Greetings!

Before our RE students present their December 18 intergenerational service, they will have completed the first of two curricula we are following this year. Ruth Hinkle and Tim Murphy created The Path to Community: A Guide to Worship as a way to discuss and understand worship as it applies to UUs (and to our students individually). In their introduction Hinkle and Murphy state:

            "Worship is a many-faceted experience. It means something different to each of us depending on our life experience and where we find ourselves at the current moment. It may be calming, exciting, emotional, energetic, thought-provoking, etc. This might all happen in the same worship whether it happens for everyone or only a few people."

What does worship mean for Unitarian Universalists? How, why, and in what ways do we worship (if we do at all)? Our newest committee at BUUF is called the Worship and Arts Committee. How do we define worship individually and as a fellowship? Is our chalice a symbol of worship? Are our unison readings for our affirmation, offertory, and singing the children to class a form of worship? Or is our singing together of hymns? What or who do we worship during our sharing of joys and sorrows? Are our words of welcome, sounding of the gong, kindling of the chalice, opening and closing words, and various forms of meditation examples of worship? How about our children’s stories and sermons/messages? Do we as UUs worship our seven principles, or are these seven principles an attempt to reduce to writing what we do, in fact, worship?  Our RE students will focus on these questions in the next two months in preparation for their December 18 service.

Of course, some of what we worship changes over time. When I was the age of our current class of students I worshipped baseball and the Beatles. I just wanted to hit/catch/throw a ball and listen/scream to She Loves You (yeah! yeah! yeah!). I broke a lot of windows, and I (probably) ruined whatever voice I had. As I had not been told what to worship (or even if I had) my choices seemed developmentally appropriate. We start out as infants and toddlers, totally egocentric and focused on getting our needs met, and then most of us mature and broaden our focus to include meeting the needs of others and of our community in general. As we mature what is important to us changes, as does what and how and why we worship. That doesn’t mean I have to stop throwing a ball or stop listening to the Beatles, it just means I can also worship what I now feel is more important.

Dave Sarra

Greetings!

The Religious Education Committee (consisting of RE teachers, parents, and our Religious Leader) met on July 5 and decided to use two curricula for the upcoming year. We’ll begin with The Path to Community: A Guide to Worship by Ruth Hinkle and Tim Murphy which focuses on various aspects of, well, worship. This guide will help our students to better understand the nature of worship and provide suggestions for creating a complete worship service. We will alternate this curriculum with Popcorn Theology by Michelle Richards.

From the Goals and Aspirations section of the Introduction to Popcorn Theology:

Today’s youth have grown up in a world of cable and satellite television offering hundreds of channels for viewing at any given moment. As visual resolution for computer games has increased over the years, our youth have also used their visual minds to solve complex problems and achieve predetermined goals. Recent improvements in video distribution via the internet have only increased our youth’s desire to learn through the visual medium.

Popcorn Theology takes this interest in learning through the visual arts and channels it into specific learning opportunities which examine issues of theological and ethical importance to our world. By using this visual medium to explore relevant issues, this curriculum seeks to help participants:

• Examine how the choices we make affect our lives and the lives of others
• Explore how concepts such as truth and meaning are related to perspective and point of view
• Understand ways in which the right of conscience calls us to do what is right despite possible negative consequences
• Consider ways in which our faith can help us understand our questions, seek answers, and deal with the trials of life
• Learn about other faith traditions and their responses to important theological and ethical issues

During the course we will view clips from the following movies: Back to the Future, Star Trek Generations, Forrest Gump, Saved!, Little Buddha, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Oh, God!, Bruce Almighty, Heaven Can Wait, Contact, Bowling for Columbine, Hotel Rwanda, Jurassic Park, Dances With Wolves, Willow, Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, Hoosiers, Field of Dreams. Should our students wish to see some of these movies in their entirety, we’ll hold a movie night or an over-night event.

We are looking for BUUFers who are interested in joining us as teachers in the RE program. Each pair of teachers leads one Sunday class per month. If this sounds appealing to you, please contact me.

Please remember to collect water from your various summer events so we can mingle all our water during the Water Ceremony on September 11. A large portion our September 11 Sunday service will be devoted to the tenth anniversary of the 9-11 attack on the U.S.

Enjoy your summer!

Dave Sarra

Greetings!

What do you know about rain forests? Our children’s RE class has been learning about the plants, animals, and peoples of the rain forests and will present their knowledge during the May 22 Sunday service. Please be sure to join us as we focus on our seventh UU principle “respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”

As we slowly catch up to Krista Tippett’s history of Speaking of Faith/on Being radio shows, our adult RE BUUFers have been including other programs, videos, movies, sermons, etc., for our Tuesday evening Speaking of Faith get-togethers. Anything is fair game as long as it generates a lively discussion on the faiths, beliefs, philosophies, attitudes, behaviors, and existence(s) of human beings, the universe, or even existence itself! Anyone can choose to host or select a program, and we’ve had quite a variety!

Upcoming departures from Krista Tippett’s program include the following selections from our group:

May 31: What the BLEEP Do We Know!? -- First released in theaters in 2004, WTBDWK!? went on to become one of the most successful documentaries of all time. Now distributed in over 30 countries, it has stunned audiences with its revolutionary cinematic blend of dramatic film, documentary, animation and comedy, while serving up a mind-jarring blend of quantum physics, spirituality, neurology and evolutionary thought. The original 108-minute film stars Marlee Matlin and 14 scientists and mystics. Exploring the worlds of quantum physics, neurology, and molecular biology in relation to the spheres of spirituality, metaphysics, and Polish weddings this film is part documentary, part drama, and part animation. How does it all fit together???

June 7: The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science – We’ll discuss an article from Mother Jones magazine (hard copies available) that explains how our brains can fool us on climate, creationism, and the vaccine-autism link.

Please check the BUUF web calendar or call me if you want to know where we’ll be on Tuesday evenings!

Your DRE,

Dave Sarra

Greetings!

In our RE Classes we’ve been busy celebrating feast days and welcoming Spring. In February we continued our study of Chinese New Year with a field trip to Chinatown to see the parade and lion dances and to enjoy a dinner of authentic Chinese cuisine. We also learned about the Catholic feast day for St. Valentine, the Intercalary Days (end of the year) celebration of the Baha i faith, and the Bulgarian celebration of Spring called Martenitsa when our students wove red and white yarn dolls and other designs.

During the month of March we learned about two more Catholic feast days, Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras (followed by Ash Wednesday) and St. Patrick’s Day. We even attempted some pancake-flipping races which occur in some places on Shrove Tuesday. Then we finished the month learning about the Pagan/Wicca celebration of the Spring Equinox. We’ve decided to study the rain forests during April as we approach Earth Day.

Our adult RE Tuesday night Speaking of Faith get-togethers have included programs other than that of Krista Tippett. We’ve listened to some Prairie Home Companion routines that make fun of UUs, seen the movie Religulous, watched a video of the Cosmology of Brian Swimme, and listened to a Pentecostal Sermon on shame. We’re a very democratic group and take turns choosing programs. If you’ve never attended one of our get-togethers and you’d like to, please let me know, we’d love to include new members!

Dave Sarra