SERVICE PLANNING COMMITTEE Linda Hunter, (Chair) Becky Abler Ginny Finnel Jim Sustman Mary Jo Urban Jessica Van Slooten LAKESHORE UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST FELLOWSHIP Choir Practice st and 3 R D Wednesday Each month Save a tree, save paper, save money Sign up to receive LUUF newsletters electronically. Email Ron Kossik at ron @kossik.com For submissions to the newsletter email Kim Everett at: [email protected]C h o i r P r a c t i c e 1 s t & 3 R D W E D N E S D A Y O F E A C H M O N T H SERVICES: SUNDAY 10:00 A.M 620 PARK STREET, MANITOWOC, WI 54220 , PHONE: (920) 686-0643 Email: [email protected]Website: www.lakeshoreuu.o rg Blog: www.luuf.blogspot.com Facebook: Lakeshore Unitarian Universalist Fellowship LUUF LAY MINISTERS Dan Fisch er (920) 323-3475 [email protected]Linda Hunte r (920) 684-5590 [email protected]Erica Strauss (920) 629-0924 [email protected]Jim Sustman (920) 973-7391 jim_sustman@y ahoo.com LUUF BOARD President: Kathy Fishback V. President: John Thompson Treasurer: Joel Marquardt Secretary: Sandy Bast Members at Large: Dick Urban Steve Abler Jim Everett NOVE MBER 2013 NEWSLETTER No vember 3 “Remembering the Saints” Ginny Finnel This traditional service is an opportuni- ty to honor deceased members, friends and family. Everyone is invited to share memories and stories about those now departed who enriched our lives while they walked among us. We honor them and inspire each other by sharing what they taught us. If you wish, bring a pho- tograph or other commemo rative November 10 “Pick a Topic, Any Topic, We're Going to Have A Better Conversation” Joan Banlusa This talk/discussi on will examine the qualities and goals of a better conver- sation. What a better c onver sation looks like, sounds like, fosters & leads one towards. November 17 Modern UU History Arthur Thexton Arthur has been a reg ular speaker for us for several years, but for those ofyou who don’t know him, he went to seminary, but he chose the law as his profe ssio n. He is a pros ecut ing att or- ney at Wis. Dept. Safety & Professional Services. November 24 Update on TREP Lynn Skarvan TREP coordinator Lynn will update us on Two Rivers Ecumenical Pantry, one of ourfour charitable organizations. We have supported this organization for a long time. Its especially necessary now. November 24 Soup Sunday Turkey Collection for trep October Painting pathways Collection $256.00 Thank you!
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Page 3The day-to-day life of our fellowship is the glue thatholds our spiritual community together. UnitarianUniversalism approaches the more "secular" aspectsof fellowship life with the same religious intent as it’sworship. Our religious education classes, adult ac-tivities groups, community volunteerism and buildingfacilities committees are essential aspects of our spiritual work. We believe it is our deeds, not our
creeds, which are most important. Volunteer oppor-tunities abound! Please consider signing up for cof-
fee service, greeter, shoveling, or any other activity or job that helps to keep our fellowship moving forward and running smoothly. Volunteer sign up sheets are
in the coat room.-
Every day we have people helping the Fellowship in ways that allow our com-munity to thrive. Whether you are a board member, on a committee, you makecoffee, do dishes, vacuum, shovel snow, rack leaves, plan a garden, help coor-dinate a service or you do one of the other countless tasks, the time and talentsyou share is incredibly important for our Fellowship community. Please know
you are immensely appreciated.
LUUF NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 201
Evie Sustman, Chr.
Max Alexander
Zoe Alexander
Dan Fischer
Carol Wergin
Sandy Bast
CHILDREN’S RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
FALL 2013
The Children’s Religious Education Fall Session
“Experiences With the Web of Life – Part 2” begins on
Sunday, September 8, 2013 and will run through Sun-
day, December 15, 2013. All children from the ages of
4/5 through 10/11 are invited to participate in this fun
and lively program.
The Children’s RE is preparing for a special program
and presentation on December 22nd. Mark your calen-
dar, you won’t want to miss the performance. If it’s as
good as last year, it’s sure to be a full house.
A special thanks of appreciation goes out to Evie
Sustman and her assistant, Max Alexander, who have
volunteered to lead the children’s program for the
2013/2014 session and Jill Finnel for childcare during
service.
**************************
Please note that there will be no Children’s Religious
FA CI LI T I E S
COMMI T T E E
Ron Kossik (Chair)
Tom Clark
Kathy Fishback
Jim Rabata
Dick Urban
Dan Wergin
Zoe & Joe Alexander will provide shop anddrop services for LUUF members andfriends at their home on Saturday, Dec 7.You may drop off your children while youshop, wrap presents, or whatever. Zoe willprovide fun craft activities for your children,while you shop.
Time and details will be provided in the Dec.newsletter….. Contact Zoe to reserve.
During the month of October 2013, our weekly Green Tips discussed the subject: Air. The following is for those of youwho may have missed a Sunday bulletin:
Oct. 6- Climate change is all about what we put into our air- what goods we consume, how we get from here to there,how we manage our homes. Everyday choices can help improve air quality and conserve energy.
Right now our FARMERS’ MARKET is at its most delightfully colorful and wonderfully productive best. Thealternative, produce hauled from an average of 1500 miles away, has an enormous environmental cost. Trucks get
six mpg of diesel, and that 1500 miles puts 5,550 pounds of carbon dioxide (the main greenhouse gas contributing toclimate change) into the air per truck per trip. Buying your produce at the Farmers Market is about fresh flavor, visit-ing with friends and neighbors, supporting your local economy, and contributing to deliciously crisp clean Fall air-which youll breathe 20,000 times a day.
Oct. 13- Burning piles of newly raked leaves was a tradition in The Olden Days. Now we know better: Open burningcontributes to poor air quality, can be dangerous and is the number one cause of wildfires in Wisconsin. Open burn-ing puts particulate matter into the air, which can cause serious health problems- especially to those with asthma or cardiac disease. The particulate from open burning can also contribute to acid rain, changing the nutrient balance of lakes and streams, and wearing on building and monuments. A better use for those leaves? Shredding for mulch or composting.
Oct. 20- That wonderful Fall air will be so much more breathable if you do your part to reduce air emissions. Insteadof using gas-powered leaf blowers, pick up a rake to move your leaves around. Besides, its great exercise!
Oct. 27- Breathing is dangerous to your health! Air has now been “officially classified as carcinogenic to humans” bythe research agency of the World Health Organization. “Air pollution, mostly caused by transport, power generation,industrial or agricultural emissions, and residential heating and cooking, already is known to raise risks … (for) heartand respiratory diseases.” Particulate matter, a major component of air, is ranked alongside asbestos, plutonium,silica dust, ultraviolet radiation and tobacco smoke as a Group 1 human carcinogen. WHO says its findings applyworld-wide with some areas much worse than others, and lists eastern North America with relatively high exposure.
Real Food...where did it go? If we are what we eat, then don’t we have a responsibility to understand what we’re eat-ing and where it’s coming from?
The Farm to School Building Awareness group of Healthiest Manitowoc County (HMC) invites you to attend freemonthly discussion groups specific to food, and the power of our individual decision-making. Woodland Dunes, at3000 Hawthorne Drive, Two Rivers, will be hosting a session on Tuesday Nov. 12 from 6-7:30 pm to explore the topicof food and small changes that can be made to have a big impact on our lives and the communities in which we live,
work and play. Workshop conversation will focus on selected videos, books and guest speaker topics. Locally sourcedsnacks will be provided.
For more information please contact Cath Pape at HMC...(920) 652-0238 or [email protected]
The next GLOBE meeting is tentatively scheduled for Sunday November 10 th after Service. Everyone is welcome.
Green Living On Behalf of the Earth
GLOBE
Page 5
LUUF NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 2013
Environment committeeBev Rowling (chair), Judy Rollin, Jean Biegun, Kari Alice Lynn, Carol Wergin
Cool Congregat ions is a program of Wiscons in Inter fa i th Power and Light
The mission of Wisconsin Interfaith Power and Light is to inform, train, and activate people of all faiths and faith communities to takconcrete steps in response to climate change through the promotion of energy conservation, energy efficiency and renewable energ
order to protect Earth’s ecosystems, safeguard public health, and ensure just, sufficient and sustainable energy for all.
For mo re informat ion, vis i t ht tp: / /www.WisconsinIPL.org or contact Dr. Peter Bakken,
Execut ive Director, at (608) 837-3108 or info@Wis cons inIPL.org
Why Would We As Unitarian Universalist
Want To Be A Cool Congregation?
The Answer Taken From … 2006 Statement of Conscience from the Unitarian Universalist
Earth is our home. Life on this planet will be gravely affected unless we embrace new practices.We as UUs are called to join with others to halt practices that fuel global warming/climate change,
To bring sustainable alternatives, and to reduce the impending effects of climate change with just
and ethical responses. As people of faith we commit to a renewed reverence for life and
respect for the interdependent web of all existence.
LUUF NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 2013
Page 6
The “Cool Congregation Workshop” held here at our Fellowship on Oct 27th
gave us information and some tools to use that will help us move the above
statement forward at our Fellowship.
Presented by Peter Bakken, from Wisconsin Interfaith Power & Light, it waswell attended by people from several different congregations in our communi-
ty. First Lutheran Church, Lakeshore Unitarian Universal Fellowship, St.
James Episcopal Church, Lakeshore United Methodist Church, and St Thom-
as Catholic Church were all represented.
This informative and entertaining workshop included time for …..
The ABCs of climate change
Why we care about this as a faith community
Measuring our household carbon footprint
How to organize a Cool Congregation program at our Fellowship.
After reviewing our personal footprint reports, we were asked to take a pledge to find ways we could reduce our
household energy and review our cost savings and reduced energy use after one year.
We as a congregation now have the tools and opportunity to bring this program to our Fellowship
And to learn more ways we can care for the earth by reducing the causes of climate change.
For more information on Wisconsin Interfaith Power & Light www.wisconsinLPL.org
Cool Congregation was sponsored by Manitowoc County Interfaith Organization
RUTH (Responding with Understanding, Truth, and Hope)
Just released, it has received wonderful reviewsby Barbara Kingsolver, the Wall Street Journal,The New York Times, etc. "Signature" is a histori-cal novel about a woman 19th century botanistthat takes the reader on a worldwide adventurethat wrestles with 19 century science and spiritu-ality, religion and evolution, the role of women,colonialism and science.
New York Times: “Gilbert has established her-self as a straight-up storyteller who dares us intoadventures of worldly discovery, and this novelstands as a winning next act. The Signature of AllThings is a bracing homage to the many naturesof genius and the inevitable progress of ideas, ina world that reveals its best truths to uncommon-ly patient minds.” – by Barbara Kingsolver . OMagazine “The novel of a lifetime…”
An inviting couch read for the beginning of cold weather season. Can be purchased on Amazonfor $17.37 hard copy, and $10.99 Kindle. Sorry,the Manitowoc library has a long waiting list forthis book. Visit www.elizabethgilbert.com for moreinfo and review.
This is an open book group. All are welcome.
LUUF BOOK GROUP
November 115:30 –7:00 At LUUF
Consider participating in Fellowship's CIR-CLE SUPPER November!
Circle Suppers are simple and fun - a pot-luck at a host's home, or a gathering at a
restaurant - and they are a great way to getto know Fellowship friends. A Circle Sup-per has a maximum group size (not morethan 8) to contribute to good conversationover a shared meal.
For the potluck dinner, participants coordi-nate with the host on what to bring. For therestaurant dinner, participants pay for theirown meals.
Friendly Fellowship around GoodFood! Volunteer to host, or sign up for ourFall round of Circle Suppers!
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 9TH -- 6:00 PMHosted by Jim and Jennifer Hollahan
The coordinators of Lights in Lincoln Park are hosting a Volunteer Contest. The lights are open nightlyNovember 29th through December 28th; however the contest nights are only Sunday, Monday, Tuesday
and Thursday. The top three volunteer groups to generate the most traffic will earn cash!
Come check out Lights in Lincoln Park on Monday, December 16th between 5:45 and 8:45!! Thecost to tour Lights in Lincoln Park is $5 per car. The more traffic Hope House can generate on De-
cember 16th the better our odds are of winning up to $750!!!
Did you Know...There are Only 55 Days Until Christmas Have you Started Your Shopping? ?
Friday in December (6th)!! Well, maybe not for all of your Christmas shop-ping, but consider stopping in at A>Cute Angle on 8th Street in Manitowoc that night! A>Cute Angle will donate 10% of the profits
made between 6pm & 8pm to Hope House that evening! What could be easier?!?! Cross items off your Christmas list, get some
Check out our NEW Amazon.com wishlist!!!! Just go to Amazon.com, login to your account
and do a wish list search for “Hope House of Manitowoc County”
On the wish list you will find a list of items that Hope House can always use as well as those unique items that
pop up that we might need on a one- You can order the items from our wish list under your account
and they can be shipped directly to Hope House.
An easy, no-fuss way to give!
The next Hope House volunteer training will be held on Monday, December 2nd
6:00pm to 8:00pm. The location of the volunteer training is TBD.
LUUF VOLUNTEERS HELPED AT TREP IN TWO RIVERS AND PETER’S PANTRY
IN MANITOWOC DURING ANNUAL BOY SCOUT FOOD DRIVE
On Saturday October 19, 12 volunteers from our Fellowship helped the scouts deliver bags,pick up food, sort, count and restock pantry shelves from 11am to 1pm during the
annual Boy Scout food drive.
Thanks to the following members and friends for representing LUUF during this annual food drive
TREP Volunteers: Jim & Evie Sustman, Jim Rabata, Dan fisher, Kathy Fishback, Linda Hunter,Mary Jane Lukes, Jennifer & Jim Hollahan
Manitowoc Peters Pantry Volunteers: Zoe, Joe and Max Alexander helped the Boy Scouts deliver bags the week prior to the food drive and returned to pick up of bagged food during the event.
Festival of the deadEven in its secular and commercial form, Halloween ritualizes our inescapable destination.
By Patricia Montley UU World
Although in the minds of most modern people who celebrate it, Halloween is now a secular holiday that has lost its religious asso-ciation with saints and souls of the beloved dead, there are still many people around the globe who celebrate festivals of the dead,many of them at this time of year.
Wiccans around the world regard the feast of Samhain (October 31-November 1) as the most important of their four quarter days. A common ritual is the Dumb Supper, which Anne Lafferty describes in “A Seeker’s Guide to Modern Witchcraft and Paganism.”
The table is laden with potluck dishes. There is a place setting for each person present, as well as one in front of anempty chair. This place is for the Beloved Dead, who are being honored by this meal. The first plate filled is given tothem. The living eat in silence, thinking about their ancestors and others they cared about who have passed on.When the meal is over, the leftover food, including the food that was on the plate for the spirits of the dead, is takenoutside and placed on the ground.
Participants might then tell stories and share memories about their beloved dead or sing a song honoring them. Sometimes the
food prepared for the supper includes favorite dishes of the departed in whose honor the ritual is observed.
Since the late Middle Ages, the dead have been remembered in Christian countries in Europe and elsewhere around the globe informal church services on All Souls’ Day. Although fear of “roaming spirits” was officially declared superstition, pagan beliefs andpractices persisted. In Germany, for example, when peasant farmers harvested the hay and brought it to the barn, they broke thefirst straw and offered it as food for the dead. Even today in Latvia, after the Fall Equinox festival of Mikeli, a quiet shadow periodbegins. “At this time,” according to Mara Mellena of the Latvian Institute, “the shadows—spirits of the dead—visit the farmsteadsto look over the life of the household,” and to bring blessings for future life and work.
One of the most elaborate festivals at this time of year is el Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, observed on November 1 and2 in Mexico and other Latin American countries. Typically infants and children are remembered on the first day and adults on thesecond. Here the dead are not feared but welcomed. Combining Roman Catholic rituals of All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days with mil-lennia-old Mexican Indian traditions, the holiday includes solemn religious rites such as masses and prayers for the dead inchurch.
There is also feasting in the home, where scattered petals and burning incense invite the spirits to enter and partake of their favor-ite foods and special bread, hojaldra, which have been set out on tables or home altars decorated with flowers and photos of de-parted family members. What is not consumed by the dead provides a festal meal for the living. The leftovers from that meal maybe taken to the cemetery and laid on the graves of ancestors or distributed in the community. The event includes processions,pageantry, elaborate food, bright decorations, and even fireworks. While this is a time of mourning for the beloved dead, the per-
vading atmosphere is one of fiesta. Cakes and candies in the shape of skulls, skeletons, coffins, and gravestones “sweeten” theconcept of death, perhaps reminding those who eat them of the sweetness of living in heaven as well as in the memories of one’sdescendants. Some families keep candlelight vigils through the night at the gravesites of their dead and attend open-air memorial
masses.
While “sophisticated” North Americans are tempted to view some of these practices as primitively morbid at worst or quaint atbest, Peter Morales cautions us in “Bringing the Dead to Life,”
If we dismiss the Day of the Dead as pure superstition, we can easily miss the profound spiritual and psychologicalinsight that makes this tradition powerful. A Mexican boy spending the night at his uncle’s grave has a connectionacross time with his forebears that our children do not. While we dwellers in a technological age are connected tothe World Wide Web, cellular phones, and cable TV, [while we] have message machines, voice mail, pagers andcall waiting, we have cut ourselves off from the web of time. Traditional cultures, with their mediums and ghosts andreincarnations, have understood intuitively something we’ve repressed: the dead don’t die; they live on.
For Hindus, the dead live on when their souls are reincarnated in other bodies. One of the major festivals of Hinduism, and possiblythe only one that is truly pan-Indian, is Diwali, the Festival of Lights (from the Sanskrit dipavali , or “row of lights”), which is ob-served with temple services that include singing and recitations from sacred texts. Celebrated on dates in the lunar calendar thatcorrespond to late October and early November in our Gregorian calendar, it marks the official end of autumn and the beginning of
winter. In upper India, Diwali also marks the beginning of the commercial New Year. People clean their homes, light oil lamps, andset them in rows along the parapets of houses and temples or float them in rivers. They invoke Lakshmi, goddess of fortune andprosperity, to bless their homes and businesses as they open new account books. They wear new clothes, visit friends and family
members to exchange gifts, and set off fireworks.
But in Bengal Diwali honors the goddess Kali, the five-millennia-old Creator-Preserver-Destroyer of the Universe, the womb-and-tomb primal mother found in so many ancient religions. Her breathing is the pulse of the universe, for she is at once the menstrualsea of blood that gives birth to the world and the fierce, emaciated hag whose primordial hunger must feast on animals and humansto replenish the energy that drives the cosmos. Thus she is often depicted wearing a necklace of skulls, her hair wild, her tongue
red with blood, dancing ecstatically on cremation grounds, gathering up souls to be seeds for new life. In this destroyer mode, Kalimay well be our worst nightmare—the nightmare we must come to grips with, for in facing her, we face our own terror of annihila-tion.
As Monica Sjöö and Barbara Mor remind us in The Great Cosmic Mother , primitive peoples seemed to understand that life and deathare the same. It was a paradox they strove to be conscious of—just as we strive to escape it:
Moderns who neither kill nor grow their own food nor bury their own dead would seem to have solved the problemby avoiding it; but in fact the resolution is simply delegated, nowadays, to nightmare, slaughterhouses, torturerooms, death squads, and “snuff” films, in which criminal priests perform obscene sacrifices to the gods of displacedresponsibility.
For early peoples, the paradox was somehow made bearable through ritual expression of their fury, which often took the form of bloody sacrifices to the death deity. For us, the paradox remains unbearable and yet, despite our best efforts, inescapable. So wetry to trivialize it. The hags of our Halloween cards and costumes are domesticated reminders of the Wiccan wise women whoserved as midwives and morticians, who themselves represented the hallowed and harrowing goddess of womb and tomb, of life
and death. The ghosts and goblins and grim reapers who people our parties and parades are fun versions of the very serious desti-nation that we know deep down we cannot escape.
Such trivialization may put the paradox at arm’s length, but it does not resolve it. Yet perhaps it is not too late for us to return to ritu-al for that resolution. We cannot, to be sure, revert to the bloody sacrifices practiced by some of our ancient ancestors, but perhaps
we can embrace other kinds of rituals that will, whether we believe in a personal afterlife or not, enable us to find comfort in theunderstanding that life and death are one.
Excerpted with permission from “Samhain, All Souls and Day of the Dead,” In Nature’s Honor: Myths and Rituals Celebrating the Earth
(Skinner House), copyright 2005 by Patricia Montley. The chapter includes a variety of seasonal rituals for personal, family, and congre-
gational use. See sidebar for links to related resources .
ME MB E RS HI P COMMI T T E E
Dan Fisher (Chair), Jim Everett, Kim Everett
Dan — Helping with Halloweencandy handout at the Fellowship
The UU Guitar Group “In Good Time”Performs for Trick n’ Treater’sBev, LUUF’s very own Angel