Religious Education

“To see a face or body that looks like your own is powerful in its effect to simply validate you as a worthy human being”
-Eric Anthony Grollman, PH.D.

YRUU is sponsoring an LGBTQ book drive for the Salt Lake County Youth Services group homes. Please bring either book donations or cash donations to the Religious Education table November 27th-December 17th. Most sought after titles are listed below.

• AJ and Magnus: Night of the Roach, Bryan Steel (Author) Simon Steel (Illustrator)
• Red: A Crayon’s Story, Michael Hall
• I’ll Give You the Sun, Jandy Nelson
• Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out, Susan Kuklin
• Beautiful Music for Ugly Children, Kristin Cronn-Mills
• The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Emily M. Danforth
• Some Assembly Required: The Not-So-Secret Life of a Transgender Teen, Arin Andrews
• Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Benjamin Alire Saenz
• Will Grayson, Will Grayson, John Green, David Levithan
• Me being Me Is Exactly as Insane as You Being You, Todd Hasak-Lowy
• Her Name in the Sky, Kelly Quindlen
• Fat Angie E.E. Charlton-Trujillo

Religious Education Column -  Julie Miller, Director of Religious Education

Do you dread it or embrace it? There’s no escaping the fact that from October through January, our church routines are chock-a-block full of events and celebrations. Last week, our families with younger children attended our annual Halloween Party in Eliot Hall. We hosted nearly 100 people who truly enjoyed an evening of food, crafts, music and, of course, some very inventive costumes. Money raised during this event goes to the lower and upper divisions of the RE program, either for Sandwich Sunday supplies (lower) or the service trip (high school youth). The evening culminated with a group sing-a-long at Friendship Manor led by David Owens and our Junior Choir.

The next two events we’re heavily involved with are the Christmas Pageant followed by the Winter Solstice service. This year, the Pageant is based on a children’s book The Last Straw by Frederick Thury. The Pageant is set for Sunday, December 18th at the 11am service only. We need gifts or trinkets for our camel to carry to the Baby King plus any costumes that reflect the early Christian era—think desert inhabitants. Please bring your donations for our Pageant play to the RE office or to a box marked PAGEANT in the Little Chapel.

The beauty—perhaps it’s a curse!—of doing these pageants is that there are very few rehearsals. This year, the most likely rehearsal dates are December 10 and 17—Saturdays 9:30am to noon. We’re encouraging children and youth to participate this year. You can sign up online or the old-fashioned way by paper and pencil in the classrooms or at the RE Welcome Table.

Soon after the Pageant, we hold our annual Winter Solstice Service on Wednesday December 21st. The service begins in the Sanctuary at 6pm followed by another excellent communal meal served in Eliot Hall and hosted by our high school youth. Plan to celebrate with your immediate clan and extended family as we gather to embrace the season of returning light. This ancient cultural phenomenon is a multi-generational event that incorporates music, dance, poetry, reflection, food and drink, and is appropriate for all ages.

Further, the Solstice Service lets us recognize our role in the Web of Life, affirm our earth-centered values and revel in the beauty of the coming light. This is also a fundraiser for our high school youth trip in 2017. Ticket sales start soon and a word to the wise: buy early as this event is sold out every year!

Just Around the Corner

• Remember our clothing drive. Donate gently-worn clothing items for infants through teen years. Donation boxes will be located in the Little Chapel or bring your items on Monday November 7 for Family Fun Night.
• Sanctuary Sunday, November 6th: Family Chalice Lighting shared by Megan Anderson, Steve Boyer and the children Jaxon and Asher.
• Family Fun Night, Monday November 7, Eliot Hall, 6pm. Service Project hosted by Lissa Lander Play rehearsal runs concurrently with the family event.
• Remember: Daylight Savings ends on Sunday November 6

UU Orientation New or new-ish to Unitarian Universalism or First Unitarian Church? Curious about how to get connected with this community of service, learning and justice? Join staff and lay leaders in an intimate evening of questions and exploration. Next First Church Info Session/UU Orientation - Monday, October 24th - 6:30-8:30 in Eliot Hall.
Light snacks will be provided and childcare is available upon request. Please register online here  or contact Rev. Matthew. Please include number and ages of children attending in the form. For more info, contact Consulting Minister for Congregational Life, the Rev. Matthew Cockrum, at or 801.582.8687 ext. 205.

Seeking the Sources Join Rev. Matthew Cockrum in an exploration of the Sources and Principles of Unitarian Universalism. This is a monthly drop-in class. Come to one, a few or all! Each session will include movement, meditation and conversation. If you’ve got a favorite yoga mat or meditation cushion bring it along…or just come as you are! Sessions will be the last Monday of the month unless it’s a holiday, in which case it will be on the prior Monday. Time: 6:45-8:45; Location: Little Chapel; Next session: October 31st.

Upcoming RE Events:

Do you own a sewing machine? Have we got a volunteer job for you! Are you willing to donate an hour or two for a simple sewing project that will help our homeless teen friends for whom we’re providing meals this year? If you can help, please contact Lissa Lander within the next few days to learn about making cloth bags for homeless teens. Email: . Project completion date 11/7/16.

We need to make dough to raise dough! The third Sunday of each month—Sandwich Sunday—RE classrooms at the 11am service make a lunch that we bring to the Volunteers of America Teen Shelter. We need a volunteer who will stand by the RE kitchen to monitor baking and monitor the cookie sale during Coffee Hour after service. Remember, this is only one Sunday each month. All proceeds from our cookie sales support our effort to replenish supplies for Sandwich Sundays (third Sunday of each month). If you’re willing to help, please contact Julie Miller or Lissa Lander at or .

Clothing Drive
 Over the UEA weekend, RE youth are decorating and assembling boxes for an upcoming clothing drive for two projects. First, we hope to collect stylish outfits for teens or baby clothes for teen moms who reside in the VOA shelter. Second, we would like to offer high-quality clothes at a very low cost to our own congregation. Funds raised from this project will go toward expenses associated with sending our teens to New Orleans next Spring on a service project. Clothing donations will be accepted during the Halloween Party on October 25, on Sunday October 30 and Sunday November 6. During Family Night on Monday November 7, we will lay clothes out for our families for $1/item. Any remaining clothing will be donated to the VOA teen shelter.

Halloween Party 
Calling all families with young children! Please join us for a ghoulishly good time Tuesday, October 25 from 6-7:30pm at Eliot Hall. More details here.

High School Recycling Fundraiser

-submitted by Nancy Moos

The High School YRUU youth are partnering with Planet Green to recycle e-waste! For each of the following items that we mail in, Planet Green gives a certain amount to our youth group. You get to be rid of your e-waste, and support our youth at the same time! Below is a list of items that can be recycled. Please bring only items that are on the list to the box near the Environmental Ministry table on Sundays, we’ll do the rest! In addition, if you’re looking to buy ink cartridges, you can buy them from Planet Green and we get a percentage! Just go to this website: planetgreenrecycle.com/slcyruu
What We Recycle:
· Inkjet Cartridges
· Laser/Toner Cartridges
· Cell Phones & Accessories
· GPS & Radar Detectors
· Calculators
· eBook Readers
· iPods/MP3 Players
· Digital/Video Cameras
· PDAs
· iPads/Tablets
· Video Game & Consoles
Questions? Contact Nancy Moos at

Traditions - Julie Miller, Director of Religious Education

Before I came to First Church, I heard a joke:
Q: What’s a Unitarian? A: An atheist with children!

A grain of truth here? I’m pretty certain I’m not the only one who arrived at a Unitarian Universalist church after never belonging to any church my entire adult life. When my son was quite young, I went church shopping. I wanted to raise him in a religious tradition, but the one I had attended didn’t make much sense to me.

The good news about being a UU is also the bad news. We have enormous freedom in how we practice our beliefs. None of us would have it any other way, right? Confession: I’m a bit shaky with this freedom.
So how does this affect my position as Religious Education Director for our youngest members? RE Assistant Lissa Lander and I often discuss how to incorporate our Seven Principles into daily, weekly and family traditions. I find myself thinking about those traditions most intently at this time of year, with the holidays just around the corner.

The reality is, times have changed dramatically since I was a kid. How do we create simple but fun, practical and lasting traditions for our families? Here’s where I’m coming from: rituals are not just for special occasions. They’re for every day. Just about anything families deliberately do together—as long as those “things” are juiced up and elevated beyond “routine”—could be called a family ritual.
Years ago, my son & I went out for ice cream every Friday afternoon after school. It was our way of celebrating, “Welcome to the Weekend Party .”

Comfort and security are two of the most important benefits of ritual, especially with young children. Next to your typical celebrations (birthdays, holidays, sports events), rituals help kids with transitions. Take bedtime, for example, when rituals are all about helping children switch from active to relaxed before falling off to sleep.

Rituals can strengthen the family structure. Like making dinner, for example. Everyone gets to pitch in. Simple tasks for younger children, larger tasks for the older kids. With seven guiding principles and seven days in the week, you could tie one principle to each day. Suppose you say grace before a meal. Focus on just one principle at the start of the meal with a phrase influenced by the lighting of the chalice: “Dear God, please give us open minds, loving hearts and helping hands this week.”

There are rituals for life’s milestones, for remembrances, for new beginnings. A ritual doesn’t have to be a fancy event. It emerges from the concept of purpose. First you figure out your purpose, then you imagine creative ways to introduce a ritual to suit your unique family.

Afraid my granddaughter would eat vast amounts of Halloween candy, I asked her to share with kids too poor to trick or treat. I assured her the candy would be replaced with a special book of her choosing. I also told her the tooth fairy wouldn’t pay for teeth riddled with cavities!

I read about a family that started a generational tablecloth ritual at Thanksgiving. Everyone at the dinner table signed his/her name on the cloth. Their grandmother embroidered over the signatures in a different color for each passing year.

A refugee family I knew prepared sweet potatoes for every special meal during the year because it was all they had to eat for one war-torn year. The sweet potatoes reminded them how thankful they were to be living in a safe land with bountiful food.

So, to sum up...every time you create a tradition with your children, you are giving them a template for enduring rituals that are the foundation for celebrations both large and small.

No doubt about it, Halloween is a favorite day of the year. This year, First Church’s annual family Halloween Party features food, fun and song for everyone. Set for Tuesday, October 25 from 6 to 7:30pm, we’ll gather in Eliot Hall at the Church for the festivities. A family donation of $5 to $10 is suggested.

Plan to chow down on pizza and soft drinks, decorate cookies and pumpkins, enjoy a storyteller, play games, whack a piñata, get your face painted and blow huge glow bubbles on our front patio. Choir Director David Owens conducts a sing-along too, so bring your voice!

As 7pm approaches, we’ll form a casual parade of costumed kids and head a few stops north to Friendship Manor to entertain our friends and residents in the Manor’s Community Room. Looking forward to seeing you, your kids and, of course, those seriously scary costumes!

The High School YRUU youth are partnering with Planet Green to recycle e-waste! For each of the following items that we mail in, Planet Green gives a certain amount to our youth group. You get to be rid of your e-waste, and support our youth at the same time! Below is a list of items that can be recycled. Please bring only items that are on the list to the box near the Environmental Ministry table on Sundays, we’ll do the rest! In addition, if you’re looking to buy ink cartridges, you can buy them from Planet Green and we get a percentage! Just go to this website: planetgreenrecycle.com/slcyruu
What We Recycle:
· Inkjet Cartridges
· Laser/Toner Cartridges
· Cell Phones & Accessories
· GPS & Radar Detectors
· Calculators
· eBook Readers
· iPods/MP3 Players
· Digital/Video Cameras
· PDAs
· iPads/Tablets
· Video Game & Consoles
Questions? Contact Nancy Moos at

Religious Education News - Julie Miller, Director of Religious Education

Becoming a Volunteer for Religious Education

Why Should I Volunteer?

Volunteers are an essential part of Religious Education (RE) at First Unitarian Church. As a volunteer, you help us create a community that spans generations. Your presence as either a classroom teacher or teacher’s assistant enables the lead teacher to work more effectively with children and youth on a one-on-one basis, which then enhances the classroom as a safe and flexible environment. In short, our programs won’t run without you!

What Would I Do as a Volunteer?

Most volunteers assist in teaching our children and youth. At times, we may just ask for help on special events or with a social justice service project.

How Do I Become a Volunteer?

We appreciate many helping hands, but we ask that you be present at First Unitarian Church for six months prior to working in a classroom so that you have time to ‘feel right at home’ before taking on a classroom assignment. If you choose to teach, you will be asked to complete a simple background check that is paid for at our expense.

Upcoming Special Family Event!

No doubt about it, Halloween is a favorite day of the year. This year, First Church’s annual family Halloween Party features food, fun and song for everyone. Set for Tuesday, October 25 from 6 to 7:30pm, we’ll gather in Eliot Hall at the Church for the festivities. A family donation of $5 to $10 is suggested.

Plan to chow down on pizza and soft drinks, decorate cookies and pumpkins, enjoy a storyteller, play games, whack a piñata, get your face painted and blow huge glow bubbles on our front patio. Choir Director David Owens conducts a sing-along too, so bring your voice!

As 7pm approaches, we’ll form a casual parade of costumed kids and head a few stops north to Friendship Manor to entertain our friends and residents in the Manor’s Community Room. Looking forward to seeing you, your kids and, of course, those seriously scary costumes!

In the Life - Rev. Matthew Cockrum

National LGBT Coming Out Day
Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur
Saint Damien Canonization Day
Indigenous People’s Day & Columbus Day

That’s a whole lotta holiday in a little bit of time.
These are some of the observances - civil and religious - that show up on my calendar for the coming weeks.

Each of these observances has both historic and contemporary significance for me in my personal life and in my continued growth and development.

As a queer cisgender man, National Coming Out Day - a holiday created as part of an effort to fight stigma and advocate for AIDS research and funding - has been a part of my life and consciousness since I first came out almost 25 years ago.

Rosh Hanshanah and Yom Kippur have increasingly become part of my personal consciousness since I discovered my maternal Jewish roots, buried and hidden by her family in an effort to pass as respectable White middle-class people in the 1950’s.

Saint Damien - Father Damien of Molokai was one of the first “saints” I met in my mostly un-churched upbringing. A Catholic priest who served a mission in Hawaii’s “leper colonies” (still in existence, though much diminished) and contracted the disease, now known as Hansen’s Disease. His image and story continues to serve as an inspiration and challenge to whole-hearted giving.
Indigenous People’s Day & Columbus Day - Is one of the ongoing cusps of my life. It is an example of consciousness raising and another challenge to take responsibility for histories of genocide and White privilege, working through White shame and fragility and moving toward right relationship.

There’s a saying in yoga that “the pose starts the moment you want to get out of it.” This is not to say that suffering is necessarily redemptive or that we’re to injure or torture ourselves. Rather, it’s a reminder of the tricks our minds play and how quickly we seek to avoid discomfort and challenge. For those of us who have a tendency to push ourselves too hard, it can also serve as a reminder that we must balance mind/body/spirit, rather than overrule any one aspect of that necessary whole.

This month’s “Seeking the Sources” session (October 31, 6:45-8:45 p.m. in the Little Chapel) we’ll be exploring the first source of Unitarian Universalism, “Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life.” What observances - daily, annually - help you to tap into the wisdom of your experience of mystery and wonder? What moves you to renewal and openness?

Whatever your practices, I invite you to continue to seek openness in service of creation and renewal.

Here’s to The Work, friends.

Peace, Faith & Passion,
Matthew

FYI - Matthew will be away at a minister’s gathering in Colorado Springs October 17-20.

Night with Soul Report
Thanks to all who helped in creating and attending the fantastic “Night with Soul” event with Rev. Robert Fulghum and music from The Disposable Thumbs on 9/30. (Insert photos) Kim Grob Lee and Kristen Quinn and their host of volunteers transformed Eliot Hall and provided tasty jambalaya and desserts. Altogether you helped raise almost enough money to cover one of the four chaperones we intend to send on the New Orleans service trip with our high school youth this summer. Thanks so much! Keep an eye on the bulletin boards in Eliot Hall for updates and more opportunities to support this important part of First Church youth ministries!

Youth Ministries Reports
Our Whole Lives - 8th & 9th Grades - Off to a running start with an introduction to an expanded notion of sexuality, our 8th and 9th graders and their teachers are moving into deeper conversations about values as they pertain to healthy relationships and examining accurate scientific information about human anatomy and physiology. Remember 10:45-12:15 in Junior High Room (#218)

World Religions - 6th & 7th Grades - have begun their exploration of world religions with Unitarian Universalism! They’ll be in the Parlor for their regular session (11-12:15) on 10/09 and will be heading on a field trip for Hinduism on 10/16. Parents, keep an eye on the 6th-7th grade Facebook page for reminders or check with your teachers, Sara Jordan, Usha Spaulding, Ian Mitchell and Jenn Gibbs. Remember 11-12:15 in Parlor (Room#225)

High School - 10th-12th Grades - Are eagerly engaging in debates, discussions, reflections and learning. They’ve also begun planning a regional youth conference “Con” for Martin Luther King weekend along with youth from our UU congregations in South Valley and Ogden. A social with area youth is in the works for early November. Keep an eye on the high school Facebook page and RE Newsletter for updates. Remember new times - 10:45-12:45 in the Haven (Room #214)

10/30 Sermon Title - Living with Loss, Dancing with Death - Rev. Matthew Cockrum, speaking

UU Orientation & Info Session - 10/24 - 6:30-8:30 p.m. in Eliot Hall. New or new-ish to Unitarian Universalism or First Unitarian Church? Curious about how to get connected with this community of service, learning and justice? Join staff and lay leaders in an intimate evening of questions and exploration. RSVP online by clicking here, or to clminister@slcuu or Rev. Matthew Cockrum at 801.582.8687 ext. 205. Child care available upon request and light refreshments served.

Seeking the Sources - 10/31 - 6:45-9:45 p.m. in the Little Chapel - join Rev. Matthew Cockrum and other seekers in this drop-in session, focused on the sources and principles of Unitarian Universalism. Wear comfortable clothing and bring a yoga mat or meditation cushion if you have one. Movement, meditation and mindful exploration for all!

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