Dec 10, 2020 | Featured
– Note that this class is filled but Jeff Jones is compiling a wait list. Nonviolent Communication (NVC) or Compassionate Communication is referred to as a language of life or a language of the heart. More than a way of communicating, it is grounded in a consciousness that can be practiced moment by moment. This four-week class will begin with an overview of Compassionate Communication and Consciousness, cover the skills of expressing Observations, Feelings, Needs and Requests without judgment, blame, or demand, and will cover empathy using contemporary real-life examples. While the class will teach skills (appealing to the head), it will be grounded in consciousness (appealing to the heart).
The four sessions will be on Zoom, Thursdays January 7, 14, 21, and 28; 7-9pm
Our facilitator, Rev. Jeff Jones, began studying and became inspired by Nonviolent Communication (NVC) while serving at the Emerson Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Marietta, Georgia, from 2010 to 2017. He left parish ministry in 2017 to become a UU Community Minister and studied NVC more intensely in Asheville, NC. He has taught NVC at UU congregations, at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), at UNC Asheville, and has led an NVC Practice Group since January 2019. He is a member of the NVC Sharers’ Group (those who teach NVC) in Asheville and is an Affiliated Community Minister with the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Asheville.
Contact Jeff Jones to register and for Zoom link.
Dec 10, 2020 | Uncategorized, Vespers & Wednesday Program
Join Vespers leader Rev. Claudia for a meditative holiday Vespers. Come prepared to share a favorite holiday memory during breakout groups.
7 PM Program: Everyday Life Spiritual Practices Featuring Living Compassionately – Jeff Jones will be sharing his everyday life spiritual practice of living compassionately. Participants in breakout rooms will be sharing what spiritual practices we each will carry forward and integrate into our everyday lives.
Vespers resumes January 6 welcoming the New Year and the monthly theme of imagination.
Our Wednesday Thing 2021 Programs will focus on:
- 1st Wednesdays, the Soul Matters Theme (or a congregant suggested topic)
- 2nd Wednesdays, Anti-racism work
- 3rd Wednesdays, Spiritual Practices
- 4th Wednesdays, UU Theology
During February through April, Jim Steffe and Rev. Claudia will offer a series on “Aging as a Spiritual Practice” based on the book by Lewis Richmond.
January – Imagination (Soul Matters Theme)
6 Vespers Leader: Rev. Claudia
Program: Theme Talk- Imagination, Rev. Claudia
13 Vespers Leader: Joyce Hooley-Gingrich
Program: Discerning Race/ Discerning Power, Facilitator: Mary Alm
20 Vespers Leader: MaryAnn Somervill
Program: Spiritual Practices: Paganism, MaryAnn Somervill
27 Vespers Leader: Linda Topp, “Can You Imagine?”
Program: Introduction to UU Theology, Rev Claudia
Dec 10, 2020 | Green Tips
Clothing made with polyester, nylon and acrylic are sources of plastic pollution when laundered. If synthetic clothes are washed in cold water, the release of the micro-plastics in the material is reduced. Another option: micro-plastic filters on washers.
Dec 10, 2020 | Weekly Message
Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote these words:
We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
There are some things in our social system to which all of us ought to be maladjusted.
Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear, only love can do that.
We must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation.
The foundation of such a method is love.
Before it is too late, we must narrow the gaping chasm between our proclamations of peace and our lowly deeds which precipitate and perpetuate war.
One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek but a means by which we arrive at that goal.
We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.
We shall hew out of a mountain of despair, a stone of hope.
In reflecting on MLK’s wise insights, I can visualize the “mountain of despair” that so many people in this country have been experiencing since early in the year. Despair is defined by Merriam-Webster as “the utter loss of hope.” The year 2020 seems to feel that way to many of us.
While circumstances vary for each individual, collectively we have experienced anxiety about a pandemic that is on a ravaging path throughout our country and the world. We have witnessed the injustice of racial inequities and violence in our communities and the devastation of wildfires, hurricanes, and flooding leaving people without homes and possessions. We feel the interpersonal strain and alienation fueled by the bitter political divide of the times. The mountain of despair has grown enormous and the needs are great. But peace and love and hope are still present–ever abiding, though sometimes we must look hard to find them through the haze.
Even in our virtual, distanced state, this Unitarian Universalist community offers each of us a network of mutuality from which we can draw support, love and caring, encouragement and hope, even peace. We are fortunate to have weekly opportunities to share worship, learn and grow as Unitarian Universalists, pursue justice, and practice generosity. Your UUCA leaders are working diligently to provide these opportunities now, with an eye for a bright and fulfilling future for this congregation and the wider community.
Thank you for being a part of this vital network of mutuality, through which we find hope and bring about the change we visualize. May it be so.
Laurel Amabile, Board of Trustees
