Welcome

Join us in fellowship, singing, meditation... the celebration of life!

Covenant and Congregational Vision

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tahlequah

Covenant: Love is the spirit of this congregation, and service to the universal family is its law. This is our great covenant: To dwell together in peace, to seek the truth in love, reason and understanding, and to help one another.

Child Care provided on Sundays from 10am to noon.

May 2012 ~ Mother, Taurus, Gemini, Emeralds and Lillies

Upcoming services for this month

May 6 Rev. Doug Inhofe (Sermon will explore how religion tries to fill the void of meaning we create in the world)

May 13 Rev. Doug Inhofe (Sermon will continue with the issues raised in the May 6 sermon) p.s. ~ Thea was inTahlequah visiting today:)

May 20 Flower Communion (congregants are encouraged to bring a flower to share and exchange during the service)

May 27 Gloria Brewster – Henry Bergh, Founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (and the story of Zippy, the cat that Gloria rescued and is now caring for, after Zippy was found with her front legs zip-tied together)

Every Sunday at 10am - The adult forum downstairs Free coffee and friends.

Every Monday - Tai Chi class, 5:30p main sanctuary

If you would like to meet with Rev. Doug to talk or for counseling, he will be available, by appointment, on any Tuesday or Thursday afternoon. To make an appointment, please feel free to call him on his cell, at 918-688-8772. He is also available after the service on those Sundays when he preaches.

The C.A.R.E. Food Pantry continues to be a stable food source for Cherokee County residents. The $5,000 grant received from Wal-Mart is providing funds necessary to purchase the food items not furnished by the Tulsa Regional Food Bank. Individual people as well as businesses in our community are very generous with food donations as well as monetary support. Please call 458-5338 if you would like to donate.

Update for Tahlequah Early Learning Academy

by Marnie Cope

Tahlequah Early Learning Academy is going strong with 35 children, ages six weeks to three years. The Academy has expanded to five classrooms and a common area that includes an indoor play area and a sitting area for parents and teachers. It is more than a day care. It is a preschool program that is funded by Cherokee Nation Head Start. They take pride in providing quality learning experiences for babies and toddlers of high school students who are completing their education at Tahlequah High School. We, as a congregation, have adopted this program as one of our community service projects.
We help provide for the needs of these young parents, many of whom do not always have the means to pay for all of their necessities. So far this year we have helped to pay for KATS transportation for young mothers and their children to get to school. It is considered a liability for these students to ride the school bus. We have also paid for the replacement of a lens of a three-year-old girl's glasses. She fell and seriously scratched it.
Many of you have donated diapers and more diapers. This is a huge need. Also needed are supplies such as diaper rash ointment, bathing supplies, lotion, powder, etc. Some mothers run out of formula before it is time to stock up with WIC. Donations of formula and cash donations to buy special needs formula are needed. Gift certificates are also a good way to help these young parents to meet their needs. Think about these children when you see clothing on sale in stores or at garage sales and thrift shops. Young parents don't always think to send extra clothes to school for emergencies and accidents.
Keep up the good work! Every thing we have done has been greatly appreciated, and the school year is only half over. If you have any questions, contact Marnie Cope at marniecope@yahoo.com of 918-458-o225.

Community Outreach:

Please remember, too, that Tom Lewis’ men’s shelter, O Si Yo, needs bedding and men’s clothes.

Bible Study for Liberals meets every other Thursday at 7pm at Iris Tate's house. Call 456-4222 for more information.

Meditation Group ~ meets every Wednesday at 12:15pm in the Sanctuary

Ministers Column May 2012

Rev. Doug Inhofe

About a month or so ago I traveled to Fort Smith, Arkansas, to meet up with my friends, Rabbi Jack Zanerhaft and his wife (and Cantor), Debbie Zanerhaft, and to deliver the sermon at an inter-faith, Friday-evening Shabbat service at the United Hebrew Congregation, in Fort Smith, Arkansas. The congregation meets once a month—which is to say that it meets only on those occasions when the Rabbi and the Cantor are able to be there.
You might remember Rabbi Jack from his appearance in our own pulpit about a year ago, but, if you missed him then, you can catch him the next time around, at our own next inter-faith service, which will be held as soon as Rabbi Jack and I can find a time when our schedules merge, at the same time, at UUCT.
His Fort Smith congregation has a long history. It was founded over 125 years ago and once had a membership of over 400 families. When I was there in March, there were twelve people attending. What a shame. The synagogue is a tremendous building, and the sense I had there was that if you were under sixty you would betoken the re-birth of the congregation’s days of long ago, when people of all ages were there, was palpable.
I thought of our own congregation and, in the moment, felt encouraged. I thought of Ma Joad, in Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, who was forever intoning—in support of the working people, who suffered so much—that “the little fellas keep on a comin’, they just keep on a comin’.” You couldn’t keep the people down, you see, people who cared would keep on coming, she said. There was an infinitely large inventory of them, I guess.
But my being encouraged about UUCT was real, for it was based on more than wishing, on more than the Ma Joad’s politicizing of the world, one where the “little fellas” stood in for an infinitely long line of workers ready to sacrifice themselves for the sake of others, just like them, who would come along later and find the world a better place. There’s a reason I was encouraged.
Well, this is a long way around to get to my point, which is that people are persistent, people are resilient, and that many of them are ready to make the place a better world even if it will be fully enjoyed only by others, those who come along later. And I see this dynamic, this reality, in our own congregation. I see that people of all ages have joined us, in the past, and that their attention and gifts and efforts and commitments have added to our congregation—now twenty years old—the special characteristics these people brought with them. And they have helped to make our world a better place.
Our congregation can be seen, in this way, as a living thing, a process that yields benefits for all who participate, for all who attend, for all who care, for all who want to grow. And indeed it is my firm belief that our congregation is engaged in a constant process of renewal, one that brings to the surface of all our congregational events, of the myriad of all our congregants’ inter-personal relations, a warmth and sense of belonging that is beautiful to behold.
I wanted to say this because it’s what I see from my perspective, which is, to be fair, just a bit different than most other perspectives on our congregation, if only because, as the minister, I am placed by the nature of our polity into a position where, uniquely, I can look back into the faces of the congregants when they worship, when they attend a service, when they are themselves being—all at once—the congregation.
Rev. Jim Eller was the minister of our church from 1994-99. He preached here once on the occasion of the congregation’s celebrating the many wonderful gifts of service given by Earl and Dicksie Schmitt and Kelly Mindiola over the years—people who were moving from Tahlequah, and thus leaving our congregation, when he gave his sermon.
I remember his sermon well. I was there, helping out, and I believe he had it right, at the close of his sermon, when he reflected on how his sermon had focused on God, although, in fact, he had not mentioned the name “God” in his sermon. He certainly didn’t avoid it for any reason. He explained, in his closing, that some people—perhaps visitors, perhaps regulars!—might wonder about a sermon in which the word was not mentioned, but, as he said, he wanted to make clear that his entire sermon had been about nothing else!
Rev. Eller’s sermon had underscored the importance in our lives of committing ourselves to worthwhile goals, ones that take us outside ourselves and call on us to serve a higher power, to give our gifts of service as gifts rooted firmly in love. This is God, he said, seen from a perspective that asks, “What is it that is of utmost importance to you? Does it make sense to define ‘God’ that way?” It gets beyond pictures of a man with a long white beard.
Think of it this way. As Rev. Eller put it then, a sermon about committing ourselves to service—to a family, to a friend, to a congregation, to a community—because we love something bigger than ourselves, is indeed a sermon about God. And so I can see what he meant when I see people working to make our congregation, as a congregation, become a congregation in the midst of a process of renewal, always one that is growing, always one that is learning, always one that is caring, always one that will be here tomorrow.
Call it what you will, but it’s very rewarding to see. It’s rewarding enough that, even in the face of great odds, the people in Fort Smith are still pursuing their dreams of fellowship at their 125-year-old synagogue. I hope it works. It did for so long. I hope ours works. I think it will. I would bet on 125 years, at the least!

Rev. Doug Inhofe

May 20, 2012

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Full Moon Drum Circle & Bible Group for May 2012

All are Welcome & Encouraged

FULL MOON Drum Circle Saturday, Saturday, May 5 at 6p, Norris Park - Welcoming ALL UNPLUGGED instruments. Welcoming ALL Dancers We welcome pot-luck items to share, bring your own cup please for the water cooler. Gathering and focus circle begins at 6p, then on to creating peace and healing through drumming. Come see what you’re missing. For more info, go to MySpace “CUUPS of Tahlequah”
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Group Renamed - The Bible for Liberals Group has change the name to the Early Christian History Group as this name more appropriately reflects what we are currently studying. The group meets every other Tuesday evening at 7 p.m. at either Iris Tate's or Rose Reasoner's home. The group just started reading and discussing a new book so this is an ideal time to join the group if you are interested. For more information, please contact Iris Tate at 456-4222 or Rose Reasoner at 458-0886.
(FYI: Rev. Ron Robinson says “FYI - former UUA President John Buehrens author of Understanding the Bible For Liberals, and Jesus Seminar fellow and Tulsan and prof and author Brandon Scott and the president of the national Buddhist Christian Studies Ruben Habito will be among many presenters at this years UUCF Revival/Retreat in Dallas at Horizon UU church in October. Love to see some (UUCT-ers) there.

Film, Literature & Conversation

Book Group Tues.,

"Between the Covers" book night - May 22, 2012 at 7pm downstairs
May Book: Our Kind of Traitor, by John Le Carré
for all readers. Call Corry at 478-4802
Starred Review. Those readers who have found post–cold war Le Carré too cerebral will have much to cheer about with this Russian mafia spy thriller. While on holiday in Antigua, former Oxford tutor Perry Makepiece and his lawyer girlfriend, Gail Perkins, meet Dmitri "Dima" Vladimirovich Krasnov, an avuncular Russian businessman who challenges Perry to a tennis match. Even though Perry wins, Dima takes a shine to the couple, and soon they're visiting with his extended family. At Dima's request, Perry conveys a message to MI6 in England that Dima wishes to defect, and on arriving home, Perry and Gail receive a summons from MI6 to a debriefing. Not only is Dima a Russian oligarch, he's also one of the world's biggest money launderers. Le Carré ratchets up the tension step-by-step until the sad, inevitable end. His most accessible work in years, this novel shows once again why his name is the one to which all others in the field are compared.

Movie Night - Friday, June1, 2012, 6:30p (Call Lynn - 431-0198 for location)
(the movie has yet to be determined...stay tuned)

Committees In Need

Get involved with service planning, newsletter, music and more

**Committee On Ministry - The Committee On Ministry is a liaison between the congregation and the minister. Right now, the committee members are Tom Newton, Brun Imberg, and myself, Jacque Linebarger. We will be meeting with Doug every four to six weeks to provide feedback from the congregation about his ministry with UUCT, including suggestions for sermon topics, communication with members, outreach, programs at UUCT, and just generally how things are going. If you have any suggestions or comments that you would like the committee to bring up to Doug at our meetings, please feel free to contact any of the committee
members or Doug. We are currently looking for one or two additional members. If you are interested in joining the committee, please give me a call at 458-5887 or email me at linebarg@ipa.net.

Plans for an elementary level R. E. program are coming together. I need some help, however. Is there anyone who is interested in working with children in grades l through 6? I need a co-worker to share this responsibility. Please contact me, Marnie Cope, at 458-0225 or at marniecope@yahoo.com. Also we need to cozy up the R. E. room and make it inviting for kids. We could use donations of a rug and some floor pillows or bean bag chairs. If you have anything that would help me to put this room together, I appreciate it very much. Thank you!

Help-In-Crisis ~ Judith Anderson
Humane Society of Tahlequah ~ Gloria Brewster
C.A.R.E. Food Pantry ~ Rose Reasoner
Kelly Anquoe - web page, grounds, adult forum, art garden (open)
Susan Starr - newsletter
Traci Clark - calendar & Shopper Extraordinaire
Linebarger family - services, child care
Farren Mayfield - music
Please call us at 456-7900 to vounteer and make a difference in our own back yard.

Please send any comments you would like posted here to our monthly Wellspring newsletter committee at > uuct@sbcglobal.com