Congregation established 1836

Newsletter of the

First Unitarian Church, Alton, Illinois

www.firstuualton.org

Rev. Khleber Van Zandt, Minister

January 7^th

“Of Science, Religion, and Ethics"

Dr. Ronald Glossop, Professor Emeritus,

Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville

How are the findings of science related to traditional religion and traditional religious belief? Are scientists discovering information which is supportive of or contradictory to traditional religious beliefs?  Is there anything that "religion" should learn from science?  What kind of relation, if any, exists and should exist between religious beliefs and ideas about right and wrong?

January 14^th

“It’s My Privilege”

Rev. Khleber Van Zandt

As a straight, white male, I have lived with often unspoken but very real privilege all my life.  We’ll consider the sometimes ugly side of the privilege we all live with and how it shapes life in our culture

January 21st

“On Being Turned Back”

Rev. Khleber Van Zandt

On this Martin Luther King, Jr., memorial weekend, the experience of those who were turned back on the Edmund Pettis Bridge in 1965 should give us hope for the future.

January 28^th

“When It All Comes Due”

Rev. Khleber Van Zandt

Have your bills from Christmas purchases come due yet?  How do we paying down on the spiritual life in the face of mounting secular bills?

January 7^th – 9:30 a.m. – An introduction to Covenant Groups.  Presented by Marcia Custer.  See Marcia’s column elsewhere in the newsletter for more details about what covenant groups are and why you might be interested in getting involved with one.

January 14^th – 9:00 a.m. – Welcoming Congregation.  This ongoing workshop is open to everyone and you need not have attended previous sessions to start attending now.  This program is designed to help congregations develop individual and institutional strategies in order to become more welcoming to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and their families.

January 21^st – 9:30 a.m. – Forum topic: “Death and Afterwards.”  The discussion leader is Dr. Ron Glossop.

The question of whether there is any life after death is just as central to religious views as the existence and nature of God.  Is dying any different from just going to sleep and never waking up? If there is some kind of life-after-death, what could it be like?  How, if at all, do our beliefs about life-after-death affect our living?  Are people who believe in life-after-death more moral than those who don't?

January 28^th – 9:30 a.m. “In Search of the Historical Jesus” – Facilitator: Beth Nalick.

YES, Covenant Groups

are Coming!

In the November Newsletter Khleber wrote a column on Covenant Groups “as a good way to get to know other members better, and to connect on a deeper level than we can do at coffee hour and/or committee meetings.”  Religious research indicates that this is the primary reason people search for a religious community. We need to make this available for members and friends of this church.

On November 26^th Margret O’Neall, our guest minister, gave a sermon entitled “Life in the Village” which was essentially about our need for more social intimacy in a world that is becoming more impersonal and less intergenerational.  Her sermon can be found on our website www.firstuualton.org

At the December 3^rd Semi-Annual meeting, we announced the intention of beginning Covenant Groups, and invited attendees to indicate their interest.  For those of you who were not at that meeting please let Marcia Custer know of your interest (mcuster@siue.edu).

A Covenant Group informational session will be held as part of the Adult Religious Enrichment Program during the 9:30 a.m. hour on January 7^th. Also feel free to call or email Marcia to learn more prior to January 7^th.

A First Glance

This time of year, I think a lot about resolutions.  It would be nice to change some things – to save more, to eat less, to increase the peace in my life and in the world.  But I know most resolutions don’t make it to February 1^st, so why do I bother?  I’m enough of an optimist to believe that things will change without my direct intervention or intention. And enough of a pessimist to know that change, which in inevitable, is not always for the better

On a recent early morning walk in the park near my home, I was pondering these things as I slowly picked my way along.  Most of the post-Thanksgiving ice storm had melted, but I knew that thousands of people in Illinois and Missouri were still without power after a long weekend – maybe you were one of them.  I couldn’t imagine how the electric company crews were working in such conditions – on the paths I walked, the ice was treacherous, and I had to work hard not to slip and slide.

It was cold, about 15°, and sound carried crisp and clear in the morning air.  The ice underfoot cracked with every step and I realized that what had initially fallen on the ground was now covered with the shattered pieces recently dropped from the trees above.  It was like walking on broken glass – crunch, crunch, crunch.

When I got to a small bridge in the middle of the park I stopped and looked around.  There were thousands of small limbs down, hundreds of larger limbs, and untold numbers of whole trees had collapsed under the weight of the ice.  I hadn’t noticed it much while I made my way across the frozen ground, but now I saw that devastation lay in every direction.

Natural disasters are going to happen no matter what any of us do, and it wasn’t within my power to repair the damaged vegetation.  But in that moment, it felt right to notice and pay attention, to bear silent witness to the loss, to stand vigil for those injured by awesome – and often awful – forces of nature.

I was reminded of something Pat Moore said at church one day, that in the midst of the devastation of the ice storm we should notice the beauty of the sun through the frozen trees.

Perhaps that will be my resolution for this New Year – to notice more, to pay attention to the beauty in the midst of pain and loss.  With practice, I may even make it past February 1^st.

See you in church,

Let’s Get Acquainted

This month we’re getting to know Grace Madison, who along with her late husband Eldon, joined the church in December 1963.

I grew up in northern Minnesota about 75 miles from Canada.  The bombing of Pearl Harbor happened during my senior year in high school.  Upon graduation, most of the boys were drafted and the girls went into defense industry work or teaching or nursing.  I opted for nurse’s training.  I trained at the city and county hospital in St. Paul, MN and with 13 of our 31 interns drafted, student nurses were given great responsibility.  Ambulances arrived on average every 15 minutes and I found the experience exciting and exhausting.

Eldon and I were married in 1946 and by 1956 we had four children, three sons, Paul, Curt and Roger, and a daughter, Carol.  During our marriage we lived in various places in Minnesota, Lincoln, NE, Lahore, West Pakistan, Dacca, East Pakistan, Alton and Edwardsville, IL.

In 1963, Eldon accepted a faculty position at SIUE and we moved to Alton.  We joined the Alton Unitarian church and I started taking university classes.  I received my Master of Arts in Psychology in 1971.  After finishing school, I joined the SIUE Nursing Dept. for a one year research grant development project.  I also taught Psychology part time at Florissant Valley Community college and Belleville Area College (now SWIC).

In August, 2006 I spent two wonderful weeks with my son, Roger and daughter-in-law Jane in Europe.  We visited Prague, Vienna, Salzburg and Venice.

I am writing this before Christmas and am expecting my children, grandchildren and great grandchildren to visit.  We are scattered all over the U.S. and when we get together, it is non-stop talking, laughing and cookie-baking.  They will be coming from Missouri, North Carolina, Alaska, Wisconsin, Indiana and Massachusetts.  After they leave, I will resume my concerns about old age, the direction of U.S. politics, the state of the world and the String Theory of the universe – right after I get the dishes washed. 

Here are the names of church members and friends who are celebrating birthdays this month.  If this is ‘your month’ and your name didn’t get included, we’re sorry.  For future months please let Mary Johnson (mejohnson@mindspring.com) know the day and month of your birth.

2 January – Alex Gross

3 January – Lisa Smithe

6 January – Annie Kellie

11 January – Glenn Brunner

12 January – Meredith Ray

13 January – Stephanie Leavell

25 January – Caleb Tucker-Loewe (2000)

25 January – Erin Herndon (1992)

26 January – Doug Leavell

30 January – Deb McNaughton

4^th Sunday

Sunday Pot Luck Lunch

January 28^th

Bring a dish to share and plan to stay after church to join in food and fellowship!

A-Mc will do Table Set Up

M-Z will do Clean Up

Everyone will be responsible for setting food out on the buffet table.

Anna D. Sparks Women’s Alliance

Thursday, January 4^th

The Anna D. Sparks Women's Alliance January meeting will be at the home of Marcia Custer in Edwardsville.  All women from the church are welcome.  Reservations should be made by Monday, January 1^st by calling or emailing Ruth Shaw.

CHOIR REHEARSAL SCHEDULE

Thursday, January 4^th – 7:00 p.m.

Thursday, January 18^th – 7:00 p.m.

Contact Willis McCoy for further information.

wbmccoy@charter.net

Please Welcome

Our Newest Members

Jacqueline McDonough joined the church on December 17^th.

Kathleen Miller also joined the church on December 17^th.

We’re so pleased that you have decided to make the Alton First Unitarian Church

your church home.

Next Building and Grounds Work Day

Please save the date of January 27^th for the next Building and Grounds Workday at the church from 9:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m.  We will concentrate on indoor cleaning, repairs, and painting.

Remember – we’re all members of the Building and Grounds Committee.  Have anything to suggest for Building and Grounds?  Put a note in my mailbox or the suggestion box or email me at patjimmoore@charter.net.  Pat Moore

RE NEWS

Dear Parents and Friends,

This is the time of year that my work turns to evaluations.  This is when my budget is evaluated to see if changes need to be made during the coming year.  This is the time that my job performance and responsibilities are evaluated to see if changes need to be made there as well, but this is also the time of year that I evaluate the RE program as a whole.  I look at my registration list from this year and by adding a grade to everyone on it, I figure out if the class delineations will work again for next year.

This is not the only way that the program is evaluated.  The other end of evaluating this program is trickier.  Do numbers of attendance tell the whole story?  Do we ever get to know the whole story?  Should this program be evaluated if we are growing lifelong UUs?  If it should, how do we do that?  We can quiz the children every week to see if they can recite the 7 principles from memory, but then maybe as adults that would mean that we would have to be able to recite them from memory.  How can we know if we're on the right track? 

One way that I can think of is to pay attention to the conversations that our children are having outside of class time.  See if they take the knowledge that they are given on Sunday mornings to the rest of their lives.  See if when a classmate or friend outside of church asks them what kind of church they go to if they say "Unitarian" or "I don't know."   

I will tell a story that can give us hope that we are on the right track.  When Andrea was about 5, she and Alex were out working on a kayak in the front yard when the Mormon missionaries came door to door.  Alex politely, but quietly, sent them on their way, but Andrea noticed and asked who they were.  It was explained that they were people who thought that their religion was right and were trying to convince everyone else to join them.  She was appalled and said, "But Daddy, don't they know that people are different and believe different things, and that's okay."  I think that we can take heart that we are doing the right thing, but I would love to hear other stories that may help shed some light on the process of evaluations.

Thank you,  Jamie Gross

$1000 Annual Scholarship Award

The Women's Alliance of the First Unitarian Church of St. Louis announces the 19th annual Scholarship Competition for the academic year 2007-2008.

To be eligible to compete for this award a woman must be 25 years or older, responsible financially for continuing her education, a member of a St. Louis area UU church or fellowship, and a registered student.  The award will be made on the basis of scholarship, character, and need.

Request an application packet by emailing the Women's Alliance at office@firstuustlouis.org. The deadline for completed applications is March 31, 2007.