What’s Going on at the Church
The Family Dinner will begin at 4 PM for apps and games! Then we will sit together as a family and enjoy a meal prepared by all of us in POT LUCK fashion at 5 PM.
A sign-up sheet will be located in Davis Hall. You can choose to bring an appetizer, veggie, side-dish, or main dish. Session will supplement the meal with a couple extra main dishes. Please make enough for your family plus 2 people. If you miss the sign-up sheet, please email or call Elder Sue.
“Weighing Truth and Life”
These days we are seeing a continual assault on common decency and just plain goodness. We’re seeing attacks on vulnerable groups of people, acts of violence that are being normalized and even incited. We’re seeing constant gaslighting, and the promotion of conspiracy theories that play on people’s fears and insecurities. These forces are counting on these assaults to wear people down so that they are too tired and feeling too hopeless to push back. The following ideas are additional warnings to help us make sure we are not contributing to the cruelty that is trending these days.
“There is a profound poverty of empathy in our friendships, communities, social media pages, and political exchanges. There is a lot of fatigue we feel from living in places where compassion is touted as unnecessary to so many. We’re seeing people grieving the need to disconnect from people they love for the sake of their sanity. There are people who dread the holidays, worrying about the risk of conflict. Parents of LBGTQ children grieve over the knowledge that relatives voted in opposition to the rights and dignity of their own flesh and blood, and did so defiantly and maliciously. Muslims who lived here legally for decades are now feeling endangered.
“It’s tempting to meet vitriol with vitriol, to answer inhumanity with more of the same, but that isn’t sustainable. If we truly aspire to empathy, we’re going to need to call on it when it is most difficult. We can’t wait for our political or religious leaders to raise the bar, because that may never happen. We’re going to have to do that ourselves. We who are burdened by this enmity are going to have to raise the flag for simple decency and fight to defend it with the very best of ourselves. We’re going to have to combat this illness by not perpetuating it.
If there’s any kind of anger people of faith, morality, and conscience should aspire to, it is redemptive anger; that focuses on what results from our responses. Do they bring justice, equity, wholeness? Are more people heard and seen and respected in their wake? Is diversity nurtured because of them? An underappreciated part of Jesus that tends not to be featured, is his righteous and redemptive pissed-offness at seeing the powerful preying on the vulnerable, watching religious hypocrites pollute the system, witnessing the well-fed living closefisted toward the hungry. It is the spiritually combustible ignition point of good activism. The beautiful collective outrage of good people is actually the antidote to hatefulness.”
Blessing and Peace, Ed
Looking to donate to our thrift sales?
If you have any furniture to donate, please take a photo of what you have and send the photos to office@1stpresrahway.org. At this time, we’re not accepting clothes or shoes.
Members usually work on Wednesday’s for our sales from 10:30 am -1:30 pm. If that’s not a convenient time for you to drop off donations, other arrangements can be made. Please email the church office and your request will be forwarded to the “sales crew” so they can respond to your inquiry.
As always, thank you to all who donate. Our sales have been a great success this year because of you!
Important Message from the USRC Board of Directors:
Please read these guidelines about Squier Hall and the formation of the USRC Board of Directors, who will be overseeing the groups meeting in Squier.
As part of the guidelines, please use this form if you have any concerns so that they can be addressed.
Interested in Getting Involved?
We have a lot of different ways for you to get involved – short-term projects, one-time opportunities, working with our livestream technology on Sundays, plus much more. Click on the button below to see what we have on our ‘volunteer wish list’. As more opportunities become available, we will be sure to update our listings.