Greetings from Parish Committee! This past Sunday was our 392nd Annual Meeting. The meeting was a wonderful celebration of this past year! Here are just a few of the highlights: Nominating committee reported that 66 members of the congregation are serving on our many committees this coming year, amazing! As committee members & friends pass the baton, ending their time on committees and joining new ones, we acknowledged two very significant transitions. Member Judy Kamm has been serving as...
“Nevertheless, We Remembered” – April 16th, 2023
READING: Our reading today comes from Muskogee or “Creek” Nation Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo. It is called Remember. Remember the sky that you were born under, know each of the star's stories. Remember the moon, know who she is. Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is the strongest point of time. Remember sundown and the giving away to night. Remember your birth, how your mother struggled to give you form and breath. You are evidence of her life, and her mother's, and hers. Remember your...
“By My Side” – Easter Sunday, April 9th, 2023
Easter–“By My Side” This passage comes to us from Karen Armstrong, a former nun whose departure from her convent in the 1960’s led her on a spiritual and religious journey around the world that has yielded more than 20 books, including the bestselling “A History of God.” From “The Spiral Staircase” Karen Armstrong writes: “…I have discovered that the religious quest is not about discovering ‘the truth’ of the ‘meaning of life’ but about living as intensely as possible here and now. The idea...
Musically Speaking – April 14th, 2023
Resistance Through Music This topic makes me excited looking backward, looking at now, and going forward. Social movements and resistance have always been propelled with music. Think of spirituals created and sung by the enslaved people on plantations….their songs and the way they sang literally kept them alive. The same can be said for those incarcerated working on chain gangs. There is the Civil Rights movement with so many great artists creating such monumental music that it is a style...
2023 Annual Meeting Warrant
The First Parish of Watertown, Unitarian Universalist Warrant for 392nd Annual Meeting To: Michael Collins, Clerk of the First Parish of Watertown, Greetings: You are hereby requested to notify and warn the legal members of the First Parish of Watertown to meet in the meeting house or virtually SUNDAY, THE 23th DAY OF APRIL, 2023 after the service, to act on the following articles, viz: Article 1 Reports. To receive the reports of: the Minister; the Treasurer; the Director of Religious...
Check it before you chuck it – Rummage Sale Donations Wanted!
The First Parish Rummage Sale on 5/6 needs your Quality Donations! Do you have: books, records, DVDs, clean children's clothes (infant- 3 years), kitchen and household items, camping equipment, small electronics/ appliances (working order), arts & crafts, tools, nostalgia, knick-knacks, sporting goods, toys & games... Due to disposal complications as well as safety guidelines, we cannot take: furniture larger than single person can carry, adult clothing, bedding/ mattresses,...
Memorial Wall Summer Engraving
Names of deceased First Parish members, friends, and those loved by them can be added to the Memorial Wall each summer. Applications for engravings as well as additional information can be found on the website, and there are copies of the form in the folder on the office door. The fee for engraving a name along with birth and death years is $550. Applications and fees must be returned to the church office no later than June 1. Requests for a reduced fee can be made to the church...
The View From Here – April 7th, 2023
Happy spring church family! I pray you are well and that your spirits are intact. You are always on my mind and in my heart. I like thinking about the spirit of seasons too. Personally, I need spring’s spirit, with its promise of regeneration, new life and light, after a season of quiet, fallow time. It teaches me to hold out hope and look closely–for nothing is ever really lost. Buds are everywhere right now. Have you seen them? I am really looking forward to Easter service this Sunday. It...