Volume 16, Number 10 – April 2015
We Are a Welcoming Congregation
Upcoming Services
Services are on alternate Sundays at 10 AM
April 5: Ernie St. Germaine Questions About Ojibwe Life
April 19: Rev. Dr. Bobbie Groth Faith, Hope, and Love--But the Greatest of These is DOG This service will explore a subject near and dear to many--the importance of dogs (part of the interdependent web) in many people's lives, their special evolution along with the human species, their importance in religions around the world, and the relevance to "the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part." There will be a talk-back where I ask people to relate stories of their own experiences with dogs (or other animals) that have taught them something spiritual. The children's story will focus on the Japanese dog Hachiko, which I learned while in Japan.
Events and Information:
Adult R.E.: Adult RE is on alternate Sundays at 10 AM.
New from Ed and Janine Semon: It's so nice to see Ed's name in the March birthdays. We went for lunch to the Marharaja restaurant to celebrate. We miss you guys. I've heard there's a UU not far from here in Mequon. Think we'll try it. Ed is fighting to be himself again. He's doing well. I just had an art exhibit and forgot to even mention it to you. I've never been more appreciated for my art than I've been in this senior residence.
New Women's Group: Starting March 24th, "The Care Committee" will be hosting a discussion group for Women. The first meeting will be at 10:00 AM on the 24th to organize. We plan to meet every month on the fourth Tuesday at 10:00 AM. Each person attending will have the opportunity to express their thoughts on the topic of the month. All women of the fellowship are welcome to attend.
Men's Group Meeting: The men's group will next meet on Tuesday, April 14 at 6 PM at NUUF. All men in the fellowship are welcome. Please bring a dish to pass and your beverage of choice.
Highway Clean-up: To celebrate Earth Day this spring, come and join us for the Hwy 47 litter pick-up on Sat. April 25 at 10:00 a.m. Meet at intersection of Hwy F and 47, on the north side. It's a good idea to wear work gloves; garbage bags, safety vests, and cookies are provided. All UUs are welcome, also friends and family! The more people, the less time it takes. This is a long-term commitment by our fellowship to participate in an activity that benefits the Northwoods community. And a visible, hands-on way to GET INVOLVED! If raining or storming, we'll have to set a rain date. Any questions, call Connie Lefebvre at 715-358-2470. Thanks, and hope to see you there! (anyone who has a safety vest from a previous time, please bring it with you)
It's Pledge Time: Members, you should have received in the mail a request for your pledge for our next fiscal year. Please think about supporting the Fellowship in the coming year and send in your pledge as soon as possible. Pledges are due by April 10. Please return your pledge to: NUUF, PO Box 1881, Woodruff WI 54568-1881. Thank you from Nancy Bayne, Finance Committee Chair, and Terry Hoyt, Treasurer.
Regional Assembly is Coming! The MidAmerican Regional Assembly will be held April 17-19 in Naperville Il, near Chicago. The Keynote speakers are Rev. Marlin Lavanhar and Rev. Rosemary Bray McNatt. There will be worship, workshops and the annual business meeting. For more information or to register, go to www.midamericauua.org/ra.
And if you can't attend Regional Assembly, here's an invitation:
Hello. I’d like to invite you to help us with an experiment on the weekend of our Regional Assembly in Naperville IL, April 17 – 19. http://www.midamericauua.org/events/regional-assembly/1718-faq-2015
In an attempt to make our Assembly accessible to more people, we will be live streaming parts of the conference. We will be live streaming three segments of the weekend –
- Friday evening [welcome, banner parade, [first presentation by keynote speakers 6:45 – 9 p.m. Central/7:45 – 10 p.m. Eastern
- Saturday morning [second presentation by keynote speakers] 9:00 – 10:30 a.m. Central/10 – 11:30 a.m. Eastern
- Business Meeting on Saturday 10:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. Central/11:45 a.m. – 1:15 p.m. Eastern
If you are coming to the conference, you could help by recruiting a few people in your congregation who are not coming to Chicago to view our live stream, either individually from their homes or as a group at the church or fellowship building and help us evaluate the experience. If you are NOT coming to the conference, you could either watch the live stream from your own home or invite others to view it with you at your church or fellowship building, and help us to evaluate the experience. While it’s not necessary to watch all three segments, we hope to have enough people participating so that we’ll have some for each of the three time blocks. At a minimum, all that’s required is a laptop and an internet connection. If you have a group participating, you might want a projector and large screen and a way to amplify the sound coming in. And don’t forget the popcorn!
In the past few years, the UUA has been experimenting with live streaming at the General Assembly. It’s now possible for off-site viewers to register as congregational GA delegates, participate in the discussion, and vote. We don’t have the capacity for that at the regional level at this point, but our Board and staff are conscious of the expense, time, and travel for people attending the conference and agree that live streaming is a step toward accessibility for more people.
Thanks! Nancy Hegge Congregational Life Consultant
by Nancy Heege, Congregational Life Consultant
Note: "Who We Are" is a monthly series of articles introducing who we are as the MidAmerica Region of the UUA.
One great way of learning more about Who We Are as a MidAmerica Region is looking into some very interesting history.
For instance, who knew that Sinclair Lewis, the author of Elmer Gantry, became good friends with a Kansas City Unitarian minister when Lewis was doing research for his book, which featured a dynamic, but flawed tent preacher?
And who knew that one of our Wisconsin congregations was founded by German-speaking immigrant freethinkers in 1852?
And that another of our congregations is housed in a castle-like, stone building overlooking the Mississippi River in Alton, Illinois?
To read these, and other, intriguing stories, visit the History and Heritage page on our web site. https://www.midamericauua.org/about-us/history-and-heritage
General Assembly is Coming! GA this year will be in Portland Or from June 24-28. Housing and GA registration is now open. Visit http://www.uua.org/topics/general-assembly.for more information. Interested in being a delegate? Contact Bob Hanson.
AN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES' HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
The first history of the United States told from the perspective of indigenous peoples
Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history. Now, for the first time, acclaimed historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz offers a history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples and reveals how Native Americans, for centuries, actively resisted expansion of the US empire.
In An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, Dunbar-Ortiz adroitly challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them. And as Dunbar-Ortiz reveals, this policy was praised in popular culture, through writers like James Fenimore Cooper and Walt Whitman, and in the highest offices of government and the military. Shockingly, as the genocidal policy reached its zenith under President Andrew Jackson, its ruthlessness was best articulated by US Army general Thomas S. Jesup, who, in 1836, wrote of the Seminoles: “The country can be rid of them only by exterminating them.”
Spanning more than four hundred years, this classic bottom-up peoples’ history radically reframes US history and explodes the silences that have haunted our national narrative.
This author will be in Lac du Flambeau in September
Arts in Our Community
Eileen Schultz has published her first book. She writes: I'm excited to tell you that my new book is now on the market and already getting quite a bit of attention. The words used to describe it have been absorbing, intriguing, inspiring, to can't put it down. Of course I love hearing that. The book is Intertwines - The threads of life. I write under Eileen Goggins. This is a true story and I invite you to go to Balboa Press, a division of Hay House, to preview it.
I will share an excerpt from the introduction:
Many questions formed in her mind. Her whole life felt like a puzzle that had to be put together; all the pieces were there, just laying, scattered about, waiting for the right time to be put in place. Some of these pieces she knew represented her current life while others represented her greater life, the infants and the elders, diverse races and cultures, different lands and different seas, all the aspects of nature and all living things that embodies her complete life. These pieces intertwine at the right time and place, following a given pattern, creating the whole finished picture. How and who designs this picture?
She knew her current life had been blessed in many ways and when going through difficult times, her guides had supported her and for that she felt honored. She accepted the difficult trials and knew they happened for a reason. She began to see a pattern. Her faith had always been strong but the intensity of the trials, created within her the need to understand how it all worked.
She would travel the world in her quest.
I hope you will preview it. I would love to hear from you. My web site will be up and running in a couple of weeks - www.eileengoggins.com Eileen Goggins-Schultz
On Saturday May 2nd NUUF member, Sharon Reilly will be the Featured Artist at the Lakeland Art Gallery which is inside the Great Northern Coffee Traders in Downtown Minocqua at 215 W Front Street. Sharon will be doing a demonstration from 9-2pm, and painting items to be purchased. You can find many great Mother's day cards and may be something for Grads and Dads. Sharon's artwork is currently on display at the Lakeland Art League Gallery as well at the fellowship.
Sharon Reilly will be teaching class, "Exploring Traditional Asian Watercolor Techniques" at Dillman's Resort from May 31 to June 5. For more information, visit www.dillmans.com/reilly.
Jana Mirs will be displaying her art at the Boulder Junction Library during April through June. There will be an artist reception on April 9 from 4-6 PM. If you'd like to apply to have your art exhibited at the Library, please visit www.boulderjunction.wislib.org.
Concerts at Jerry and Tara's: Ceila and Ryan Meisel piano and sax jazz
Saturday, June 13 at 7PM http://www.meiselmusic.net/ryan-meisel/
Frogwater Folk Friday July 24 4pm on the dock seen from the boathouse or the water http://www.frogwater.us/index.asp
Please let me know if you are showing work, appearing in a performance, have literature/poetry to share. Elinore
Frederick Place Dinner: We will be supplying dinners for April 26 and 27. If you can help, please contact Diane Reupert or Barb Logan.
Help Wanted: Work independently from home; set your own hours; work due only once a month; same great pay as other NUUF jobs. What is this fabulous opportunity? The NUUF newsletter editor! Position opens in June for the beginning of the new church year. Contact Elinore for more details or to sign up.
"Like" us--Northwoods Unitarian Universalist Fellowship--on Facebook. We're posting pictures, reminders about upcoming events and more.
Milestones
Tara Reed 04-03
Joyce Barnes 04-08
Ann Sorensen 04-12
Steven Cyra 04-13
Trish Kirk 04-13
Joe Strauss 04-14
Jessica Reupert 04-14
Nancy Young 04-15
Laurie & Nestor Figueroa 04-15
Doris Eberlein 04-16
Tony Dallapiazza 04-19
Aaron Rusak 04-20
Matthew Rusak 04-20
Stephanie Perkins & Gary Pajonk 04-22
Barbara Logan 04-23
Annamarie Beckel 04-28
Xylina Graf 04-30
From the President: By now you have received the request for pledges for the coming year. Please respond as quickly as possible. The Board needs this information to effectively create our budget for the coming year. Mark this date on your calendars for our Annual Meeting - Saturday, May 16, 2015 at 11:00 a.m. It will be followed by a pot luck lunch and conviviality. I sincerely hope to see you there. If you are unable to attend please arrange and sign a proxy and give it to a fellow member to bring for you.
See you soon!
Happy spring to all! Its sense of rebirth and renewal is so important in so many different ways. Whichever meaning you take, enjoy the season. Soon, some snowbirds may be migrating back north. They will discover that much is happening in NUUF as always. The Board will be meeting on April 14 at 1 p.m. On April 17 through 19, I will be attending the UU Regional Assembly for the first time and hope to learn more about the activities, causes and beliefs of fellow UUs in our area. I will be joining the more experienced attenders, Elinore and Tom Sommerfeld, in Naperville, Illinois for the event. No, Cheryl is not going with me. She is leaving for Lisbon, Portugal with daughter, Keely, for a terrific bonding time instead. Bob
NUUF and NEWSLETTER INFORMATION
Northwoods Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
P.O. Box 1881
Woodruff, WI 54568-1881
Robert Hanson, President
The NUUSLetter is published monthly. Newsletter Deadline is the 27th of the month. Please send submissions to Elinore Sommerfeld at esommerf@aol.com.
For distribution of announcements between newsletters or email/address corrections, contact Candy Sorensen at sorencan@yahoo.com.
