OPPORTUNITIES FOR LISTENING CIRCLES ON ZOOMAN IN-PERSON LISTENING CIRCLE IN SANDBURG HALL, masked
February 22, noon-1pm
Everyone of all ages is welcome to join us for a hot cocoa and a cozy fire in our new fire pit. We’ll have a hot cocoa bar so you can customize your cup and spend some time around the fire with your fellow UU Asheville folks!
This is also a Soup-er Event! Pick up your pre-order at Sandburg Hall 12:30-1:30pm
Choose from a variety of delicious homemade soups and pre-order using the link below (order early for the best selection). Each quart of soup comes with 2 generous pieces of garlic bread AND the joy of supporting the youth of our congregation! Pay for and pick up your order at UU Asheville between 12:30 to 1:30pm. Take home to enjoy! **Orders close on Friday, January 28 at 5pm, to allow time for the chefs to prepare. Click here to order.
Spirituality and Improvisation may appear – at first glance – to be an unlikely pairing. Most people know improvisation 
only from the perspective of entertainment or performance. But the actual craft of improvisation is about authenticity.
This is the intersection with spirituality. Introducing improv into our spiritual journeys brings the opportunity for heart-learning and growth in self-awareness to happen. During the embodied process of having fun and laughing, seeds for transformation can be planted. If you join this 6-week class (last date is March 6), be prepared to “go deep” – joyfully!
Our facilitator will be Rev. Dr. Jade Angelica, Improv Practitioner! The class is full but there may be a second offering. Contact Rev. Claudia to get on the waiting list!
30 Days of Love is our annual celebration that runs approximately from Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in January through Valentine’s Day in February. It is an opportunity to collectively nurture our spirits, deepen our understanding, and take action on our values for collective liberation.
In 2022, 30 Days of Love will focus on Side With Love’s four intersectional justice priorities, with opportunities each week for communities and people of all ages to ground, grow, and act together for justice. Want to be notified when materials on online and available? Sign up to receive our text alerts!
Each week, we will share a ‘playlist’ or ‘menu’ of activities for individuals to interact with, connected with our weekly theme. We will have a full playlist of offerings each week for multigenerational families/communities, as well as many activities for general adult audiences. Each week will include activities in the categories of Read, Watch, Act, Listen, and Worship.
Week One: January 17 – 23 – Reproductive, Gender, & LGBTQIA+ Justice
Week Two: January 24 – 30 – Democracy & Voting Rights
Week Three: January 31 – February 6 – Decriminalization & Racial Justice
Week Four: February 7 – 14 – Climate Justice
UU Asheville members and friends have stepped up to adopt our Charlotte Street BeLoved Street Pantry! We now have a Charlotte Street Pantry Google Group that we have been using to easily communicate with each other. If you are an Adopter or a Sustainer you should be receiving emails from Charlotte Street Pantry. If you are not yet a member of the Google Group, but would like to keep informed about what is needed at the pantry, please email Anita at anita.feldman@hofstra.edu.
There are still a few 5th days of the months available to adopt! (meaning you would only need to fill the pantry 4 or 5 days a year). Schedule now at www.volunteersignup.org/TXRAE !
Donations most needed, to be delivered to the bin at the back entrance to UU, are pop top cans of full meals and small bottles of water that will fit in the pantry. Thank you!! We are helping our neighbors!!
Here are more instructions and tips for Adopters.
Here are three other ways to volunteer in addition to becoming an Adopter:
Become a Sustainer: Make a commitment to bring your donations once a month any time to the UU bin on the back porch. Schedule at www.volunteersignup.org/TXRAE
Be a Random Filler: visit the Charlotte Pantry whenever convenient to check on it and fill it up.
Be a Random Donor: Donate items or even ask neighbors and friends to donate too. Deliver to the UU bin when convenient.
PANTRY-SUPPLY-LIST-FOR-WINTER
Help us take down and put away our December holiday decorations. We’ll also have stations set up to make Valentines 
for someone you love.
This is also a Souper-Event for the Coming of Age class. Choose from a variety of soups using this pre-order link. Each quart of soup comes with bread. Pay for and pick up your order at UU Asheville between 12:30 to 1:30 PM. Take home to enjoy! **Orders close on Friday, February 11th at 5PM.
When the song of the angels is stilled, When the star in the sky is gone, When the kings and princes are home, 
When the shepherds are back with their flock, The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among others,
To make music in the heart.
Howard Thurman
We’re giving everyone a break. On Sunday, December 26 the worship service will be pre-recorded so you can watch it any time after you get the link that morning.
On January 2, we will return to our in-person and live-streamed format with the service starting at 11am. We will continue limiting worship attendance to 75.
Vaccinations, masks and registration required to attend in person. The 5pm service will be live streamed on a closed link and can be watched at any time thereafter. To receive the closed link, sign up for worship service emails on our home page.
We gather to mark a night our ancestors have marked for thousands of years. Stories of kindness, generosity, hearts re-opened to love, and the miracle of hope will center our time together. You are invited to be touched by story, by candlelight, by tradition, by ancient rhythms of the soul. Come and share in this timeless celebration of mystery, magic and wonder.
Both services will be nearly identical, led by Revs. Harrington and Jiménez:
For the 5pm service, music will be provided by Sandra Goodson, vocalist, and Dr. Leslie Downs, Music Director. Click here to register for the 5pm Christmas Eve Service.
For the 7:45pm, there will be a Pre-Service Mini-Concert Followed by an 8pm Service. Music will be provided by Tabitha Judy, soprano, and Dr. Leslie Downs, Music Director. Click here to register for the 7:45pm Christmas Eve Service.
This service will be offered at 2pm in the Sanctuary for all who wish to attend (registration required) and will be live streamed on YouTube. The link will be added to the 12/19 Sunday email.
The winter holiday season can be difficult. With all the colors and lights, festive songs and parties, it can be hard to find a quiet place that acknowledges some of us are hurting. This may be especially true as we enter a second holiday season impacted by COVID. Please join Rev. Cathy Harrington and leaders from the Good Grief Group and Pastoral Visitors for an afternoon service that includes music, readings, quiet reflection, and healing ritual.
Please use this link to register if you plan on attending the service in person.
Party like it’s Christmas! Full details below, but the short form is:
Following the worship service on December 5 we will dispatch to the fire pit behind 21 Edwin Place for Christmas caroling! If you’re coming from home, aim for noon-ish. There will probably be some suitably seasonal goodies available. Following the fun there, head on down to City Bakery (well, technically across Charlotte Street from there) where we will join the Installation Celebration of our adopted BeLoved Street Pantry at 1pm. Parking will be available in the lot behind the pantry.
The UUAsheville Legacy Circle Committee is hosting a free estate planning workshop for members and friends of all ages and all income levels.
Every year, tens of thousands of people in the United States die without an estate plan, leaving it to a judge to decide what happens with the assets one has accumulated from a lifetime of work. Smart estate planning doesn’t have to be difficult.
Hendersonville estate planning expert and lawyer, Carolyn Knox, will share with you tips that will be helpful in starting and updating an estate plan and protecting your assets from unexpected expenses that may come later in life. Click here to learn more. Contact Mike Horak for the Zoom link.
A Crime on the Bayou is the story of Gary Duncan, a Black teenager from Plaquemines Parish, a swampy strip of land 
south of New Orleans.
In 1966, Duncan tries to break up an argument between white and Black teenagers outside a newly integrated school. He gently lays his hand on a white boy’s arm. The boy recoils like a snake. That night, police burst into Duncan’s trailer and arrest him for assault on a minor. A young Jewish attorney, Richard Sobol, leaves his prestigious D.C. firm to volunteer in New Orleans. With his help, Duncan bravely stands up to a racist legal system powered by a white supremacist boss to challenge his unfair arrest. Their fight goes all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Duncan and Sobol’s lifelong friendship is forged.
‘Vivid…Provide[s] an unusually palpable sense of just how much deeply-ingrained institutional and cultural bias needed to be overcome for the civil rights movement to make real headway…[An] engrossing, flavorful document.’ Dennis Harvey, Variety
‘A Crime on the Bayou never explodes with fury. But that doesn’t mean you won’t feel enraged while taking in the maddening series of systematic wrongs committed against Sobol and Duncan.’ Robert Daniels, The Los Angeles Times
Send a request for the link to Charlie Wussow at mnpopi@icloud.com by Wednesday, November 10th for the Zoom link. There will be a discussion after the screening of the film. Runtime: 91 minutes
There is no charge for viewing the film but donations to cover the license are welcome. Click DONATE on the left menu and select General Fund or text UUAVL to 73256.
Third Thursdays for as long as the weather holds out, we’ll be gathering in person, outside, behind 1 Edwin Place on the paved parking lot, to drum! All ages welcome!! Bring your own or borrow a noisemaker from us. Next date, November 18.
Our Coming of Age youth is offering “Soup-er Sunday” at the Remembrance and Halloween celebration on October 31. You can purchase the soup on-site and eat it there or we can fill a container to take home. This is to raise funds for a future youth trip. Please come out to enjoy delicious soups and support our youth.
Save the dates for all of the Soup-er Events:
Saturday, November 6
Thursday, November 18
Join a new study group reading Widening the Circle of Concern, the book-length report of the UUA Commission on Institutional Change. Led by Mary Alm, member of the Board of Trustees, this reading circle will dive deep and explore the 36 recommendations proposed after analyzing structural and systemic racism and white supremacy culture within Unitarian Universalism. Read the attached description here. Contact Mary Alm to register.
All Creatures Great & Small, We Will Bless Them All!
In the UUAsheville Parking Lot, 1 Edwin Place
We’re in person for an Animal Blessing service at 11am in the paved parking lot. Bring your chairs and your pets!
If things work out right, the service will also be live streamed. If you’re on our email list, you’ll get the link on Sunday morning at 9am. To sign up for worship service links, head back to the home page and give us your email address.
Photo by Tim Hüfner on Unsplash
October 10 marks the 19th World Day Against the Death Penalty. The NC Council of Churches will host a panel of voices with lived experience to discuss faith and the death penalty. Panelists include George Wilkerson, who is living on NC’s death row; Andre Smith, who teaches Buddhism to men in prison and lost his son to homicide; and Rev. Sharon Risher, who lost her mother and two cousins in the shooting at Mother Emmanuel AME church in Charleston. Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove, noted writer and leader in the Red Letter Christian movement and the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, will moderate. Please register here and invite others to hear this powerful panel.
Amá tells an important and untold story: the abuses committed against Native American women by the US Government during the 1960s and 70s. The women were removed from their families and sent to boarding schools. They were subjected to forced relocation away from their traditional lands and, perhaps worst of all, they were subjected to involuntary sterilization.
CONTACT Charlie Wussow at mnpopi@icloud.com for the Zoom link by Wednesday, October 6. This event is free. Donations accepted.
The result of nine years painstaking and sensitive work by filmmaker Lorna Tucker, the film features the testimony of many Native Americans, including three remarkable women who tell their stories – Jean Whitehorse, Yvonne Swan and Charon Asetoyer – as well as a revealing and rare interview with Dr. Reimert Ravenholt whose population control ideas were the framework for some of the government policies directed at Native American women.
It is estimated over a twenty-year period between 1960 and 1980 that tens of thousands of Native American women were sterilized without their knowledge or consent. Due to poor record keeping during this era the number may in fact be much higher. Many of these women went to their graves having suffered this incredible abuse of power.
“The beginning of every hierarchy is controlling reproduction, and racism in this country has often restricted brown and black women through sterilization, while refusing sterilization to white women unless they had several children and their husbands’ written permission. AMÁ proves that democracy begins with our bodies. All who care about democracy should see it.” Gloria Steinem
“I would like to pay respect to the elders, both present and past, who have had the courage to tell their stories — we need more documentaries like this. We offer classes in American Indian Health and Wellness, and without fail, my students state that they had no idea of these atrocities, and the fact that they are still happening in the United States is beyond their belief. The US must apologize for the horrendous actions of their medical staff, and admit to the vast amount of indigenous knowledge that has been lost due to their lack of funding for health services.”
Dr. Linda Bane Frizzell, Eastern Cherokee/Lakota, Assistant Professor, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota
Official Trailer https://ama.bullfrogcommunities.com runtime: 74 minutes
We’re dedicating and celebrating our new patio and sculptures in our Memorial Garden.
It may not be fully completed (benches and a railing will take months to arrive) but we sure do need to celebrate. All are welcome to have lunch at Maria and Estaban’s Food Truck, dance to the music, and see your friends. Even though it’s an outdoor event, social distancing or masking is required. We’ll also dedicate new sculptures in the Memorial Garden. See you there!
UU Asheville’s Anti-Racist Immigration Justice Action Group (A-RIJAG) invites you to a free Faith4Justice virtual event on Thursday, September 30, 6:30-8pm, Zoom
This is an opportunity to explore a painful and controversial topic , “white women’s tears,” from a biblical and historical perspective with a diverse group of local women including progressive clergy. The presenters are Ashley Cooper, Keaton Hill, Libby Kyles, Marta Acala-Williams, Rev. Marcia Mt. Shoop, and Rev. Tami Forte Logan. Register here.
Rev. Claudia will be available on Zoom the following Monday evening to facilitate a discussion among UUAshevilleans who attend the event and want to go over it with others. The Zoom link will be in the Worship eNews on Monday, October 4.
Rev. Cathy will lead a monthly “Taste of Soul” session. Even if you don’t join a small group for the whole church year, you can still try an experience. The monthly Soul Matters packets that we use as resources for our Soul Matters groups are a wealth of resources for self-reflection and exploration. Send an email to Rev. Cathy for the Zoom link. She definitely wants to meet you!
Before Christine Hallquist was running for Governor of Vermont, she was David Hallquist, the CEO of the largest locally owned electric utility in Vermont. A self-described “closet environmentalist,” Hallquist is dedicated to addressing the way electricity use in America contributes to climate change. In this 2017 film directed by his son, Hallquist as CEO works to balance climate change with the utility’s charge to provide affordable and reliable service. As Hallquist struggles to build a transparent company whose honest approach can get stakeholders to accept the realities of how we generate and deliver electricity, he realizes he must apply that same transparency to his personal life and reveals to his son a lifelong secret. Dave Hallquist, who presents as a chainsaw-wielding, hard-hat-wearing CEO in a male-dominated industry is a woman inside.
“Stunningly well-made. Denial is that rare documentary that actually shows us change. People and understandings, as well as climate and sexuality, are represented as fluid – messy and disruptive, but life-giving. This is an eco-film where science and technology, personal and political conflict, humility, love, and aesthetic virtuosity forge unexpected and beautiful alliances.”
Marguerite Waller, Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of California, Riverside
“Denial compellingly merges our country’s refusal to accept the truth of gender’s complexity with our denial about climate change and a failed energy system…The themes of transparency, honesty, compromise, and complexity in relation to gender identity/expression and climate change render this film a perfect fit for courses in environmental justice, women’s and gender studies, queer theory, and environmental studies.
Dr. Katie Hogan, Director of Women’s and Gender Studies, Professor of English, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
There is no charge for viewing the film. Donations are welcome (click DONATE on the left-hand menu or text UUAVL to 73256).
Send a request for the Zoom link to Charlie Wussow at mnpopi@icloud.com by Wednesday, September 8th. There will be a discussion after the screening of the film. Runtime: 92 minutes
On Wednesday, September 8th from 7:00-8:30pm, UU Justice Ministry of NC is partnering with All on the Line to host a Redistricting Workshop for UU congregations in Western NC.
In the coming months, politicians in the North Carolina legislature will redraw the maps for Legislative (NC House, NC Senate) and Congressional (US House) districts because the US Constitution requires that US voting districts be redrawn every 10 years, using the updated population information from the U.S. Census count. The process is a little complicated, but the outcomes will have a huge impact on our system of government and the lives of people in our state for the next decade.
During this workshop we will:
We have a mighty trio of volunteers who are working to produce a cookbook by and for UUCAers. No one needs to 
be a creative chef here. Just send in recipes that you either use a lot, that get rave reviews from friends, or are just fun! Omnivores, vegetarians and vegans welcome! We want ’em all.
Sally, Sherry and Fredda will be coordinating the creation of this fabulous hardcover cookbook as a fundraiser for our congregation in conjunction with the November Auction. We invite you to send us as many favorite recipes as you’d like. Time is of the essence, so start choosing your recipes now! These cookbooks (which also make great gifts ) will be available to purchase at the auction in November for $15 each. To make this even more fun, there will also be a raffle for everyone who submits recipes, so the more recipes you send in, the better your chances are in the raffle! Send those recipes to one of us so you can be a part of our UUCA cookbook!
Questions? Email anyone on the cookbook committee! Sh
We are going to need you. Yes, you!
As I’m writing this, it’s been two days since our Religious Education Celebration service. I’ve been reflecting on the service and thinking about how all the pieces and participants were what made it so special. It felt like the perfect culmination of this strange and extraordinary year in RE. Some of us cried, all of us laughed, and everyone gave what they could. We are extremely grateful not only to the volunteers who helped make it happen, but also to the children and youth of this congregation who participated in RE in whatever way felt right to them this year.
When Jen Johnson and I were planning for RE last summer, we must have scrapped our plans at least three times to start over. When things began to shut down in March, we already had the 2020-21 RE year planned. We were just about to start recruiting volunteers. Obviously that went right out the window when the seriousness of the situation became apparent. Things were changing so fast and the timeline for when we might reopen kept getting pushed further back. We knew that we had to offer a program that would meet as many needs as possible, but also that we would need help. Once we decided what to do, we started looking for the helpers. We were blessed to have so many folks step up to help with everything from leading online sessions to stuffing and delivering our “church in box”.
We don’t know quite what we’ll be up to in RE next year yet, but we’re working on it. Jen and I will be spending the next few weeks planning for the fall and beyond, and we’d love to hear from parents and kids about what you want to do in RE next year. We’ve been thinking about it over the last few months, but now is the time to make decisions and put things in motion. It’s definitely still going to look different than what we did pre-pandemic, but I think that’s a good thing. We’ve learned a lot about doing this work in a different way this year, and it has only made our program stronger and more committed to the faith development of children, youth, and adults at UUCA.
Not only do we need input on what our program should include, we will need folks to make it happen. We’ll need people to teach in RE, help out with family ministry outside of Sunday mornings, and help behind the scenes. If cleaning and organizing is your thing, we’ll definitely need you in August. Many of our rooms haven’t been inhabited in over a year and could use some love and attention. Please reach out to us if you know how you’d like to pitch in or what age group you’d like to work with. Being able to offer our program is largely dependent on having dedicated volunteers. Teacher training is on the schedule for Saturday, August 28, so mark your calendars! We are going to need you.
In faith,
Kim Collins, Lifespan Religious Education Coordinator
So, do you need a break? We thought so! As we near the end of the 2020-’21 church year, we come to a major transition in our congregational life together. With the departure of our lead minister, Rev. Mark Ward, in June and the exhaustion that all of us – staff, volunteers, and . . . well, everybody – are feeling after a year of coping with the COVID pandemic, we are planning on doing something that, as far as we can tell, we’ve never done at this congregation: We’re going to cancel weekly worship in July.
That’s right. After we say good-bye to Rev. Ward on June 13, we’ll take a break in worship until August. Actually, we recommend that you connect for Sunday worship at General Assembly on June 27 – we’ll post the link on our Web site – but other than that no services are planned. We’ll begin Sunday services again on August 1 with our traditional Poetry Sunday. In the meantime, if you need a break from the hiking trails and you’re hankering for some UUCA time, we will send a selection of videos in late June from the past year that you can watch.
Any covenant groups, social groups or other committees that would like to continue meeting are welcome to, but we’re giving all staff members a chance to breathe so they won’t be at those meetings.
So, let’s all plan our camping trips, or bicycle or hiking adventures, or just chill by the pool and recharge our batteries so we’ll be ready for an exciting fall with our new interim minister.
PS: Administrative staff will still be paying attention to things like processing donations and paying bills and reserving Sandburg Hall for meetings. So it’s not a break from donating. Just in case you were wondering….
Racially Charged: America’s Misdemeanor Problem exposes how our country’s history of racial injustice evolved into an enormous abuse of criminal justice power. 13 million people a year – most of them poor and people of color – are abused by this system.
Through first-person accounts of those charged under the Black Codes of the Reconstruction era paralleled with the outrageous stories of people trapped in the system today, the film brings to light the unfolding of a powerful engine of profits and racial inequality. With the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, this film provides historical context and examines America’s history of racist oppression.
“A revelatory film, directed by Robert Greenwald, exposing, with searing history and staggering facts, the invidious, disproportionate impact of minor offenses on people of color. Brave New Films creatively marshals eloquent scholars, passionate activists and fascinating historical footage to challenge us all to continue working for systemic changes to our criminal justice system.”
~ Katrina vanden Heuvel, Editorial Director & Publisher, The Nation“A powerful, emotional and important film… Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films leading the charge, once again. The film powerfully illustrates that every year America arrests, prosecutes, and jails millions of people, overwhelmingly Black and Brown, for minor offenses. This is neither an accident nor inevitable.
Watch, absorb, and then go out and take action…”
~ Anthony Romero Executive Director, American Civil Liberties Union
Note: This film will be viewed on Zoom. Send a request for the link to Charlie Wussow at mnpopi@icloud.com by Thursday, June 17th. There will be a discussion after the screening of the film.
This screening is free. Donations are gratefully accepted.
UUCA’s Racial Justice Advisory Council, working with the Board of Trustees, is asking for your participation in helping us work toward becoming a transformative, liberating congregation for all. The Council has a two-step process for us. Step One is to read this Glossary so that everyone at UUCA is working with the same definitions of words and acronyms. The Council is encouraging all committees and groups (social and spiritual deepening groups) to examine the glossary together. You may invite a member of the Racial Justice Advisory Council to attend if you’d like their support. (Contact Rev. Claudia to book someone.) Glossary conversations open to all will occur as the Wednesday Thing programs on the second Wednesdays of May and June (May 12 and June 9) at 7pm.
Step Two is coming soon…. (don’t you love suspense?)