05/31/2017 by Shannon Day

Diversity Within The Pages of the Westside Children’s Library- Cynthia Westby, Director of Religious Exploration

On Sunday, May 21st Westside held a service with guest speaker Dr. Jabali Stewart called “We Will Keep Moving Together.” He explored the painful reality of white supremacy culture in America with music and story, looking at our cultural assumptions from a place of curiosity and solution. As part of that service, our story for all ages was about an 11 year old black girl named Marley Dias who loved getting lost in a book but wanted books where black girls were the main character. When she didn’t find those books at her school or in her library, she started

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05/24/2017 by Shannon Day

Liquid Spirit – Tracy Burrows, Board President May 24, 2017

Thank you to everyone who responded to the Board’s request for feedback on the proposal to extend Rev. Alex’s interim contract. The Board heard you loud and clear and voted to enter into a new contract with Rev. Alex for a two-year duration, with a one-year check-in to confirm that the arrangement continues to be mutually beneficial. We have a lot of work to do over the next two years. Priorities include leadership development, a newly structured social justice program, improved financial stewardship planning, and a continuation in the growth of our small group ministries.  We’ll need your help to

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05/24/2017 by Shannon Day

Minister’s Musings Among the Mountains – Week of May 22

“We are a Justice Seeking People”  This last three months or so in the Unitarian Universalist Association of congregations has been intense after a strong reaction to the hiring of a colleague for a regional lead staff position in another region. That person was white, male, and a minister. Another person who was a person of color was not hired and was told they weren’t ‘a good fit.’ The responses to these events have been multi-faceted. The person who was hired later withdrew his name and the position became open again. A more important conversation has begun about the idealism

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05/17/2017 by Shannon Day

Minister’s Musing Among the Mountains – Week of May15

“Walt Whitman: ‘Be curious, not judgmental.’” Last Sunday was Mother’s Day. I tried to explore some of the threads of the women’s movement from the 19th century to today. A theme I hoped would stand out would be about male supremacy in American and most world cultures. This Sunday will be a very important one at Westside as we explore a cousin of male supremacy called white supremacy. This topic isn’t being presented as a “blame whites” conversation. Male supremacy and white supremacy are seen as the general supremacy that one dominant culture assumes it has over those it sees

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05/03/2017 by Shannon Day

Minister Musing Among the Mountains – Week of May 1

This morning (Wednesday) I was looking out over the Sound to the Olympic Mountains. Today they are partly concealed by clouds and occasional rain. When the search process was in full forward gear this winter I often got calls or video chats with potential candidates for settled minister at Westside. I would always point the webcam out the window so they could see the incredible beauty here. One time I even caught a sunset when an interested colleague contacted me. I expect we all know that beautiful scenery, the mountains, the water and so much more makes the Pacific Northwest

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05/01/2017 by Shannon Day

The Candidacy of Rev. Carlos Martinez Has Ended

Candidating Week is a week of mutual discernment. It is an exciting and stressful process as a congregation and a ministerial candidate think deeply and reach clarity about whether the match and the opportunity are right for both. The Search Team put a lot of emphasis on the congregation’s role in assessing whether WSUU and Rev. Carlos were a good match for each other. It’s clear that Rev. Carlos is a gifted minister. We heard lots of positive comments.  At the same time, we heard a growing number of concerns and reservations. As the week unfolded, we also became increasingly

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04/26/2017 by Shannon Day

Aligning the Heart – Cynthia Westby, DRE

To what do you align your heart?  Ultimately, that is the quest of religious exploration.  The formation of our children’s spirituality comes through story, art, lessons, wondering, questioning, and discussions.  Exploring their feelings and understandings of UU, their personal expression of this faith, develops and evolves. Children and youth are accompanied on the journey of spiritual formation and spiritual self-awareness by our RE volunteer teachers and RE staff.  Together we grow and mature our faith.  Relationship building and involvement with the broader church community help our children appreciate Unitarian Universalism, and discover what it means to be a member of

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04/20/2017 by Shannon Day

Liquid Spirit – Tracy Burrows, Board President

The final preparations have been going on all week, and we are finally going to meet our ministerial candidate, Rev. Carlos Martinez, next week. We will put our best selves forward to welcome him. We are going to learn a lot about Rev. Carlos and, perhaps more importantly, we’ll learn a lot about ourselves. Who are we as a congregation and what are we looking for? Who do we want as a leader for the next years in our congregational life? We are a dynamic congregation, and the answers to these questions are constantly evolving. We’ve changed dramatically over the

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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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