We have a variety of programs for adults planned this year! Join us for Small Group Ministry, Book Groups, Sunday Forums, and Classes.
Registration for classes is open to all members and friends of OUUC and members of the larger community. To help us keep these offerings sustainable, we suggest participants donate $0-$10 per class meeting. Don’t bring cash to class, either write a check or make a donation online.
Upcoming Classes:
Buddhism: Based on “Buddhism Without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening” by Stephen Batchelor
Led by Bill Arensmeyer
Stephen Batchelor reminds us that the Buddha was not a mystic who claimed privileged, esoteric knowledge of the universe, but a man who challenged us to understand the nature of anguish, let go of its origins, and bring into being a way of life that is available to us all. The concepts and practices of Buddhism, says Batchelor, are not something to believe in but something to do—and as he explains clearly and compellingly, it is a practice that we can engage in, regardless of our background or beliefs, as we live every day on the path to spiritual enlightenment.
Dates/Times:
Thursdays 4:30-5:30pm
3/7/24, 3/14/24, 3/21/24, and 3/28/24
The UU Common Read: On Repentance and Repair
4 sessions, Wed 6:30-8pm, March 20th to April 10th
Facilitated by Rev Sara Lewis
The new UU Common Read, On Repentance and Repair by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg (Beacon Press, 2022), provides a fresh, transformative perspective on how we make ourselves accountable to others.
This Common Read offers a glimpse into Judaism, one of our faith’s foundational sources, as we follow Rabbi Ruttenberg’s dive into prescriptions on accountability offered by the 12th century Jewish physician and scholar, Maimonides. The book unpacks Maimonides’ five-step process: owning the harm we have done, starting to change, making restitution and accepting consequences, apologizing, and going forward in life as a changed person who will make different choices.
Using Maimonides’ writings as a framework, Rabbi Ruttenberg points us toward modern day practices of repentance that can really make a difference in our personal, community, and broader societal relationships. As a UU Common Read selection, this book invites us to follow our own Unitarian Universalist faith into transformative atonement, whether a harm has been done with family or friends, within a congregation or other community, or by sweeping wrongs such as genocide and racial oppression.
The travel class is back! Covid 19 ended travel for many and thus canceled our class. Many have been traveling again and have stories and reflections to share with us all. Presentations will be more than a typical “travelog,” and will highlight how the journey expanded presenter’s perspective to enrich understanding of ourselves, the world, and how this and relates to our UU values.
Classes be on Fridays between 6:30pm – 8:30pm beginning on March 29, 2024. Below is the schedule of our presenters. We will send out more details of each presentation as the time nears. Classes will be in-person at OUUC. We will be recording presentations for those who would like to watch later.
3/29/24 Rick Brandt-Kreutz: My Last Sabbatical: Stories and Lessons from the Land of my Roots
In the fall of 2023, my wife Betsy and I traveled in Great Britain and France, my last chance to take a sabbatical from work. We both trace our ancestry there, and I had never visited. The journey had meaning both personal and universal. We met friends in Yorkshire, explored Dunollie Castle where Betsy traces her MacDougal roots, and walked on Omaha beach where Betsy’s father took the first pictures of the D-Day landing. Inspired by the legacy of human faith endeavors, including Stonehenge from the Stone Age, the Isle of Iona where Christianity was born in Scotland, and the medieval monastery of Mont San Michel. In all these places communities still gather. The long legacy of human law from the Code of Hammurabi to the Magna Carta, the past is a light much needed for the darker developments of our modern politics. Even so, I found that Van Gogh is everywhere, and Unicorns and rainbows abound. My last sabbatical was also a new beginning.
4/5/24 Paul Bakke: Walking the Way of St Olav
For 32 days in August and September, 2023, I did a walking pilgrimage called the Way of St. Olav. The route, also known as the Northern Camino, is roughly 600 km long, leading from the Baltic Sea at Sundsvall, Sweden to the Atlantic Ocean at Trondheim, Norway. In this presentation I will share with you the history of the pilgrimage, and some of my stories and photos from the walk. I hope to also provide a glimpse into the powerful life-lessons that a walking pilgrimage is all about.
4/12/24 Emily Ray: Ethiopia, Land of Stark Contrasts
Imagine yourself flying in a Dreamliner, descending to the airport at Addis Ababa. Below, in the parched earth between the runways, a man is poking the parched brown earth with a stick. He is planting seeds. The contrast is unnerving. In our brief visit to four areas of Ethiopia in 2015, we encountered such contrasts over and over. We also observed spiritual fervor, not just religiosity, in this ancient land. Ethiopia is among the poorest countries in the world. Did the spirituality have any relationship to the dire poverty of the people?
4/19/24 Dale Armstrong: Mental Health in Somaliland
This journey begins in 2015 in Minneapolis, Minnesota where the largest population of Somalis of Somalia is settled. I was working at the State Psychiatric Hospital and had a number of Somali patients. I was paired with a young Somali, Salah, working on his MPH (Masters in Public Health) who served as my translator.
Together we witnessed some remarkable transformations of patients we worked with. Salah was so inspired by our work that he returned to Somalia after fleeing the country over 20 years before. He found a mental health system in complete disarray. He invited me over to see what we could do together. I have had the opportunity to visit the major psychiatric facilities in Somaliland. We started a clinic and have treated many Somalis. We also have begun training Somalis to be therapists. I have had the opportunity to travel all over Somaliland and will share lots of pictures and experiences. I lived there over a year and now still visit frequently.
Travel That Changes Hearts and Transforms Lives is dedicated to the memory and legacy of Billie Williams who for so many years inspired us all with her global perspective and commitment to sharing important and untold stories.
Spirituality, Science, and Nature
3 sessions, Saturdays 11am-12:30pm April 6, 13, 20th
Facilitated by Rev Sara Lewis
Grounded in the book Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit by Lyanda Lynn Haupt, this class will explore how we can live with the earth and nature in simple and profound ways, and how our spirituality can be deeply rooted in our belonging to the natural world around us.
Registration is Now Closed
Are you interested in learning more about social justice and how you can make a difference? Join Rev. Mary for a social justice book study from September 2023 through May 2024. We’ll explore the three areas of OUUC Faith in Action focus: economic justice, climate justice and racial justice, as well as threats to our democracy as we head into an election year. Rev. Mary has curated three books and a recorded lecture that are sure to provoke deep discussion and challenge us to action. The book group will meet onsite at OUUC every second Thursday evening of the month at 6:30 pm starting on September 14.
Books will be:
Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance by Edgar Villanueva
Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America by Michael Eric Dyson
Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility edited by Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua
“My Little Pony Was Right: Reflections of Fascisms Without and Within”, 203rd Berry Street Essay delivered by The Reverend Cecilia Kingman
No reading needed for the first session.
OUUC Book Group 2023-2024
Contact Rev Sara (dre@ouuc.org) or Frances Tanaka for information on how to join the Book Group
Meets on the Fourth Tuesday of the Month
10am hosted at Frances Tanaka’s home and 6:30pm on Zoom
OUUC BOOK GROUP PDF List 2023-2024
September The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
Set in Kerala, South India spanning the years 1900-1977 this novel follows three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret.
October Scattered All Over the Earth by Yoko Tawada
In the future Japan has disappeared beneath the ocean and Hiruko finds herself in Scandinavia teaching immigrant children her invented language Panska (Pan-Scandinavian) which will help them communicate with people from four different countries there.
November Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Sam and Sadie, two college friends, often in love, but never lovers, become creative friends in the dazzling world of video game design.
January Deep River: A Novel by Karl Marlantes
Three Finish siblings flee their country because of Russian oppression in the early 1900’s and settle in a southwest Washington logging community near the Columbia River.
February Stealing by Margaret Verble
In the 1950’s Midwest after her Cherokee mother has died and her father has gone to prison, Kit Crockett at age 12 is sent to a boarding school for Cherokee, Chicksaw and Comanche girls.
March On Call in the Arctic: A Doctor’s Pursuit of Life, Love, and Miracles in the Alaskan Frontier by Thomas J. Sims
The memoir of a young doctor who goes to Alaska, working for the US Public Health Service instead of being drafted as a Mash surgeon in Vietnam.
April The Last Garden in England by Julia Kelly
This is a historical fiction novel which moves across three time periods and the lives of five women who are all connected by one special English garden.
May The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris
Towards the end of the Civil War, two enslaved brothers leave their owners plantation in search of a free life during the reconstruction era. One of President Obama’s favorite books.
June The Storied Life of A.J. Fickry by Gabrielle Zevin
A two year old girl name Maya is abandoned in the book store of a grumpy old man and changes his life.
ABOUT THE OUUC ADULT FAITH DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
OUUC’s adult faith development program offers a wide range of classes to help members and others in their spiritual development and in a broad variety of life skills, as well as to increase knowledge in specific areas, or just to have fun. The Adult Faith Development Team reviews ideas for classes, finds and assists instructors, and publishes seasonal catalogs of the class offerings with the goal of supporting Lifelong Learning.
We welcomes offers to lead future classes from members of the broader community as well as from the OUUC congregation. Please direct proposals or inquiries to Rev. Sara Lewis (dre@ouuc.org / 360-634-2005), or contact a committee member. A member of the committee will contact you and guide you through the process of setting up your class.