First Universalist Church of Denver   

Mah Jongg is an ancient Chinese game that has been played in the American version since the 1900s. It's played with 4 people and is similar to Gin Rummy. It's a fun, complex game that is very challenging and interesting. This is a game of strategy, defense, and knowledge of the game. It's also 50% skill and 50% luck. The National Mah Jongg League creates a card with hands that can be played. These hands change every year. There are also categories of hands that do not change. A current card will be provided for each participant at the first class. This will be yours to keep. Elaine will provide handouts to help you learn quickly. The class will be taught in a progressive manner. Class members are STRONGLY encouraged to attend every class when able since it's difficult to "catch up" on what was taught and discussed in the previous week. The game is easy to learn if you're having a good time. Warning! This game is ADDICTIVE, you will LOVE playing, and you will get hooked!!

This course will include speaking, reading, and writing. The primary objective is to teach enough vocabulary and expressions that participants can begin to speak and understand others who speak Spanish. We will build a community of safety together, where everyone is praised for trying to communicate, and there is no room for criticism. It isn't easy to learn another language, so everyone needs to have patience with themselves and each other. The book will be used at each class session. There will be many opportunities for practice, questions, and explanations of verb usage and sentence formation. We can laugh together while we all make mistakes!

All civilizations eventually collapse. Historically, the average lifetime of civilizations is about 250 years, the age of the United States. The life cycle of civilizations follows a similar pattern of 7 stages, with common factors contributing to eventual collapse. From climate change to economic turmoil to the rise of authoritarianism, current circumstances indicate that the US and much of the world are now in the crisis and decline stage, with collapse on the horizon.

In this course we will address the seven stages of civilizations, current trends that point to civilization collapse, the grief cycle as a model of the personal experience of collapse, practical steps you can take to survive and adapt to collapse, indigenous cultures as a model for sustainable communities, and how to be content and resilient in the face of collapse.

This class is for anyone who is interested in “Birding” or “Bird Watching” and who enjoys being outdoors, walking 1-2 miles, and interacting with others while watching birds. The classroom sessions will consist of birding etiquette and appearance of birds including size, shape, color and identifying field marks. They will highlight bird behaviors and habitats and other interesting aspects of these living dinosaurs and how they reflect the health of our planet.

In the four classroom sessions, George will share his photos of birds on PowerPoint, his knowledge and experience in birding, and his experience being a citizen scientist. The other four sessions will be field trips. Locations include Bluff Lake Nature Center, Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, and other locations. These field trip sessions may be longer than 2 hours and scheduled depending on the weather.

If you’ve ever asked, “Why is health care like this?” — this course is for you. Over eight weeks, we’ll take a serious, detailed look at how the U.S. health care system, despite its enormous potential, became so complex, fragmented, and difficult to navigate. We’ll cover the history of medicine and medical training, the development of scientific knowledge, the evolution of reimbursement and payment systems, and the layered, often contradictory structures that shape how care is delivered. We’ll examine the societal, institutional, and individual-level factors that influence how people seek care, experience illness, and interact with a system that often leaves them confused and frustrated. We’ll understand why there are no easy answers or simple fixes. Each 2-hour session is dense with information, intended for learners who want to truly understand—not just skim—the dynamics that shape today’s health care environment.

The United States has held 60 presidential elections. A few of these contests proved to be extremely controversial. This course will examine eight such elections, concluding with the 2024 election.

Each week, we’ll scrutinize one election. We’ll first look at the 1800 election where it took 36 votes in the House to declare Jefferson the winner. We’ll then review the 1824 election where Andrew Jackson received 15 more electoral votes and a third more popular votes than John Quincy Adams, but Adams became president. Then, in turn, we’ll examine the 1860 election of Lincoln; the 1876 selection of Rutherford Hayes that ended Reconstruction; the 1912 contest where Wilson defeated both an incumbent and an ex-president; the “hanging chads” election of 2000; and the 2020 election where, for the first time, the losing candidate refused to concede defeat.

The course will not use a text. Before each class, the facilitator will distribute a short reading describing the election and why it resulted in such controversy.

We will discuss the prior week’s news in the first hour. In the second hour, a topic that has been determined by the facilitators and articles that have been sent out prior to the class will be discussed. The facilitators of this class express a progressive point of view on American politics. They welcome conservative or other points of view and encourage discussion as part of our learning experience.

What if you were assigned to a national, state or local panel tasked with making recommendations on a number of the most important issues of our time including: schools, policing, national leadership, election reform or mass shootings? Each week in this course class members will review multiple proposals on a critical topic and deliberate on the strengths and weaknesses of each "solution." The class will then try to discern any common ground and consider recommending a path forward. Critical but open minds will be an asset to this work. (Note: New topics will be addressed this term).

The Fall Documentary Film class will cover a wide variety of films. Each film will be shown in class and will be followed by a discussion of the film. Class members are expected to stay for the discussion. The Facilitator likes to remain flexible as to what films to show due to availability, the arrival of new films, or events that would make a film topical.

Since films are of varying length, class may end at 2:45 or extend past 3 pm. The class will be informed in advance when a longer film will require class to go past 3 pm.

This discussion class will explore current crises whose solutions appear impossible. 1. Continuing the unregulated development of Artificial General Intelligence, 2. Social Media and Deaths of Despair, and 3. Modern Asymmetrical Warfare. Enacting international regulations requires understanding of the risks followed by legislative cooperation at a time when divisions are widening. Our fourth crisis is 4. Healing the political divide. Do we citizens still have shared values that can be the basis for building the bi-partisan cooperation needed to enact and enforce regulations? Or do we need a strongman to rule us? The class will explore research conclusions and discuss solutions already identified. We will prepare for an informed discussion by watching selected TED Talks or YouTube videos. That way we won’t need to spend too much class time defining the problems. Our focus will be on evaluating alternative solutions instead of just depressing ourselves with the dangers. It should be enlightening.

Join us for a journey through the fascinating history of investing. We'll embark on a historical adventure and explore how humans developed new approaches to building wealth and managing risk through financial innovations - with booms and busts along the way. We’ll begin with the bonds and stocks in the 17th century and move on to the evolution of stock markets, pooled investments, modern portfolio theory, and the new frontier of cryptocurrency.

Optional background:  The Ascent of Money, Niall Ferguson; Devil Take the Hindmost, Chancellor, Edward; Number Go Up, Zeke Faux

Great Decisions is a program of the Foreign Policy Association, which presents new topics each year. The class is expected to read a chapter from the Briefing Book before each class, will then view a video of background information and relevant interviews with world leaders and scholars during class, and discuss the topic.

Required Book: Great Decisions 2025 Briefing Book, available from the Foreign Policy Association.  Registered members, please order. www.fpa.org/great_decisions

GREAT DECISIONS 2025 TOPICS

• 1. AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY AT A CROSSROADS
• 2. U.S. CHANGING LEADERSHIP OF THE WORLD ECONOMY
• 3. U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS
• 4. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ON CLIMATE CHANGE
• 5. THE FUTURE OF NATO AND EUROPEAN SECURITY
• 6. AI AND AMERICAN NATIONAL SECURITY
• 7. INDIA: BETWEEN CHINA, THE WEST, AND THE GLOBAL SOUTH
• 8. AFTER GAZA: AMERICAN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

“Dying is more than a set of medical problems to be solved. The fundamental nature of dying is not medical, but it is personal and experiential.”

We will all die and we need to be prepared. We also need to develop our own understandings, attitudes and wishes of what our end-of-life should look like. This course explores: Why is death frightening? Why has death become more fearsome with scientific advancements? What is the nature of death and what are the trajectories of how life will end? How to navigate our complicated healthcare system to experience a good death?

In order to be prepared for the end of life, we need to do our homework and make our end-of-life choices and share them with our surrogate decision maker, family members and health care providers. Through reading stories, discussions and self-examination, these choices become clearer by the end of the course.

As we get older, the risk of falling tends to increase significantly due to a gradual decline in balance abilities. This decline may begin in middle age and progress slowly, making it easy to ignore - until a fall happens. To address this, incorporating balance training into our personal health management strategy is essential, allowing us to take proactive steps toward maintaining stability and preventing falls.

Minding Your Balance™ training addresses this need, drawing on lessons from the martial art Ki-Aikido to take a groundbreaking look at balance and its fundamental relationship to mind and emotion. Easy to learn mind body exercises, scientific insights, and stories of applications in everyday life provide participants with tools to immediately improve balance control.

Participants work individually and with partners. Activities can be done seated and standing; all activities are adaptable to different needs and abilities.

Recommended - Minding Your Balance: Mind Body Exercises to Improve Balance & Prevent Falls - $15 on Amazon

Most of us have not studied the Constitution in detail since high school, but now with almost daily references to the document, we should see it in a new light. This course will examine previous constitutions, from the colonial period to 1787, to see how and why the U.S. Constitution came about and how it has been able to provide the law of the land ever since. Through background-building and lively discussions, class members will come to better understand the origins of the U.S. Constitution and how it has been adapted to accommodate changing times.

Recommended: Copy of the US Constitution

What drove some of the world’s most famous explorers? How were they able to persevere? What resources did they use? How did they survive in desolate, unforgiving circumstances? When teammates died, how did the others react? And of course, what routes did they take? What did they discover?

This five-week course will take a deep dive – in some cases literally – into ten historic voyages of discovery and survival. The last, featuring Peter Van Arsdale’s own journey, explores the heartland of New Guinea and the remote tribe his team discovered. In each case, first-hand narratives – as well as numerous photographs and maps – will be included: Cabeza de Vaca (1527-1536, North America); DeSoto (1539-1543, North America); Coronado (1540-1542, North America); Cook (1776-1780, Pacific Ocean); Bligh (1789, Pacific Ocean); Lewis and Clark (1803-1806, North America); Franklin (1845-1846, Arctic); Scott (1910-1913, Antarctic); Shackleton (1914-1916, Antarctic); Van Arsdale (1974, New Guinea).

Expanded weeks and new tips added to this class, which features the new user interface for Snapseed. A deep dive into the free Snapseed in-phone app for comprehensive, flexible tools for effective, professional edits and polish in post-production. Within each session, we will unpack techniques for optimal smartphone handling and improving photo capture for expressive images that sparkle with color, composition, and impact. Explore journaling in words to accompany and expand the pictorial message. Snapseed is great for making memory books, inspiring slide shows, and eye-catching Internet posts. Detailed instructions and examples to correct, optimize, and artistically interpret photos will be included.. There will be a PDF presentation of more than 200 slides, downloadable to follow along during the class and retain for later reference.

Recommended: Late model Smartphone, iphone 13 or later, with email capability, free Snapfeed app. 

Rick will discuss legal actions facing the court system, including those brought against Donald Trump and or his administration. He will review underlying issues of the various cases and compare them with similar cases to understand whether there is merit to the actions. He will discuss if the cases could or should be criminally prosecuted. The class will be by presentation and question and answer. The hope is that classroom members will be active participants.

This course explores how a deeper understanding of emotions can enhance communication and strengthen relationships. Drawing on Brené Brown’s "Atlas of the Heart," participants will learn to identify, name, and describe complex emotional experiences in order to communicate better with others. We will be reading "Atlas of the Heart" together, using it as a foundation for reflective exercises and discussions to develop emotional literacy that fosters authentic connection in both personal and professional settings. By cultivating emotional awareness, participants will gain the skills to communicate more clearly and compassionately, strengthening their connections with others.

Required Reading: Atlas of the Heart

France during World War II almost defies understanding. The German Blitzkrieg overwhelmed France in 1940, after which an infamous Armistice Agreement left southeastern France “independent” of Germany under new government based in the resort town of Vichy. Meanwhile, a few dissenting French military officers escaped to London or French North Africa. Among them was an upstart French General named Charles de Gaulle, who presumptuously assumed leadership of an unofficial French government-in-exile based in London. As the war progressed, the Vichy-based government progressively Nazified while a growing resistance movement increasingly conducted espionage and guerrilla warfare inside France. The Allied invasion of French North Africa in late 1942 complicated matters, prompting Germany to immediately occupy the rest of France. Allied liberation in 1944 induced near-anarchy in France until after V-E Day a year later. Wartime stories of heroism and tragedy abound. Mini biographies of such notable characters as Marshal Philippe Petain, Pierre Laval, and de Gaulle will provide sympathetic understanding countered by some harsh assessments of their arrogance and judgment errors.