A Pagan, Earth-Centered Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Kansas City
When arriving for services at SMUUCh – pull around the parking lot to the “additional parking ahead” area and enter through the double doors up a ramp on that side of the building. We’ll do our best to monitor other entrances, but that entrance is the closest to the room where we hold services and the door that will be reliably open for you to come inside with us!
The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) joins the chorus of voices urging an immediate and total ceasefire, the admittance of humanitarian aid, and the restoration of power and water to Gaza to prevent the further staggering loss of human life that is inevitable under the current conditions. We support the call from the United Nations for the evacuation order to be rescinded, warning it will have “devastating humanitarian consequences.” We join a wide range of faith-based, non-governmental, and humanitarian organizations across the globe in condemning the government of Israel’s ongoing bombardment, “total siege,” and forced displacement through an evacuation order of more than 1.1 million residents of Gaza in retaliation for Hamas’ atrocious October 7 attacks. We do so in line with our 2002 Action of Immediate Witness, “Toward Peace and Justice in the Middle East.”
To address the urgent humanitarian crisis in Israel and Gaza, and to prevent further catastrophic loss of life, the UUA reiterates, as a signatory of the October 12 statement from Churches for Middle East Peace, a call for:
The UUA condemns the horrific terror attacks from Hamas on Israeli civilians, and the taking of innocent hostages. There can never be justification for such an attack.
The UUA condemns the harm to innocent civilians caused by the Israeli government’s retaliation against Gaza, and implores the Israeli government to do all it can to protect innocent civilian life and avoid further escalating military action.
We call on Unitarian Universalists to continue to witness against anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, and to side with love in this moment by urging their elected officials to leverage the considerable power of the US government to push for an immediate and humane resolution to the crisis in Gaza, including total ceasefire, humanitarian aid access, and rescinding the evacuation order.
Unitarian Universalists, with over 1000 liberal religious congregations in the United States and beyond, covenant to promote core values and principles, which include support for a world community with peace, liberty and justice for all. As UUs, we affirm our mutual humanity and interdependence, and join with interfaith and human rights groups calling for respect of international law and protection of civilians. We declare that when vengeance repays vengeance, it becomes an escalating and inescapable cycle of violence.
Within our UU faith communities, we have members who come from Jewish and Muslim traditions, and members who have direct ties to the Middle East. The unspeakable acts of violence from the past few weeks have been felt directly and personally by many in our congregations. We pray for the safety of those who remain in harm’s way, and mourn those whose lives have been lost in this most recent wave of bloodshed.
Amid this pain and grief, our faith community has historically sought to embrace the full nuance and complexity of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. We believe that a lasting peaceful solution to this conflict which has claimed so many lives must be rooted in justice and humanitarian principles. We are founding members for Churches for Middle East Peace, alongside other religious groups with historical roots in the Christian tradition.
As Unitarian Universalists, we are committed to making decisions and mutual commitments through a democratic process. Since our founding in 1961, the UUA’s General Assembly, made up of delegates from our member congregations, has consistently affirmed the following principles related to human rights and international law:
To quote from the UUA’s 2010 Statement of Conscience on Creating Peace:
“Our faith calls us to create peace, yet we confess that we have not done all we could to prevent the spread of armed conflict throughout the world. At times we have lacked the courage to speak and act against violence and injustice; at times we have lacked the creativity to speak and act in constructive ways; at times we have condemned the violence of others without acknowledging our own complicity in violence. We affirm a responsibility to speak truth to power, especially when unjust power is exercised by our own nation. Too often we have allowed our disagreements to distract us from all that we can do together… [we are charged] to engage with more depth, persistence, and creativity in the complex task of creating peace.”
Our General Assembly has also adopted a number of statements in the past forty years about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (1982 General Resolution; 1986 Resolution; 1990 Resolution; 2002 Action of Immediate Witness), which have affirmed:
As UUs, we recognize how much of the current conflict is rooted in the trauma of oppressed peoples. This trauma ripples through generations, and destabilizes the entire region. The history of trauma in this conflict predates the founding of Israel, going back generations through colonialism and the Holocaust.
There is an urgent need to be in solidarity right now with Jewish people in our communities who feel the rising tide of anti-Semitism as an existential threat. We condemn anti-Semitism in all its forms.
Islamophobia is also a pernicious and ongoing force in the United States, and Muslims in our communities continue to be targets of violence and vitriol. We recognize that decades of brutal Israeli occupation has contributed to despair and rage across the Muslim world, and any further escalation of occupation could have dire and lasting consequences.
We must further recognize how interests and forces within the US have helped shape the current conflict. American Christian Zionists have driven US policy towards Israel since its founding, based on their own religious and political goals to protect business and oil interests in the Middle East and to prepare for, in their view, a Second Coming of the Messiah. This includes Christians United for Israel, the largest pro-Israel lobby group in the US with over 10 million members, who exercises significant influence over conservative political leaders in the US.
Unitarian Universalists claim a liberal religious tradition that is rooted in pluralism, and remains in fundamental opposition to religious and racial supremacy. We are committed to fighting all forms of racial and religious nationalism at home and abroad. We declare that discussions about this conflict must center the human rights of Israelis and Palestinians.
In the words of our President Rev. Sofía Betancourt, Ph.D.: “We are one global family living tenuously on the same human-impacted Earth. Let us center ourselves in justice as we call for peace.”
Our role as a people of faith is to be clear about our values and to center love for our siblings, especially in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. We reckon with evil as a manifestation of systemic oppression, and the violence we can do to one another in close relationship. We commit ourselves to do all we can to support those who are closest to the violence as we continue to hold hope for a peaceful future. And we remain dedicated to doing what we can to be advocates for safety and wellbeing in every part of the world.
For more information contact administration@uua.org.
If you’ve looked at the September calendar, you might wonder where Games Night is. Here’s the answer! Gaians are welcome to join Shawnee Mission UU Church’s weekly Games Night on Wednesdays at 6 PM in Room 17.
The votes are in and the Morrigan is our new patron! We’re holding a class about her on July 23, and will welcome her at a ritual on August 13.
For many years now, we’ve had a power as a patron for each year, running from August to July. In the beginning, we held it as a fundraiser for the community and a food-raiser for Harvesters Community Food Bank. A dollar equaled an item equaled 1 vote for that power. A few years ago, we decided to make it truly democratic and uncoupled the voting process from money.
So, now, we hold a forum in the spring to create a slate of nominees (this year, there are six), and then have several Sundays (this year, there are two) where we present the powers in a series of mini-rituals. The team behind each power’s temple tells us about the power, what kinds of ways they could help our community, and what sorts of commitments they would expect us to have in return.
After the mini-rituals, we’ll have an election using the ranked choice voting system (https://fairvote.org/our-reforms/ranked-choice-voting/). The winner becomes our patron for the next year, inspiring and guiding us. We also honor the two runners-up in rituals.
This year’s nominees are Avalokiteśvara, Brighid, a community Egregore, The Fool, Isis, and Rhiannon. One June 16 and June 30, we’ll hear from the temples of these powers. Join us!
As urban pagans, we are active participants in both the mundane and spiritual life of our communities. In this ritual, we will conjure a web of energy to bless and support our roads, power grids, water systems, and other infrastructure, as well as the human infrastructure (including teachers, librarians, firefighters, etc.) that keeps all the systems running.
If you are joining us online, you will want to have available some hand sanitizer or other means of hand washing, for purification. You can also access images to print in order to participate in the hands-on aspects of the ritual. Here is a link to access the images: https://docs.google.com/…/1Jo7I6vSqlO4TtOWonza…/edit…
Please join us in person at 4327 Troost, or online at: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81718815058?pwd=bnI0M29UaitFYmZxcjg2anJoNXhKUT09
This week, we’re tapping into the power of the skies to work some lunar magic. We’ll be designing, constructing, charging and destroying a mixed-media community sigil to further our intentions – if you’re joining us in person at 4327 Troost Ave., please feel free to bring materials that can be safely burned to add to the work. If you’re joining us online, you’ll have the opportunity to create your own version of our sigil – you’ll need something to write with and on, and/or any other art and craft materials you desire.
We have spent a year under the patronage of the Mighty Dead, and while our Dead will always be with us, the time has come to dissolve that formal relationship. Yet there are many, many members of that august body whose specific praises we have not yet sung. This will be an opportunity for anyone attending to help remedy that oversight by making offerings to any specific person having lived and passed over. We will follow a Druid-style format with a period of time with the Gates between the worlds opened, and there will be time to address praise offerings to any of the beings who might be contacted that way. An appropriate offering can be a performance, piece of art, or substance (food, drink, flowers, etc.) likely to please the person being honored. We specifically urge you to come prepared to invoke and make an offering to any of the “Prophetic people” whose words and deeds “challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love,” as mentioned in the UU Sources.
If you are joining from home, you will wish to have a chalice and means of lighting it, and you may also want to provide an offering bowl and substances that you can offer to any of the Powers. We also encourage you to have a beverage available to share in the return of blessings. If attending in person, we encourage you to bring a suitable vessel to receive a blessing liquid, as the time is not yet right for sharing from a communal vessel. (And if you prefer, feel free to bring your own beverage to be blessed)
This ritual will be held in person at 4327 Troost Ave, and online at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81636948830?pwd=wnPxtWJyjGCy65Y0GFsvuMPTIZ-32G.1 Our physical and virtual space will open at 3:30pm Central, and the ritual will begin around 4.
The results are in for the 2022-2023 Patron Selection, and our winner is Prometheus! It was a close race between the Greek Friend of Humanity and Xōchipilli, the Aztec Flower Prince, with Hecate, the Keeper of the Keys of the Cosmos, coming in third. We will hold a class on July 17 to learn more about Prometheus and his role, and then welcome him formally as patron on July 24. Over the next year, we’ll learn about and work with Prometheus in a number of ways, and we’ll also hold rituals in honor of Xōchipilli and Hecate. Watch the Event Calendar to find out what’s coming next!
If you are interested in how the process shook out, here is an excellent visualization of the ranked-choice vote tally for our election.
We *were* going to talk about what happened at the UUA’s General Assembly today, but feel that we need to let other events take precedence. So instead, we will be talking about the end of Roe v. Wade, how we are feeling about it, what it means for us in our states and local areas, and how to move forward.
Please join us in our space on Troost or online at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84294779377?pwd=MEdpUzlyK1VpMENTc25yR3YrcjFsZz09