Church guide

VT Interfaith Power & Light, in collaboration with VT Climate & Health Alliance, will be showing the National Geographic documentary Paris to Pittsburgh at All Souls Church on Monday, June 24 from 6:30-8:30 PM, preceded by a pot luck supper starting at 6, and followed by a panel discussion. The film shows effects of the climate crisis, as well as the many solutions people across the country are implementing. You can see the film trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFznn8FNRbU

Many thanks to those who came to dedicate our new Side With Love banner and rainbow flag! All are welcome!

Come and get it! All Souls Church is having their annual Terrific Tag Sale this weekend and we would like to donate all that is left after the sale to any organization or club who would like it. You must be present on Saturday, June 1 at 2:00 PM, provide your own transportation for the items, and you must take all! If interested please call 802-254-6772 for more information.

Here is this morning's sunrise which lasted only moments and here are the words by Becky Brooks our minister at All Souls Church will be speaking as the Opening Words to the Sunday Service today: "Mother's Day is complicated. Joyful for many, yes, but complicated. It's right there on the calendar, even if your mother has died. Even if you've been told, yet again, that you're still not pregnant; or if you've never been more scared than you are right now because you are pregnant, it's Mother's Day. Even if your own mother's priorities included everything but you, there's going to be a Mother's Day google doodle with flowers and pink stuff. Even if you have scars, ones you can see or ones you can't, it's Mother's Day. That cake mix commercial is going to roll out four times an hour even when you can't stop shaking and crying because you can't believe you slapped your little boy today. It's Mother's Day. And we all have to live with that, in those silent, breathless moments, because even when your child dies, it's Mother's Day. And so let's go to church. Let's be a church where we can acknowledge how difficult it is to have this day, right alongside how joyful this day can be. Let's be a church where don't pretend there aren't inky depths of space between us even when we sing. Let's be a church that fills the space between our differences with love. Because even in the most broken places, there is room for love. We can be that church."

Pete’s 100th Singalong Concert We're having a birthday party! Come help us celebrate Pete’s life-long work for a better world by singing together the songs he loved. Sunday, May 12th, 7pm All Souls Church, 29 South Street, West Brattleboro, VT https://www.riseupandsing.org/events/petes-100th-brattleboro

All Souls Church Unitarian Universalist invites all to worship on Sunday, April 21, 2019 at 10:00 AM. Our theme this morning: “Eastering” with Rev. Shayna Appel UU Rev. Scott Alexander preaches that, “Easter is a decision, a decision of the human heart, a brave and beautiful decision to live – fully, recklessly, courageously – even in the face of death and despair itself.” This Sunday we’ll explore Easter not just as a noun, a localized event that occurred once upon a time, long, long ago, but also as a verb: “Easter-ing”. You Easter. I Easter. We Easter when we choose hope over fear, love over hate. We Easter when, in times of trial, we reach for hope, and faith in service to a greater good. Join us, and let’s Easter together!--

“It’s Not The Way I Imagined It” January 13, 2019 10:00 am Following the monthly theme of “Possibility,” this service will use imagery and story to demonstrate ways in which we are led to believe what we see, and ways in which we can imagine a future we would like to see. Steve Squires will sing “Imagine” by John Lennon. The choir anthem is “Melodies Steal Into My Heart” by Antonin Dvorak. The service will be led by Christina Gibbons and Maisie Crowther.

Sunday, Dec. 23, 10 a.m.Rev. Shayna Appel An intergenerational service featuring secular Christmas Carols and some additional musicians! Fun for all!https://ascvt.org/

At the First Baptist Church on Main Street.

The All Souls Holiday Bazaar is right around the corner with crafts, wreaths and baked goods. You can get a preview and even place an order on our webpage https://ascvt.org/committees/holiday-bazaar-preview/

Something different is planned this month at the All Souls Church film series — a live event on Sunday, Oct. 28, instead of a film. The church will host Mark Hughes, leader of “40 Days of Fire,” which he describes as “a statewide racial justice community organizing campaign designed to educate and empower folks to participate in this important work in Vermont.” The event will be the October offering in the church’s ongoing program “Looking Inward at White Power and Privilege.” A free light lunch will be served at 11:30 and the free program will start at noon. Mark Hughes is the co-founder and Executive Director of Justice For All VT (JFA), which he describes as a grassroots organization that peruses racial justice within Vermont’s criminal justice system through advocacy, education, and relationship building. JFA is a member of the Vermont Human Rights Council among other coalitions.

New Chairs!

Jamie & Marty getting ready for the banner parade at General Assembly in Portland, Oregon!

Sunday, June 14th at 10:00 a.m. - Our annual Flower Ceremony. As we reflect on the unique gifts and strengths each person brings into our community, you are invited to bring a flower from garden, roadside or field and take home a blossom brought by someone else. Elizabeth Wohl will sing.

West Brattleboro, Vt. - On Sunday, June 14, from 4 to 6:30 pm, All Souls Church Unitarian Universalist invites area art lovers to a gala reception and fundraising auction for 53 works of art donated by Beverly Alberts. Nearly all of the collection is by artists from the local area. This is an "everything must go to a new home" event, so minimum bids are set at very modest levels. Beverly has always felt elevated by the beauty of the creative arts. She is a familiar face at musical performances, plays, opera broadcasts, museum openings, and lectures on the arts and humanities, which greater Brattleboro offers in abundance. In the early ’80s, she had also become a fan of the area’s many fine artists. With just one dedicated gallery in town, however, she decided to extend their marketing outreach by serving as an artist’s representative further afield in New England in 1981-84, an effort cut short by a bout with breast cancer. Beverly’s devotion to promoting local artists had been noted by George Becker, who invited her to help plan creation of the Windham Art Gallery (WAG) in 1989. Beverly coordinated the volunteer sitters and spent many a turn on the sitter schedule herself. The Arts Council of Windham County was closely allied with WAG and shared its eventual space on Main Street for the bulk of the gallery’s 20-year run through 2009. Beverly had worked with Marie Procter in that collaborative space to establish Student Art Month. Fittingly, when the Council dreamed up the first Friend of the Arts Award, it was bestowed on Beverly Alberts. Beverly’s close relationship with the region's community of creative artists helped in her responsibilities as curator for shows at Brooks Memorial Library from 2000 to 2002, and was a great boon to her work co-leading the Arts Committee at All Souls Church in West Brattleboro from 2002 to 2012. She selected artists for most of the exhibits at the church, oversaw show hangings, and helped run opening receptions. She is still a committee member and frequently a reception co-host. Over the years, Beverly has also been an avid art collector, whether making a direct purchase of original work or an archival print from the artist, or the winning bidder of something offered at any number of art auctions to benefit several of the area’s good causes. Now the story of the gradually accumulated “Beverly Alberts Collection” has come full circle. A couple of months ago, Beverly decided to downsize her life, leaving an expansive apartment to “retire” to a space only 16 by 16 at Bradley House. Her walls are still filled with many favorite pieces she couldn’t part with, but after sending a number of the collection off with family members and close friends, there were still over 50 works of art to donate to her spiritual home, All Souls Church. Beverly’s intent with this special gift is to help the church raise funds for upkeep of the building and grounds—its heating oil supply and cost of maintaining a famously steep and long driveway, in particular, were big expenses over the past two difficult winters, so any extra support is very welcome, indeed! Currently hanging in the church’s gallery spaces, the Beverly Alberts Collection includes works by Maisie Crowther, Carolyn DiNicola Fawley, Gennaro Prozzo, Petria Mitchell, Susan McDormand, Karen Becker, Simi Berman, Dorothy Kehaya, Bob George, Trudy Crites, Gib Taylor, Brian Cohen, and Linda Wright, among others. The exhibit includes photographs, prints, and paintings in a variety of mediums, and a few artful posters. The minimum bids for a Silent Auction of 47 pieces in the collection, many professionally framed, are quite reasonable, most under a hundred dollars, many under fifty. Six larger pieces—by artists Jeanne Carbonetti, Arrin Fancher, Bill Hunt, Eric Slayton, and Sally Warren, as well as a 4-panel Chinese screen—will be sold by live auction. The ASC Arts Committee and other church members are providing attendees with a generous spread of hearty hors d’oeuvres and an array of desserts, as well as a glass of wine and non-alcoholic beverages for a donation of $10 per person. (Wine refills will be available for purchase.) A few interludes of live music will punctuate the event. Beverly is looking forward to enjoying a reunion with as many Windham Art Gallery members and other artist friends from all over the area as are able to attend. For food and drink planning purposes, it would be great to have RSVPs. Send a quick email to [email protected] or call the church office at (802) 254-9377. The All Souls gallery is otherwise open on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 9:00 to 2:00. All Souls Church UU is located at 29 South St. across from the West Brattleboro village green and fire station. Follow the wooded driveway up to a large parking area by the building. Caption for attached photo: Beverly Alberts is seen in the foreground at a Gallery Walk night in the former Windham Art Gallery. Courtesy of Gallery Walk