December Services Theme: HOPE

(All Services begin at 10:30 am unless otherwise noted)

Date: December 1, 2024

Topic: Living in Harmony

Speaker: Daniel Pretz

People often report a desire to live in harmony, but they do not often consider the nature of harmony or what it might be to live within it. Musicians hear and respond to harmony in many of the same ways that non-musicians do, but musicians understand harmony differently. For a musician, harmony appears as a relationship between consonance and dissonance, a push-and-pull between tension and resolution. For a musician, harmony does not present as a stable state that can be achieved, but instead as a dynamic event which is spread across time, and which is defined by both the past and the future – by what came before and what comes after. By further examining the question of living in harmony, and by identifying our abilities and responsibilities as artists within that world, we may find a useful framework for approaching matters of tension, dissonance, discord, and conflict and engaging with them as tools for making meaning and creating beauty in our lives.”

Date: December 8, 2024

Topic: What to Expect When You’re Expecting (Advent)

Speaker: Rev. Kimberley Debus

December is a typically a time of anticipation and expectation – what does it mean to wait in these anxious times? Sometimes the waiting is good, but sometimes it’s difficult. Together we’ll explore what it means to wait and dwell in possibility.

Date: December 15, 2024

Topic: Hope as a Mosaic

Speaker: Brenna Clanton

If you were to design a mosaic of hope, what would you put in it? Would you frame it with something special, like love? In Active Hope, Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone invite us to create our own mosaic of hope, “identifying the outcomes we hope for and then playing a role in moving toward them.” Join Brenna Clanton, as she weaves the art of mosaic with the concept of active hope..

Date: December 22, 2024

Topic:  The Longest Night

Speaker: Rev. Kimberley Debus

We will explore the lessons and gifts from the long nights of the winter solstice, and what this time of year can teach us about hope, love, and community.

Date: December 24, 2024

Topic:  Christmas Eve in Word and Song

Speaker: Rev. Kimberley Debus

NOTE TIME OF EVENT:  4:00 pm

Join us as we gather to welcome in hope through story, song, and candlelight.

Date: December 29, 2024

Topic:  Hanukkah

Speakers: Alan Bogage & Sherry Dean

Join CUU members Alan Bogage and Sherry Dean in a celebration of Hanukkah on this sixth day of the Festival of Lights.