Parenthood is equal parts amazing and hands down the hardest job of our lives. It embodies a myriad of possibilities–some more easier than others. Hear day-to-day reflections from two parents on how having kids has shaped their lives and how they handle the overwhelming possibilities that shape their children.
Today we celebrate and bless the animals in our lives. We invite you to show us your beloved pets in this service, so we may honor them here together. Please send us a photo of any beloved animals who have passed, whom you wish to memorialize. Send pictures to admin@chaliceuu.org. We look forward to celebrating the difference animals make in our lives.
Rev Nica returns from study leave and vacation, and leads a half hour Chalice gathering before joining in a collaboration with our Channel Islands ClUUster. At 10:30 we will participate in the collaborative service on a separate link with special guest Reggie Harris, a songwriter of great depth and passion, Reggie Harris writes from a personal sense of mission that merges a world wise point of view with a singularly hopeful stance that life, though often challenging, is filled with possibility and hope. His songs reveal thoughts about life and love and some of the deep aspects of the human experience and cover topics from his own personal journey to world issues and history. Offering to the Living Legacy Project, on whose board Reggie sits. https://www.uulivinglegacy.org/
In 1969, there was a huge music festival that took place in the state of New York. Thousands of people attended. It wasn’t Woodstock. Come hear how the Harlem Cultural Festival touched the souls of the people present, and how music continues to move those who hear it.
Tanner Linden, Head of Outreach for the Largest Unitarian Universalist Church in the world with an expansive UU Prison Ministry program, will preach on witnessing our faith at work in the hardest of circumstances, wondering, how can we view liberation as a spiritual practice? Tanner grew up in the UU Church of Ventura and is now on staff at the Church of the Larger Fellowship.
The Live Oak Worship Ministry will lead us in a celebration of the first harvest, also known as Lammas. Lammas is an earth centered tradition of the August cross quarter – the halfway point between summer solstice and fall equinox. This is a time to give thanks for the abundance in our lives. We empty our symbolic storerooms to make space for what we might then gather in this time of transformation, of rebirth and new beginnings.
Post-pandemic, we are called to embrace a new normal. But how? What role does our UU community and our UU faith play in the emergence of this new way? Led by the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara Worship Team.
Step by step, we are making our way out of this time of constriction and anxiety. It has been hard in countless ways – and there are so many unknowns and unresolved issues all around. But this time has also yielded insights and gifts. Come hear reflections from a few Chalice members about what they have learned and find ways of bringing strength and joy into our shared future.
Most humans are notoriously resistant to change. But as we prepare to reopen and move towards our ‘new normal’ we will encounter change both within and beyond our congregation. In this service, Reverend Nica’s last before her summer break, we explore ways to ride, rather than resist, the waves of change. How might we embrace change as we envision and co-create our new normal.
This Independence Day, a week after our annual UU General Assembly, Rev Nica and Chalice members share stories about what’s going on in our wider faith tradition. Join us to start your July 4th holiday in a spiritually grounded way.
