UU Grass Valley On the Go!

Many of us were taught to be cautious of strangers. As we go about our day, we usually interact with family, friends and coworkers. These relationships can help us feel cared for and connected. But what if there’s a whole category of people in our lives whose impact is overlooked? What if these interactions hold a key for current times? 

Rev. Kevin Tarsa

with Gail Johnson Vaughan, Worship Associate

Erik Walker Wikstrum writes, “Common wisdom holds that people come to church for a sense of belonging, and that getting involved with a committee or task force is a great way to meet people and feel more connected.” But what if we come for an even deeper reason, he asks: “to have our lives transformed.” What if we understood our participation in the life of this community as a key source of spiritual sustenance, and a source of deep joy? 

Picking up on the themes of the previous Sunday’s service, we ask more deeply why it matters that UUCM is here, why being part of such a community matters now in particular, and what the upward movement of energy, interest, and number of searchers at our doors is asking of us, teaching us, and gifting us. 

It's time to put together all the learning we've done about ourselves and start using it to dig into tough topics. Rev. Kevin took time at a recent service to open the conversation about the conflict in Gaza and our spiritual call to find both clarity and complexity.

Rev. Kevin Tarsa with Sophia McKean, Worship Associate

Enneagram Series - Type Nine (9): Our final Enneagram type, the Nine, the Peacemaker, is the part of us that is driven to seek inner and outer peace for ourselves and others. This is also the part of us that embodies the fundamental challenge of all spiritual or inner work – being awake rather than asleep to our true nature. Whew. Sounds exhausting. At least to a Nine. Maybe I’ll sleep just a little bit longer.

Rev. Kevin Tarsa with Lindsay Dunckel, Worship Associate

Enneagram Series - Type Five (5): Our year-long look into aspects of our personalities is meant, in part, to strengthen our ability to live the pluralism our tradition claims as important. We begin this month’s pluralism theme with a dive into Fiveness. The head-centered “Investigator” is the part of us that wants to find out why things are the way they are and to understand how the world works – always searching, asking questions, and testing truth for ourselves. Sounds like many a Unitarian Universalist.

Rev. Kevin Tarsa with Randy McKean, Worship Associate

Enneagram Series - Type Seven (7): Sometimes the fun-loving, spontaneous, high-energy, upbeat, enthusiastic part of us is exactly these things. And sometimes these are ways to cope, ways to avoid feeling a deep pain beneath the surface. It is no accident that the Laugh Factory in Hollywood has a Psychologist-in-Residence for its comedians. This Sunday, we look into the Enneagram 7 – the Enthusiast - in all of us.

Rev. Kevin Tarsa with Randy McKean, Worship Associate

The Four in us (Enneagram-speak again), the Individualist, is the deeply feeling part of us that sees our self as fundamentally different from others. In our search for our own clear identity, this sense of uniqueness sometimes anchors us and sometimes leads us to feel perpetually misunderstood, or that something is missing or deficient in us. At heart, this is our search for significance, a journey we travel as individuals in community.

Rev. Kevin Tarsa with Beth Karow, Worship Associate

The Enneagram 2-ness in us (The Helper, the Altruist, The Lover) is the part of us that longs to be loved, and loved for exactly who we are. This can be the part of us that is most genuinely and generously helpful to other people or, sometimes, the part of us that is most highly invested in seeing ourselves as helpful. In our pursuit of justice and equity – and in so many other areas of our lives – we and those around us benefit when we’re able to know and notice the difference.

Rev. Kevin Tarsa with Worship Associate, Gail Johnson Vaughan

Enneagram Series: Type Three (3)

The Three-ness in each of us (in Enneagram-speak) responds to our learned tendency to base our value on what we do or achieve or how we appear. Our UU values call us to recognize and honor the inherent goodness and value of every person, including each other, and including ourselves. Sounds a lot like love. Maybe even liberating love.  

Rev. Kevin with Sophia McKean, Worship Associate