Church guide

For the third year in a row, UU Lansing member Barb Barton will organize a Sunday afternoon workshop to make our own cider together! Get ready to save up your apples this fall and bring a bushel to our Apple Cider Making event in October.

“The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world.” ― Michael Pollan Come and share in the bountiful transition of summer to fall at UU Lansing! If you'll be around this week, perhaps for our super-fun, two-day Dumpster Party (see Events), help yourself to the basket of excess produce just inside the Community Garden gate, and feel free to share refreshments with your fellow volunteers. This Sunday, August 25, at 10:30 a.m., we'll share beautiful poetry and music at our annual Poetry Sunday service, "The Horn of Plenty." The next Sunday, September 1, is Sharing Sunday--the first Sunday of the month, when we bring items (including shelf-stable foods) that we do not need so that anyone else at church can take things they, or someone they know, could put to use. Worship on September 1 will be led by members of our Stone Soup group, the wonderful folks behind the Blessing Box on Pennsylvania Avenue, our Sharing Sundays, and more. On September 8, we'll share our annual ingathering ceremony, the Water Communion service. You are invited to bring a sample of water that represents a place that feels sacred to you. We will mingle the waters in our tradition of gathering together to start the fall worship season. The Rev. Neal Anderson will lead worship for the first time as our newly called Senior Minister. May your joys be increased by sharing during this season of abundance!

Good morning, Lansing! Come and start your day by being a part of something wonderful. Everyone is welcome to join us at 10:30 a.m. for a moving and celebratory service by our Rainbow Connection (LGBTQIA+) leaders, during which we will take up a collection for the outstanding Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, who has made sure that each baby and child taken at the border and sent to Michigan was reunited with their family (bring checks or cash to contribute). Afterward, at 12:30 p.m., anyone interested is welcome to join Beth in the kitchen for a (No) Baking Team meeting to cook up two no-bake cookie recipes, one with peanuts and one without. We hope to see you soon! Get ready to hear and sing some fabulous music such as "How Could Anyone" (...ever tell you you were anything less than beautiful?).

Today, we mourn the loss of world-transforming author Toni Morrison. Some members of our church have been planning to screen this award-winning film together, and now they would like to extend the invitation for anyone in our community to watch together: THE PIECES I AM, rated PG-13, 119 min. runtime, shown at Celebration Cinema today at 6:30 p.m. A portrait of Toni Morrison, Nobel Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner, exemplifies the idea of an artist untethered by convention. Honored and studied around the globe and after decades of success, she remains committed to telling the stories from and about the African-American experience. She, her collaborators, critics, and fans all provide commentary on her life and the tiny pieces that, when combined, equal who she was as a writer, activist, and storyteller.

Good morning! It's lovely to see all the butterflies enjoying our native pollinator gardens.

We at UU Lansing challenge ourselves and each other to learn about complex issues so we can become more effective friends, neighbors, and activists. If you're an email subscriber, check today's message for a variety of upcoming opportunities to explore social issues in community.

☀️🎼 Yeah it's a hot one... 🎵🎶 Stay cool today, friends! The church office is staffed today until 6 p.m. We have air conditioning, wifi for listening to smooth '90s TBT tunes, coffee and tea, and a drawer full of files needing to be alphabetized if you feel like volunteering. The extreme heat wave starting today will last through the weekend, so please make sure you and your neighbors, pets, and loved ones have a safe and cool place to be through Sunday. Frequent, cool showers always work in a pinch. 🎶 Let's not forget about it. 🎶

Please note that the church office will be closed on Wednesday, July 17. Normal office hours are 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday through Friday. Enjoy this summer!

Here are some of our church's delegates to the UUA General Assembly in Spokane, Washington sharing a meal with our previous senior minister, Rev. Kathryn Bert, and our incoming senior minister, Rev. Neal Anderson! This year's theme was "The Power of We." We need each other more than ever to face the challenges rising in our nation and our world. Come to church on Sunday, July 28 to hear a report from our delegates about what they experienced and took home from GA this year.

Join us at 10:30 a.m. for a worship service reflecting on three different experiences of fatherhood. Afterward, rain or shine, we will be out front on Pennsylvania Avenue (usually starting at about 11:45) with our buttons, signs, and banners, demonstrating our support for Black Lives Matter. Anyone may join in.

Thanks to everyone who made Pride marvelous yesterday!

See you at this year's Michigan Pride! https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/2019/06/14/michigan-pride-your-guide-downtown-parade-old-town-festival/1442876001/

Summer RE (Religious Education) begins this Sunday, June 16. Children ages four and up will explore science, nature, friendship, and play. We will begin our days with lighting the chalice, mindful breathing, and yoga, followed by learning and exploration. We love to have older youth attend to participate or to help out. Please note, there is no RE class on July 7, the Sunday after the July 4 holiday. Children and youth of all ages are always welcome to stay in worship with their families, and services without regular RE classes are designed to be especially engaging for all ages.

Who saw the beautiful double rainbow this morning before coming to church to celebrate the beauty of the Earth? Incidentally, don't forget that Michigan Pride is this Saturday! 🌈

Time to clean out your closets! Now through the end of June, our Religious Education Social Action group is collecting gently used clothing and books for all ages, and children’s gently used toys. Please bring your bagged/boxed items to our Atrium table, and we will sort them for distribution to community groups such as Attwood Elementary School and the Refugee Development Center. Questions? Contact Evelyn Jackson.

Yesterday we welcomed 19 new members to our church! Thank you all for enriching our community with your voices, talents, and presence. #uucgl #Unitarianuniversalist #instagood #lovelansing #lansing #lansingmichigan #welcome

Please be aware that this Sunday, June 2 is the Hawk Island Triathlon, which may affect your route to church. Also remember to bring a flower for our annual Flower Communion ceremony. And come to the Sanctuary early if you'd like to join Music for All! Gather in the musicians' corner at 9:30 a.m., and bring an instrument if you'd like, to rehearse a few pieces to share during the service.

What a wonderful service brought to us by the High School Group!

We are so thankful for those who were able to celebrate the UU principles: Mardi Gras style!

We are proud to be a Unitarian Universalist Association 2017 Breakthrough Congregation!

Rev. Bert!

Part 2: Nic cable’s Ordination and Installation service!

Nic cable’s Ordination and Installation service!

Nic cable’s Ordination and Installation service! (Hindu Devotional singing)

On this rainy day, a Meditation. Drops of God by Tess Baumberger God, God is water sleeping in high-piled clouds. She is gentle drink of rain, pooling lake, rounding pond, angry flooding river. She is frothy horse-maned geyser. She is glacier on mountains and polar ice cap, and breath-taking crystalline ideas of snowflakes. She is frost-dance on trees. And we, we are drops of God, her tears of joy or sorrow, ice crystals and raindrops in the ocean of her. God, God is air wallowing all about us, She is thin blue atmosphere embracing our planet, gentle breeze. She is wind and fiercesome gale centrifugal force of tornado and hurricane, flurry of duststorm. She is breath, spirit, life. She is thought, intellect, vision and voice. And we, we are breaths of God, steady and soft, changeable and destructive. We are her laughter and her sighs, atomic movements, (sardines schooling) in the firmament of her. God, God is fire burning, day and night. She is sting of passion, blinking candle, heat that cooks our food. She is fury forest fire and flow of lava which destroys and creates, transforms. She is home fire and house fire. She is giving light of sun and solemn mirror-face of moon, and tiny hopes of stars. And we, we are little licking flames flickering in her heart, in the conflagratory furnace of her. God, God is power of earth, in and under us. She is steady, staying, fertile loam, body, matter, tree. She is crumbling limestone and shifting sand, multi-colored marble. She is rugged boulder and water-smoothed agate, she is gold and diamond, gemstone. She is tectonic plates and their motion, mountains rising over us, rumble-snap of earthquake, tantrum of volcano. She is turning of our day, root of being. And we, we are pebbles and sand grains, and tiny landmarks, in the endless terrain of her. God, God is journal of time marching through eternity. She is waking of seasons, phases of moon, movements of stars. She is grandmother, mother, daughter. She is transcending spiral of ages whose every turn encompasses the rest, history a mere babe balanced on her hip. She is spinning of universes and ancestress of infinence. She is memory, she is presence, she is dream. And we, we are brief instants, intersections, nanoseconds, flashing gold-hoped moments in the eons of her. God, God is. And we, we are.

Here are some fun and funny sights around UU Lansing today! Happy hump day friends!