June 30th, 2019
50 Years After Stonewall – Members of the UCE Rainbow Alliance reflect on the ways the uprising, which sparked what many believe to be the beginning of the Pride Movement, has impacted the lives of individuals and our society. We honor especially the trans women of color who were at the center of this movement. Rev. Eileen leads the service with Rainbow Alliance members. Marianne Griebler is the Worship Associate.
June 23, 2019
Finding Beauty – The Worship Arts Committee leads this service with three perspectives on different ways of seeing beauty and what that can mean in our lives. William Phillips, Lynn Kendall, Tom Hempfling, Barbara Badr, and Jinny Niemann contributing along with Annette Wallace as Worship Associate.
Religious Learning at UCE
We must turn our attention to finding a new Director of Lifespan Religious Education, and to that end, the Board of Trustees has commissioned a DLRE Search Team to work with Reverend Eileen to find a worthy and qualified candidate for the position. Team members are Sue Larson, chair, Susan Comstock, Dan Solomon, and Chris Yoo. They have already met with Eileen and have started the process to identify and evaluate potential candidates. There are already several applicants in process.
The focus of the Team will be to find someone who is highly motivated to collaborate on quality religious education that highlights intergenerational activities, an excellent children’s curriculum, open and ongoing youth and young adult groups, and highly relevant and inspiring adult education programming.
DLRE Search Team members would like to meet with congregants to learn more about what you love about liberal religious education for children, youth, young adults and all adults! Please contact one or more of us.
Click here to read more.
June 16, 2019
Stories, told in a thousand different ways and handed down from generation to generation, dictate gender roles. How do we move beyond binary gender stereotypes in our family relationships to develop work/life balance? In what ways have we all been hurt by the limitations of patriarchy and how can we break down the barriers within ourselves and our society so that we can lead more spiritually rich and emotionally courageous lives? On Father’s Day, this daughter of toxic masculinity invites three members of different generations and life experiences into a conversation about what masculinity, without toxicity, means for them. Rev. Eileen leads the service with John LaPlante, Ben Kornfeld, and Griffin Larson-Erf contributing. Don MacGregor is our Worship Associate. Nursery, Pre-K childcare, and an activity for children Kindergarten through 5th grade will be offered during this hour.
Some REAL Summer Reading
Suggestions for your reading pleasure and enlightenment over the summer – fill in some of
those blank spots we all have in understanding American history.
Despite the Best Intentions: How Racial Inequality Thrives in Good Schools
By John Diamond and Amanda Lewis
On the surface, Riverview High School looks like the post-racial ideal. Serving an enviably affluent, diverse, and liberal district, the school is well-funded, its teachers are well-trained and many of its students are high-achieving. Yet Riverview has not escaped the same unrelenting question that plagues schools throughout America: why is it that even when all the circumstances seem right, black and Latino students continue to lag behind their peers?
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration
By Isobel Wilkerson
“Over the course of six decades, some six million black southerners left the land of their forefathers and fanned out across the country for an uncertain existence in nearly every other corner of America. The Great Migration would become a turning point in history. It would transform urban America and recast the social and political order of every city it touched. …It grew out of the unmet promises made after the Civil War and, through the sheer weight of it, helped push the country towards the civil rights revolutions of the 1960s.”
This is a GREAT book. It reads like a novel, sweeps you along, and opens up unknown lives.
Family Properties
By Beryl Satter
The “promised land” for thousands of Southern blacks, postwar Chicago quickly became the most segregated city in the North, due to a very intentional, institutionalized system of legal and financial exploitation. Satter, the daughter of a man who was at the same time a landlord holding some slum properties and a lawyer representing black clients who were victimized by the contract buying system, is able to describe the mechanisms, pressures and terror employed to keep blacks and whites from living comparable lives. When you read in the June 6, 2019 Tribune that there is a 30 year variance in life expectancy for people living in Chicago’s Streeterville and those 9 miles away in Englewood, this book provides part of the explanation.
Religious Learning at UCE – We Want to Hear From You! Listening Sessions Start Soon!
As Mary’s last day approaches, we still have time to express our gratitude to her, and to share our sadness at seeing her go. We will grieve this loss, individually and together, for some time. Mary is a gem!!! Join us on Saturday, June 29th at 5pm for a potluck and goodbye party for Mary.
But we must also turn our attention to finding a new Director of Lifespan Religious Education, and to that end, the Board of Trustees has commissioned a DLRE Search Team to work with Reverend Eileen to find a worthy and qualified candidate for the position. Team members are Sue Larson, chair, Susan Comstock, Dan Solomon, and Chris Yoo. They have already met with Eileen and have started the process to identify and evaluate potential candidates. There are already several applicants in process.
The focus of the Team will be to find someone who is highly motivated to collaborate on quality religious education that highlights intergenerational activities, an excellent children’s curriculum, open and ongoing youth and young adult groups, and highly relevant and inspiring adult education programming.
DLRE Search Team members would like to meet with congregants to learn more about what you love about liberal religious education for children, youth, young adults, and all adults! There are two listening sessions coming up for you to attend and share your thoughts and ideas with Team representatives.
- Sunday, June 9th, from 11:30 to 12:30 in Room 6
- Wednesday, June 12th, from 7:30 to 8:30 in Room 13
Please come and join the discussion about our beloved RE program!
Click here to read more.