As we celebrate Veteran’s Day, United States Veterans are our Nations Heroes. Sadly, they come back from their time spent in Military Service with invisible scars, trauma, and physical disabilities. Come hear Rev. Victoria Olson share her experience as a Chaplain serving Veterans for the past 8 years and learn how we can Honor and Bless them with God’s Love, Kindness, and Compassion.
How does public safety funding affect victims of domestic and sexual violence? What is WCST doing to maintain a community level response in cases of domestic violence during times of public safety funding uncertainty? What separates WCST victim services from other similar services in our community? WCST Executive Director Ray Dinkins shares the significance of WCST services, the difficulties in achieving safety for survivors in times of funding uncertainty, and how WCST is leading efforts to ensure a community level response to support victims and hold offenders accountable.
Ancestors – everyone has them, and (spoiler alert!) most of them are dead. Euro-American culture isn’t very good at death. We avoid talking about it; we literally kill ourselves trying to postpone it; we expect grief to have stages and then stop; we are so scared of death we’ve perverted the one day each year our ancestors set aside for remembering them, to instead focus on giving children candy and expressing our fear with giant inflatable spiders. JD shares his journey from judging his ancestors to questioning his fitness to be one. As always, science plays a leading role, along with several other faith traditions and cultures.
There are a lot of very funny jokes about Unitarian Universalism, some of which Rev. Hines has even used in her Orientations for people new to our faith. But there is one that she never repeats. Come learn which one it is, and why she hopes we’ll make it obsolete.
According to the Buddhist tradition, there are Three Poisons that keep humans trapped in a cycle of meaningless, painful existence–which is known as “samsara”. Given that our country is in a prolonged state of samsara, what do we need to know about “the three poisons,” and what are the anecdotes?
David West offers us an invitation to “remember to remember” the wisdoms of those who went before us, and those of us living in the now. How do we prepare for the future – for ourselves, our children, our families and all our relations?
Alec Lamoreaux, Operations Manager for the Northwest Seasonal Workers Association – NSWA is an independent membership association of workers in the seasonal industries of agriculture, timber and tourism. Alec will talk about the nuts and bolts of the NSWA, his personal journey toward and through this work, and ways that we can get involved.
Growing up in Oregon, Reverend Dennis always felt the true months of summer were July, August, and September rather than the school break that began in June. Yet, hotter and drier Junes have shifted our sense of season beyond the old Memorial Day to Labor Day boundaries in recent years. As this sometimes easy, often challenging summer season comes to an end, let’s look back at what we experienced and lessons learned and embrace new notions that will serve us well in the seasons to come.
Susan retired ten years ago from professionally performing as an oboist in the USA and abroad. She is currently an active member of Natural Way of Living which promotes using the nonphysical spiritual heart to guide us through life. Susan will share some of her experiences in her pursuit to realize the true purpose of life.
Our representative democracy is set aside in every presidential election as the winner-takes-all approach is used instead. We can do better! Equal Voice Voting is an easy way to allow proportional voting on a state-by-state basis to make all votes matter!
