No matter who you are, or where you are on life's journey, you are welcome here at University Congregational United Church of Christ. Young, old, sure of your path, or still searching --- we invite you to join us in imagining love and justice - as Jesus did - in acting to change the world.
Our in-person worship service starts at 10 am and includes hymns, prayers, scripture reading and a sermon. It usually lasts about an hour and fifteen minute.. During the 10 am service we also offer live-streaming to a nearby room that offers those with compromised immune systems to be more isolated. We also offer a separate space for children, with supervised play and crafts during the 10 am service. Sections of the 10 am service are programed into the 5 pm digital service, which is offered as a "vespers."
We are an inter-generational church and strive to be family-friendly, with an active ministry for children and youth. All ages are welcome in worship. We also offer nursery and child-care, Younger children begin the 10 am service with us and usually leave after about 15 minutes. Older children have the option of leaving for a special sermon time. Junior high and high school youth meet at 9 am and then often sit together in worship. Give us a call at 206-524-2322 for more specifics or email 
Wheelchair Access: The front entry is wheelchair accessible as are the rest rooms. Please don't hesitate to ask for assistance.
On Monday, April 8th the moon over-shadows the light and if you are in the Path of Totality, darkness comes over the land. A total eclipse of the sun. Why are people excited about this? Aren’t we always saying things like, “I’m holding you in the Light,” and “Go toward the Light,”?” Who says, “Have fun in the darkness and shadows?”
Is there is a gift in losing the light? In the dark circle of the waning sun there is so much possibility. Perhaps it can be the death of the past.
The last eclipse I saw was in 2019. Seattle was not directly in the path, but close enough. All our neighbors were out in the street. Some of us had proper eclipse sunglasses, others had pinhole contraptions that you wore on your head. But all of us were excited.
We waited. And waited. And like many things it happened slowly, gradually and then all at once. The light dimmed. The shadows were unusual. The spaces between the leaves of my Japanese maple acted like a pinhole box and made many moons on my neighbor’s truck. We chattered like hungry squirrels when we first arrived, but as the light faded, so did we. A silence settled over the street and the unspoken neighborly grudges dimmed as well. Must you always park your truck on the street when you have so much room in your own driveway? The darkness was a blanket of forgiveness.
We all have had eclipses in our own lives, when it feels as if we are in the Path of Totality. The Light fades and seems to disappear without any promise of return. What do we do in those times? Can we embrace the cool darkness and allow it to work within us, trusting that it will heal us? Can we allow forgiveness to settle over us?
It is such a moment of uncertainty. This is the fear-filled rolling away of the stone, with the hope that we find not a stinking corpse, but a spacious peace. And not just a hollow space, but a place of infinite creativity.
We are not the first to experience pain. Our individual pain joins the pain of others around the world. The pain of Jesus’s betrayal; of Mary at the death of her son. This is the spiritual challenge or self-emptying which paradoxically doesn’t make us feel more alone but instead connects us to a greater whole.
All of us have been or will be in the Path of Totality–no one is exempt from suffering. Suffering causes our focus to turn inward, to face those parts of ourselves we might otherwise ignore. A personal eclipse can feel like the exquisite pain of skilled surgeon’s scalpel, cutting away the dead or injured tissue. We will never be the same. But we will be.
We will BE.
I was directly in the path of a complete solar eclipse on August 11, 1999. We were in France, standing in the ruins of a Maltese church when the sun dimmed, the air cooled, and the birds stopped singing. An entire field of sunflowers bowed their heads. Someone whispered, “They look depressed.”
I whispered back, “No, they are praying. They understand the power of this moment.”
The light slowly returned. The world appeared as it was, but we were not the same.
So many people seek to experience this transformative moment. Catherine Foote is on a road trip with her sister, going all the way to Texas to experience the eclipse. I will be in an airplane somewhere between Seattle and Philadelphia . Will the flight pause just as birds stop singing? Your post makes me question what in nature inspires me to reconsider my place in the natural world. Sometimes it is good to feel our smallness in the universe.
For the eclipse of February 26, 1979 I was in Olympia in my parents’ home getting ready to go to a funeral. My dad was excited about the eclipse. What I remember as the birds in the tree outside twittering in surprise.