Wednesday, August 30, 2023, 7:00 p.m., via Zoom.

UUs in Northern Kentucky will have a special Kentucky UU Justice Action Network (KUUJAN) meeting via zoom to discuss voting engagement and activism for Kentucky’s November 2023 election. KUUJAN is the network working to expand our capacity as UUs to engage in meaningful justice advocacy and activism, and provide a way for UUs to have a collective voice for justice in Kentucky.

We invite you to join a gathering specifically for Northern KY UU’s from all area congregations! The meeting will provide an opportunity to meet other UUs, learn more about KUUJAN’s work to get out the vote, and identify how you can join these efforts.

This meeting will be on Wednesday, August 30, from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., via Zoom. To register and receive the Zoom link, please go here: https://tinyurl.com/NKY-KUUJAN-Aug30

Please join us to learn how you can get involved!

For more information before August 30, contact Joetta Prost (St. John’s UU Church) at joettaprost@gmail.com, or Rus Funk (Coordinator of KUUJAN) at rus@kuujan.org.

Wednesday, September 20, 7:00 p.m.

Artificial intelligence (aka AI) has dominated the news cycle for many months. The Heritage women’s book club (known as the Babes with Books or BWB), always current with the times, takes on the subject with their September 20 meeting selection Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro. Maggie Sprayregen of the Associated Press describes this NY Times bestseller novel as “an intriguing take on how artificial intelligence might play a role in our futures . . . a poignant meditation on love and loneliness.”

Future gathering dates and reads are currently as follows:

October 18 – Horse, by Geraldine Brooks (Currently extremely popular, this selection may have to wait a few months, but grab a copy if you can.)

November 15 – The Engineer’s Wife, by Tracey Emerson Wood

December 20 – Holiday Party and Movie TBD (date subject to change TBD)

January 17 – TBD

Please bring to the next meeting your ideas and suggestions for the holiday movie party film and date plus future reads starting in January. All meetings are held from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Heritage Room, unless otherwise announced.

All women (be they members, or friends) are always invited to any BWB meeting – whether they have read the book or not. Unless otherwise announced, the meeting’s book selection is available on hold for the Heritage Book Club at the Anderson Township branch of the Hamilton County library approximately a month in advance.

For inclusion in the BWB Google group emails, contact the Heritage office at HUUCoffice@yahoo.com.

Tuesday, September 12, 2023, 7:00 p.m., offsite.

Greater Anderson Promotes Peace (GAPP) and Anderson Churches for Racial Unity (ACRU) welcome Dr. Joan Ferrante and Northern Kentucky University students with Mourning the Creation of Racial Categories (MCRC) for An Art Exhibit: Painting, Poetry, and Sculpture. The location is Anderson Hills Church, 7515 Beechmont Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio 45255.

This exhibit includes poetry, discussion and 10 sculptures created by MCRC artist Monica Naymar. The group of sculptures artistically addresses how each of the racial categories we use today to identify ourselves were born out of a signature trauma—a trauma that the category carries today—and responses each category had made to find some relief.

This art and poetry event will explore key questions that inform MCRC’s work:

~ How have our relationships and families been broken apart into distinctly different racial categories?

~ How does the U.S. manage to get people to sign on to be a race?

Acknowledging this sorrow can help us begin the process of “undividing” on an individual, community, and national level.

Registration is requested at https://mcrc-art.eventbrite.com

More information about MCRC is at https://www.mourningthecreationofracialcategoriesproject.org/

If you have questions, please see Louise Lawarre.

Saturday, September 16, 2023, 7:30 p.m. (or 8:15 for the concert only). RSVP Required.

Enjoy a wine tasting followed by a 45-minute concert of Bruce Bowdon’s original songs.

In the past eight months, Bruce Bowdon has shared a smattering of his original songs: Bruce sang “From Far Away Place” just before Christmas, “My Parents” for Father’s Day, and “Rediscovering Prayer” for the August 13th service; Erin Walczewski sang a great rendition of “Supermother” for Mother’s Day, and the choir sang “Be a Song” in their last performance of the season.

If you like what you’ve heard, you can enjoy more, plus a sampling of wine from John Sandman’s cellar! If you don’t drink, come to the concert only. Cost is $25 per person or, two for $25 for concert only. Please RSVP to Bruce Bowdon at bruce.bowdon@gmail.com, and pay by making a donation using the “Make a donation now” button at HUUC.net (please use the note or memo function to indicate this is for the wine tasting and concert or concert only). You may also drop off a check with a note at the Heritage office.

Wednesday, August 9, 2023, 7:00 p.m., offsite in person and online.

Greater Anderson Promotes Peace (GAPP) and Anderson Churches for Racial Unity (ACRU) will host their Annual Summer Book Discussion using both in-person and online venues.

Dr. Mark Mussman, Ph.D., Director of Education with the Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition, will co-facilitate the discussion of his book, Steal the Street: The Intersection of Homelessness and Gentrification.

The discussion will take place on Wednesday, August 9, at 7:00 p.m., at Lutheran Church of the Resurrection, 1950 Nagel Road, Cincinnati OH 45255-2570, and also on Zoom.

Steal the Street is a collection of short articles on gentrification, public space, and community voice. The articles were written for Streetvibes, a street paper in Cincinnati, Ohio, from 2015 to 2019. The focus of Streetvibes is homelessness, so each article focuses on a different aspect of homelessness and inequity in Cincinnati, much of it centered around the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of Over-the-Rhine. Articles include original photographs throughout each chapter.

Steal the Street is available at:

• the Cincinnati Public Library: https://tinyurl.com/LibraryStealTheStreet
• Parlor Press: https://parlorpress.com/products/steal-the-street
• Amazon.com: https://tinyurl.com/AmazonStealTheStreet

Registration is requested, and is required to receive the Zoom link. Register at
https://2023gappbooks.eventbrite.com

For more information, send email to gapp.peace@gmail.com

Website: https://www.gappeace.org/gapp-and-acru-annual-summer-book-discussion/

Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition: https://cincihomeless.org/

August is the time to consider how you might support our growing Religious Education program in the coming months! As you might remember, my family (Laci speaking here!) is expecting a new addition in late August/ early September. So, we (Laci, the RE Committee and various fabulous collaborators) are working to craft a plan that supports our growing ministry to children and families while Laci welcomes the new one!

If you really think about it, parental leave and RE volunteering actually have a lot in common. Anytime a friend or family or member of our church welcomes a new addition or celebrates a milestone or faces a challenge, we find ways individually and collectively to support them in that moment. We don’t all offer the same kind of support, but we find our own ways of pitching in. That is exactly what our RE program needs from you now, because we are growing and welcoming new families and kids into our community all the time.

Here is what you can do RIGHT NOW to support our RE program, our kids and families:

(1) Take a moment and think about what you love to do, in your life and/or in our community. Yes, I really want you (YES YOU!) to stop, pause, breathe and think about what gives you joy and how you love to show up in our Heritage community.

(2) Once you have that image in your head, please read the following list of volunteer needs:

(a) BAKERS & COOKS: Each month (generally on potluck Sunday) our young people take to the kitchen to prepare food for our community, their families and each other. We need experienced bakers, home chefs and menu planners to join with our kids in making their “Make & Take Sundays” work.

(b) ARTISTS & CRAFTERS: Crafts are a regular part of RE programming. Crafters make for excellent co-creators and supportive adults in RE classes.

(c) OUTDOORSY EXPLORERS: We are blessed with beautiful, interesting, and engaging outdoor spaces as a community. If you have an outdoor interest (gardening, birding, nature trivia) then you have something to teach our young people and could serve as specialty teachers for one-off or standalone outdoor RE programs.

(d) COMMUNITY SERVICE CHAMPIONS: Our parents consistently request ways to get our young people involved in more community service projects. Do you work or volunteer with a community service organization? Do you ever think of ways that you would love to see our young people more involved? We are hoping to designate one Sunday a month to community service, but need your ideas, leadership and/or support.

(e) STORYTELLERS and MOST GRANDPARENTS: Ever read a book to a child? Then we could use you in our brand-new preschool class, as a supportive additional adult!

(f) TEACHERS & EDUCATORS: We really need your expertise to help to structure and support our monthly thematic content. We would love to designate an educator as a lead teacher for each of our monthly pre-planned content lessons.

(g) MUSICIANS: We are starting a new children’s choir this year and are so excited to have the ability of bringing in a music educator to support this aspect of our expanding program, but that endeavor will be so much stronger and more connected to our whole music ministry if some of our community musicians could serve as supportive adults on music Sundays.

(3) Now, email Laci (dlfdhuuc@gmail.com) with which of these opportunities resonates strongly with you. Alternatively, if none of these resonated, email Laci about that as well. The more conversations we have about how to support your connections to our kids and families—the stronger our RE program will be and the more we will learn and grow together!

7/25/2023.

Thursday, August 10, 2023, at 7:00 p.m. Heritage Room.

Join the HUUC Social Justice Team as we continue our exploration of issues surrounding Native Americans. In contrast to the documentaries we have been viewing, we’ll next watch the movie Smoke Signals. The film is a 1998 coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by Chris Eyre from a screenplay by Sherman Alexie, based on Alexie’s short story collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993). The film won several awards and accolades, and was well received at numerous film festivals.

Martha Viehmann will also offer some insights into why this film was so critical for the recognition of indigenous film makers and actors, as well as bringing the contemporary lives of Native Americans into the mainstream.

The film will be shown on Thursday, August 10, at 7:00 p.m., at Heritage UU Church, 2710 Newtown Road, Cincinnati, OH 45244.

If you have questions, please contact Louise Lawarre.

7/24/2023.

Tuesday, August 15, 2023, 7:00 p.m., via Zoom.

The Social Justice Collaborative is a good way to offer and receive support as we work to “help heal the world.” All Heritage Church members and friends are invited to attend.

The Zoom meeting link and a link to the agenda will appear here before the meeting, and also be distributed through the HUUC-Social-Justice Google Group. If you are not a member of the Google Group but would like to be, contact Russ Araujo.

Tuesdays, August 15, 22, 29, and September 5, 7:00 to 8:30 p.m., via Zoom. Registration Required.

Today, UU congregations are grappling with a charge to dismantle white supremacy in ourselves, our communities, and our world. Co-authors Nancy Palmer Jones and Karin Lin—a white minister and a lay person of color—explored five UU congregations’ journeys toward Beloved Community. In Mistakes and Miracles: Congregations on the Road to Multiculturalism, they shared the joy, disappointment, and growth these congregations found. (This book is the UUA’s Common Read for 2022-2023.)

First Unitarian Church of Cincinnati invites area UUs to join them for a four-part discussion of this book, starting August 15 at 7 p.m., via zoom. (If you can’t attend the August 15 discussion, it is okay if you start with the second session on August 22.) Each discussion is expected to last an hour and a half. Register by August 11 at: https://tinyurl.com/4f8km8kc

Need a copy of the book? Pick up a free copy from First Unitarian Church’s library (while supplies last) , order a physical copy through the inSpirit bookstore, purchase a digital copy through Amazon Kindle, or listen to the audio book through your favorite app.

If you have questions, contact Meredith Plummer, Director of Lifespan Faith Development, Faith Formation and Community Building at First Unitarian Church of Cincinnati. Her email address is meredith.plummer@firstuu.com.

2023.

by Bruce Bowdon

On May 13, the night of our last auction, seven brave souls signed up for a wine tasting followed by a 45-minute concert of my original songs on Saturday, September 16, at 7:30 p.m.

Some people might not have been excited by this prospect, and passed on the opportunity.

But I’m going to ask you to reconsider:

~ The wine is from John Sandman’s cellar. In these days where you will pay $10-15 a glass at a restaurant, almost everyone will get their money’s worth. For some, it will be a bargain.

~ In the past eight months that I’ve been coming to church, you’ve heard a smattering of my songs: I sang “From Far Away Place” just before Christmas, Erin sang a great rendition of “Supermother” for Mother’s Day, the choir sang “Be a Song” in their last performance of the season, I sang “Rediscovering Prayer” for the This I Believe class and “My Parents” for Father’s Day.

~ Some of you may think, I’ve heard him sing, he sound’s like Tom Waits with a cold. I plead guilty; but you’re overlooking the clever design of the evening. We drink wine first. It is a fact that I sound better after you drink wine.

~ For those who don’t drink wine, I will offer a 2 for $25 concert-only admission. Concert will start at 8:15.

But Wait, There’s More

~ I am so sure that you will be enchanted by my songs, that I will offer you a cash refund (from my own pocket) if you tell me that listening to my concert ranked down there with getting a root canal while listening to Black Sabbath.

~ Heritage gets all the proceeds from this event.

The cost of the event (wine tasting and concert) is $25 per person. You can sign up with me, with Martha Viehmann, or with Kay Inskeep.

7/19/2023.