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December Services at CCUU |
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Wednesday, 20 November 2013 00:00 |
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Our December topic is "Innocence"
December 15 The CCUU Choir will present Missa de Angelis as part of the morning worship service. The choir has been preparing this work since late Spring.
December 22 The Darkest Day of the Year. The 21st is the Winter Solstice, a holy day in many Earthly traditions. We will reflect on the meaning of this day well before it became associated with Christmas.
December 24 Away in a Manger. Rev. VanderWeele invites you into the spirit of Christmas with a focus on the manger.
December 29 We will join the members of our sister congregations for the annual GNOUU “Funeral for 2013” to be held at First Unitarian Universalist Church. |
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More Fun at the Food Bank |
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Tuesday, 22 October 2013 20:41 |
CCUU volunteers returned to Second Harvest Food Bank on October 12, 2013. Second Harvest’s mission is to lead the fight against hunger in south Louisiana through food distribution, advocacy, education and disaster response.
The food bank yearly supplies 25 million pounds of food to 23 parishes across south Louisiana, which represents emergency food assistance to more than 263,000 people, including nearly 82,000 children and 40,000 seniors. It It also distributes more than 22 million meals through a network of 240 non-profit member agencies. Did you know that 1 out of 8 people in this region struggles with hunger, and 1 out of 5 children live in a food insecure household? This means that they do not always know where they will find their next meal. 
We sorted and boxed donated food items of all types as they quickly came down the squeaky conveyor belts. The boxes of sorted food items were then transferred to pallets where they were wrapped in plastic to then be shipped to some of the agencies served by Second Harvest. Lively music, conversation, and the good natured company of Charlie, the Food Bank’s volunteer leader, kept our volunteers hopping and having a good time.
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Myanmar Religious Leaders Visit CCUU |
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Monday, 23 September 2013 19:45 |
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A delegation of eight religious leaders from Myanmar (a.k.a. Burma) recently visited Community Church. Eight Burmese monks, ministers, and an imam are working to establish interfaith linkages between the faiths (and peoples) in their land. They hope to promote a unity based on the similarities found in all faiths rather than point toward where their faiths differ. This delegation appears at the starting point of correcting an injustice that has plagued the people of Myanmar for many years.
The Myanmar population is now 89% Theravadan Buddhist, 4% Muslim, 4% Christian, 2% others and 1% Hindu. Although Buddhists are generally peace loving, those who live in Myanmar have aggressively targeted Jews and Muslims. Today’s major concern is for the Rohingya, a Muslim group who live in Northern Rakhine and use the Rohingya language. (The Rohingya are one of the most persecuted people on our Earth.) There are three obstacles that need to be overcome in Myanmar: a denial of the historical presence of the Rohingya, the 1982 citizenship law, and restoring the citizenship and human rights of the Rohingya peoples which they have been denied since 1982.
The Burmese contingent requested a visit with representatives of IWJ, but seemed quite interested in learning about Unitarian Universalism. An imam asked very early in our meeting, “I have heard about UUs, but know little about it, what can you tell us about your faith?”
I began by sharing our openness to diversity. As I was speaking I thought it best to share some of the readings in the back of our hymnal. The clerics seemed pleased that we value many faiths. They nodded as I spoke of UU history and a commitment to justice for all. A Buddhist priest asked if they could take a hymnbook to Myanmar, “It would be good to translate some of these passages into our language.” I quickly agreed.
It was a joy to share a brief “elevator speech” about Unitarian Universalism with these religious leaders. I hope several of the selections from our hymnal will be translated into their language(s) and will be used as tools to build peace and understanding in their land. The final highlight of the meeting was the gathering of these leaders in our sanctuary where they sang the Myanmar National Anthem.
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Standing on the Side of Love – Compassionate Immigration Reform |
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Friday, 26 April 2013 20:17 |
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In March, the UUA's Standing on the Side of Love hosted a webinar to ask members of individual churches to urge their respective members of Congress to support compassionate immigration reform. Community Church Unitarian Universalist members were well prepared to do so as members Shirley Peak and Suzy Mague had led a well-attended, six-week adult education group on "Immigration as a Moral Issue" in Autumn 2012. As an outgrowth of that study, the group members identified the humanitarian issues about which we most strongly wanted to advocate and developed positions that we felt were both humanitarian and politically pragmatic. After meeting and exchanging drafts of the petition by many emails, the petition was vetted, completed and offered after Sunday services for signatures of the group members and other supporters. (We executed the petition as individual voters, not as a statement of the position of our congregation, which has not taken a formal vote on this matter.)
On April 2, our minister, Jim VanderWeele, and members Shirley Peak and Community Ministry Chair Liz Trotter joined with other clergy and organizations in support of Congreso (Congress of Day Laborers) at their press conference in front of the federal building and courthouse in downtown New Orleans, and were able to present the petition to an aide of Senator Mary Landrieu. (See a fraction of the "Standing on the Side of Love" t-shirt in the photo? That's Jim.) The event was covered by several local television stations.
Members of our group will meet in person with an aide to our local Louisiana Congressman Cedric Richmond to present the petition.
Copies of the Petition were mailed to Senator David Vitter and all other U.S. Representatives from Louisiana.
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We believe that we are all family and we all have value.
