04/12/2017 by Shannon Day

Minister’s Musings Among the Mountains – Week of April 10

“May you live in interesting times” Many of us have heard this wise expression over the years. It sounds astute and supposedly it comes from Asian proverb sayings. The saying has been widely shared especially in these difficult days in America and the world. Another expression that says the Chinese character for ‘crisis’ are the symbols for ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity’. We can find these two expressions in business circles, New Age websites and many other places online. Unfortunately, neither of them come from Asian traditions. The first expression “may you live in interesting times’ appears to have been conceived in

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04/05/2017 by Shannon Day

Minister’s Musings Among the Mountains – Week of April 3

http://www.blacklivesuu.com/uuwhitesupremacyteachin  Some of you may have read the information I put in the e-news last Friday about UUA President Peter Morales resigning effective April 1. His resignation was in major part an outcome of a highly controversial hiring in the Southern Region of the UUA. The compilation of the sequence of events is in this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10QbuEL7ADWpm5GvpRf-UdU2nbylllpK07DOgzM2dCpc/mobilebasic. You’ll read that hiring practices in the UUA continue to be overwhelmingly white and oftentimes male hires. This is clearly not in line with the aspirations of the UUA to become a fair and equitable hiring and promoting organization. A couple of days ago

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03/29/2017 by Shannon Day

Minister’s Musings Among the Mountains – Mar. 31

Some of you have asked questions about the why’s of the next steps in the selection of the new minister and what happens thereafter. I’d like to try to answer some of them but will defer to the Ministerial Search Committee and Paula vanHaagen as chair of the team for specifics. Why does the search process take so long? Interim ministers are hired very quickly but the search for a new settled minister is a long procedure. The search for a new settled minister does take a long time and is expensive. We should remember that our UU congregations operate

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03/20/2017 by Shannon Day

We’ve Gotta Talk (or email, or post, or tweet, or text, or IM or…)!

Get in on the ground floor of the organizing of a new communications team. We are looking for people with ideas, communications experience, social networking know how, marketing chops, and get-to-it-ness. Want to make a difference at WSUU, want to make sure everyone knows the low down, want to ensure people know how to get involved, want to make a plan and get something done? Come to a fast 45 minutes meeting, Sunday, March 26, at 12:15 PM in the Fireside Room. 

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03/20/2017 by Shannon Day

Join the Fun and Help Us Refresh Our Social Hall

Saturdays, April 8 & 15, 9:30 a.m. – 3 p.m. (or as long as you can stay) On two Saturdays in April we will be washing, preppping and repainting the walls in the social hall.  Please bring gloves, bucket, sponges, rags, sponge mop, or whatever you think we’ll need for cleaning. Church will supply cleaning products. If you have a favorite cutting in brush, bring it. Extra roller and pan, bring that too.

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03/15/2017 by Shannon Day

From Rev. Alex – March 15, 2017

Several people who plan to attend the Stewardship dinner on April 1 have asked me whether we have a keynote speaker lined up. I asked a colleague from another denomination if he’d be interested and he said yes. Vincent Lachina has worked with UU congregations and many others in his role as Pacific Northwest Planned Parenthood chaplain. Here’s what he wrote me as an introduction: “As Regional Chaplain for Planned Parenthood, I have had two primary responsibilities during my 13 years here. First, to assist with pastor care for our staff of over 400, and when requested, for patients with

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03/08/2017 by Shannon Day

Minister’s Musings Among the Mountains – March 8, 2017

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” spoken by Franklin D Roosevelt in his 1932 Inauguration The famous phrase above spoken by President Franklin Roosevelt has been on my mind for a while now. Here are the sentences that surround those words he spoke to a frightened and weary America: “let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that

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03/01/2017 by Shannon Day

Minister’s Musings Among the Mountains – March 3, 2017

“What’s in a song? A couple of people asked me recently what I thought the difference was between two songs I had used as central themes of services here. The difference is especially striking given the election and how it’s affected the country. The first song I played in August was “Believer” by the group American Authors. It’s a joyful and upbeat song testifying to a belief that things will get better in our world. The second song I played a couple of weeks ago was “Manifesto” by Nahko and Medicine for the People. It’s optimistic but in a more

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02/22/2017 by Shannon Day

Religious Education – Building Our Future – Cynthia Westby, Dir. Religious Exploration for Children and Youth

Religious Exploration at Westside matters to all of us whether or not we have children.  We are growing lifelong UUs through our RE programming.  Our children – and they are our children – are the future leaders, volunteers, congregants, and members of UU churches.  Perhaps they will remain at Westside when they reach adulthood.  Perhaps they will land in some other congregation.  Wherever they go they will have been nourished by our Unitarian Universalist sources and principles. Our children and youth are learning from the curriculum, from each other, from the teachers, and from the many intangibles (love, concern, attention,

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