July at Spirit of Life UU

Posted on by tmw2010

Deep into the heart of summer, with Tropical Storm Elsa paving a watery path our way, we’re grateful that we can continue to meet online for fellowship, friendship and the insights of our great speakers. Services are held virtually via Zoom every Sunday at 11am until September. Email spiritolifeuu@gmail.com for the link.

If you missed our June services, you missed some great speakers and messages. Check them out here:

You can find a digital library of all of most of our services at our Sermon Library page.

July Sermons

This month, our sermon presenters are:

  • July 4th – ” How can America be saved in the 21st century?” by Rev. Bob Murphy
  • July 11th – Tobi Weisbond
  • July 18th – “Why Not Everyone?” by Roddy Biggs
  • July 25th – Rev. Patrick Munsell

Share the Plate for July: Tampa Bay Refugee Task Force

Share the Plate for July is Supplies for Refugee Children in conjunction with The Tampa Bay Refugee Task Force for children in our area from Venezuela, Syria, the Congo, Cuba, and other countries. Tampa Bay Refugee Task Force is a local group of providers that meet quarter to discuss current trends with the goal of improving services provided.

You can designate your Share the Plate charity contributions to the Tampa Bay Refugee Task Force by including an additional donation with your pledge contributions, and including a note about your allocation.

Parish Life

Let’s take a look at what’s been happening around our the Spirit of Life UU campus. The Sandbarr Youth Volleyball League is now playing Monday – Friday evenings on the sand volleyball courts they built. We are welcome to use the courts when the league is not playing. So anyone up for a friendly and quite likely slow game of sand volleyball… at least until we get some practice in!

We have a new renter for August: Essential You Yoga. They are the first renter to book our new fire pit.

We continue to populate our community garden with new plants. We now have three types of bananas, two fig trees, three grape vines (& one already has a cluster of grapes), several types of elephant ears (for the tortoise to munch), several dragon fruit plants, and a host of other perennial plants that will be growing and producing edible delights in the garden for years to come.

In last month’s Lifelines, Diana explained how the board had addressed our reopening in September. We are still planning to resume services outside in the pavilion with everyone masked – yes, even if you’re vaccinated. Coffee hour will also be held on the pavilion as well. We’ll be asking that only store bought food be shared and paper plates be used. The Program Directors are working through the technical details for conducting multi-platform services where you can either attend in person, or you can continue to Zoom in from the comfort of your home, car, boat or just about anywhere!

The homeschool co-op, THINK, will be returning to host their Monday classes in the Fall.
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By now you may have heard of the 8th Principle that is being discussed this week at General Assembly. No voting is being done this year as its adoption will be a two year process. The board decided to hold off on any actions toward it until our Diversity Task force can address it and provide their input. The Cluster will be discussing it in future meetings as well. If you haven’t looked into it please take a moment to check it out. There’s lots of information available at UUA.org. Just search for “8th Principle” .

About Spirit of Life Unitarian Universalists

Spirit of Life Unitarian Universalists is covenantal and eclectic faith community located in Odessa, FL that welcomes seekers from all spiritual, theological and philosophical backgrounds who wish to join in a free, rational and responsible search for truth and meaning in their lives.

Please join us remotely each Sunday at 11am until we can join together in health and safety once more, later this year.