WUU News

by the Soul Matters Sharing Circle team You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book (Lady Chatterley, for instance), or you take a trip, or you talk with [someone], and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating… Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death….

by the Soul Matters Sharing Circle team “Faith is homesickness. Faith is a lump in the throat.” Frederick Buechner “Once a reporter asked A.J. Muste, “Do you really think you are going to change the policies of this country by standing out here alone at night in front of the White House with a candle?” Muste replied softly: “Oh I don’t do this to change the country. I do this so the country won’t change me.” Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat How do we renew our faith when so much is falling apart? In these fragile days, we, who assess life through “the…

It has been a busy month for our JTA team as we welcomed Stefany, Mike, and Alessandra to our community. The Virginia leg of their journey began when the Carrion/Riofrio family picked them up at the Richmond airport and brought them to their new home, which had been lovingly prepared under the guidance of Lola Warren and a team of house volunteers and those who contributed housewarming items. When our guests arrived, they commented on the beauty of their new space. As a team we felt so grateful to welcome them to this safe, warm house after their treacherous, many month-long…

Dear WUU community, Have you seen the Visioning Circles report? What a powerful summary of the hopes and dreams so many of you (over 100!) shared in last month’s Visioning Circles. You spoke of fellowship, worship, religious education, social justice, music, and so much else that has made WUU a special community over the years. You shared things you love, and things you wish were different. You’ve challenged each other and our congregational leadership to do the deep work of reimagining and reinventing how WUU will serve our mission in the months and years to come. So what’s next? We’re already moving forward on hiring…

Who owns our congregation? As your current President I find myself asking this type of question on a regular basis. During this pandemic, WUU congregational life has been much like the rest of societal life filled with struggle, division, pain, and loneliness. We here at the WUU are not atypical of those feelings. Recently, I hosted a quarterly Zoom discussion among the Presidents of our sister Tidewater Cluster, and all of us are struggling with difficult decisions in the life of our congregations. Yesterday, I was sent an article written by Dan Hotchkiss, the guru of our governance structure, that…

Dear WUU Community, This Sunday we celebrate Charter Sunday—the 33rd anniversary of WUU’s founding. Happy birthday to this wonderful congregation! Many years ago, sculptor and WUU member Pat Winter created an extraordinary sculpture to symbolize the shared journey of the congregation—a spiral, crafted out of metal, with a series of holes in it. Each year on Charter Sunday, members of the congregation fasten a metal rivet to the next hole, representing another year in the life of WUU. Why a spiral? It’s one of the strongest, most beautiful forms in nature, found everywhere from galaxies billions of miles away from us to the shells of…

by the Soul Matters Sharing Circle team Is it possible that being on the inside leaves you out of the loop? What if the margins aren’t narrow? What if that space of exclusion is also a position of perspective? What if being shut out allows you to understand the insiders better than they understand themselves? Why do so many seek the safety of that inner circle anyway? Don’t we know that the circles not only keep others out but also the air? Haven’t we learned that it’s on the edge of circles that hate makes its home? So even if…

The Journey to Asylum team is excited to announce that we will be welcoming our next guests, a family of three from Honduras, into the program this coming Sunday! Stefany, Mike, and baby Alessandra (8 months) are pleased to join our community and are eager to begin their new lives in Williamsburg. We connected with them through our partners at Al Otro Lado, a legal organization assisting immigrants at our southern border. The family is coming to us via Houston, where a UU-led interfaith group helping immigrants assisted them with immediate needs and will transport them to the airport. It…