Your Weekly Link – News and Updates 11/3/2022

Your Weekly Link – News and Updates 11/3/2022

Table of Contents

  • This Week in Worship
  • This Week in Religious Exploration
  • Events and Meetings
  • News and Announcements
  • Volunteer Opportunities
  • Beyond First Parish

This Week in Worship

“Stories for Healing and Change”

Worship Assistant: Dottie Pitt

Bell Ringer: Ana Marquez

Greeter: Dottie Pitt

Usher: Amy Kavadlo

Flowers: Charlie Franich & Ruth Hannon

Social Hour: Charlie Franich & Ruth Hannon

Music: Tim Steele

Audio: Colin Glazer

Sunday’s offering will be given to UU Urban Ministry.  Their mission: To work across race and place to dismantle racism and white supremacy culture and to advance racial, social, and economic justice.

Masks are optional for vaccinated people in the meetinghouse; masks are still required for those who have not been vaccinated. Respect and consideration should be given to all regardless of their masking choice.

It’s upon us once again, the twice a year occasion when we play with time. Sometimes Saturday night while we are (hopefully) sleeping, an extra hour will show in our lives. There’s a lot of things I have opinions about. Falling back and springing forward is not one of them. I simply do as I am told, and change all my various clocks and devices.

In fact, I experience it as kind of magical (in the fall, at least). It’s like we waved a big wand and plunking 60 minutes into the first weekend of November. All day long on the Sunday after the big switcheroo, I have a lovely sense of expansiveness. Why I have all the time in the world, I think. An extra hour to… sleep, finish my sermon!, take a walk, call a friend. What will I do with this extra hour of time given to me?

I’m a bit in awe at the collective nature of this orchestrated change. It only works if we all do it, and…. we all do it! Wherever we are in the country, whatever our politics, religion, age, identity, we cooperate and make the change.

Granted it’s a pretty low bar as an example of collective action, but I’ll take my hope wherever I can find it. And then there’s those amusing moments that arise when someone forgets. We at church have a front row seat for those. One congregation I know used to buy a few copies of the Sunday Globe and make a pot of coffee for those who’d come an hour before worship started in the fall. Another congregation turned in their pews and sang the final hymn to a hapless member who arrived an hour late in the spring. Consider yourself reminded for this Sunday!

What will you do with your extra hour this weekend? I hope you experience as a complete gift. Let it seep into you, and fill you with peace. Like grace and God’s love, you don’t have to earn it, it’s simply yours to receive and enjoy.

Faithfully,

Rev. Tricia

Music For Sunday

This Sunday the Meetinghouse Choir will be singing an anthem called “Neighbor, Take This Torch of Peace” by Emma Lou Diemer. Ms. Diemer taught for many years at the University of Maryland and at UC-Santa Barbara. The poetry is by Dorothy Diemer Hendry. Grace Allendorf will also be singing a solo by Florence Price called “The Sum”, with a text by Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Religious Exploration

Religious Exploration classes are in session this Sunday. We look forward to our Spirit Play, Holy Days and Holidays and Friends and Neighbors students joining us in the meetinghouse and then proceeding to classes. Our Coming of Age class meets at 4pm.

Still need to register your child? The registration form can be found here.

Events and Meetings

Invitation to Weekly Meditation

Creating a peaceful space, a few minutes each week, is a quiet and powerful way to maintain balance in these hectic and challenging times.

Every week a small group “gathers” for silent meditation/prayer. We meet on Sunday morning 8:30am-9:00am and Thursday evening 6:45pm-7:15pm. We meet via Zoom for the convenience of those who live at a distance and for those who prefer to join from home. All are welcome. Contact Tracey at tdr02186@gmail.com for more info.

Peace is this moment without judgment. That is all. This moment where everything that is, is welcome.

The HARVEST SUPPER Is Saturday Night ! Nov. 5th

We have a great line-up of your favorite First Parish musicians, the food will be First Parish-potluck-wonderful and the weather is predicted to be unseasonably warm. Join us for our outdoor Harvest Gathering, Saturday night from 5:30pm – 9:00pm.

Please RSVP. We’re all looking forward to seeing you there!

On this Sunday, November 6th at 3pm Milton Community Concerts will be presenting an afternoon of world premiere performances by composer Carol Koffinke in a program called “Sharing Ourselves, Reuniting Our Voices: The Music of Carol Koffinke”. Four professional soloists and a violinist will be joined by a combined choir of churches from around the South Shore, including our own Meetinghouse Choir and the UCC Norwell choir.

Among the premieres is a cycle called “The Five Elements” in which each soloist personifies one of the elements of Air, Water, Fire, Earth, and Quintessence. A combined premiere utilizing both choir and soloists is “Life”, a universal exploration of our universal life cycle: Birth, Prime, Awareness, and Real. All the music is beautiful, tonal, and accessible. Ms. Koffinke is a local composer living in Scituate, MA, and will be in attendance at the concert. 

Tickets are $20 general, $10 senior, and free for 18 and under.

Visit miltoncommunityconcerts.com to see all the details.

11th Hour Calling Monthly Stand Out for Climate Action & Justice Friday, November 11, 6-6:30 p.m.

535 Canton Avenue (next to Town Hall)

Standing out together is a visual testament that we care about the climate emergency and community resolve, about environmental justice, about elimination of fossil fuels from our lives, and about municipal response planning locally wherever we live. All are welcomed: show up, drum, chant, learn. BYO posters and percussion. Note: this month’s 11th Hour Calling coincides with Veterans Day.

News and Announcements

Sunday, November 6th turn clocks back 1 hour.

Volunteer Opportunities

Fair Foods

Fair Foods is a non-profit program that rescues fresh produce that would otherwise be wasted and uses it to feed our communities. We volunteer together unloading and sorting food and packing bags once a month.

The next volunteer date is Saturday, November 19th.

If you want to volunteer, please sign up on Sign up Genius by Thursday

evening before the event. Start time and locations vary depending on Fair Foods’ needs, but typically start at 8:30 a.m. at their warehouse at 70 Amory Street in Roxbury.

Sign up here!

Other volunteer opportunities are also available at Fair Foods, especially on Friday and Saturday mornings. Contact Tony Dutzik at tdutzik@gmail.com or 617-291-4685 with any questions or for more information.

First Parish Milton volunteers provide bagged lunches to MainSpring adult shelters in Brockton twice a month on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays. Members of the Social & Environmental Justice committee will make the delivery to Brockton.

Volunteers are needed to acquire food and pack 10 lunches and deliver to the church between 12:45 pm-1:00 pm on Delivery day. One team lead drives all the lunches to the shelter in Brockton. Please note how many meals you are making in comments. We are looking for 70 lunches for each delivery day. Lunches should include sandwich, fruit, drink, snack/chips and sweet/cookies.

The next delivery day will be on Wednesday, November 9th and then every other Wednesday throughout the year. We will meet in the lower parking lot between 12:40 and 1:00 PM.

If you haven’t made lunches in a while OR if you are a new volunteer, sign up on MainSpring Sign Up Genius or contact Pat Gallivan at pl.gallivan@verizon.net for more info.

Thanks to all the volunteers that have made this program a success for more than two years !!

Sign up here

Beyond First Parish

ONLINE UU HISTORY SERIES – OPEN TO ALL!

Tuesdays, October 11th thru November 15th

7:00pm-8:00pm CT

Offered on Zoom Free

The Faith Forward program out of the First Unitarian Church of Dallas is excited to offer an online session of our UU History series for all congregations! This series is an incredible opportunity for all visitors, members, and friends to learn more about the rich and deep history of our faith. This series approaches history from the starting point of compelling stories and personalities; each session will focus on one or two people from our history. Participants explore the questions these people faced and make connections with their own lives and the world around them today. The overarching question is: how can history be translated into our religious life and practice? 

To register, just use this link:

Book Group with the book THE FENCE

This is the chilling Boston story of violence against a police office by other police officers and the subsequent cover-up. The police officer beaten was Michael Cox, Boston’s current police commissioner. 

Join us on Zoom, Tuesday night 11/15/22 from 7:00pm to 8:30pm.

Register here

The Fence is available as an ebook from Milton Public Library and can be purchased on Amazon.

Your CCTRJ Book Group Hosts, Debbie Alsebai, Annette Correia, Ann Hunt and Pat Neves


STAY CONNECTED

Follow First Parish on Facebook and get updates, poems, announcements and more. You’ll be glad you did!

CHURCH OFFICE HOURS

Monday – Thursday 10:00 am – 1:00 pm

Other times by appointment

MINISTER OFFICE HOURS

Tuesday – Thursday 10:00 am – 2:00 pm

Other times by appointment

The Church office is closed on Fridays

Sundays through mid June

  • Worship, 9:30 am in the Meetinghouse
  • Choir Rehearsal (most Sundays) at 8:45 am

SIGN UP GENIUS (formerly known as the Planner)

The link to SignUp Genius is: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090d44aca728a02-sunday1

You can sign up for one our our Sunday volunteer positions.