Green Sanctuary resumes. That’s re-zooms, not reh-zoo-mays, in case you were wondering. With the upcoming world-wide attention on October 24th, 350 Day (see www.350.org), it reminds us that we have no time to waste. The Green Sanctuary Committee will reconvene for their first meeting of the season on Thursday, October 29th, at Gulliver’s Second Story Cafe back room at 11:30 AM. We welcome new, interested planet-lovers to join us for a strategy-storming session on how to kick-off our UUFF efforts this winter. Read More »
Roughly $2.5 trillion is at stake, the amount the nation spends each year on health care, nearly a fifth of the American economy. Politicians, the nation’s doctors, and the public (especially the 50 million uninsured) have a vested interest in the outcome of this heated debate. How could reform affect practitioners, the public, and the insurance industry? Speaker and lay leader, Penni Haskins. Accompanist, Vera Alexander.
Something came over me in my junior year of high school in eastern Pennsylvania. I began sleeping outside. Every night.
I would strap my sleeping bag on my bicycle and bike in a direction for a half hour to an open field next to a forest, to a lake with a view of the hills, or beside a gurgling stream.
I kept my glasses on so I could sort the stars into their constellations before I fell asleep. And often I woke up with glasses on.
As winter came, I layered on a second army surplus sleeping bag, and worked on getting my face hole small and on the side, so falling snow wouldn’t wake me. It was a fine line between success and the middle-of-the-night, claustrophobic panic attacks, a definite downside of mummy bags. Read More »
What is a parable? The word parable comes from a Greek word for “comparison”. So a parable is a comparison, or a little story containing a comparison, used for a religious or ethical purpose. The story line of the parable you have just heard is simple, even though it is the longest parable in the four gospels. This is a Bible story for everyone, not just for Christians. But let’s update the story, bring it out of the country into the city, and for good measure, change the gender of the characters. Read More »
Unitarian history differs from that of most denominations. If you want to know the history of Methodism you begin with John Wesley. George Fox founded the Quakers, John Calvin the Presbyterians, Joseph Smith the Mormons. The Unitarians, though, do not begin with any one person. The movement goes back to the earliest days of Christianity. Unitarian ideas can be traced back to Jesus or Socrates, Arius and Pelagius. In Europe all through the middle ages we find groups struggling toward Unitarianism. The movement became organized in the middle 1500’s and such names as Michael Servetus, Sebastian Castellio, Faustus and Laelius Socinus, Francis David, and King John Sigismund are prominent. Read More »
The Unitarian side tells us that there is only one God, one spirit of life, one power of love. The Universalist side tells us that God is a loving God, condemning none of us, valuing the spark of divinity that is in every human being. So my version of what Unitarian Universalism stands for is, ‘One God, no one left behind.’
Unitarian Universalists share many scriptures, not just one, and a belief in the here and now, not just the hereafter. We value freedom, reason, tolerance and love as overarching values. We honor deeds, not creeds, as we try to live our faith. We believe everyone should be forthright about religious living by using that old ethic from high school math class, “show your work.” Ours is an evolutionary theology, understanding that language changes wit h time and growing awareness. In the final analysis, we believe we are saved by love and made holy by character.
I believe it is our connections—the “ties of love that bind us” to each other and to other living things—that make life meaningful. As humans we have a deep spiritual need for connection. I believe it is from this sense of connection that compassion arises. It is the source of an innate morality and the essence of human spirituality.
Unitarian Universalism is cooperation with a universe that created us. It is a celebration of life. It is being in love with goodness and justice. It is a sense of humor about absolutes. Read More »
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