Service Leader: Rev. Kathy Huff
Worship Associate: Susan Bartholome

Hope sustains us along the tumultuous path. Diana Eck in her bookEncountering God, calls hope "wakeful, radical and eager. . .It is standing on tiptoes and waiting in expectation . . . leaning forward toward the horizon of the dawn, ready for sunrise".

Service Leader: Rev. Kathy Huff
Worship Associate: Susan Panttaja

"The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience", said Albert Einstein, "is the sensation of the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science." Unitarian Universalism is sometimes described as a tradition that allows The Mystery to remain mysterious.

Worship Associates: David Hope and Eric Fischer

Music: Mystery from the Missa Gaia performed by Jenny Harriman; also Mystery by Bruce Cockburn (a different piece) performed by Robin Rogers, Eric Skagerberg, and the UUsual Suspects

The Transcendentalist Movement of the early 19th century was a reaction to the prevailing intellectualized spirituality of the Unitarians and Harvard Divinity School. Beginning with Ralph Waldo Emerson, who famously resigned his Unitarian ministry, the Transcendentalists looked toward nature and Eastern religions for individual insight into the mysteries of creation.

Worship Leaders: Rev. Kathy Huff, Bryan Plude, Deborah Mason, and Linda Proulx

Poised on the edge of something mysterious, we gather to remember ancient stories, to renew life, and celebrate the magnificent beauty and wonder of it all. Be sure to bring a flower to share for our flower communion.

At 9:15 the service features a contemplative "Spring Haggadah" and at 11:00 our "Service for All Ages" brings us together with an "Egg Story" to remember. All Easter finery, bonnets, spring hats, and festivities welcome and encouraged.

Service Leaders: Rev. Károly Vass, Erin Howseman

We welcome the Balázs Scholar at Starr King School for the Ministry, Rev. Károly Vass. Using the imagination of a child and the perspective of an adult, and borrowing inspiration from a science fiction tale, Rev. Vass invites us to re-imagine the world we long for and to recommit to creating it. Come hear how this Unitarian from Transylvania wrestles with the "ground of being" and comes to name the "absolute" in modern terms.

Worship Leader: Alan Proulx
Worship Associate: Linda Proulx

Summer Schedule
Single Service at 10am

 What would you do with your life if you knew you only had a year to live? Alan and his men's group resolved to find out with the help of the book, A Year to Live, by Buddhist practitioner and end-of-life counselor Stephen Levine. When people are really ill and have a short time to live, living can be reduced to dealing with illness. What would life be like if we only had a year or less to live and we weren't dealing with illness? What could we learn from focusing on what we really wanted to be and do with the limited time left to us? There are important lessons here for everyone who is going to die at some point in time!

Service Leaders: Erin Howseman and Susan Panttaja,
with a Reflection by Robin Marrs

Summer Schedule
Single Service at 10am

Walking is an ancient and powerful spiritual practice. Julia Cameron, author of Vein of Gold, the Artist's Way, writes that "Druids and Wiccans quest by walking. Tibetans make circular pilgrimages around Kalais, the sacred mountain. Native Americans walk for vision quests. Jesus also walked into the desert... All of us make a pilgrimage whenever we set ourselves outward bound for inner voyaging." Like a pilgrimage, walking a labyrinth is a spiritual practice. The labyrinth provides the sacred space where the inner and outer worlds can commune, where the thinking mind and imaginative heart can flow together. With song, poems and reflection, we will come together and experience the inspiration that spiritual walking can bring us.

Service Leaders: Rev. Chris Bell, Erin Howseman

Today we will celebrate the 10 year anniversary of our move to UUCSR and The Glaser Center at 547 Mendocino Avenue.

Please join us to honor the members of our congregation who years ago imagined a spiritual home where we could practice our principles of spirituality and social justice in the heart of our community.

We also welcome Rev. Chris back from his sabbatical , and celebrate those who have nourished UUCSR over the past 10 years and those who will carry our mission into the future.

Sunday Worship service at 10:00 a.m. in the sanctuary followed by a familyfriendly party in the social hall and courtyard.

Presenter: Lucia Milburn
Worship Associate: Scott Miller

The Chinese symbol for crisis has embedded in it two other symbols, one for danger and one for opportunity. Using her experiences as the mother of a child with a disability, Lucia will explore the nature of personal crisis and how danger may become opportunity.

Service Leaders Susan Bartholome and Andy Levine

This Sunday, in the middle of the “Moving Season,” we will explore the effects of growing up in one’s home town versus spending a nomadic childhood in a military family. What impact can these differing experiences have on one’s sense of home and sense of self?

Service Leaders: Rev. Chris Bell

Worship Associate: David Hope

This week we officially welcome back Rev. Chris, and hear his reflections on his sabbatical and his aspirations for the next phase of our relationship as minister and congregation. We'll consider what risks we might take as individuals and as a community for the fulfillment of our Mission and Vision. Sometimes we have to risk letting go the old, and other times we have to risk taking on the new. That's not always easy; but without risk there is no growth. No fun, either!

Service Leader: Rev. Chris Bell

Worship Associate: Linda Proulx

Conversion is a concept that distresses many religious liberals, tied as it is to cajoling or compelling others to believe or act a certain way. The armed fundamentalists in Africa and Iraq (or Operation Save America) are only the latest example of this ancient and dangerous impulse. But conversion also refers to a striking and powerful internal shift that can be a core part of the spiritual journey, if we are open to the possibility. And sometimes even if we are not...

Service Leaders: Eric Fischer & Isabel Fischer

Growing up, we all experience feeling different in some way. Adolescence is a time of searching for acceptance and a sense of self. Youth struggling with mental health issues face additional challenges that can make this overwhelming. Using Isabel Fischer's short film "Mind + Body," we will explore the journey of young people finding themselves while living with mental illness.

Service Leader: Rev. Chris Bell

Worship Associate: Francis Corman

Sudden conversions aside, most of us find that change comes slowly and with great effort. While remaining open to breakthroughs, we have to know that even the most dramatic epiphany can fade in impact before our lifelong habits and the inertia of the mundane. If we are to grow into the kind of person that the Great Big Thing calls us to be - and that we know inside we CAN be - regular attention is required. Our UU tradition has long addressed this challenge. Today we'll share some simple and practical ways to grow your soul every day and to make a difference in the world.

Service Leaders: Rev. Chris, Scott Miller
Music: The Choir, Sadie Sonntag, Richard Riccardi

We celebrate the end of summer, and the beginning of the new “church year” with our annual Ingathering Services. (Note that we return to TWO SERVICES TODAY.) In a year of terrible drought under the growing shadow of climate change, we will acknowledge our dependence upon Mother Nature by celebrating the Water Communion as the central ritual. Please bring a small container of water from your home, your travels, or your sacred spot, if you are able. And, yeah, we’re gonna pray for rain. We might even dance for it…

Service Leaders: Rev. Chris, Andy Levine

Music: Nancy Hayashibara, Natalie Brundred, The UUsual Suspects

Ministry takes many forms: preaching and leading worship, spiritual practices, pastoral care, administration, public witness and activism, direct service, religious education, and much more. In our congregation we see ministry as a collective undertaking for which we are all responsible, and in which we all have our place, however grand or humble. The congregation is like a wheel that depends upon many spokes. There is a place for EVERYONE to help us celebrate life, empower people, care for one another, and build a better world.

Guest Presenter: Clovice A. Lewis, Jr.,
Worship Associate: Susan Bartholome

Clovice Lewis will reflect on the topic of ministry as an obligation to positively affect the world through individual, personal action. He views ministry as a distillation of the “Golden Rule”. He argues that a personal, one-on-one connection with people is just as powerful as the one-to-many model of ministry. Clovice Lewis is a member and past President of the Unitarian Universalist Community in Lake County. He is a professional composer and cellist, a former professor of computer music at UCSB, a private pilot and an inventor.

Service Leaders: Rev. Chris, Susan Panttaja
Music: The Choir, Sadie Sonntag, Richard Riccardi

“Many are called, but few are chosen,” says the Bible. It might also have said, “many are called, but few choose to respond.” Rev. Chris will discuss his experience of being called to the ministry, as well as the tragic and unnecessary anti-clericalism that often infects our UU tradition. We must be clear, a sense of calling is NOT restricted to ministers; neither are one’s calling and one’s job necessarily the same thing. We are called when. ever our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need, as Frederick Buechner put it. What are the deep needs of the world? What is your deep gladness?

Service Leaders: Jessica Clay, Erin HowsemanMusic: Robert and Brendan Howseman

That feeling of standing in a doorway, being on the threshold between two stages of life, can be exhilarating but also confusing and scary. The urge is to rush on to the next sure thing, missing what we might learn from this “space between.” Come let us worship together as we explore where the divine is in this space and how to meet these times of change with grace and openness.
Jessica Clay is a seminarian at Starr King School for the Ministry, and a Candidate for Fellowship with the UUA.  She has a Masters in Occupational Therapy and has worked in a variety of settings. In her free time she enjoys hiking, taking improv comedy classes, and volunteering.

Service Leaders: Rev. Chris Bell, David Hope, Sadie Sonntag

Special Music provided by the Choir and Robin Marrs

While not a stage of life that everyone has to experience directly, divorce will eventually be chosen by 50% of those who chose to marry, and it affects nearly everyone through our extended families and friends. We will examine the religious and spiritual issues around divorce, offer the UU approach, and affirm that this, too, is an experience from which we can learn and grow. The merits of singlehood will also be considered.

Guest Presenter: Emily Fisher
Worship Associate: Linda Proulx

It's easy to become convinced that apathy of good people and bleak visions of the world falling apart are just the way things are...until you look around the sanctuary on a Sunday morning. The democratic structure of U.U. congregational polity, breathed and loved into being by 'we the people,' is as sacred a space as any on earth, even if/when that sacred space makes you want to tear out your hair in (un)holy exasperation. Guest preacher Emily Fisher, a chaplaincy student at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and public interest attorney, will reflect on the transformative power and potential at the core of U.U. faith.

Service Leaders: Rev. Chris Bell, Eric Fischer, Zoey Wilson, Sadie Sonntag

Special Music by the Choir and a full band. Oh yeah!

This topic was a winner at last year’s Service Auction, continuing a congregational tradition of demanding that Rev. Chris preach on a bizarre topic now and again. Tommy, by The Who, is one of the most significant albums in all rock, a full “opera” about an abused child turned would-be messiah that just happens to be one of Rev. Chris’s earliest and most enduring favorites. Today, we will consider the teachings of this masterpiece on the trials of childhood and adolescence, awakening, false prophets, and a bunch of other deep and heavy stuff, while we totally rock out.

Service Leaders: Rev. Chris Bell, Susan Bartholome, Ben Ford, Robin Rogers

Many traditions recognize this time of year, with its falling leaves, as one when the boundary between life and death grows thin. This intergenerational service will give us a chance to honor our ancestors and departed loved ones, and make friends with the reality of death. An altar will be built. Please bring an image or object that represents a person (or more) who has passed away.

For the full scoop, please visit here!

Service Leader: Rev. Dr. Carrie Knowles
Worship Associate: Andrew Hidas
Special Music by the Choir

As we honor Veterans Day this week, in a time of unending war, we acknowledge the spiritual wounds of our warriors and the need to honor the task of restoring connection and community.

Rev. Carrie Knowles serves as Chaplain to Veterans on the Board of the Interfaith Center at the Presidio in San Francisco. She coordinates conferences that bring together today's veter ans with clergy and congregational leaders to create healing communities where veterans can reconnect with civilian life.

Service Leaders: Rev. Chris Bell, Roger Corman,
Robert Howseman
Special Music provided by some UUsual Suspects

During his sabbatical road trip Rev. Chris spent some time in North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee, which led to these reflections on the Civil War and its lasting and powerful influence on American society and culture (e.g., lasting racial inequality and injustice). We’ll particularly look at the way the war is remembered in the North and the South today. And since Ferguson, Missouri was just the most recent, and probably not the last, battle of the war, maybe we can think of some ways to end this conflict, at long last.

Service Leaders: Rev. Chris Bell, Lucia Milburn
Special Music provided by the Choir and Robin Rogers

E. E. Cummings was born to Unitarian parents, and held what we might call a transcendentalist faith throughout his life. For our annual Thanksgiving celebration of gratitude we will consider his life and work, particularly the beloved poem, i thank You God for most this amazing day, which appears in our hymnal as reading #504.
Come prepared to leave feeling deeply thankful!

Service Leaders: Rev. Chris Bell, Frances Corman,Roger Corman
Special Music provided by some UUsual Suspects

Since the earliest colonial period there have been tensions be tween the idea of America as a promised land with a chosen people who can and should live in a certain way, and the idea that it is truly a land of liberty for all. This tension is alive and (un)well to this very day. Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, is one of the great heroes of freedom of conscience, and his amazing tale can continue to inspire all who love religious liberty, as today’s service will demonstrate.

Service Leaders: Rev. Chris Bell, Erin Howseman
Music by Sadie Sonntag & the Choir, Zoey Wilson

 From the streets of Zuccotti Park to Cairo to Hong Kong, the young people of our planet are making their voices and their power known. With technology firmly on their side, today’s youth are changing the world in ways even they can’t keep up with. Surely our children are the brightest light of hope in any darkness, and all our work and investment be geared toward supporting them, sharing our values with them, and trusting them to carry us to the future.

Service Leaders: Rev. Chris Bell, Andy Levine, Claire Beery
Music by some of the UUsual Suspects.

It Gets Better is a campaign started by sex columnist Dan Savage to connect LGBT young people who are coming out in difficult circumstances or facing harassment, and to give them hope in times of darkness. Even here in our gay friendly Sonoma County congregation, as we can celebrate major victories in the marriage equality struggle, we’ll recommit to consciously maintaining a safe and welcoming space for all to hear the message that it gets better. Because it really can.

Programs focused on ending HIV in Sonoma County and providing services to support the nutrition, health and well-being of people living with HIV/AIDS

Speaker: Meghan Murphy, MSW, Program Director, Face 2 Face

Speaker:  Karen Gardner, Development Manager, Food for Thought

Service Leaders: Rev. Chris Bell, Susan Bartholome, CUUPS,
Sadie Sonntag
Music by The Choir and you.

In past years we've had a special evening service on the day of the Winter Solstice, with drumming, chanting, and meditation in the dark. This year we’re bringing that service to you in our regular morning worship. Nature worship is the one religion you really can take literally! Come celebrate the sun and the seasons, and do bring a drum, if you wish. THERE WILL BE DRUMMING IN THE SANCTUARY FROM 10:15 – 11:00!

Service Leaders: Rev. Chris Bell, Susan Panttaja
Music by The Choir, with special guests!

Carols, candles & stories to welcome in the New Year and the new lives around us, and to renew our hope that the world of love and kindness Jesus dreamed of will yet come to be. John Durr’s 95th birthday will be celebrated in a time of friendship and frivolity after the service. See you there!

Service Leaders: Scott Miller & the Worship Associates
Music by the UUsusal Suspects.

A chance to reflect on the events of 2014 and to share the lessons, insights and changes we've experienced over the last 12 months. How have you grown in wisdom over the year? Who are you now? Be generous with your story and come and share with us today.