By Leslie Brussel-Smith, Religious Exploration Coordinator
As many of you may be aware, Westside UU has re-started Religious Exploration (RE) classes for children. At this time, class will be multi-age and held once a month during the worship service on the first Sunday of the month. Other Sundays will have child care available during service for those who wish to use that. We do need more people who would like to hang out and have fun with the children for a Sunday morning or two. If you are interested in doing that please let me know.
I have been given the opportunity and honor to restart this program so I thought I would tell you about my background in UU RE and let you know what we will be doing in class over the next few months.
Although I was trained as an educator, I did not end up doing that as my career. However, when I had young children of my own, I joined a Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in my neighborhood and I found a place to teach. Over the next 35+ years I volunteered in the RE program as a teacher, youth adviser, sexuality education facilitator, Director of RE and RE Committee member and chair. There was much learning, laughing and making friends during those times and I look forward to more of those experiences here at Westside RE.
While I was thinking about a curriculum for a class that would meet only once a month, and was scheduled to start around New Year’s, I found an interesting children’s book called “Every Month Is A New Year” by Marilyn Singer and Susan L Roth. I learned that almost every month has a special celebration of “newness” and rebirth around the world. I thought this might be a fun way to learn about how people around the world live and celebrate the new year in secular, religious or combined traditions.
The weather prevented us from celebrating the New Year of the Gregorian Calendar on January 1st but on the first Sunday of February we learned about Chinese New Year and on the first Sunday of March we will learn about Nowruz (Persian New Year) which marks the vernal equinox, or first day of spring.
There is more learning and celebrating to come. Happy New Year!
Leslie Brussel-Smith
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