Your Weekly Link – News and Updates 3/30/2023

Your Weekly Link – News and Updates 3/30/2023

Table of Contents

  • This Week in Worship
  • Message from Rev. Lisa
  • This Week in Religious Exploration
  • Events and Meetings
  • News and Announcements
  • Volunteer Opportunities
  • Beyond First Parish

This Week in Worship

“Soul Deep Audacity”

Worship Assistant: Elise Henricks

Music: Tim Steele

Faith Reflection: Owen McGonagle

Social Hour: Paul Casaz

Audio: Nina Truog

Sunday’s offering will go towards the services and ministry of First Parish.

Masks are strongly recommended 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.

Along with the steady, reliable stewardship of our building, Kevin Harnden, our Sexton, is a writer. Some of you may remember his artwork and writings displayed in the Link last Fall along with Andy Strang’s photographs. Every staff meeting, we take turns sharing a reading or a bit of wisdom with the group. For some time, when it is Kevin’s turn, he shares an original writing. Here’s one from a week ago:

We may search the rich earth

For silver and gold

Explore the vast universe

For the mysteries it holds.

We can look in our bodies

To cure illness we find.

Build great machines

That will broaden our minds.

But nothing will pleasure

Our hearts and our souls

Like the love for our children

And the treasures they hold.

Kevin will be our guest speaker on May 28th sharing thoughts on humor and not taking ourselves so seriously. What riches we have here at First Parish.

Blessings Be, Rev. Lisa

Music For Sunday

This Sunday the Meetinghouse Choir will be sharing an anthem by Russell Robinson called “When I Sing”, with a text by Charlotte Lee. Dr. Robinson is a prolific choral conductor and composer who taught for many years at the University of Florida. Claudia Wellington and Pat Neves will be singing a duet called “A Beautiful Noise” by Alicia Keys and Brandi Carlile.

Religious Exploration

RE is looking for a youth (age 14 or older) to facilitate a Dungeons and Dragons group for our middle school youth. This experienced player would plan and run games for four two hour sessions on occasional Sunday evenings this Spring. We are happy to offer community service hours or childcare pay rates. Please email bridget@sitkoff.net if interested.

If your middle schooler might be interested in joining this group, please email bridget@sitkoff.net. Friends are welcome, but you will need to register with the RE program ( choose Youth Group or Junior Youth Group as your program option).

Next Sunday, we will host our Annual Easter Egg Hunt after worship service. Bring your baskets!

Events and Meetings

Something New!

The Membership Committee is organizing a low-key gathering for the evening on Friday, March 31st. We have reached out to the members who have joined within the last five years and a group of them are coming. We want to connect with them AND the wider community.

We will have pizza, sides and drinks starting at 5:00 pm and will have simple crafts going or feel free to bring your own. Games are being offered by First Parish’s former Youth Leader: Sara Elizabeth-Dyer-Santa Cruz ! Youth who miss Sara should come! We will sit around the fire and talk a bit, play games and just “connect”.

Please let Leslie know if you are coming so we can plan on enough food and include dietary needs/restrictions. Contact Leslie: lesliecmacpherson@gmail.com

Hope to see you there !

From the Caring Committee:

Please stop by the Caring Committee table at today’s Committee Fair to contribute to this year’s outreach to the First Parish college-aged youth. We plan to send gift cards this year so that more of the contributions will go directly to the youth rather than to postage. The gift cards will be mailed in mid-April. Help us remind our youth that they are important to us.

Grief Support Group

Four Tuesdays: April 4,11,18 & 25

7:00pm – 8:30 pm

In Rev. Lisa’s Office

Facilitator: Rev. Lisa Ward

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 of loss and recovery with others. 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. The loss can be recent or from years gone by. We ask participants to commit to at least three of the sessions, no new participants after April 11. Please contact Rev. Lisa if interested: minister@fpmilton.org

Committee Fair

The Committee Fair is back! Please join us on Sunday, April 2nd at social hour in the Parish Hall.  

Committee’s are essential to the life and growth of First Parish. At the fair, you can find out more about our committees and decide which ones you may want to join. Joining a committee is a wonderful way to deepen your engagement to church, make new friends and do great work. Whether you are new to our faith community or a long time member, we would love to have you more involved in the meaningful and satisfying work of First Parish. Come and share your talents or try something completely new. If you’d like to help but aren’t sure where, we will be happy to help with a suggestion. We need you!

Committee Chairs – please plan to staff a table at the fair!

Presenting Bill McKibben “Climate Change, Migration and Racism”

A Live Watch-Party Invitation 

Sunday, April 2, 6-8 p.m.

First Parish Church Parish Hall

First Parish Milton Social Environmental Justice Committee is hosting a potluck supper to “view and chew” together on these interconnected headline topics, presented by well-known Climate activist/author/teacher Bill McKibben (founder of 350.org and ThirdAct.org). We know the timing has never been more important to gather, listen, and learn in community to inform our actions. Watch for a signup. All are welcome. Sponsored by First Parish in Concord’s social action community.

11th Hour Calling Monthly Stand Out for Climate Action

Tuesday, April 11, 6:00 p.m.-6:30 p.m.

535 Canton Avenue (next to Town Hall)

It will be warmer, brighter, and “Rush Hour” on Canton Avenue. This offers a visible way to message passersby. Gather, drum, bang, sing, chant, wave. BYO posters and percussion. We care about the climate emergency, about environmental justice, about promoting clean renewable energy, and about municipal climate action. TOGETHER is the operative word.


Climate action update: Milton Select Board is now “populating” the official Climate Action Planning Committee with appointments from a list of applicants. It was gratifying to know this opportunity resonated so widely.

We stand out to focus upon:

  • Green 100, Milton’s Community Electricity Aggregation Program (CEA–it’s not too late to sign up)
  • Aligning Milton’s Building Code with what’s needed now to build smart, renewable, and fossil-free to reduce our town’s greenhouse gas emissions
  • Voting in Town Elections (april 25) as informed climate activists — take every opportunity to pose questions, listen, and learn.

News and Announcements

Bottle Water Outreach

Father Bill’s and Main Spring is in high need for individual size bottled water for our guests at our MainSpring House Shelter. Any amount is welcome.

If you are interested in donating, you may drop off water any days between 9:00 am-11:00 am or 1:00 pm-3:00 pm at MainSpring House54 N. Main Street, Brockton.

SEJC

NO FUTURE GAS 4 MASS CAMPAIGN

UU Mass Action Network, Mass Power Forward, and other climate justice organizations want to send Gov. Healey 10,000 signatures by Earth Day ’23 demanding NO FUTURE for gas infrastructure in our state. This is particularly urgent for front-line Environmental Justice communities in Springfield and Longmeadow, MA facing an Eversource pipeline expansion project right now. 

Add YOUR signature here

Let’s aim for 500 if you share this with 5 friends.

Our UU environmental justice and climate values require it! 

Urge Governor Healey to halt new gas system expansions until the state has a concrete plan for a just transition to a clean — and green — energy future. Please sign!

Job Opportunity at First Parish Milton for a Family Ministries Director

FP Milton seeking a ¾ time Family Ministries Director (FMD) to co-create, innovate, and administer a Religious Exploration (RE) Program for all ages.

This position presents an opportunity to work with a congregation seeking a new religious exploration model for all ages. Current goals are to maintain an RE program for children and youth as well as to integrate family ministry, adult faith development, and intergenerational community building.

A detailed job description can be found here. Cover letter and resume should be sent to REsearch@fpmilton.org by April 15, 2023.

Thank you for your interest! We look forward to hearing from you soon!

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, April 15th.

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 April 5th and then every other Wednesday throughout the year. We will meet in the lower parking lot between 12:40 pm 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

Community E-Waste Collection

Save the Date-Tuesday April 18, 2:00 pm-5:00 pm

Milton Academy’s Sustainability Coordinator, Linnea Engstrom, extends a town-wide invitation to spring clean and recycle your electronics. Read all about EarthDay – 4-2023.pdf here for a comprehensive list of acceptable items (no CRT [tube] TVs). Spread the word.

Louis D. Brown Peace Institute

Mother’s Day Walk for Peace

UUUM is happy to again be supporting our friends at LDBPI this year with their Mother’s Day Walk for Peace event on May 14th. This is a great event that benefits from the support of a number of our member congregations – Milton included! Again, we are glad to be doing our part to help our community partner.

This year, UUUM is excited to be hosting two events with LDBPI on April 12th that will feature both Rev. Clementina – (Tina Cherry – LDBPI’s Executive Director who has spoken at First Parish, Milton) and Rev. Mary Margaret Earl (who also has spoken at FPM). Both of the below events are wonderful opportunities for our greater community to come together, hear about their work, and share ways that we can support the Mother’s Day Walk.

Breakfast with the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute, Wednesday, April 12th; 10am-12pm at the UU Urban Ministry

Evening with the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute, Wednesday, April 12th; 6pm-7pm via Zoom (ZOOM Link)

City Life/Vida Urbana – Opportunity to Help a Community Partner

Our friends at City Life/Vida Urbana, a grassroots organization that promotes tenant rights and advocates on behalf of those facing eviction, reached out to ask for the help of this community. CLVU is planning an upcoming mailing to 2,000 people – to make them aware of their rights and available resources – as they face losing their homes. CLVU needs help preparing this mailing, and have asked for our help.

On Saturday, May 13th from 10:00am – 12:30pm, we will be meeting at the UU Urban Ministry with folks from CLVU to assemble this mailing. Can you join us? Email Vinnie Myles at vmyles@uuum.org to RSVP.

UU Urban Ministry – 188th Annual Meeting -May 25, 2023

An “Annual Meeting packet” will follow.


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.