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Unity Spiritual Life Center
November 20, 2013 ~ Weekly Update
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MISSION
To be a center of positive, practical, progressive Christianity devoted to helping people awaken to the Spirit within and to inspire one another into a grater experience of God and life through prayer, meditation, education, and service to others.
VISION
To create a loving and engaged Unity Truth Community that transforms the spiritual consciousness of the planet...one thought, one word, one action at a time.
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Sunday, November 24, 2013, 10:30 am
GRATITUDE SUNDAY
LESSON FOR TODAY: The Law of Thanksgiving
When I live from a grateful
heart in all circumstances, I stay aligned with the Divine flow of Spirit through
me. Is it possible to always live gratefully...even when there is tragedy, disease,
and misfortune all around me?
SPECIAL MUSIC: Jewelsong
Whatever image you might have of a four-women choral group, put is aside. Jewelsong will blow you away. Their harmony, their lyrics, their stage presence, their music is a guaranteed journey into a more peaceful you! Jewelsong is an eclectic women's vocal ensemble who share the joy of music through inspirational songs from many different spiritual traditions. Betsy Bickel, Farrunnissa Lila Rosa, Marilyn Grubbs, and Sofianna Sue-Anne Solem have been musicians most of their lives and have been singing together since 2002.
They sing regularly at faith gatherings around the Triangle, at the Carrboro Music Festival, and have performed at the NC State Green Party Convention, the NC Dennis Kucinich rally, the "Surrounded By Light" benefit concert for Mark Malachi at the Carrboro ArtsCenter, and as part of the area-wide "Art and the Feminine Divine" project. Jewelsong was honored to be the featured guest artists at the "Passion of the Mother" ArtShine grand opening in 2004. They have composed and/or arranged most of their songs.
Childcare provided for the service.
MEET & GREET follows the service ~
spend time munching and mingling,
as you greet old friends and meet new ones!
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PAULA'S PERSPECTIVE
STEPPING OUT OF LINE
"Not all who wander are lost." Gordon Livingston, Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart
Have you ever felt lost? It may seem like you are just not fitting in or things around you are moving forward but you are just kind of meandering. So much progress can be achieved by moving in a straight line...towards some goal...with purpose and clarity. But right now, well, that may not be where you are. This moving in a straight line way of living...is it necessary to feel fulfilled?
If we have defined who we are by achievements, awards and getting ahead...it may feel very uncomfortable to meander. Our discomfort might be because we think about wandering or meandering as being lost....and being lost, having no direction is wasting precious time. But as Gordon notes, not all who wander are lost.
Finding our self without a plan or purpose doesn't mean we stop living...it could mean that a pause is in order...that something is about to be birthed in us that needs some time to organize itself. We might view this time as stepping out of line to regroup, to engage in self-care, to remember what it feels like to slow down and breathe. Time to wander allows us to be aware of the present moment, to look around, to open up, to appreciate, to be grateful, to sit still...it allows us to see what might have been whizzing right by.
Be gentle with yourself when you find that you are wandering or meandering. Choose to know that there is a new possibility rising in you...one that requires stepping out of line. Choose to believe that a new possibility for a greater understanding or a new idea or profound shift is about to be realized. Decide to be okay...in fact, secure...being right where you are.
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Silent Meditation: 9:30-10am Sunday
First Friday of every month: 7-8:30pm - Fun First Friday
SPECIAL EVENTS
MARK YOUR CALENDARS
WEDNESDAYS - The Christmas Choir will be practicing at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesdays through mid December. Share the gift of your voice at USLC over this holiday season. Choir will be singing on Sundays in December (1, 8, 15 and 22) and Christmas Eve at 7:00 p.m. Open up and show up...be active in service!
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 24TH -Thanksgiving Potluck following the service. Come
celebrate our blessings! Two turkeys are already offered. Please sign up to bring a favorite Thanksgiving goodie. Consider volunteering to help our Hospitality Team with this event. Be active in service! Sign up sheet is on table. Many thanks! All are welcome.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 24TH - Gratitude Service at 5:00 p.m. Join Rev. Paula...participate in a circle of gratitude. An opening prayer and meditation will be followed by an opportunity for you to share your gratitude in our circle. A powerful way to practice being in the flow and holding sacred space for wholeness, abundance, and peace.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26TH - Final Spiritual Economics Class.
PRAYER AND HEALING MINISTRY SCHEDULE...Fillmore Chapel. The Prayer and Healing Ministry will be offering bi-monthly gatherings for all who are interested. We will be meeting in the Fillmore Chapel on the first Sunday of a month (after service) and the third Monday of a month at 7:00 p.m. The hour includes time for healing prayer and a guided meditation with the opportunity for a brief hands-on healing. Very relaxing and uplifting. Next gathering: Sunday, December 1st at 2pm. Come join us!
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6TH - Festive First Friday, 7:00 - 8:30 p.m. - Come and gather with your USLC family for our annual tree trimming party. Sing carols while sipping hot cocoa. Bring your favorite Christmas cookies to share, bring an ornament for the tree and bring a friend to share in the Christmas cheer. We'll also spread the joy by creating Christmas cards for a local nursing home. Just the thing to get you into the holiday spirit! Come one, come all, children of all ages welcome!! Let's build community.
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How is it possible for 69 billion people to claim all the same thing and never get it? Wayne Dyer
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WOW!
GOD BE...
God be in my head
and in my understanding;
God be in my eyes
and in my looking;
God be in my mouth
and in my speaking;
God be in my heart
and in my thinking;
God be in my end
and in my departing.
Amen
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| Sundays:
9:30
Silent Meditation
Fillmore Chapel
10:30
Celebration Service & YOU/Uniteen classes
(Childcare available) | | |
Directions: Exit 175 off of I-85. Turn NORTH on Guess Road; Turn right onto Carver Street. Go approximately half a block; USLC is located in the small business park on your left. |
Opportunities to Serve at USLC
Sunday Service Ministry
Co-directors Rev Paula and Renee Piere. This ministry takes on the responsibility for an exciting and inclusive experience for all who attend Sunday Services. Most team members arrive at least 20 minutes before the start of the service and some stay after everyone is gone to put our space back in order.
* Hospitality Team: Sets up coffee, tea, refreshments, and snacks and puts hospitality area and kitchen back in order at the end of fellowship time.
* Collection Counting Team: Two members count the Sunday collection and fill out the forms necessary for accurately recording tithes and love offerings.
* Greeter/Usher Team: Greets visitors and members, hands out bulletin, and collects the offering during the service.
* Sound Team: Sets up microphones, checks sound with musicians, provides sound control during the service, records service ,and provides CD's for purchase after the service.
* Worship Assistant Team: Reads announcements, provides inspirational reading, and hands out welcome packets.
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USLC Kroger Cards!
Please consider a USLC Kroger gift card for yourself or for gift giving! They are a great way to say "thank you" to a teacher, neighbor, or family member, to give to a needy family you may know, or to donate to a local shelter.
To get USLC Kroger gift cards, contact Carla Garcia to order them and they will be available within a few short days. As always, you can purchase them for an initial startup amount of $5.00 and load any additional amount you would like at your local Kroger store.
It's easy gift giving and a great way to support USLC for no additional cost to you!
Please remember to recharge your Kroger card each month so we can reach our $5,000.00 goal in order to be eligible for our 5% bonus.
Questions? Want to get a card? See Carla Garcia!
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COMMUNITY ZONE
USLC WISH LIST
Lifetime 6 foot Commercial Grade Folding Table - Item 849863 (Model 22901) at Sam's Club: $80
Kenmore Progressive Vacuum Cleaner (Model 31069) $200
If you wish to make a monetary contribution to support these requests, please place your offering in an envelope with your name and VACUUM or TABLE on the label. When we have enough funds, we will purchase. Please consider this opportunity in addition to your regular Sunday tithe or love offering.
Offerings to Date: $50
KEEPING UP: What's happening in your neighborhood? Are you traveling, hosting visiting friends or relatives, having a yard sale, announcements, other activites? Send your information to rodgers.jean@gmail.com by Tuesday of each week.
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FEATURE ARTICLE
LIFE IS MORE THAN WE SETTLE FOR
Life is more than we settle for. There is a higher reality. There is a power beyond what we ordinarily believe to be our own; beyond what we ordinarily believe to be operating.
This power is accessible. At times we all touch it-or let it touch us.
The power that faith connects us with is not really an extraordinary power, for it works continually in expected ways; only we accept these daily manifestations matter of factly, as if ordinary things were not just as strange and wonderful as extraordinary things are. Everything there is-atoms, comets, snow, alligators, grass, rocket ships, birth, growth, life, the functioning of our body, the movement of the stars-is the result of this power.
This power is flying as thought through our mind. It is stirring as love through our heart.
But occasionally it does show itself, not in these daily happenings we have lost the power to feel amazement at, but in some unlooked-for way.
...life is a wonder and a mystery, the spilling-over, ever-flowing joying of an unspeakable power!
The world is the work of God, and everything in it is the work of God.
When we think and feel this to be true, our world has to become the kind of world that is the only kind of world love and intelligence can create. The world has the shape of intelligence, oh round
and reasonable globe! The world has the shape of love, oh infinitely varied loveliness!
What made the man Jesus different from the rest of us is that he never doubted for a moment that the world is made by love and intelligence-no, not when he saw men mistreating one another, not even when they scourged and crucified him. He saw that the world is something more than
it seems to be to our less than loving gaze. He saw that the hatred and the cruelty and the pain are not the truth about it. He saw a meaning that eludes us, a vision of a truth more glorious than any our eyes can see-except perhaps for moments or in glimpses.
But these moments and these glimpses are faith. To have faith is to see beyond all false appearances to the truth of goodness.
The good is there, whether we have the faith to think and feel through to it or not. The world is the work of a goodness beyond even our power to imagine what such goodness is.
O God, sometimes I sense how great You are! But I have no words. I do not even have thoughts. Did I call You love? It is
Did I call You intelligence? It falls an infinity short.
Yet I listen, and from time to time I think I catch a word. I yearn, and there are times when I think I have almost touched the hem of the robe of reality.
The world is the imagining of a mind beyond my mind's imagining. The world is the upwelling of a heart past even my heart's power to dream. Yet in the image of this mind
beyond mind and of this heart beyond heart, I, too, am made! In me I have a power to be-yet more than I have ever dreamed or hoped or believed I might become.
Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." What truth? Any truth? The truth about the universe. The truth about yourself. The truth about God. We learn the truth about gravitation. And oh, amazing World! Gravitation is what binds men to the earth. But when they learn the truth about it, they fly! I learn the truth about
my emotions. I see that I am driven by hates and fears I did not even know I had. But when I come to understand them, I use the very energy they generate to build my world of love.
I am a child of God. This is the truth about me. When I come to think and feel this truth; when I come to believe it clear through, with my mind and my heart, my reason and my hope; when I know it not as a glimpse of something longed for but as the very substance and reality of that I am-then my world will have taken on the shape love and intelligence gave it when love and intelligence made it and "saw that it was good." I am the child of God. I am the child of love. I am the child of intelligence. I am the child of life. "Beloved, we are God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that ... we shall be like him."
James Dillet Freeman (1912-2003), excerpt from
The Hilltop Heart. Freeman was a well-known poet and served as Director of Unity's ministerial program and also Silent Unity.
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MINISTRIES
Creativity and Play Ministry: Director: Robin Johnson. This ministry schedules an event each month that is fun and provides an opportunity for fellowship.
Bookstore Ministry: Director: Janice Escott. Many people love to browse our books and gifts after the service on Sunday. Team members are available to ring up and record purchases.
Music Ministry: Works on special singing projects during the year including Christmas and Easter. Team members sing on Sundays.
Healing and Prayer Ministry: Co-directors Lisa Giragosian and Rev Paula. Twice monthly this team conducts healing and prayer service. Team prays with members requesting prayer one on one and also prays for requests dropped into our prayer box. One member carries the prayer box at the Offertory during the Sunday Service.
Youth Education Ministry: This essential ministry provides Sunday lessons from an established curriculum for our youth during the 10:30 service.
Adult Education Ministry: Director: Rev Paula. Unity classes are offered for credit and other classes for spiritual enrichment by Rev Paula and other teachers.
Media and PR Ministry: Co-director: Jeanie Rodgers and Renee Piere This team handles all things media...social, print, electronic and visual.
Earthcare Ministry: This team is focused on activities related to caring for our planet. If you are called to this ministry you can help guide us into the next greatest expression for how we accomplish this goal.
Community Service Ministry: Giving to our community and to the world is important at USLC. This team helps identify ways we can do this and organizes our efforts.
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