Community Recharge Day! Sunday, November 10th

10/24/2024

Here is an invitation to just be!

Join us for a Community Recharge day

Sunday, November 10, 2024, 2pm to 6pm

Come as you are, take what you need.

Stay for a few minutes, or stay all afternoon!

A self-guided afternoon with space to quietly contemplate and space to engage. It’s a relaxing day of both fellowship and solitude, to recharge your batteries.

How you spend the day is completely up to you!

  • Bring your own art supplies, or use the ones supplied.
  • Bring your yoga mat or relax on our floor pillows.
  • Sit at a table or sit on the grass.
  • Chat with people or sit with your own thoughts.
  • Nosh on the light refreshments provided or bring your own lunchbox or bring a snack to share.
  • Use the afternoon to read, write, sing, draw, meditate, pray, color, pray, stretch, dance, or just be.

— at Wildflower Community Room, 1314 Oltorf St, Austin TX 78704

(Note: looking for Wildflower Church’s Sunday worship service? It’ll be on Zoom that morning at 11:45 am. Zoom link provided on our website’s home page.)

Let Us Know You’re Planning to Attend

While you can drop by unannounced anytime between 2pm and 6pm on November 10, we would find it helpful if you’d RSVP so that we can plan for enough snacks and supplies. Thanks!

Owning Your Religious Past, classes November-December 2024

Class facilitated by: Bis Thornton, Chaplain.

What kind of relationship do you have with your own religious past? Many of us have an ambivalent relationship to our childhood religions–alongside painful memories of rejection or control, there are often things we miss that brought us illumination, connection, wisdom, strength, and more.

The good news is that you don’t have to return to the religion of your past to bring the joyful, supportive practices into your present spiritual life. If that sounds like something you’d like some support in, please join us for “Owning Your Religious Past.”

“Owning Your Religious Past” is a 5-week group workshop that will provide simple tools for re-examining and retrieving positive aspects of past religious connections. This course will involve both group sharing and private exploration.

The workshop will meet at 1:30-3:30pm from November 3rd to December 1st at Wildflower Church. We will meet over Zoom on November 10th.

Session 1:
Personal Religious Timeline

Session 2:
The Haunting House of Worship

Session 3:
An Exercise of Reconciliation

Session 4:
Claiming the Positives

Session 5:
Conclusion and Worship

Registration Form for Owning Your Religious Past classes

September BLUU Online Worship: “Come as You Are”

09/05/2024

Sunday, September 8, 2024, 3pm to 4:30 pm Central Time

Black Lives of Unitarian Universalists (BLUU)‘s online worship services are Black Sacred Space in their entirety – by and for Black people, with the words and voices of Black folks across the diaspora – and we hope that Black UUs and Black UU-adjacent folks (who share our values) from far and wide will join us!

For our non-Black siblings in faith, please DO share this invitation with Black folks in your life and community. Getting the word out about BLUU’s gatherings and other programming is one powerful way of lending your support, and we deeply appreciate it!

For all of our services, feel free to come into our BLUU Zoom Room as early as 15 minutes before the start of the service to get settled, say hello to the folks who are already gathering, and listen to the music softly playing as we all prepare for our time together.

In September, Rev. Mykal Slack will be bringing us a special Homecoming message, “Come As You Are.”

Worship description: There is artistry in holding the complexities of how we connect with one another, including how we uphold the very best of our faith. It takes persistence, audacity, humbleness, a healthy curiosity, and a commitment to community to live into this artistry and this creativity.

Register to attend: https://bit.ly/3wYfnjb

Sunday Reflections on Water 07/07/2024

07/07/2024

Shape Shifting:  Lessons from Water

Time for All Ages (TFAA) and music are our Sunday sermons this summer. In July, our worship services center on the theme of WATER. Here is the TFAA story and music for reflection from Sunday, July 7, 2024. May their lessons resonate with your spirit.

Time For All Ages: Reflect on the Story

Book: Tale of the Sands

(Listen and watch the read aloud video below, or read the e-book online, free. It’s also available in print at your local library or bookseller.)

The Tale of the Sands by Idries Shah

Reflect on the Music

“The Waves We Give” by Beautiful Chorus (This song was inspired by the words of Bruce Lee)

Lyrics

Be like water, my friend

You shall find a way around, or through it

When nothing within us stays rigid

We decide the shape we’re in

Empty your mind

Be shapeless, formless, like water

It can flow or it can crash

And we design the waves we give

We decide, we design

We decide the shape we’re in

And the waves we give

Questions for Reflection

  • How can emptying your mind help you to see new possibilities?
  • How can we decide the waves we give?
  • Was there ever a time when your first judgment of a person or a situation was wrong? How did this affect your relationship or connection to the people around you? Do you know where this feeling originated from? How can you avoid this in the future? Forgive yourself and promise to be more flexible like waves in the water in the future.
  • Think about a time when your rigidity in a disagreement caused further conflict. When looking back, would being more flexible have improved the situation? How could you have been more flexible? In the future, try to be more flexible like the waves in the water.
  • Was there ever a time when your value system was tested? Did your heart and your mind not align in the same resolution? Have you ever had to re-evaluate your value system in order to more align with your heart? Let your heart bend and be flexible like the waves in the water.
  • As you move throughout your week, are there any ways you can make your heart and mind more flexible and open to change so that they are free to move with the force and the motion of the waves?