Dear TUUC Community, It is with very mixed emotions that I announce my retirement from my position as your Director of Religious Exploration for Children and Youth effective the end of this month. There is so much about this job that I love! Being part of an effort to create and support programming and community-building … Continue reading From the Director of Religious Exploration for Children and Youth
One of my very favorite activities is paddling a kayak. When I was growing up, my family had a cottage on a lake in Vermont. We had a clunky rowboat and a fluorescent green canoe and I spent a lot of time out on the water in these two boats. But there was something about … Continue reading Kayak Lessons
Several years ago, I participated in a “Diversity Event” at work. It was a celebration of the many different cultures represented by the staff in our agency. Many of my co-workers were immigrants or first-generation Americans, hired, in part, because they were bilingual and could more effectively serve our non-English speaking clients. For the event, … Continue reading Meeting My Ancestors
We are about to begin our new year in the Children’s Religious Exploration (RE) Program and this year we are trying something new. Our RE program will be using curriculum built around the Soul Matters themes used by the entire congregation. The decision to use the Soul Matters themes came out of a brainstorm by … Continue reading Soul Matters and the Children of Tahoma UU Congregation
Dear Friends, I want to let you know that I have made the decision to welcome the unexpected guest of change into my life by accepting a full-time position as the Director of Lifespan Religious Education at the Mount Diablo UU Congregation in Walnut Creek, CA, beginning in August. While this specific change was not … Continue reading Changes Ahead
O Wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world That has such people in’t! The Tempest, Act 5, Scene 1, Lines 181-184 There is a cultural push and pull over these famous lines. Written from the perspective of the naive Miranda in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the … Continue reading Talking About a Gender Revolution
“Our times ask us to exercise our capacity for prophetic witness, by Prophetic witness I mean our capacity to see what is happening, to say what is happening and to act in accordance with what we know….Prophetic witness …is the ability to name those places where we resist knowing what needs to be known.” ~ … Continue reading Black People Matter
We are a week out from the election and there is still a lot of uncertainty, to say the least, about what a Donald Trump presidency will mean. Some of our children and youth will be able to articulate their reaction and feelings about this, others may simply be reacting. It’s important to let your … Continue reading After the Election for Children and Youth
Greetings, A cherished component of our faith community is encouragement to ask questions and receive support as we seek our own truth. For families, I believe a question often asked is, “Is it worth it to muster not only myself, after a long and busy week, but sleepy and sometimes resistant children to church on Sunday morning?” … Continue reading Is It Worth It?
This summer a transformation took place in several of the Religious Exploration classrooms thanks to the generosity of Tahama UU’s Paddle Raise donors! The two rooms are used for the middle school and high school youth groups, as well as adult committee meetings and covenant groups. The rooms went from seriously drab …. to fab! But … Continue reading Thank You Tahoma UU Paddle Raise Donors!
