or Lydia Miller
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 For Children's Moment (11 AM Service only)
Amy Taylor needs volunteers to lead Children's Moment sometime in the upcoming year. If you are willing, contact Amy soon. Linda Jackson is covering June 12; other Sunday slots are open and waiting for you.
For Assistance with Children's Religious Education (11 AM Sundays)
Sarah Brown needs volunteers to help with CRE. Currently, she has the monthly schedule as follows:
1st Sunday: Laura Sheehy
2nd Sunday: Available
3rd Sunday: Wendy Hearn
4th Sunday: Jeanette Springer
5th Sunday (July & Oct.): Available
You can arrange to help on repeating Sundays. Just let Sarah know when and how often.
And do welcome the new Co-Chairs of the Children
Program Committee: Tori Saker and Lydia Miller.
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NEED HELP for Pride Weekend
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There is a sign-up sheet on bulletin board by the kitchen. Here is what is needed in the way of volunteers for June 24 & 26.
Friday Night (film screening): 2 Food Servers, 4 Beverage Servers, 1 ID Checker,
2 Merchandise Sales People.
Sunday: Set up early at Memorial Park - Need 6 people (tables & chairs from Fellowship)
Working Booth in shifts - Need 6 People
Take down booth at 6 PM - Need 6 People
(Recycling is already handled!)
If you have already put your name on the sign-up sheet, we will let you know what your job will be before Friday the 24th. If you haven't signed up, please contact the office or put your name on the board this coming Sunday, letting us know if there is a particular job you would prefer.
Thanks everybody for all you do for AUUF!
Contact: Yvonne Moore
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Interfaith Community Memorial Service
for Orlando Victims
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A standing-room-only crowd gathered at the Fellowship Wednesday night at an Interfaith Community Memorial Service for the victims of the Orlando massacre. Lit candles focused attention on slides of each person killed in the Pulse nightclub by Mateen. Representatives of several faiths spoke words of consolation and numerous musicians performed. Martha Baird served as the emcee at the vigil sponsored by the Amarillo Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.
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 I am deeply saddened by the recent tragic event that occurred in Orlando, Florida. I send prayers of condolence and healing love and light for strength to the families and friends of everyone who suffered and died in such a senseless act. Amarillo Unitarian Universalist Fellowship is a Welcoming Congregation, filled with loving people, so I know that I speak for everyone when I say to our LGBTQ sisters and brothers that we love and support you, because you are worthy. From My Heart to Yours,
Rev. Addae Kraba
Minister
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 All Things Artful
Saturday, June 18,
5 - 8 PM at Galleries at Sunset Center
The annual fundraiser for the Amarillo Art Institute, All Things Artful, is tomorrow! We hope you will join in supporting this organization while also having fun.
Watch art demonstrations by instructors Emin Abbasov, Vance McSwain, Michael Longhofer, Nannette Womack, and Pam Allison as well as by guest artists Ann Crouch and Mike LaFleur.
Shop local art from Hawk Landing Studio, Canyon Rim Pottery, M Street Studio, and many others. Place your bids at the silent auction featuring artwork from our students, instructors, and artists from the Galleries at Sunset Center (Nina Stein has a couple of pieces in the auction).
Indulge in pizza from 575 Pizzeria, craft beer, and homemade ice cream that comes in a handmade bowl you can keep! Enjoy all of this while relaxing to music by bluegrass band the Boxcar Bandits and supporting programming of the Amarillo Art Institute.
Tickets are available for $40 and can be purchased at the gate or click here to purchase online.
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Newsletter and Website Submissions
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As always, we are eager to publish information regarding committees, boards, Adult RE, CRE, events, and services, but we need your help. The website and Facebook page can be updated daily, but the newsletter cannot. New information needs to be submitted (submissions@uuamarillo.org) by noon Wednesday if you want it to appear in the Friday morning newsletter. If you need an event placed on the website calendar, you may submit that request with description, image (or we can provide one), starting and approximate ending time, specific location, date (or dates for a recurring event), and name of contact person. Help us help you get your message out in a timely manner.
PLEASE, EVERYONE CAN MAKE ALL THESE COMMUNICATIONS MORE EFFECTIVE BY READING THEM EACH WEEK--ESPECIALLY THE WEBSITE AND NEWSLETTER!
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In addition to the events described in this newsletter, you can find a complete listing by clicking on the Calendar icon above.
Want more detail? Check both the News and the Events sections of our website, uuamarillo.orgAlso on our website, you can learn more about our Fellowship and our faith, Unitarian Universalism.
All events are held at the Fellowship, 4901 Cornell St., unless otherwise noted.
If you are unsure how to reach any of the individuals named as contacts, please email the AUUF office or call our Office Administrator, April Myers, at 806.355.9351 and leave a message. She will return your call during her office hours, which are Tuesday - Friday from 9 AM to noon.
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Sunday Worship - 9:30 and 11 AM
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Claudia Stravato and Jerry Stein speak on Is There No Place to Honor Him? How the memorial of Bishop Leroy Mathiesen and the Madre de Mundo statue got to the front patio of the Fellowship.
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June 26, 2016
Keralee Clay speaks on Parenting Beyond Belief, navigating religion and beliefs with love.
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July 3, 2016
Rev. Addae Kraba speaks on Roots Hold Me Close, Wings Set Me Free. Unitarian Universalism is grounded in the claiming of community that embraces each other in our varied stages toward a grander vision of a just and compassionate world. It's not an epitaph, but a challenge to church life that needs to be met. It's an ever-growing and ever-changing living tradition.
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Adult Religious Education
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 Please join us at 10 AM each Sunday.
We are rotating three subjects. Each covers a different aspect of Adult Religious Education. All are welcome. No advance reading is necessary and no test will be given.
June 19: Lesson 5 of My Favorite Universe. " End of The World."
June 26: Lesson 15 of Natural Law. "Natural Law and the Founding Fathers."
Contact: John Gay
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Honor the Fathers
Rev. Addae A. Kraba
Let us honor those fathers who manage to balance the demands of work, marriage, and children with an honest awareness of joy and sacrifice,
Let us honor those fathers who without a role model, somehow became a good father,
Let us honor those fathers who have remained in their children's lives, despite divorce,
Let us honor those fathers who by their own account were not always there for their children, but who offer love and support to them as adults,
Let us honor those fathers whose children are adopted, and received healing from their love and support,
Let us honor those fathers who freely choose the obligation of fatherhood,
Let us honor those men who have "fathered" in their role as mentors and guides,
Let us honor those fathers who have lost a child to death, and continue to hold them in their hearts,
And let us honor those fathers who have died, but live on in our memory and whose love continues to nurture us.
©2016
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Climate Control Call-In to Congress
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 June 20
Congress needs to hear from citizens that we want them to take action on climate change. On June 21st, hundreds of citizens from across the nation will be meeting with members of Congress in DC to push for a revenue-neutral carbon fee.
Call your legislators on Monday, June 20th to amplify our voices and help move Congress a step closer to legislation that addresses climate change. Visit this website to log your call (and get the phone numbers and a prompt on what to say)
Time and again we hear from members of Congress that they don't hear enough from their constituents that climate change matters to them. Calling your Senators and Representative will help create the political will needed to solve global warming. Even a dozen calls to a congressional office have been shown to make a difference.
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Women's Simply Salad & Soup Fellowship
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Wednesday, June 22, 6:30 PM
Our women's group meets every 2nd and 4th Wednesday for good food and great conversation. The meetings on 2nd Wednesdays are at the Fellowship-potluck style. On the 4th Wednesdays, the women meet at a different restaurant each month.
Contact: Ann Benedetti
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 Wednesday, June 22, 6:30 PM
Every 4th Wednesday of each month the Men's Brotherhood meets from 6:30-8:00 PM in Chandler Hall. This covenant group provides men a private place for discussing feelings, for developing the trust to share without judgment in a confidential and safe environment, for permitting open discussion of concerns and receipt of the collective wisdom of others who have dealt with similar problems, and for finding ways to use new insights to improve one's everyday life.
Contact: Rick Todd
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Pride Film: The Danish Girl
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 Friday, June 24, 7:00 PM
The Danish Girl is a biographical romantic drama film loosely inspired by the lives of Danish painters Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener. Lili Elbe was one of the first known recipients of a sex change surgery. The two lead roles have won acclaim for the actors, Eddie Redmayne as Lili and Alicia Vikander as Gerda. Redmayne was nominated for Best Actor and Vikander won Best Supporting Actress in this film. Critical reviews have generally been positive despite some historical inaccuracies in the film, excused by the director as creative license. No one argues that the acting and the photography are anything less than splendid. The film is powerfully emotional in its impact, but probably not appropriate for children.
The doors will open at 6:30 PM Friday June 24 and various refreshments will be available. The film will begin close to 7:00 PM and will be followed by a discussion led by Sandra Dunn, a transgender woman from our community.
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Tuesday, June 28, 7:00 PM
The 2015 Amazon Best Book of the Year, the read for June is Lauren Groff's novel, Fates and Furies. "Lauren Groff is a writer of rare gifts, and Fates and Furies is an unabashedly ambitious novel that delivers - with comedy, tragedy, well-deployed erudition and unmistakable glimmers of brilliance throughout." -The New York Times Book Review (cover review).
The discussion will be led by Dr. Dick Moseley on the fourth Tuesday of June.
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Two 4-day weeks, July 24 - Aug 4, 9-11 AM
Free reading and writing camp for kids 8-12 years old. Participants receive individual tutoring in the camp planned and supervised by a Texas certified teacher and reading specialist. Free lunch is included. For more information call Linda Jackson at 806.336.3312 or read more HERE.
The camp is sponsored by Amarillo Unitarian Universalist Fellowship and St. Andrew's Episcopal Church.
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Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Communicating (2013).
With his usual clarity and conciseness, Thich Nhat Hanh examines the effectiveness of communicating to others through mindfulness and compassion. He includes in his study all forms of communication, not just writing or texting. This would be a great textbook for improving one's communication skills, especially with a friend, relative, or lover.
Recommendation level:
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Open Letter to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer-identified Unitarian Universalists
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 Today, we are a people in mourning - mourning not from natural causes but from an unnatural act of hatred directed against us. We hear the horrors of what happened at Pulse in Orlando and it cuts into us like a hot blade. Suddenly our world, which, with the tremendous gains we have made in recent years, had begun to feel a little safer, is ripped open, bleeding and raw, once again.
We hear the words of US Attorney General Loretta Lynch, just last month, when she addressed the transgender community by saying, "no matter how isolated or scared you may feel today, the Department of Justice and the entire Obama Administration wants you to know that we see you; we stand with you; and we will do everything we can to protect you going forward," and those words ring hollow today. "You can't protect us," we scream! Not when hatred and division are the order of the day.
It is times like this when retreating into the safe place inside ourselves beckons. We long for security, for safety, for peace. And many of us have learned that the sanctuary of a dark closet with a locked door offers the safety we seek. So we stop reaching for our lover's hand as we walk down the street. We scrape the rainbow sticker off our car. We seek shelter in our welcoming congregations but don't lift our voices too loudly. We opt for the thousand little cuts that slash our souls instead of the bullets that rip open our hearts.
For others of us, we defiantly fly our rainbow flag and dare anyone to mess with us. For many anger turns to rage directed at a perceived enemy, in this case, Muslims, and, in countless other cases, Christians. We want to fix what allowed this to happen. We assert the need for gun control. We demand that the government do a better job of tracking and shutting down the terrorists among us. We blame the politicians, the trolls on social media, each other.
And still there are others of our community who feel so overwhelmed by grief, so devastated by this senseless attack, that we find ourselves immobilized -- unable to cry, unable to act, unable to love.
If you're like me, you have traversed the full range of these emotions in the last thirty-six hours. You have felt the urge to hide, to strike out, to give up. Whatever your response today, know this. We are an intrepid people, a people whose only demands are that we're free to be ourselves and to love who we love.
It is because we love so well that we hurt so profoundly. Love is our gift to the world.
Let your love shine through today.
Start this with loving yourself.
Start with believing, with knowing, that it is only by loving ourselves that others love us in return, and that when others love us in return, the world shifts on its axis.
We've seen this so many times before. It was only a year ago this month when we celebrated our legal right to love, something that most of us never believed would happen in our lifetimes. And it wouldn't have happened without the thousands upon thousands of Unitarian Universalists who harnessed love's power to end oppression by standing on the side of love. Love is our theology. Love is our spiritual practice.
It's OK not to be brave today. It's OK to let your heart be heavy, to let yourself cry, to wallow in your pain. It's OK to be angry and, perhaps even for a moment, to cast blame where blame does not rightfully belong.
But then, when you've cried all the tears you have inside you, when the rage has washed through you, I entreat you to reach out to a friend and help them empty their well of tears, tear down the wall of rage inside of them.
When the two of you have fortified each other, then reach out to someone else.
Eventually, one by one, two by two, community by community, we will restore our wholeness and regain our beautiful audacity. I believe that as deeply as I feel the pain that sears my heart today.
We will not forget Pulse, as we have not forgotten Stonewall. In the years to come, it will motivate us to transform violence into peace, hatred into love. And someday, we'll find ourselves in the place we have created through our love and courage, that place over the rainbow.
With love,
Annette Marquis
LGBTQ and Multicultural Programs Director, Multicultural Growth and Witness, UUA
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 June, 2016
We live in a world where there are routines for nearly everything. We take the same route to work, to the gym where the physical fitness regimen is the same, and many times we prepare the same meals week after week. And this is not a bad thing, because there has been a ritual developed. But it's amazing to me how many people forget, or ignore, or are oblivious to creating a routine for meeting their spiritual needs. In our efforts to be as productive as possible, we rush around in an attempt to meet our many obligations, and arrive at our appointments on time. However, our spiritual nurturing takes a backseat. "I don't have time to meditate, I don't have to journal"? These are the routines that can be factored into your day just as breakfast, lunch and dinner. But then again I've often heard some of my good friends and colleagues say that they're too busy to eat lunch. How silly is that? As if the body will continue to function at its maximum without proper nourishment.
Our spiritual body requires the same attention. Nurturing ourselves spiritually is what provides the energy and grounding that's needed to keep our lives on track. This kind of routine grounds the spirit in the body so that we remain anchored in ourselves as we move through each day. How you choose to nurture yourself spiritually is a personal choice. For some people meditation or prayer once or twice daily may be what they need to remain centered. Repeating affirmations for happiness and well-being throughout the day can help you live with optimism and enthusiasm. Meditation or just sitting in silence indoors or out might be just the right thing. No matter what form it takes, having a routine for nurturing your spirit takes an unexpected turn into a difficult period of life, but allows you to not only stay on track in your life, but your life to stay on track with you.
Heart to Heart,
Rev. Addae
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