Category: Recent News

The monthly e-newsletter selects about 5 news posts with this category. Priorities are news relevant to a wide number of people and especially of interest to visitors or new folk.

Bryan Gick

•

Bryan Gick is a member of our congregation. Professor and Head of the UBC Linguistics Department, a Senior Scientist at Yale’s Haskins Laboratories, and a recently named Guggenheim Fellow. 

Author of over 100 published articles and author/editor of several books, including The Oneida Creation Story, Gick’s research spans fields from neuroscience to philosophy, pediatrics to electrical engineering, with the goal of understanding how human bodies and brains create spoken communication.

Degrees of Freedom Worship Service

 

John Voth’s Art Show at Enigma Restaurant – Artist Statement

•

John Voth’s

Exposed:  The Inner Beauty of Wood

now on exhibit at Enigma Restaurant

Around eight years old, in Northern Saskatchewan, came my earliest inspirations:  wind-carved snow sculptures were endlessly fascinating, and Jack Frost painted ever-changing scenes that kept building on our windows.  I had no concept of anything called “art.”  Spring brought further delights, and my imagination had a field day with the myriad forms leaves suggested.  Seasonal changes of clouds and northern lights completed the picture. When I was twelve, we moved from the northern hinterland to the “metropolis” of Lethbridge, Alberta.  I was blown away.  There I saw my first movie:  wow!

World War II, work, and survival took over.  Then an exploration trip to Vancouver resulted in my marriage with Lesia:  we have celebrated our 67th anniversary.  By the mid-60s, after I finished my degree in Education, I finally had some time for artistic endeavours.

One of my first sculptures, Beginnings, sits outside the south end of the Unitarian Church of Vancouver.  “How did the human species evolve?” was my question.  Tools!  Opposing digits were key to manipulating tools, hence my stylized homage to the opposable thumb.  Three-dimensional art-forms intrigue me.

I retired early from teaching, and quickly moved on to other projects:  while ripping out old cabinets during remodelling – yet another passion – I saw the beauty within the ruptured plywood.  In 1988, I developed a new technique of sculpting plywood:  I made 6-inch wide chisels from discarded whole-log chipper knives, which I use to expose the interior layers of 7-ply plywood.  I use acrylics to stain and further enhance the wood’s organic beauty.  Never before has the inner beauty of wood been exposed like this!

Approximately fifteen years ago, my wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease:  I did not have time to continue with art.  However, now I have much help, so am free to allow my creative juices to flow once again!

Enigma Restaurant presents

Exposed: The Inner Beauty of Wood

by John Voth

now on exhibit through September

reservations:  604-222-6881         4397 West 10th Avenue
info@enigmavancouver.com                    Vancouver, B.C.

Mon – Thurs: 11 AM – 10 PM
Fri:  11 AM – Late
Sat:  10AM – Late
Sun: 10AM – 10PM

Canadian UU National News – July 2017

•

CUC Vision Contest

In 2016 the CUC approved a new statement of vision and aspirations. Now the CUC is sponsoring a sermon-writing contest and an art contest to highlight these new statements. There are three age categories for art submissions and prizes for winners in both sermon and art contests. Deadline for submissions: 1 Feb 2018. For more info contact vision@cuc.ca .

As Canadian Unitarian Universalists,
we envision a future in which our interdependence calls us to love and justice. (more…)

Civil Liberties + Potluck

•

Come and enjoy a hyggelei (cosy) potluck dinner with a few other Unitarian church members and friends at the home of Melody Mason (in Kitsilano) this coming Thursday, June 29th. RSVP to ucvhygge@gmail.com

Space is limited. Learn more about hygge dinners.

The evening will include a salon-style discussion about civil liberties.

Melody is on the board of the BC Civil Liberties Association. She’s concerned about, among other things, collection and retention of data by governmental agencies, the state of our prison system and privacy issues especially as it relates to the internet.

She’s interested in both sharing her own knowledge including BCCLA’s stance on these issues and also hearing from you about your take on these important issues and how UCV can engage with these issues.

The BCCLA’s policy director, Michael Vonn, has spoken at UCV Forums including the assisted dying issue.

BCCLA’s current priorities are working on solitary confinement, reforming the assisted dying act and data privacy and retention of data by government agencies. Also an issue Melody feels would be of interest to you is Anti-SLAPP legislation. Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (“SLAPPs”) are when Big Resources (private or public sector) sue Little Resources (individuals, non-profit organizations) in order to silence them.

You can learn more about the work of BCCLA at https://bccla.org/

Michael Vonn, policy director, has been in the news over the past couple of days about Bill C-24. https://bccla.org/2017/06/extraordinary-victory-citizenship-equality/

Melody feels Unitarians will be interested in the work of BCCLA in protecting ciil rights and hopes we might support some of the issues through actions such as letter writing to senators and members of parliament.

Come and discuss. It’ll be an interesting evening!

Melody is on the Environment Committee and ushers on the first Sunday of every month.

You can hear Michael Vonn on CBC IDEAS in the afternoon next Monday.

Monday, June 26
POLICING: OLD COPS, NEW EXPECTATIONS Counter-terrorism, fighting cybercrime, policing highly diverse societies:

Can the police do it all? Should the police do it all? Do the police want to do it all? Cal Corley, CEO of the Community Safety Knowledge Alliance, and former Assistant Commissioner with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; Inspector Shawna Coxon, Toronto Police Service; Micheal Vonn, Policy Director, B.C. Civil Liberties Association; and moderator Ron Levi, Director of the Munk School’s Global Justice Lab, weigh the implications, the challenges and the trade-offs for the police, for justice and for all of us.

 

Summertime and Children’s Program

•

June 25 is the last day for the planned Children’s program until September 17.
 
Note: child care continues over summer. Some small group activities may be planned by parents and RE teachers.

Art Exhibits – May, June, July 2017

•

May 14 – July 5  – Water, Water, Everywhere

Vancouver Sketch Club

We have chosen the theme to reflect on how precious this resource is. Water slakes thirst, nurtures, replenishes. Water can be churned into a storm, harnessed for energy or allowed to float placidly. Flora and fauna need water for survival and enhancement. Water can also be destroyed by careless action. We have a varied selection of paintings which represent this life force.

Paintings are for sale

If you see a painting you would like to purchase, please contact the artist directly or at the following email: vansketchclub@gmail.com

For more information about the club, visit our website at www.myartclub.com/the.vancouver.sketch.club

July 5 – 31 –  Through My Eyes

Derek Lamarque

Digital art prints and lino cuts inspired by figures, faces, colour and the environment.

Labyrinth Update – April, 2017

•

Labyrinth photos April 2017

Labyrinth: April 29, 2017 Photo: Gail Stephan
Labyrinth: April 29, 2017 Photo: Gail Stephan
The Courtyard Labyrinth is made in this pattern. A 3-circuit Cretan square style. The entrance is by the central doors in Hewett Centre.

 

April 16 – Third Sunday Book Group

•

Roseanne McNulty is a long-time resident of a regional mental hospital set for demolition. Her chronicle is the main part of The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry. Barry’s prose is lyrical, full of fresh, salty metaphors and images both barren and brimming with life.

Presenter: Rob Dainow

Keith Wilkinson

•

Keith joined our congregation in 1998 after a period of limited religious affiliations that never quite fit. He had an introverted spiritual inclination, a prairie farm background that made him feel close to the earth, and an interdisciplinary academic background in educational psychology, anthropology and linguistics and lots of international travel that brought him into contact with various world religions. He adhered to Judaism for a while, but it didn’t resonate with his own childhood experience of the transcendent. UU was a much more comfortable fit.

Much of Keith’s working life was committed to administration in post-secondary education, health care, justice and public safety. At UCV he joined the Worship Services Committee, and then the Board – first as Treasurer and eventually as President. Subsequently he provided volunteer support and leadership in human resources, communications, covenant groups, and most recently the UCV Membership Committee.

Keith was elected to the board of the Canadian Unitarian Council (CUC) in 2015 and served as President of the CUC in 2016 and 2017. The CUC provides another level of UU community working nationally and globally, linked to the Vancouver community through our Bylaws, and linked philosophically through a shared vision of a world in which our interdependence calls us to love and justice.

Keith has been trying to focus his attention in recent days and years on being a better partner, appreciating the good fortunes of his life, contributing as best he can to reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous people living in Canada, trying to become more skillful in mindfulness and compassionate communications, supporting sustainable energy initiatives, staying physically active (skiing, walking, cycling, gym, walking the dog), pondering mortality, and, in the background, continuing his oldest passion and spiritual practice, writing poetry.