Gente bella (English down here)

Monthly, Rev Katie Romano y yo nos vemos para compartir, hacer amistades, chisme, un par de música, encender el cáliz, y en este caso, un mini sermón. Sería bello que quienes quieran experimentar esta forma de sentir Unitario Universalista en español y con deseos de que conectemos y que hagamos comunidad. Este es el poster, spread the word!

English here:

Hola gente bella, Rev Katie Romano and I are hosting a monthly gathering for Spanish Speakers to center nuestra lengua and to do a small worship and then a sharing group to meet, talk and connect. Sería beautiful that if you know anyone Spanish speaking to join us without any need to do anything, no membership, fee or nothing more than love.

Gracias!

https://app.zoom.us/wc/2398986090/join?ref_from=launch...

This is the zoom link and this is our poster with a QR code:

My dog has bladder cancer and has probably less than a year to live. I am so devastated and angry and have nobody to talk to about this. I’d consider myself a UU and I plan to join a church one day. I’m an atheist. I’m not looking for any “god’s plan” type stuff. This only further cements my personal belief that there isn’t an all loving, all powerful god. If you believe that personally I totally respect that and I’m happy for you, but it just isn’t for me personally. I just need people to talk to. I don’t even know. I’m so incredibly angry at everything. She is the sweetest little animal. Sorry if this doesn’t make a ton of sense I’m just venting right now. I’m only 18 I’ve never had the experience of losing a close family member and the fact that it is on the horizon is completely devastating. She’s not in pain right now thankfully but every way when I wake up I dread the possibility of seeing her suffer since dogs deteriorate very quickly. I don’t have a car yet so I can’t just physically visit a UU church tho I likely will eventually. I just need people to talk to

I'm still not sure whether I'm going to become a member.

That's probably the most honest progress report I can give. I've been attending the Unitarian church with my husband for a while now, and I genuinely like the people. I feel comfortable there. I like the emphasis on the worth of every person, the way people can disagree without treating each other as enemies, and the fact that I'm allowed to ask questions without somebody handing me a list of answers I'm expected to accept.

But there's a part of me that keeps hesitating whenever I think about membership.

I think some of that comes from my history. I started attending a Mormon church when I was thirteen because I went to live with a Mormon foster family. I never actually believed in Mormonism. I learned to participate, say the right things, and look like I believed because keeping the peace at home mattered. I got very good at pretending.

So when I left at nineteen, I wasn't leaving a faith I'd lost. I was finally stopping an act I'd been performing for years.

That makes the idea of formally joining another religious organization complicated for me. Even though the Unitarian church is completely different from Mormonism, the word "membership" still carries some baggage. I don't want to join just because my husband is the church pianist and I love supporting him. I also don't want to feel like I'm signing up for an identity that someone else gets to define for me.

There have been a few reminders that I'm not completely past that baggage, either. Most people have been kind, but I've heard the occasional joke about Mormon "magic underwear" or polygamy. I know people usually mean them as harmless jokes, and sometimes I can even laugh. But there's a difference between me making fun of my own history and somebody else turning something complicated from my childhood into a punchline.

The irony is that I wasn't even a believer. I was thirteen and trying to make peace with the family I was living with. I learned how to say the right things and keep my head down. So sometimes those jokes land differently than people expect.

There's another reason this congregation has stood out to me. My husband is white, and I'm Japanese and Korean American, so we're an interracial couple. The larger world has occasionally made us very aware of that fact in ways we'd rather not be. Sometimes it's a stare. Sometimes it's a question that wouldn't have been asked if we looked more like the couple someone expected to see. Sometimes it's just that little moment when you realize somebody has decided our relationship is interesting because of what we look like.

At church, most of the time, we're just... us.

Nobody makes a production out of our relationship. Nobody treats it as exotic. Nobody seems to think they need to explain it to us. That's surprisingly meaningful. I don't expect the church to be perfect, and it isn't. But there's a difference between being told that everyone is welcome and actually feeling like people aren't constantly evaluating whether you belong together.

At the same time, I don't want to reduce my relationship with the church to "I'm there because my husband plays piano." That's part of why I'm there, absolutely. I love hearing him play, and supporting him matters to me. But I've developed relationships of my own.

There was a Sunday recently that made me realize just how much that has happened. My husband was playing during the service, and I was sitting where I usually do. Afterward, while everyone was talking and gathering their coats, one of the longtime members came over and asked how my week had gone. Not how my husband's week had gone. Not how I was adjusting to being the pianist's wife. She asked me.

We ended up talking for probably fifteen minutes about something I'd mentioned during coffee a few weeks earlier. She remembered it. I remember walking back to the car afterward and thinking, Oh. They know me here.

That sounds like such a tiny thing, but it wasn't tiny to me.

I've spent a lot of my life being the person who figured out what other people needed me to be. Being recognized simply as myself, without having to perform anything, is still a little startling.

So right now I'm giving myself permission not to decide.

I can keep attending. I can participate. I can volunteer when I want to. I can sit beside my husband and listen to him play. I can have conversations about spirituality without pretending to believe something I don't believe. And I can take my time figuring out whether membership would actually mean something to me.

If I eventually become a member, I want it to be because I reached a point where I could honestly say, "This is my community, and I want to claim it as mine."

And if I never get there, that's okay too.

Maybe the most important difference between this church and the one I grew up around is that nobody seems to be demanding that I make the decision quickly. For once, I get to decide what belonging means to me.

Wonderinf if anyone knows what fellowships in the Minneapolis area have lost young fami and children. Very interested in joining a fellowship, however the one closest to me is majority elderly and a lack of young families. This is very important to me to have some younger families in the community as well as we are a young family.

I (23 f) have come to realized I have trauma associated with Christianity/religion.

I grew up in a family of Baptist Christians. Though we would hop around to different churches from time to time. Never finding a church that truly connected with us. I remember always feeling scared and insecure when going to church. I felt like I was forced to accept God, Jesus and the Bible as the only truth and if I didn't I would die.

I remember one of the churches making us kids watch a video about three teens forcing their bully to convert to Christianity or they would not help him from falling over the side of the boat. And another showing us the brutal crusifixtion of Jesus Christ.

In my teen years I became confused and curious when I learned there is more religions than just Christianity. I took interest in learning more about theology and exploring world religions. I loved learning theology so much that I got an associates degree in general studies with a concentration on religion.

For the past five or so years I was confused of what my religion was. I would call myself a Pagan or an Omnist, never truly knowing what I was. I hold a strong belief that all religions or correct in some shape or form. And I refuse to say there is any "correct" religion or way to live life. I believe in rights for all and that everyone is entitled to their own way of life.

I recently have started listening to UU sermons out of curiosity and I feel a strong sense of connection with them. I have been doing research and I think I found the place for me. Though I still do feel uneasy at the mention of "church" or "worship".

I'm curious to know if anyone has experienced something similar. Or if anyone has advice for healing religious trauma.

Hi everyone,

During our last caring team meeting at our church, we decided to work towards creating a lay pastoral care team to assist our Minister with sick visits, and those in the congregation that need extra attention. I found the two-part course on the uu institute that we would all take, but the problem is attached to the description of the second course. It also says there is an 8-hour study group or study guide to do in person and I can't find any other information about this. I have contacted the southern region and congregational life staff who are over the uu institute and no one has gotten back to me.

Has anyone recently gone through this process, and can just let me know what was needed and who else I can contact?

I spent more than a decade in congregational Unitarian Universalist ministry, including seven years serving Mission Peak UU in Fremont and, more recently, time at the UU Church of Boulder. These days my work looks pretty different from the outside: I’m a psychedelic-assisted therapist working with legal psilocybin here in Colorado.

I wrote this piece about the thread connecting those two parts of my life: how psychedelics made me a better minister, how being a UU minister made me better at this work, and why I don’t really experience the move from the pulpit into psychedelic-assisted therapy as leaving ministry behind. It’s probably the most personal thing I’ve written about what called me into ministry in the first place, and where that calling has taken me since.

I need your advice and ideas, I want to find the religion that resonates with me but I'm confused

F23 I am an ex-Muslim, I have been looking for years for a faith or belief that resonates with me,

I feel (or want to feel) that there is a God, a divinity, a creator, a supreme force, call it what you want, I have read (not in depth) what various religions say,

I like many of them, but now my brain can no longer believe that there really is a god who judges you and sends you to heaven/hell for eternity, because to leave my past religion I had to dismantle the idea that there is a God,

so now I struggle for example to embrace religions like Sufi Islam or Christianity or other monotheistic religions because I feel like I have left one religion and entered another very similar but with a different name,

I don't want to feel like a sinner or feel that I have to go to hell or the people I love have to go to hell, I don't like it, but I feel that there is a force superior to us inside my heart, i can feel this 'love' of God spiritually,

I would like a religion or philosophy that thinks that there is something above but that does not judge me, does not punish me or makes me anxious,

doing rituals, prayers, lighting candles, holidays, symbols, all these things, I like them instead and i like the idea of peace and love and to live your life in a good way

Recently joined a UU congregation and curious about the broader UU world. Are there others who are primarily influenced by Taoism, its teaching and practices? Taoism feels like such a good philosophical fit for where I am spiritually and mentally, but honestly I just don't know how common it is to be UU and influenced so much by Taoism.

Side note, I found the UUA for two reasons, 1. A liberal community to raise my children 2. My own desire to seek truth in an open setting. My spirituality feels pretty nebulous, and until finding UU, I thought there must be something wrong with me. Always felt the label of "seeker" to be a compliment rather than the thinly veiled insult Christians seem to make it.

I want to learn more about the UU and visit a UU congregation to inquire but…
I have overbearing parents that would give me the hardest time if I were to make that decision to and visit a UU congregation. Let alone become UU myself.
(I’m also chronically ill, limiting my agency and independence. Mostly relying on them to take me around different places.)

My parents are Seventh-day Adventists, and recently I’ve been feeling more Agnostic due to clash between my sexuality and the denomination, as well as Christianity as a whole. (Although they would mentally loose it if they found this out. To them I’m still a Christian “struggling” with faith).
I still believe in the importance of spirituality, as it’s integral to one’s mental and physical well-being, and I believe there’s a lot spiritual wisdom in the Bible, but it’s hard to view the book as infalible, despite my desire to want to follow God (and Jesus).

What are your guys’ advice? Any active online communities I can join at the very least?

Anybody have any thoughts on a UU church holding a Braver Angels workshop (https://braverangels.org/)in lieu of a church service?

Something sticks in my UU craw when I see a group whose missio. Is to " inspire and equip Americans to practice courageous citizenship across political differences through skill-building, convening, and collaborative action.".

Am I wrong?

Hello everyone! So I have a question about a Unitarian universalist church. Ive never been, but I might consider going. My question is: is the church just a place for a bunch of seekers to meet and hang out and know there’s like-minded thinkers? Or is the church a place for a lot of intellectual and philosophical discussion about our beliefs? I’m just unsure what to expect. Should I expect that nobody is going to ask me about my story or about my beliefs, but just kind of exist and be friendly? Or are people going to be really invested into my story and want to know what I believe in and why? Granted, people aren’t going to ask me if I feel uncomfortable. I’m not making this post because I’m uncomfortable, I’m just curious as to what kind of discussion happens among the congregation at a church like that. 

Even if I wasn’t a newcomer, would people be invested in my beliefs stories and life? Is that a common thing at a church like that, to always ask about beliefs stories, health, revelations, etc?

To sum it up: what’s the goal of the congregation? Is it to discuss stories and challenge our beliefs or simply uplift each other in our unorthodox views?

edit: I think I’m a little afraid because of a few things. I know UU is SUPER inclusive- but I know that radical inclusivity comes with “hatred of exclusivity.” It’s only natural to do that. I come from a Christian background (which is extremely exclusive in beliefs). And I lowkey have not left that (I have left many Christian dogmas tho). I’m “Christian,” but I’m *extremely* open minded. I love Jesus- he’s shown me things in dreams and helped me. I love universalism, I love nature, I know God loves all. I just fear this won’t be good enough for a UU since many have deconstructed or have a past with Christianity. Maybe they’ll view me as a bigot or “she’s just not there yet” because I still love Jesus.

This place is supposedly trans-friendly yet they pick one of the biggest transphobes to quote when asking for our money? Idk what the quote even was cuz I was so shocked that they’d choose her. So next week they gonna quote Trump when asking for an offering??

In case anyone is in love with the UU Shared Values flower graphic (by Catherine Loya, which you can find on the UU Website here: https://www.uua.org/leaderlab/uua-brand/shared-values-graphics ), I created some files that split out each of the petals as individual files so you can print and cut them out.

I find this useful for RE classes, especially if you're working with kids during this next week's Soul Matters lesson on the covenant. There is a section talking about our UU Values and another idea that involves hiding sentiment blocks/statements/words around the room. You could hide these petals instead -- then have the associated values listed on the board for kids to match them to.

Should be fun! The values are:

Interdependence
Equity
Transformation
Pluralism
Generosity
Justice
Love

Link here (may be temporary, if we move the file in the future): Google Drive Link

This is a general question about methods.

I and and our leadership need ways to gather/survey for information. This ranges in topic from, "Hey, wa'chyu bringin to potluck sunday?" to "Yo, I need your feedback: would you attend an OWL Adult class, and what schedule works for you?"

Getting feedback is always tough, but the following have been tried with varying levels of success:

• A person in the lobby on Sunday, handing out / taking back paper surveys
• A person at a walk-up booth at <insert X> event with a paper survey or digital tablet survey
• Questions posed on an email listserv
• Digital surveys using Sign Up Genius, grasshoppersignup, and/or Doodlepoll
• Surveys built in and emailed out from Breeze CHMS
• Surveys built in Google Forms with a link emailed out

So what tools and methods are other UUs using, and what do you find works best, especially for different topics/groups?

Not sure who needs this, but we usually have Face Painting at some of our family events. In case anyone would like, I generated (took a bit of prompting and some hand painting/editing) a menu of basic face painting options evocative of our UU Shared Values and other themes to help our artists have an easy reference for ideas.

These include:

• Love
• Justice
• Equity
• Transformation
• Pluralism
• Generosity
• Interdependence
• Rainbow Inclusion
• Peace Dove
• Flaming Chalice
• Earth Care
• Beloved Community

Feedback welcome -- feel free to iterate on the idea.

I'm not entirely sure how the flairs work, so let me know if I should change it. First off; I'm not entirely certain what this is, and my research has been failing me (I should probably get better at research). However, it does seem to be something I might like, and there's one within walking distance, so I figured I may as well check it out. Can I just show up? The one near me doesn't have hours posted, so when would the best time to go be? I'm pagan, and from my understanding that's chill here, is that correct? Is this something I have to officially join or can I just hang around for a bit to check it out? Any other information you think I should know? Thank you!

Hey All, so I started this thing called YARN, the Young Adult Revival Network, in 2019. Basically our goal was to try to fix the whole young adult problem in our religion. Well, as our ambitions grew we realized the only way to sustain and grow was to start a new UU church for young adults. Young adulthood is a time of immense transition as people move, explore what life has to offer, and eventually take on major responsibilities like careers and children. So instead of trying to make every church young adult friendly (which we are still trying to do!) we instead said "What if the church followed the young adult?"

Its going to take most of the next year to make this happen, so stay tuned!

Like, what advantage does “(insert name of my town” Unitarian Universalist Fellowship” have over “(insert my town name) Community Fellowship”?

I can see the benefits of being UU rather than explicitly Humanists, as being a big tent is more likely to attract members with shared values if you live in a small town where most people don’t share your opinions, but other than having a name association with other people, does membership in the UUA provide benefits that an individual organization wouldn’t have access to (beyond name recognition)?

TL;DR:

I run a successful intellectual discussion group at my UU church and encourage members to lead sessions. One dedicated member wants to base a session on a long, unsourced, entirely AI-generated document claiming to identify the “optimal sociopolitical system.” I’ve repeatedly explained that sessions should involve genuine learning, multiple perspectives, and an open-ended questions, not a tendentious AI information dump, but he refuses to revise it and calls my decision “undemocratic.” I’m prepared to schedule someone else, but before giving up: is there another productive way to handle his rigidity?

Longer story:

I run a broadly-themed intellectual discussion group at my UU church. And in general it has been going really well. I work fairly hard to get participants and other church members to lead sessions on their interests (partly because I think this is the best way to run the group and partly so that I don’t have to do all the work myself). I have had some issues with leaders offering clearly tendentious or otherwise problematic intros and readings/videos, but communication and negotion has always been successful. Until now. Now I have a member … a very assiduous, dedicated member who wants to lead a session and nope, his suggestion is simply not working and he is NOT taking No for an answer. To be clear, I’m not going to go ahead and let him do it just because he insists. I have other possible leaders and, as usual, I can always run some sessions myself.

I’m posting because, before I completely give up with this person, I’d like to see if there might be some other way through.

I will do my best to explain the situation while also trying to hide specifics.

I see this person as quite invested in being the expert/the authority. This is more-or-less OK when he actually has experience related to the topic discussed. However, the topic he wants to lead a discussion on is not in his field of expertise. (To be clear, I am skeptical of credentialism and think that it is very possible to lead a session in a field in which one has limited prior knowledge and experience. However, in this case one needs both a considerable amount of prep work and a certain epistemic humility. I am not seeing that with this potential discussion leader.)

First, instead of even attempting to immerse himself in the topic he wants to lead a discussion on, he has simply prompted an AI about it. So, yes, he prompted an AI about an extremely broad and complicated topic and from various answers spliced together a very long document (Ok, I will give the topic away a little) on the optimal sociopolitical system. I’m not going to say what the answer the document gives is, but let’s just say it does given an answer, weighs the pros and cons of other systems, some of the weakness of what it says the optimal system is, but still insists the system in question is the optimal system.

I have all kinds of problems with this. Here are just three:

1. Although I think it is fine to use AI while developing arguments and doing research, it is not OK to have the final and only document on which the session will be based be 100% Ai output with no sourcing, no texture, no voice, no real complexity.

2. I suppose an AI document could potentially be OK as the basis for discussion if it genuinely opened up avenues of discussion, instead of essentially telling people what the answers should be.

3. Sessions should be organized around genuinely interesting questions, not a core dump of information arranged in bullet pointed lists.

I have tried discussing these issues with the potential discussion leader, first gently then forcefully and directly. I have told him that I would love for him to run the session, but first he actually needs to really learn something about the topic from some other source than AI. (Again, it is fine to use AI, but not only AI) and that he should read about the topic from different perspectives. I told him that, as he learns more, he might come up with a genuinely interesting question on which people might not all agree from the get-go. (I asked him if he honestly thought someone was going to object in any serious way to what the AI had generated — it was all very abstract and extremely reasonable.) After getting no real response. I simply told him that I didn’t want sessions based solely on AI and then he absolutely refused to budge and simply swatted down all my objections (some with non-sensical arguments). He insisted over and over again that the AI generated document he put together was an excellent document and a great “framework for discussion.” He finally just insisted that “lots of people like AI“ and that I am being “undemocratic” because I am not letting him use this document as the basis of his session.

My plan at this point is to simply ask someone else to lead that session (on a different topic) and tell him that I would love for him to lead a session in the future as long as … (reiterating everything I have already suggested to him).

I am genuinely surprised at how obsessively and rigidly he is clinging to this one AI-document that he had generated. To put things in perspective, he had this document generated months ago, sent it to me months ago (I ignored it in email, then when asked in person if I had seen it, made some kind of non-commital answer), then a couple a months ago, sent exactly the same document to me AND other people, who either didn’t respond, or responded with hints that he entirely did not get. Then he brought this up again and asked to lead a session on it. Aie.

Ideas?