This Week in Worship

Sunday, October 20th, 2019

10:30am – 11:30am in the Meetinghouse

Guest Speaker Eamon Aghdasi

Eamon Aghdasi is a Baha’i from Milton, MA and is his community’s representative to the Milton Interfaith Clergy Association (MICA).  

Looking In the Mirror for Change

Rather than looking to others for change, Eamon Aghdasi draws on the B’hai teachings of self-reflection and personal responsibility as a way to effect change.

Minister

Rev. Lisa Ward

On Sunday morning when I prepare for our worship service, I feel grateful for the opportunity to gather and celebrate life, deepen in faith and center on the sacred truth that abides within.  We encourage, enfold, and energize one another when we welcome authentic encounter and shared wisdom.

The worship committee and I are stewards of our worship experience.  We meet monthly to discuss the flow of worship, ways to approach topics, ways to incorporate various elements into the service.  As worship is a participatory art, we welcome your feedback and suggestions.  The more you attend on Sunday morning, the more you will see the varied ways we touch on the many different sensibilities of our vibrant and diverse spiritual community.

Each month we focus on a worship theme in a gesture to deepen in understanding of a particular way of approaching our spiritual lives both individually and as a community. 

Here are the themes for this full-service worship year, which were inspired by focusing in on our church mission:

September: Grounding
October: Hospitality
November: Equity

December: Potential

January: Stewardship
February: Compassion

March: Courage
April: Wellness

May: Embodiment
June: Celebration

One of the ways I choose sermon topics is by listening to what is moving in your hearts and spirit.  Feel free to suggest topics to me, or share with me spiritual questions you’d like explored.  Let’s engage our faith together.

Blessings Be, Rev. Lisa

Religious Exploration

Nursery care will be available from 10:15 to 11:45 am in the Link hallway for infants and toddlers up through age 3.

Religious Exploration classes will meet on Sunday, October 20. All children from preschool through grade 7 will begin in the Meetinghouse and then move downstairs to their classrooms.

~Preschool through grade 1 will be enjoying Spirit Play in the Preschool classroom. The story this week will be The Blessing Seed from Source 4 Our Judeo-Christian Heritage. 

~Grades 2 and 3 will be exploring the UU Principles during the fall and the Passages program beginning in January, meeting in the Juniors classroom. This week they will read The Sneetches as they discuss Principle 3 Our Churches are Places Where All People are Accepted.

~Grades 4 through 7 will be continuing the two-year Friends and Neighbors curriculum, learning about various faith traditions through videos and visitors. Our focus this week will be on Judaism. The class will have a visitor from the Jewish tradition who will share information and experiences about his faith. This group meets in the Activity room. 

~Grade 8 will be participating in the Coming of Age program this year.

It is time to register your child or youth for classes this fall! The Religious Exploration Committee requests all families to register your child or youth. Please use this link to our online form: Online registration form (or paper registration forms are available on the RE bulletin board in the Link hallway).

Youth Chat (for grades 8 through 12) will meet on Sunday, October 20th. Youth are invited to begin arriving at 10 am to make a hot beverage and settle in. Formal Youth Chat programming runs from 10:30 to 11:30 am. This week the group will be doing important planning for the Haunted Halloween Hallway on Friday, October 25th.

Coming of Age (for grades 8 through 10) will meet on Sunday, October 20th from noon to 1:30 pm. We will be working on how to treat others and ourselves with the kindness that we all deserve.

Save the Date: The Haunted Halloween Hallway will happen on Friday, October 25th. Set-up begins at 5 pm. Pizza will be available. The hallway will be open for partygoers from 7:30 to 8:30 pm. Clean-up should be done soon after 9 pm. As soon as cleanup is done, we will enjoy a late-night evening together for continued Youth Group spooky festivities and fun until 12am.

        Halloween Dance Party

Friday, October 25th

7pm – 9:00pm

The RE Committee is hosting its 10th annual Spooktacular Dance Party. Costumes, dancing and fun for all! Tell your friends, bring the neighbors, this is a party for everybody.

Experience the Eerie Haunted House created by our ghastly youth group — Go through it if you DARE! (You can request the full scare or a calmer version if you prefer.)

Treats and helpers needed: Sign up here if you can help with setup or cleanup, or provide grisly Halloween-themed snacks and desserts.

MUSIC SELECTIONS

This Sunday the choir will be singing an anthem about Caring Communities, titled “How Good It Is”, by Tony Alonso. During the offertory will be a popular spiritual arrangement by Moses Hogan, “Somebody’s Knocking at Your Door”.

Save the Date 

5th Annual Harvest Supper

Saturday, October 19

Parish Hall

6:00 pm

We welcome all to this time-honored and beloved First Parish event!  Please bring your favorite dish for the pot luck, beer or wine to share, and your friendly faces.  Connect with friends, old and new, enjoy the music and the great food.  Bring the kids!  

Pat Neves will be hosting karaoke after dinner.  We’ve asked committees to prepare a song that represents their work for First Parish.  But anyone who wants to sing is welcome.  Grab some friends and find a song!  (You can find the karaoke version of any song on youtube).  If you’re planning to sing, send your song info to Pat at pjneves7@gmail.com.

Remember to RSVP to the evite.

Green Gleans

This Sunday (10/20), Izzy Goodrich will speak during the service on behalf of Our Climate, a youth-powered, national non-profit.  https://www.ourclimate.us/

 Whether meeting with legislators on Beacon Hill, assembling the now-famous Right-Whale mother and calf mosaic on Boston Common last June, or speaking out at Boston’s Climate Strike last month, Izzy and her Our Climate peers share a goal, to “Put a Price on It.”  “It” = CARBON, emitted when we burn/consume fossil fuels, accelerating global warming to catastrophic levels.

The “Third Sunday” offertory (cash/checks) will benefit Our Climate so (1) come and (2) be generous!    Afterwards, join the Green Action Team at Social Hour and complete a postcard to your State Rep. in support of H. 2810, “An Act to Promote Green Infrastructure and Reduce Carbon Emissions.”

To learn more about it, check out:https://masscleanenergyfuture.org/ or

 https://www.uumassaction.org/legislation Our elected officials need to hear from their constituents NOW — it’s time!

Community News

First Parish Church member Debbie Alsebai received a 2019 Community Builder Award from Celebrate Milton on Sunday, October 6,  for “making Milton a better place for everyone!” (quoting the event program).  Community Builder Award recipients are individuals who work to build bridges, to celebrate diversity, and to support the mission of Celebrate Milton in order to make Milton a great place to live.

Courageous Conversations Towards Racial Justice

November Event: Let’s Talk Courageously In Quincy

When:  Monday, November 4th, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Where: First Presbyterian (270 Franklin St, Quincy, MA 02169)

Join our free event open to the public. We will share information about our anti-racism work that we have been doing in Milton and Mattapan since 2016. Our event will then include a media piece and breakout into small group discussions. Food will be provided. We hope you will join us.

Toward Social Justice

This summer, the Social Action Committee retreated to Cynthia Guise’s garden to make plans for the coming year.  Our first big change is that we are recommending a change to our name from the Social Action Committee to the Social Justice Committee.  (The official name change will require a bylaws change in the spring – in the meantime we will “try on” the new name this year to see how it fits.) 

Some of you may ask:  what is the difference between Social Action and Social Justice? Here’s one simple explanation from Rabbi Joseph Meszler:

Social justice is different from social action. Social action meets the world where it is, and includes such things as making sandwiches for the homeless and participating in clothing drives for people in need. Social action is about assistance or even just awareness.  Social justice is about advocacy or trying to change the world into the way it ought to be. Creating alliances, lobbying legislators, and changing policies are efforts toward social justice.

We will not stop “doing” social action (Fair Foods, Mainspring, Third Sunday donations, etc.) but we want to move Towards Social Justice.  “Serving the world” is important but “Changing the world” is more important than ever before.  Stay tuned to future columns for more about our revamped themes for this year:  Economic Justice, Racial Justice, Climate Justice, and Immigration Justice and how YOU can get involved.  

Tracey Robinson and Pat Gallivan, Co-Chairs, Social Justice Committee (fka SAC)

Help needed for Mainspring!

Looking for additional volunteers to prepare and service a meal at Mainspring in Brockton on the evening of October 20th.

For more details, contact Peter Schneider at peterlschneider@gmail.com

EXPLORING AGING TOGETHER

Second and Fourth Wednesdays of the Month

11 am to 1 pm, (Bring a Bag Lunch)

Chase Parlor (next to the kitchen)

Open Meeting.  Come when you can.  Newcomers welcome.

Next session October 23rd, 2019

What can we learn from each other as we age? We all have stories within us of facing the unknown and navigating changes, of adjusting to loss and appreciating what’s before us. We will meet twice a month to share our wisdom, our queries, our wonderings.  Each session will focus around a theme.  Next meeting’s theme: Trying new things.

More questions?  Contact Penny Partridge at ppartridge9@icloud.com.

Samhain

Saturday, November 2, 2019, 3:00pm, Parish Hall

Samhain (Gaelic for Summer’s End) marks the end of the growing season. Vegetation dies back with killing frosts; leaves fall from the trees, the crops have gone brown, and the land becomes a desolate place.  It is halfway between the autumn equinox and winter solstice, when the light begins to return again.  As we celebrate the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the darker half of the year, we take time to remember the dead and contemplate the endless cycle of life, death, and rebirth.

Join the Great Blue Hill Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans  for the annual Samhain ritual of remembrance.  You are welcome to bring photos or mementos of your loved ones who have passed over and, if you like, to share stories of those you keep in memory.  The ritual will be followed by a pot luck social hour.

Grief Support Group

Four Tuesdays: November 5, 12, 19, 26

7:00 – 8:30 pm

When we lose a loved one through death, the world is different, our lives shift in meaning, our ground is shaken.  We can feel isolated by our grief.  We can also feel a lack of strength or initiative to find a way through. One way to help adjust to the new reality and find our inner resources  is to share our journey with others who welcome time together devoted to the jorney of loss and recovery.  There are many ways that we grieve and many kinds of losses.  This group is focused on loss due to the death of a loved one.  We ask participants to commit to at least three of the sessions, no new participants after the 12^th.

Please contact the office: office@fpmilton.org if you can attend.

FAIR FOODS

Fair Foods is a nonprofit organization that rescues nutritious wholesale fruits and vegetables about to be discarded for distribution to members of the community. Join First Parish’s Social Justice Committee for our monthly volunteer day with Fair Foods at the Unitarian Universalist Urban Ministry, 10 Putnam St. in Roxbury. Arrive in Roxbury at 10:30 or e-mail Tony Dutzik at tdutzik@gmail.com if you’d like to join a carpool leaving from First Parish at 10 a.m. or if you have any questions. Upcoming dates include the following Saturdays: November 9, December 14 and January 11.

TURN INYOUR

UNUSED AND EXPIRED DRUGS

Saturday October 26th

10am-2pm

Milton Police Department

40 Highland Street 

Keep them safe. Clean them out. Take them back.

Confidential kiosk.  To ensure confidentiality, please remove label.

Lifetouch Photos!

If you selected to have your 8 by 10 photo delivered to the church instead of your home, it is in the office. Please stop by during the week during office hours to pick up your photo, or find them on the table on the library on Sunday morning.

Dish to Pass at Myrtle’s Oct 26

Come to a Circle Social dinner at the home of Myrtle Flight, Saturday October 26 6:00 PM to ? Bring a dish to pass and join friends for an evening of fun and conviviality. No agenda, no itinerary, just a pleasant evening with friends, family and acquaintances. Sign up in the Parish Hall during social hour after church service or on the Membership Committee bulletin board in the Link.

If you are interested in hosting a Circle Social event, contact Richard Venable at r2venable@gmail.com or 617-792-4124.

World Market Holiday Craft Fair

December 7th, 2019

 9:30-1:30

Parish Hall

Local crafters encouraged to contact the

church for an application. Crafts only,

no food or mass-produced items.

$35 per table

Contact: office@fpmilton.org

617-698-6329

Silent Prayer and Meditation

Thursday evening Silent Prayer and Meditation is at 6:00pm in the Children’s Church.

Sunday morning Silent Prayer and Meditation is at 9am in the Children’s Church.

Claiming Our Spiritual Leadership

Saturday, November 2, 2019

9:00am-3:00pm

Unitarian Universalist Church of Worcester

90 Holden St

Worcester, MA 01606

For more information click here