This Sunday, July 20, the Pagosa Unitarian Universalist (UU) Fellowship will hear the message of “Turning Inward to Expand our Welcome.”
Our speaker, Anna Royer, formerly of Pagosa Springs, will visit from Durango and speaks not as an expert, but as a fellow spiritual traveler committed to social justice and the inherent worth and dignity of every person.
She has lived in southwest Colorado for 20 years, supporting youth as a professional social worker and as a volunteer in school, nonprofit and UU congregational settings. This role includes the recurring privilege of listening to youth share their authentic selves, and she honors them as her primary teachers in learning about diverse gender identities.
Royer holds the question, how do we do the internal work necessary to create welcoming spaces for people who hold transgender, nonbinary and gender expansive identities?
Creating the beloved community is work that is both individual and collective, and both inward and outward facing. Let’s build on the public, celebratory work of Pride Month by turning inward to question our own assumptions, stereotypes and implicit bias.
As a cisgender woman striving to be an ally, Royer will share personal stories of learning about diverse gender identities, ways we can educate ourselves and hold ourselves accountable to creating welcoming community, and draw connections between this work and the UU values of interdependence, pluralism, justice, transformation, generosity and equity.
The Pagosa UU Fellowship is located at Unit B-15 of the Greenbriar Plaza, 301 N. Pagosa Blvd., on the north side facing the Pagosa Peak.
Our Sunday services begin at 10:30 a.m. We also offer Zoom services the first and third Sundays of the month. Find our current newsletter at PagosaUU.org for the link to join, and to find our current programs.
Our fellowship community is committed to lifelong learning and growing as we place love at the center of the set of shared values. Come to explore your own spiritual leanings in a community of fellow seekers on this life journey.
The guided meditation group is continuing and at a new time — Sunday evenings beginning at 7 p.m.
These are simple yet profound and beautiful practices based on cultivating the Four Immeasurables (love, compassion, joy and equanimity), and include calm-abiding, tonglen and mantra practices, and followed by a short dharma talk and discussion.
This is a great way to end one week and prepare to begin another. Newcomers are always welcome, as those more experienced deepen their practice. Please bring your favorite cookies to share over tea. Come regularly to deepen your practice. Attending group practice will also encourage, support and reinforce your daily home practice.
Can’t make it out? There is a Zoom option, and we encourage you to email the Pagosa UU Fellowship at info@pagosauu.org to get on the list for the link to join.
Instructor Dan Dempster is a certified meditation instructor and authorized dharma teacher, for over 18 years a student of Khenpo Migmar Tseten, Buddhist chaplain at Harvard University.
>