Reverence is described as a mix of respect and awe. Maybe it’s my own

interpretation of reverence, but defining reverence with only the words, respect and awe makes my shoulders sink with the weight. To shake it alive, reverence needs to be leavened with amazement and joy.

I experience reverence for the snake that shows how we can be reborn when we’ve outgrown the old skin confining us, or the bat that flies with more precision than anything the armed forces could design. What inspiration, and what joy! I feel reverence for the pungent Chinese herbs that eased my fever when I visited a Wuhan one summer. (I still have a small bag of the herbs and, when I need to call up the memory, I open the bag’s knot just to breathe their musky scent.) Every time I smell them, I feel respect and amazement. And who doesn’t feel reverence for the miraculous seed that produces a towering column of corn?

Reverence, with all its overtones, brings us to our knees to focus on everyday miracles, and raises us up in amazement and joy. May you experience reverence in October, a month that shifts us into autumn.

– Rev. Beth Banks

Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis (UUCD)

Theme Journal –October, Reverence

I saw a bumper sticker once that said “Unitarian Universalism; where all your answers are questioned!” Funny as it may be, this is the core reason I am a Unitarian Universalist. We do not hold answers, instead we come together as a community to hold one another while we live into the questions. This not only makes space for a more experiential understanding of truth and meaning, but it also makes space for an ever-transforming truth.

In a Unitarian Universalist understanding, truth is something that grows and stumbles with us. Truth celebrates and cries with us. Truth lives with us, dies with us and is born anew with us. It is not fixed or authoritative. Rather it is collaborative and relational across all time, across all space, with no beginning and no end. We seek to know it not through finding answers, but through living in the questions that our experiences bring us. I find comfort and reverence not in the answers for truth, but in the living and ever-changing questions of truth. – Laura Thompson, Intern & Campus Minister

� www.uudavis.org � Events/Publications � 2015-16, October, Reverence �

Public domain image: https://pixabay.com/en/dried-flower-corn-flower-herbs-782768/

Lifespan Learning Reverence, closely related to our feelings of awe and wonder, drives

much of our desire to learn. With reverence, learning might become creative exploration or, on a darker night of the soul, grappling with the larger forces at work in our lives.

This month I invite you to wonder about your life, our society, and the cosmos. Where is the mystery? What strikes you with awe? To what or whom do you owe respect?

Starting with St Francis and the Birds on the October 4th Animal Blessing service, Way Cool Sunday School will continue its exploration of reverence this month with the 1st UU Principle: The inherent worth and dignity of all people.

As we try to connect to our source of awe, we might want to explore a new spiritual practice or reconnect with one left by the wayside. All are welcome to explore the Spiritual Practice offerings we have here at UUCD, including groups like Awakening Community, Reiki Circles, Satsang, Sufi Group, and QiGong classes.

We will also have an opportunity to approach eating with renewed reverence this month as we are introduced to the Green Sanctuary project, Meatless Mondays. How do you savor your food? How does what we eat connect us to each other and the earth?

Wherever your quest leads, may your reverence for the Spirit of Life fill you with meaning and purpose.

- Adrean Dills, M.Div, Director Lifespan Learning

Meatless Mondays: In many faith traditions, the act of eating together begins with a prayer of thanks for the

bounty and variety of the harvest, for the dishes lovingly prepared, and for the communion we share. We owe our health – indeed, our lives - to nutritious food. No wonder we bless the food and our good fortune. As we eat, we look to alleviate hunger for those without sufficient nourishment. The cry is rising from many voices in many countries, including our own, that having enough to eat is a basic right. We ask, “What can I do?” Eating less meat is one simple thing we can all do to assure that more people get enough. Details to come as the month continues! Look for details in the Weekly Bulletin and at our table in the Social Hall on Sundays. Start to think about cutting meat out of your diet one day a week (Monday or any day), and taking time once a week to revere the planet as you plan your menu.

Public domain image: https://pixabay.com/en/herb-spices-tea-organic-healthy-774818/

Sunday Worship Hymn of the Month, "Keepers of the Earth" by Joyce Poley ________________________________________________________________________________________

October 4, 9:30 & 11:15am, The Reverence of Creatures, Karen Klussendorf; Amanda Caudle, Worship Associate. We all have contact with critters: pets, animals on our walks, gophers in our yards. Animals can be guides for us. We can bond with creatures in reciprocal giving at depths not found with our human relationships.

First Sunday: Animal Blessing Our 9:30am service is pet-free. The 11:15am service is a First Sunday format with children and youth involved for the first 30 minutes. Bring your friendly critters on leash or in container for their blessing. Plush animal toys can stand in for shy pets. Place a memento on the altar for pets who have died. ________________________________________________________________________________________

October 11, 9:30 & 11:15am, Hands that Shaped This Land, Rev. Beth Banks; Alex Lee-Jobe, Worship Associate. Guests 11:15 Karina & Kayla Li. We’re beginning a Columbus Day series that honors those who settled on the land we know as California. This year we focus on the Chinese people who moved to this state for opportunity and freedom. Their hands shaped our land in California. As technology and the mobility of people increases with every decade, is it possible for cultures to remain true to their heritage? Is the assimilation of cultures inevitable?

Discussion in the Senghas Room follows.

Want to learn more about Chinese immigrants in California? Angel Island State Park is the largest natural island in the San Francisco Bay, and offers some fabulous views, trails and recreational opportunities. This National Park walks one through California history, from the Coast Miwok to Spanish explorers, to hundreds of thousands of immigrants, mostly from China, who were held at Angel Island as they waited for entrance to this country. http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=25767 ________________________________________________________________________________________

October 18, 9:30 & 11:15am, Hungry for Truth, Laura Thompson; Ben Bazor, Worship Associate. We affirm a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. In order to do this, we often wrestle with some very big questions: What is life’s purpose? Why is there suffering? What happens after we die? How do faith and our personal theology effect our search for truth? Join us as we explore reverence and big questions. Also: Board of Trustees Congregational Covenant.

Special Collection – Davis Community Meals. Make checks out to UUCD, memo "DCM." See page 4 for details.

Veggie Cook-Off Contest, 12:15pm. Bring your vegetarian dish for a pot-luck. If you wish, enter your dish in the Veggie Cook-off Contest! Fabulous prizes! No dish? Enjoy the pot-luck for $5. – A Meatless Monday Event

This Sunday, CSA box sign-ups: make eating locally and supporting local farmers easier! – Meatless Monday Invitation ________________________________________________________________________________________

October 25, 9:30 & 11:15am, The Third Plate: Honoring World Food Day; Rev. Beth Banks; Stacie Frerichs, Worship Associate. When does a conversation heat up quickly and get a bit spicy? Just try telling people what they ought to eat, and say it with certainty (no grain of salt). I’m going to stir the pot with some thoughts I’ve cooked up from all my reading about food and the consequences of what we eat. A bitter pill? No. Thought provoking? I hope so.

Jacob Sacks, Worship Guest: Building Gardens Together – Jacob will speak about his work to create gardens for and with residents of a Yolo County community. Learn how you can participate. Discussion in the Senghas Room follows.

This Sunday, CSA box sign-ups: make eating locally and supporting local farmers easier! – Meatless Monday Invitation

Public domain image: https://pixabay.com/en/spices-market-bazaar-jerusalem-438527/

Reflect The Committee on Ministry (Lucas Frerichs, Stefan Harvey, Hiram Jackson, Lisa Oakes, Susan Steinbach, Karen Urbano.) invites you to make the theme part of your spiritual practice:

University of Texas philosopher Paul Woodruff defines reverence as the ability to simultaneously and virtuously hold three emotional states—awe, respect, and shame—in correct proportion . . . .

– May 23, 2010 sermon by UU Rev. Thom Belote, Community Church of Chapel Hill, North Carolina

As you hear and ponder the sermons this month, what are some specific ways you show reverence for animals, food, and people who toiled (and perhaps suffered) in making our land what it is today? ________________________________________________________________________________________

Act Guardians of the Grounds: Reverence for nature is a feeling or attitude of deep respect tinged with awe; veneration. When we look upon our grounds, we see how our founding members had a reverence for nature. Guardians of Our Grounds share this feeling and show their respect for nature by maintaining and improving the grounds. Be a part of this and it can be a source of your being and your well-being. ________________________________________________________________________________________

Watch Interfaith Potluck & Documentary, “Nourish,” October 24, UU Social Hall. Potluck, 6pm, 30 min, 7:15pm. Inspiring stories that take the viewer from a global perspective to what we can do on a personal level: biodiversity, climate change, public health, and social justice. Appropriate for all ages. A Meatless Monday Event

The Lego Movie, Sure, it's fun and cute. But this family friendly film is also loaded with religious and mythological themes that explore moral issues and the tension between creativity and necessary rules. ________________________________________________________________________________________

Attend Mediterranean Dinner & Wine: Interfaith Cooking Class. Chef Debra Chase, October 17, 5-7pm. Menu at the Meatless Monday table in the social hall. Free, but limited to 50. Reserve your space at Eventbrite. ________________________________________________________________________________________

Read Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do about It by Anne Lappé. "It's not just a matter of our bulging waistlines, our rising diabetes and heart disease rate, or the obesity among our children. It's the health of our planet that's at stake now." The answer, she says, lies in farming as if the climate mattered. – A Meatless Monday recommendation.

An Alter to the World by Barbara Brown Taylor: Discover how we can find the sacred everywhere we go and in nearly everything we do as we learn to live with purpose, pay attention, slow down, and revere the world we live in.

Strangers from a Different Shore by Ronald Takaki – Were you moved by our October 11 worship to learn more? This book has been described as lyrical and rich because it presents the voices of Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, Asian Americans, Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians through their own stories, songs, and poetry. It is a beautiful and complete history of those who have often been perceived as strangers from a different land. ________________________________________________________________________________________

Give Special Collection: Davis Community Meals. Make checks out to UUCD, memo "DCM." DCM provides help to Yolo residents and families in need of food, shelter, clothing and more. One community dinner a onth is hosted by UUCD. http://daviscommunitymeals.org/ Donate anytime: http://tinyurl.com/DonateUUCD ________________________________________________________________________________________

Listen Download or listen online to edited Sunday services at www.uudavispodcast.org Public domain image: https://pixabay.com/en/spices-spice-mix-colorful-curry-73770/