It’s so exciting to see that a Muslim woman may soon be off to Congress.  Please see this article about Rashida Tlaib from Democracy Now!

Hajj, or making a pilgrimage to Mecca, is one of the five pillars of Islam, and the culminating date of Hajj happens to be this Sunday, when we will be so fortunate to welcome Esma Ali to our pulpit.  Esma recently took the once-in-a-lifetime Hajj herself with her family.  It was quite an adventure and she will share her experiences with us with a PowerPoint presentation.

If you are interested in learning about the meaning behind the Hajj or the very interesting history of Mecca and Islam, I found this Vox article to be fairly informative (if a little flip).

This will be quite a weekend at UUCSC!  I hope many of you can make the End of Summer Family Fun Day this Saturday that is open to all ages.  And until Jason came along, I had no idea there was a Museum of Jurassic Technology, nor Clifton’s Cafeteria!  I am attending a colleague’s ministry blessing ceremony that day (congrats to KC Slack, who leads a UU ministry for queer young people in LA), but I hope to join you at the dinner at Clifton’s.  It sounds amazing.

It’s so great working with Jason and I am eager for my children to experience all the gifts he is bringing to our Religious Exploration program.  Online registration is now open for the coming year for your children and youth.  Information and the registration form are available here.  This is an exciting time of year, when summer is coming to an end and the academic calendar is getting underway.

This fall, we are hoping to continue the tradition of a Water Communion for “Welcome Back Sunday” on September 9.  Be thinking of what water you want to bring from your travels, or water from your faucet that can symbolize a place you went this summer if you were not able to remember to collect it this year. Sometimes it takes a few years to get back in the habit of remembering!

See you in church,

Rev. Hannah