The Sanctuary Art Team invites you to bring decorations which represent your holiday celebrations. Bring your decorations to the Sanctuary on December 3 at 9:00am. Decorations from Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Solstice, Saturnalia; all are welcome and encouraged. We will hang the decorations at the end of November (exact date will be announced). If you have any questions please email the Sanctuary Art Team.
Author: Nick Laux
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Helping Early Voters Cure Their Ballots, and Other Opportunities to UU the Vote
By now, you have either mailed all of your letters and postcards, or have them ready to go! Now what? Here’s some new and not so new opportunities to UU the Vote:
NEW! Phone Banks to help Early Voters cure their ballots: You can help voters cure their ballots. Here are some upcoming cure phone bank opportunities to help voters in Illinois and Virginia fix their mail-in ballots and ensure their votes count!
Center for Common Ground: Together with the help of our volunteers and partner organizations, we are educating and mobilizing under-represented voters in voter suppression states to take action and protect their right to vote. Opportunities range from texting to canvassing, to phone banking. Sign up with Center for Common Ground.
Phone Banking with the Sierra Club: (Call from computers only) Sierra Club Independent Action has a research based winning strategy that goes deep in a few key states, where environmental issues are at the forefront, and where we know that informing voters about the candidates can make the biggest difference based on historic voting records.
Join us as we call voters and encourage them to vote in the upcoming 2022 Midterm Election! This year is critically important, so join us for as many of our phone banks as you can. We start each phone bank with a training before making calls together. Sign-up today for an upcoming phone bank to talk to other environmental voters and help secure a mandate for climate action.
Phone Banking with ACLU: Why is making calls so important? Research shows that person-to-person conversations are most likely to motivate someone to take action. Calling voters is one of the best ways to offer a personal touch and help folks get what they need in order to cast their vote. We share crucial information about where to vote, what races are on the ballot, and how they can find more information. Join a phone bank today!.
Phone Banking with Planned Parenthood: The time is now: Help Planned Parenthood spread the word to voters across the country about the high-stakes November elections. Get voters registered, and turned out to elect reproductive health and rights champions who will fight for our ability to make our own decisions. View upcoming opportunities for phone banking.
Any electoral activities for your favorite party/candidate count toward our Good Trouble congregation status: Report electoral actions to goodtrouble@phoenixuu.org or bit.ly/uutvaz
Thanks to all of our Good Troublemakers for the time and energy you’ve given to UU the Vote in 2022!
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Notes From Your Dance Partner – October 27, 2022
Next week, I am going on a trip that I never thought would be on my bucket list. I will be taking a journey to the Holy Lands of the Jewish, Muslim and Christian religions. We will be visiting the Sea of Galilee, Nazareth, Cana, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Hebron. The trip is being led by an old college friend who is now a progressive Lutheran Minister and was the minister of the Christian church in Jerusalem for many years—I believe his insight into the faith, the conflicts and the ramifications for our day will shape me for many years to come.
In my youth, I went to protestant churches however I didn’t learn much about the Bible. Later, I went to a Lutheran college and took two religion classes, but I didn’t learn much about the Bible there either. And later still, when I went to seminary, what I studied about the Bible was about its history, its context and how to critically interpret it. However since I didn’t consider myself a Christian, and I don’t belong to a faith that sees the Bible as its primary source, it is not something that I’ve ever really known or understood.
Don’t worry—I’m not doing this trip as part of any conversion. But rather, as a religious professional, I am finding that these are gaps in my knowledge, and I am intrigued to fill them in. All of my seminary study has made me curious to learn more. The struggles between the Christians, Muslims and Jews are rooted in that area, are foundational to the religious oppression we have always seen—and continue to see (darn it, Kanye)—in our world; understanding them will help make me a better minister.
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Dia de los Muertos Service October 30
Sunday, October 30 is our annual Dia de los Muertos service, which celebrates loved ones who have died. Please consider bringing in a photo on that day of a beloved ancestor who has passed on, to display on the ofrendas (altars) in the sanctuary during service.
Here are some instructions on how to make an ofrenda at home from UUCP member Sylvia Sharma.
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Notes From Your Dance Partner – October 20, 2022
As I write this, I am with ministerial colleagues in the Pacific Southwest at our first in-person gathering since February of 2020. Some thoughts on my experience here; I am in awe at how delightful it is to have an open space between worship, programming and meals to connect with like-minded individuals.
How wonderful it is to have the time to go on tangents and follow the conversation in a few different directions until we tap into something that has real depth and meaning. How great it is to relax enough that we can hear spontaneous laughter popping up from different small groups.
One of the conversations I had recently is about Internal Family Systems and how we can learn more about our Core Selves and the many different parts of ourselves. I love the “8 Cs” language that it uses about our Core Self—that it is calm, connected, confident, compassionate, courageous, creative, curious and has clarity. I adore times when I have the space to connect with that Core Self like this. One of the things that I love about Unitarian Universalism is witnessing each other’s worth and dignity AND strive to be our best selves at the same time.
When are you most connected with your Core Self? Is it in your morning hours as you embrace the calm of the day? Is it when you are experiencing magical moments of worship? Is it when you are creating something meaningful with others?
This coming Sunday, we will have our Shared Ministry Sunday where we explore the many ways that we can be connected, engaged and involved. Our hope is that you can bring your whole self to both the service and to our future. This week, I hope you have moments this week when you feel calm, connected, confident, compassionate, courageous, creative, curious and have clarity.
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UU Evolution Class Starts October 30
Both Unitarian and Universalist ideas have very long traditions, going back to the very beginnings of Christianity. This class will focus on how these evolved in America from unorthodox variants of Christianity into the inclusive, non-creedal faith we practice today. Learn more and register.