Monday, September 24th, 6 p.m. — HUUB: Building Solidarity Potluck
Monday, September 24th, 6 p.m. — HUUB: Building Solidarity Potluck
We will be catching up after the summer off, creating a fall community calendar, and making art with HUUB Fellow Stephen Batiz. Please bring a dish to share. Please bring a dish to share! The Facebook page can be found here.
Sunday, September 30th, 5 p.m. — FAITH + WORKS: Joseph Thomasberger Community Fellows
The HUUB at the First UU of Essex has initiated a vibrant program that encourages young people to make a difference in Orange. This program will be named to honor the urban ministry work of the late Rev. Joseph J Thomasberger. Becky Doggett, Joe’s life partner and activist partner, will start the conversation about Joe and his work. She would also like those attending to add their experiences. Facebook event page can be found here.
Sunday, October 21st, 5 pm. — FAITH+WORKS: Jared “J-Read” Fontaine, “Holding on and Letting Go”
Jared “J-Read” Fontaine, a Newark NJ native, is a young, independent hip hop artist who transcends rap music. Raised on an eclectic collection of artists like Regina Carter and Stevie Wonder to Mos Def and Jadakiss, J-Read offers a wide range of variety in his music and expression. He is a lead teaching artist with Sonic Explorations, a daily, free music education program in Orange NJ that focuses on cultivating students creative engagement with sound and music, and is also director of HiCalLife, a lifestyle brand dedicated to the economic, social, and cultural evolution of the urban community through art, entertainment, education, and media.
https://www.facebook.com/events/2128247267226412/
Monday, October 22nd, 6 pm — Building Solidarity Potluck
We’ll meet the class of Urban Sociology students from Drew University who have been working with us in Orange, we’ll make art, and we’ll relax with our good food and good neighbors. Please bring a dish to share.
https://www.facebook.com/events/328241847922787/
Sunday, November 4th, 2018 — FAITH+WORKS — Maughn Rollins Gregory
Maughn Rollins Gregory is Professor of Educational Foundations at Montclair State University (USA), where he succeeded Matthew Lipman as the director of the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children in 2001 (www.montclair.edu/iapc). He holds a JD and a PhD in philosophy. He publishes and teaches in the areas of philosophy of education, Philosophy for Children, pragmatism, gender, Socratic pedagogy and contemplative pedagogy. He is co-editor of the Routledge International Handbook of Philosophy for Children (Routledge 2018) and has edited a number of special journal issues on Philosophy for Children.
https://www.facebook.com/event
Monday, November 19, 2018, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. -- HUUB Building Solidarity Potluck
This month we will have poetry and art to help us reflect on what we are thankful for. Please bring a dish to share.
Sunday, December 16, 2018, 5 p.m. — FAITH + WORKS — Molly Rose Kaufman
Presenter Molly Rose Kaufman is a community planner, journalist and youth worker. Her writing has appeared in YES! Magazine, Kinfolk Magazine and the New York Times. As a community organizer in Orange, NJ, she co-founded the University of Orange, a free people’s university, worked with residents and planners to write the Heart of Orange plan and co-developed ORNG Ink, a youth-led, user driven arts collective. She has a BA from Hampshire College, an MS in journalism from Columbia University and was a 2016 Civic Liberal Arts Fellow at the New School. She currently serves as the University of Orange Provost & Program Director and is a Listening Consultant at HUUB.
During the service we will pause to remember recently passed members Cindy Long, Jean Sandow and Harold Mills. After the service, we will hold a holiday dinner in the Parish Hall.
Monday, December 17, 2018, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. — HUUB Building Solidarity Potluck
We will be decorating cookies for the holidays and reflecting on the past year. Please bring a dish to share.
Monday, January 14, 2019, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. -- HUUB Building Solidarity Potluck
Sunday, January 20, 2019, 5 p.m. -- FAITH + WORKS -- "Observing 400 Years of Inequality." -- Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove.
2019 marks 400 years since in the first Africans landed at Jamestown to be sold into bondage. First UU will join thousands of organizations observing this solemn occasion that has affected our nation's history so deeply. Join us for a look back and a look forward. Mindy Thompson Fullilove, MD, LFAPA, Hon AIA, is a professor of urban policy and health at The New School. Prior to joining The New School in 2016, she worked for 26 years as a research psychiatrist at New York State Psychiatric Institute and was a professor of clinical psychiatry and public health at Columbia University. She has conducted research on AIDS and other epidemics of poor communities, with a special interest in the relationship between the collapse of communities and decline in health. From her research, she has published numerous articles, book chapters, and monographs. She has also written: The House of Joshua: Meditations on Family and Place, Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America and What We Can Do About It, and Urban Alchemy: Restoring Joy in America’s Sorted-Out Cities. A third edition of Homeboy Came to Orange: A Story of People's Power, which she helped her father, Ernest Thompson, write, was released in May 2018 by New Village Press.
Sunday, February 10, 5 p.m. — FAITH + WORKS — Homecoming — Speakers: Rev. Darrell Berger & Rev. Gordon Clay Bailey
The First UU is delighted to welcome home two of our former ministers, Darrell Berger and Gordon Bailey. In keeping with our new Faith + Works format, these beloved ministers will share their own faith journeys and the ways in which these have influenced their works. While serving at First UU, Darrell and Gordon realized that our congregation was nearing the “end” of the parish ministry we’d had for 125 years. From their wealth of faith and ministerial experience, they asked us to face this unhappy truth. With their help, we invented The HUUB and dedicated ourselves to service in Orange, NJ. We look forward to learning where their journeys have taken them and what they’ve learned along the way.
Born in Toledo OH, Rev. Darrell Berger was educated at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN and ordained to the Unitarian Universalist ministry in 1974. He served congregations in NC, MA, and NYC. He served First UU from 2007-13. His special interests have been with social justice and historic preservation. A sports fan, he has written two books with former major league baseball players. He lives in the Poconos with his wife, Kathleen Lyon, a psychiatrist in private practice, Violet the Corgi and Milo the old skinny cat.
Rev. Gordon Clay Bailey graduated from DC University with a dual BA in
Anthropology and Sociology. He earned his M.Div. , specializing in Urban Ministry from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. He has served at UU congregations in CA, NY & DC. He served First UU from 2014-15. A Board-Certified Clinical Chaplain and Pastoral Counselor with the College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy, he is seeking Diplomate status with that organization. He is also a candidate at the Harlem Family Institute for certification in Psychotherapy. He is married to Lisa Stiffler Bailey and they have four children (Jennifer, Devin, Ethan, and Darien) and one granddaughter (Kai). The Baileys currently reside in NYC.
Monday, February 18, 6 PM – Building Solidarity Potluck
For Black History Month, Dr. Margaux Simmons and Doug Farrand of the University of Orange Music Department will lead us in a music activity, and we will reflect on ways that we contribute to inequality in our communities, and how we can shift our perspectives and actions. One change that we have decided to make at the HUUB is to use fewer disposable items at potlucks. Creating less waste is better for the health of our environments, ourselves, and our wallets! Is there anything else you would like to see happen in the HUUB’s kitchen? Please bring your ideas and a dish to share on Monday!
Thursday, February 28th, 6:00 pm – Syria Supper Club — HUUB and University of Orange
The food will be prepared by Syrian refugees being helped in their resettlement by the United Tastes of America outreach. It will be wonderful, as will the fellowship! Please join us! Please share with your friends and neighbors, who might like good food, at great prices, in support of a good cause! Here’s the link to sign up — tickets are priced $0-$100, so everyone can pay what they can afford: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4078533
Sunday, March 17th, 5 PM to 7 PM — FAITH+WORKS: “Becoming Social Artists in Uncertain Times” – Angel Acosta
Drawing on her work in the human capabilities movement, Jean Houston explores the idea of social artistry. This Faith + Works thinks through issues of faith, justice and education through the vantage point of social artists. At their core, social artists are paradigm pioneers and facilitators of transformation. They are involved and invested in contributing to change and societal shifts. With our current ecological crises and technological innovations, social artistry might inform how we can reframe the present moment. Through personal stories and insights, this talk will invite participants to imagine the possibilities of living our lives as works of art.
For the last decade, Angel Acosta has worked in the field of education with a particular focus on college access, social justice and mindfulness. He is currently finishing a doctorate degree in the Department for Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University. He studied anthropology and leadership at SUNY Plattsburgh at the undergraduate and graduate level. His academic research focuses the potential relationship(s) between contemplative practices, critical pedagogy and healing-centered education. https://www.facebook.com/events/412760822813932/
Monday, March 18th, 6 PM – HUUB Building Solidarity Potluck
HUUB Fellows Ray Sykes and Cesar Presa will perform previews for their upcoming shows, Dr Margaux Simmons from UofO will lead us in a song, we will prepare for next month’s potluck during passover, and more! Please bring a dish to share. Doors open at 5:30 PM.
Monday, April 22nd, 6:00 PM — Annual Church Seder and Potluck — in the Parish Hall.
Good company, good food, and music are all part of the festivities as we come together to observe the Jewish Holiday of Passover, and the freedom for all peoples that it celebrates. Bring friends. Families and children especially welcome. We will be keeping kosher. So, if you wish to bring a dish, please make sure it meets this need. If you have any questions, please contact Molly Kaufman at molly.rose.kaufman@gmail.com or 917-664-6335. This will be a FAITH+WORKS service.
Monday, May 13th, 6 PM - Building Solidarity Potluck
Sunday, June 2nd, 2:00 PM — Flower Communion
In this new iteration of Dr. Capek’s idea, we encourage everyone to join us this day to bring and plant flowers on the beautiful border of our new walkway! Please gather in the Parish Hall for a brief ceremony before proceeding to the front lawn. Please dress comfortably and bring a trowel, if you have one! Donations of plantings welcomed (perennials preferred!)
Sunday, June 2nd, 4:00 PM — FAITH + WORKS service — “Active Hope”
The service title — Active Hope — is taken from the 2012 book by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone. The complete title of the book is Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re In Without Going Crazy and you are highly encouraged to add this to your summer reading list! As the authors state in their introduction “We can no longer take it for granted that the resources we’re dependent on — food, fuel, and drinkable water — will be available. We can no longer take it for granted even that our civilization will survive or that conditions on our planet will remain hospitable for complex forms of life.” The book tackles the question of how does one not feel completely overwhelmed by that reality? This service will explore how the understanding three narratives (Business As Usual, The Great Unraveling, and The Great Awakening) might help answer that question in a way that can resonate here in this community at this time.
Charles Loflin was born and raised in Yazoo City, MS. Although his family was religiously unaffiliated, he attended a Southern Baptist church and was very active through high school. Feeling a call to ministry, he attended Mississippi College (a Southern Baptist affiliated school) and earned a degree in Religion and a minor in Communications/Theatre Studies. Charles served as a minister for a small congregation in rural Mississippi, and had planned to attend seminary after college but found himself increasingly uncomfortable with the theological and political leanings of evangelical Christianity. He embarked instead on a career in the arts and earned a MFA in Acting from the University of Louisville, Kentucky. He moved to New York City where he split his time working as an actor/director/producer and paying the bills by working in the field of technology as a programmer and developer. He and his family moved to New Jersey in 2001. Charles “discovered” Unitarian Universalism sometime around 2008 and found the religious home that spoke to his values, politics, and theology and has been an active member of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Montclair. In 2018, feeling a persistent sense of call, Charles began pursuing a Master of Divinity degree from Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago. As part of his first year Community Studies, Charles served as intern here at the HUUB @ First UU Essex. This summer he will be fulfilling his CPE requirement at Robert Wood Johnson Hospital in New Brunswick and will begin a two-year congregational internship at the Morristown Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in the fall. He’s on track to graduate in May of 2021. He lives in Montclair with his amazing wife and together they have three children — Connor, Morgan, and Lauren — too many cats and an English bulldog named Rose. https://www.facebook.com/events/369795830324989/
Sunday, June 2nd, 5:00 PM — ANNUAL MEETING