I have been to lots of General Assemblies – the yearly meeting of the Unitarian Universalist Association. I have also been to a few years of the preceding Professional Days for UU ministers. I always find these national gatherings to be really exciting and really exhausting. I always buy at least one more bit of chalice jewelry. The hotel I stayed in this year had a late night happy hour that started at 10:00 pm, with huge cheap margaritas and this yummy flat bread. And this year I was reminded that I am just getting too old for a regular diet of staying out very late with colleagues in the hotel bar, sipping margaritas, and then getting up for meetings early in the morning. It just can’t keep up that kind of pace for very many days in a row. Read More »

Public assistance clientele are not always the people you expect them to be. Many times they are your friends and neighbors whose delicate financial balance has been upset by life events. Mike Thibodeau, Northern Region Manager for Division of Public Assistance will come and brief us on the reality of the people that come to his office for assistance. Speaker, Mike Thibodeau. Lay leader, Julia Stewart. Accompanist, Laurel Holmes.

Nonviolent Communications Workshop resumes classes meeting every Thursday, 6:30 to 8:30 pm in the Blue Room. When we come from a place of caring self-interest and compassionate out reach, putting aside judgment, both sides of opposing parties can win and we can have a life affirming outcome. Hidden Hill Quaker Meeting House has classes on Wednesdays. Contact Suzanne Osborn if interested in joining, 907-457-8086.

We are taught to think of great, larger-than-life figures as the creators of social change. For example, in the popular imagination “the civil rights movement” and “Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” are two ways of saying the same thing. In reality, much change flows from multiple small acts, many of them quietly courageous, performed by people un-noted in the history books. Gordon Gibson, our visiting minister, was a participant in the Selma voting rights campaign of 1965 and was the Unitarian Universalist minister in Mississippi 1969-84. He has spent years collecting stories of small acts of great courage. Last summer he witnessed such acts when the church he now belongs to in Knoxville, Tennessee, was attacked by a man with a shotgun. Guest minister, Rev. Gordon Gibson. Lay leader, Michael Bonilla. Accompanist, Laurel Holmes.

Small Acts Plus Quiet Courage Equals Change [ 34:55 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

On March 1, our Sunday service will focus on the needs of Fairbanks’ “other homeless” and the work of animal rescue groups and caring pet owners to help them. However, these groups are operating with little information about our community’s animals to help us understand what assistance they most need and to get grant funding to meet that need, such as how many animals we have in our community, how many are spayed or neutered, and the most common reasons that cause people to give up their animals. By understanding this, we may be able to develop, modify, or strengthen current programs that help our animals. So, an online survey has been developed by the animal rescue community to gather this information.  Take the survey

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