For January 20 – 26, donate on Sunday at Heritage, or online. Our donations will help an organization that works to be a source of joy and love for the LGBT+ community and the community at large. Learn more and donate at The Cincinnati Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

Saturday, January 28, 2023, streaming 12:30 to 5:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

Are you yearning for greater depth in your spiritual life? Delve deeper with Rev. John Buehrens.

This year’s spiritual theme is Transcendentalism. The first Unitarian Transcendentalist on the Pacific Coast, as of early 1860, was the Rev. Thomas Starr King. He gave the first Unitarian lectures in Portland in 1862. He also exemplified key spiritual practices of the Transcendentalists that need renewal among us today: personal reflection (often in the form of keeping a journal), and deep interpersonal connections crossing conventional boundaries.

Rev. John Buehrens served as UUA President from 1993 to 2001. A prolific author, his most recent book about UU heritage is CONFLAGRATION: How the Transcendentalists Sparked the American Struggle for Racial, Gender, and Social Justice (Beacon, 2020).

In addition, Rev. Buehrens will offer a workshop entitled, “God Optional: Theologies Among Us Today.” John Buehrens and Rebecca Ann Parker surveyed the hope-filled thought patterns in progressive religion today in their book, A House for Hope: The Promise of Progressive Religion in the 21st Century (Beacon, 2010). While their framework borrows from a heritage of Judeo-Christian systematic theology, it also makes room for humanist, indigenous, and non-Western a/theologies. All such thinking, however, needs to meet some overriding and important tests to be effective, tests which will be revealed in the workshop.

The cost for a virtual livestream ticket is $35. There is also an option to attend in person at First Unitarian Church of Portland, Oregon. Scholarships are available.

Click here for a full program guide with schedule (Note, times are listed in Pacific Standard Time, PST).

Registration is open until 4:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time on Sunday, January 22nd. You will receive a link to join via email on January 23rd. Register at:
https://www.firstunitarianportland.org/events/sfad23/

1/5/2023.

Wednesday, December 28, 2022, 7:00 p.m.

Join us in the sanctuary for Vespers, an hour of peaceful contemplation in community. Through readings, singing, silence and reflection, we seek to nurture a sense of calm and communion with the holy. Let us welcome the darkness of winter and reflect on the year past together.

If you have questions, please contact Mimi Sinclair or Steph Tacy.

Sunday, January 8, 2023, after the worship service.

All good things must come to an end, and that includes the displaying of our 2022 Christmas Tree. Please stay after church on Sunday, January 8, and help us take down and pack away the Christmas Tree and other Sanctuary decorations.

Wednesday, January 18, 2023, at 7:00 p.m.

With more than a million copies sold, all those readers can’t be wrong about Heritage Book Club’s selection entitled The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles. The meeting will happen on January 18, from 7 to 9 p.m., in the Heritage Room. Curl up in front of a warm fire for this lengthy read about four boys in the 1950s as they set off on a mission, crossing the United States.

As we move into 2023, the Babes with Books’ (BWB’s) reading selections and meeting dates are as follows:

• February 15 – The Silent Patient, by Alex Michaelides
• March 15 – Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus

All meetings are held from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Heritage Room, unless otherwise announced.

Please bring your ideas for future reads to the January 18 meeting so we can fill out our list for several more months. Please assure that your suggestions are available in sufficient quantities (~10) from the library before suggesting them.

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, approximately a month in advance the meeting’s book selection will be available on hold for the Heritage Book Club at the Anderson Township branch of the Hamilton County library.

For inclusion in the BWB Google group emails, contact the Heritage office.

Rev. Bill Gupton, our Senior Minister, will be on winter break (a combination of vacation and study leave) from December 25 through January 18. He will be available only in case of emergency, by cell phone.

2022.

Feder bequest use of funds: The Board has decided to allocate $78k (the $70,453 remainder of the original bequest, plus some additional funds) as follows:

• $25k: Put towards endowment
• $25k: Held for future church roof replacement (our church roof is nearing the end of its usable life)
• $10k: Renovation of church bathrooms
• $5k: For security team to spend as needed
• $5k: For technology team to spend as needed
• $5k: For DLFD to spend on children’s space/programs
• $3k: Held for sealing church parking lot this spring

Congregation survey on Reimagining Church: As part of our ongoing Reimagining Church process, the Board is working on putting together a congregation-wide survey to help guide our future actions. The Reimagining Church retreat in September generated a wide range of thoughts and ideas, and this survey is part of our effort to focus these thoughts into concrete, actionable items. This survey will hopefully be launched in December and will be open through January.

Music Director search: A search committee has been established for this position. Five members were originally on the committee, but one subsequently left. The four remaining members are Alison Lang-Hickey, Roger Miller, Joann Meyer, and Kate Wells.

Diversity Day: HUUC will host a Diversity Day event on March 4, 2023. There will be two speakers at the event, and it will run from 9:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Rebecca Pace is handing over logistical planning for this event over to DLFD Laci Adams.

Additional signers on Schwab account: Because we only had one valid signer on our Schwab account (Bob Booth), the Board added two additional signers: Reid Hester (Finance Committee chairperson), and Luke Walczewski (as a backup).

Revised COVID policy language: To keep up with the ever-changing COVID landscape, the Board loosened our “masks are strongly requested” COVID policy language to the following: “Masks are optional. Any persons exhibiting fever, cough, or shortness of breath, or other symptoms of COVID-19 should avoid any in-person meetings of any size.” The Board also decided to remove signs from the building doors regarding masks.

Feder bequest use of funds: The Board continues to give thought to the best use of this generous bequest. Our community has many different needs and priorities, and the Board is trying to best use these funds for the benefit of the church overall.

Tuesday, January 24, 2023, 7 to 9 p.m.

Patriarchy could be defined as “a system that encompasses a worldview, arrangements about how we live as humans with each other on this planet, implicit blueprints for what kinds of institutions we create, and guidelines for what to do with our young to prepare them for the system itself. The underlying principle of patriarchy is separation and control. The separation is from self, other, life, and nature.”

Come along to what is sure to be a lively and deep discussion of what the patriarchy is and how it affects both women and men. Yes, the patriarchy affects men too.

This session arose from the discussion in the fall of 2022 and will include men. No need to have attended any of the other sessions. We welcome you if you did attend the others as there will be some new information discussed.

The meeting will take place in the Heritage Room. Open to all members and friends of HUUC. Facilitated by Tracy Jo.

12/24/2022.

Sunday, January 29, following the service.

The Heritage UU Church Board of Trustees will host a Town Hall meeting following the service on Sunday, January 29th. We expect the discussion to begin sometime between 11:30 a.m. and 12:00 noon. We will continue in-person from the sanctuary or on the Zoom service link after a brief break when the service ends.

We hope that a large group can join the meeting. If you have questions, contact Julie Kane, HUUC Board President, at:

2023.