Wellspring Wednesday

​Wellspring Wednesday at Unity Church gathers a multigenerational church community Wednesday evenings to nourish right and holy relationship among us and deepen our life of faith grounded in spiritual practice and antiracist multicultural work. The Wellspring Wednesday experience includes:

• Sharing meaningful time and nourishing food together
• Brief multigenerational worship in Ames Chapel
• Opportunities to play, learn, and practice with one another

​Here's what you can expect:

• 5:45 p.m.: Dinner prepared and served by our Food Ministry Teams. Menus are posted with the programming for each week. The cost for dinner is $8/adults, $4/child (ages 5-12), $2/child (ages 2-4), and $20/family. If you need financial assistance to help cover the cost of dinner, please email Laura Park at laura@unityunitarian.org. If you plan to join us and need a special food preparation, please email madeline@unityunitarian.org. Vegetarian, vegan, gluten free, dairy free options available.
• 6:45 p.m.: Multigenerational chapel service in the Ames Chapel
• ​7:10-8:30 p.m.: Weekly programs with childcare provided. 

Wellspring Wednesday Programming

April 5
Hungarian flavors inspired dinner: dilly meat and rice cabbage rolls, cucumber salad, noodles, poppy seed dessert 

Our Partner Church in Homorodszentpeter and Ukrainian Relief Efforts
In-person in Robbins Parlor and online via Zoom
Do you know that Unity Church has had a relationship with the Unitarian church in the village of Homorodszentpeter for over 20 years? Approximately 140 Unity pilgrims have traveled to the Unitarian homelands of Székely Land of Romania, and have forged enduring friendships. Come to learn about and share stories from this long standing relationship, find out how Unity Church and village support has been helping with Ukraine relief efforts, and even consider becoming a pilgrim yourself! 

Feldenkrais® Awareness Through Movement
In-person, Body Room
Join Suzanne Burr for many or as few of the eight weeks (3/22 - 5/10) as your schedule allows. In a non-judgmental environment for organic learning, you will be guided through gentle movement explorations to build self-awareness. Slowing down, using less effort, and exploring small sensory distinctions allows us to learn more about ourselves, grow our capacity to pay attention, cultivate greater capacity for sensing and feeling, notice habits, and value rest. Dress comfortably, and bring a blanket to lie on and a small towel to use to lift your head.

Beginner Violin
In-person, Choir Room
Join Mayra Mendoza for beginning violin lessons appropriate for all ages. Learn basic violin posture, note reading, and more! Questions? Email Mayra at mayraquitzia@hotmail.com.

April 12
Dinner: roasted chicken or vegan alternative, roasted veggies with fresh herbs, spring salad, dessert

The Port Royal Experiment – And Us with Rev. Dr. Wayne Arnason
In-person, Robbins Parlor
Registration
The Port Royal Experiment was a “rehearsal for Reconstruction” in South Carolina during and after the Civil War that involved a fascinating cast of Unitarian characters, including Unity’s early minister William Channing Gannett. This first in a three-lecture series will introduce the experiment and focus on Gannett’s role at Port Royal. Many well-known Unitarians volunteered to go to the South Carolina Sea Islands in the first months of the Civil War to become teachers and managers of the thousands of newly freed Black people still living on abandoned cotton plantations. These Unitarians’ stories, and their diverse relationships with the Gullah-Geechee people, provide us with insight into typical ways that white liberals have approached Black communities seeking to offer “help.”

Rev. Arnason is part of a team preparing the 2024 Minns Lectures on the Port Royal story. He is an author of books, essays, and articles on topics in UU history.
This session includes two follow up sessions at 7:00 p.m., on Tuesday, April 18, and 25, in the Foote Room. Registration is required for follow up sessions and a prerequisite to those sessions is either attending April 12 or viewing the recording of the program.

Lectio Divina
Online via Zoom
Meet online to share in our ongoing offering of Lectio Divina. Following a centuries-old Benedictine spiritual practice of contemplative reading, a chosen poem is read aloud, as attendees are encouraged to lift up what they heard and how the poem spoke to them. A different poem at each session. A rich way to receive poetry’s gifts in a small group setting. Led by Lisa Wersal or Shelley Butler.

​Feldenkrais® Awareness Through Movement
In-person, Body Room
Join Suzanne Burr for many or as few of the eight weeks (3/22 - 5/10) as your schedule allows. In a non-judgmental environment for organic learning, you will be guided through gentle movement explorations to build self-awareness. Slowing down, using less effort, and exploring small sensory distinctions allows us to learn more about ourselves, grow our capacity to pay attention, cultivate greater capacity for sensing and feeling, notice habits, and value rest. Dress comfortably, and bring a blanket to lie on and a small towel to use to lift your head.

Beginner Violin
In-person, Choir Room
Join Mayra Mendoza for beginning violin lessons appropriate for all ages. Learn basic violin posture, note reading, and more! Questions? Email Mayra at mayraquitzia@hotmail.com.

April 19
Dinner: chicken or chickpea mulligatawny over rice, roasted pepper salad, dessert (options for kids will be available)

Honor the Treaties and Save the Earth
Part 6 of the Truth Telling and Healing: Environmental and Indigenous Justice Series 
In-person in Robbins Parlor and online via Zoom
Registration
The spiritual and cultural traditions of Ojibwe and Dakota people, rooted in a relationship to Earth and its living beings, is far different than the extractive, dominating relationship inherent in Western spiritual and cultural traditions. 

In this session we will be guided by Indigenous wisdom to better understand the Ojibwe and Dakota spiritual relationship to the land, explore how our Western relationship to the land has produced the crisis we now face, and consider how honoring treaties allows space for Tribal Nations to honor — and help save — the earth in accordance with their traditions and knowledge. 

Antiracist Literacy Partners
Online via Zoom
What does it take to be racially literate, and engaged in antiracism as faith work or as a spiritual practice? This program, offered each quarter, will highlight useful books, podcasts, and videos in our ongoing practice of learning about systemic racism and the work of dismantling it. Participants report that their understanding of a resource increases exponentially when explored with a partner or a group. Come to choose a resource, sign up for a buddy or small group and make plans for your discussions. Resource/discussion guides provided. If you want to sign up but can’t attend the meeting, or if you have questions, contact Becky Gonzalez-Campoy at beckygc83@gmail.com.

Board Game Night
In-person, Center Room
Open to everyone; kids are welcome with their adult(s)! We’ll have a variety of board games available for ages 10 and up that are easy to learn, or bring a favorite board game that you would like to play. 

​Feldenkrais® Awareness Through Movement
In-person, Body Room
Join Suzanne Burr for many or as few of the eight weeks (3/22 - 5/10) as your schedule allows. In a non-judgmental environment for organic learning, you will be guided through gentle movement explorations to build self-awareness. Slowing down, using less effort, and exploring small sensory distinctions allows us to learn more about ourselves, grow our capacity to pay attention, cultivate greater capacity for sensing and feeling, notice habits, and value rest. Dress comfortably, and bring a blanket to lie on and a small towel to use to lift your head.

Beginner Violin
In-person, Choir Room
Join Mayra Mendoza for beginning violin lessons appropriate for all ages. Learn basic violin posture, note reading, and more! Questions? Email Mayra at mayraquitzia@hotmail.com.

April 26
Dinner: TexMex cilantro rice bowls with chicken and roasted veggies, salad, dessert

Book Reading with Author Michael Orange
Embracing the Ghosts: PTSD and the Vietnam Quagmire
In-person in Parish Hall and online via Zoom 
Join congregant Michael Orange as he reads from his book Embracing the Ghosts: PTSD and the Vietnam Quagmire. Participants will hear the lessons he gleaned from the PTSD therapy he completed three decades after coming home from combat duty in Vietnam, and have an opportunity to engage in a discussion after the 30 minute presentation. Books will be available to purchase.
​
Psychotherapist and grief counselor Dianna Diers, a longtime friend of Unity Church, had this to say about his memoir, “Michael Orange presents a deeply-toned mosaic, a ‘re-membering,’ of exiled parts of the life and memory that brought him to psychotherapy, meditation, political activism, and elderhood. Met with much honesty, humility, courage, and compassion, the ghosts reveal their lessons to Michael and to us. It is not what or even who we are, but how we are with all of ourselves and one another that heals.” 

​​Feldenkrais® Awareness Through Movement
In-person, Body Room
Join Suzanne Burr for many or as few of the eight weeks (3/22 - 5/10) as your schedule allows. In a non-judgmental environment for organic learning, you will be guided through gentle movement explorations to build self-awareness. Slowing down, using less effort, and exploring small sensory distinctions allows us to learn more about ourselves, grow our capacity to pay attention, cultivate greater capacity for sensing and feeling, notice habits, and value rest. Dress comfortably, and bring a blanket to lie on and a small towel to use to lift your head.

Beginner Violin
In-person, Choir Room
Join Mayra Mendoza for beginning violin lessons appropriate for all ages. Learn basic violin posture, note reading, and more! Questions? Email Mayra at mayraquitzia@hotmail.com.

Wellspring Wednesday Proposal Form

Is there a program or class you would like to see offered  -- or that YOU would like to offer -- at an upcoming Wellspring Wednesday?

SUBMIT A PROPOSAL