Celebrate!
Our holidays for September range from celebrating working
people to celebrating an elephant-headed god, with a
couple of autumn harvest festivals from around the world
thrown in.
Click on a link below for information, stories, recipes
and more related to the different holidays:
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We Honor… |
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| Jenkin Lloyd Jones, a Unitarian minister who worked
to put an end to child
labor, and who was a strong supporter of the early
trade union movement.
Jenkin Lloyd Jones not only worked for fair labor
practices, he was also a voice for peace, and for widening
the circle of Unitarianism to include people who weren't
Christian. He did more than anyone else to promote Unitarianism
in the American Midwest in the late 1800s. As the Missionary
Secretary of the Western Unitarian Conference, he helped
found Unity Churches throughout the Midwest, and he
edited the liberal religious weekly Unity. He
supported the earliest women Unitarian ministers and
helped to create the "Post Office Mission"
which sent out sermons and other Unitarian materials
to people who didn't live near a Unitarian church. Sound
like another church you might have heard of? The CLF
grew out of the Post Office Mission, so you could say
that Jenkin Lloyd Jones was sort of the grandfather
of our congregation. |
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Act!
Labor Day is a time to honor all workers. But one way
to honor working people is to speak up for workers who
may not be treated fairly. You can take action for fair
labor practices by:
Honoring picket lines. Sometimes workers go
on strike and stop working until the people they work
for agree to make changes, like better health insurance
or working conditions. A picket line is a group of people
on strike who ask the public not to buy from their employers
until changes are made. You and your family can choose
not to spend money at places where workers are on strike.
Buying fair trade. You can encourage your family
to buy from organizations that work with people around
the world to see that farmers or other workers get a
fair price for their products. For instance the Unitarian
Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) sells fair
trade coffee, and makes sure that the workers who pick
the coffee beans get a decent wage for their work.
Speaking out. You can write to companies who
treat their workers unfairly, or who buy products from
other companies who do. Our June issue of Quest
features a
group of UU teens who went to Florida to learn about
agricultural (farm) workers. While there they connected
with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). Go
to the CIW website and join in their campaign to
pressure fast food chains to use tomatoes grown by companies
that treat their workers fairly. |
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Nurturing Your Spirit
Yoga is a way of focusing on the body, breath and spirit
which grows out of the Hindu religion. But many, many
people who are not Hindu practice yoga because it helps
them stretch their bodies, focus on their breathing,
and find a calm, centered place within themselves. Try
starting the day with a few minutes of yoga, and you
may find that you greet the rest of the day with a little
more focus and good feeling. Here
are some yoga poses for you to try at home.
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Practicing the Principles
Our fourth Unitarian Universalist principle is a “Free
and responsible search for truth and meaning.”
This means that we think each person needs to work out
for themselves what they believe about the big questions
of life. We learn from the beliefs of others, and respect
opinions that might be different than our own, but we
know that throughout our whole lives we need to keep
figuring out what we believe for ourselves, and why.
To practice this principle at home:
Younger Children—Parents can buy or cut
out of poster board a blank puzzle with large pieces.
Have each member of the family or group draw or write
on their blank puzzle piece something that is important
to them, or something they believe about God, love,
peace, helping or some other larger concept. Then one
member of the family or group can hide the puzzle pieces,
and let the rest go on a hunt to find them. When all
the pieces are brought together each person can talk
about what they wrote or drew before adding their piece
to the puzzle. Life can often feel like a puzzle, but
holding all of our different beliefs together can help
each of us to learn and grow.
Older Children and Teens—Youth or older
kids can come up with about four questions about beliefs.
Some examples might be: What do you think about God?
How do you make the world a better place? What do you
think happens when we die? What is evil? Using a video
camera or tape recorder, youth can interview members
of their family or others to create a documentary about
different beliefs. Don’t forget to have the documentary
include the youth themselves being interviewed on the
tape as well!
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Ask CLiF
Ask CLiF any questions you have about religion or living
a good life.
I really, really want to be Unitarian Universalist,
but I'm not sure how my parents will take it. They're
Catholics and will probably think this is some kind
of cult. Aside from this, I live in Ireland, so I
don't think there are any Unitarian Universalist congregations
here. Is there any way I can be involved in being
a Unitarian Universalist? —Sophie
Thanks, Sophie, for your note.
I hear your frustration—I know people of all
ages who struggle with how to live out beliefs that
are different from those of their parents. I certainly
hope that you will use the CLF as your long-distance
church to both learn more about Unitarian Universalism
and to think about your own beliefs. If you go to
www.clfuu.org and click on the top button under "religious
education" you'll get a page that shows various
offerings, listed under "for kids and teens,"
"for adults," and so forth. You might especially
be interested in Between Sundays, which offers ways
to think about various religious questions.
Once you know a fair amount about UUism and our long
history, it might be easier to explain to your parents
that we are not a cult. Actually, a cult is a religion
that tries to control every bit of the followers'
lives. We're exactly the opposite of a cult—a
religion that expects our members to ask questions
and think for themselves. Even if there isn't a UU
church near you (and I don't know of one), we're happy
to be "your church at home around the world."
Feel free to write, and to invite your parents to
write with questions if they'd like.
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