Blog Archives

October 30: Toward Healing the Heart of Democracy

10/30/2016

With Election Day looming, it seems appropriate to spend a Sunday morning focused on our role as a religious people in this process…most especially on what follows this particularly damaging campaign cycle.
Our message is titled “Toward Healing the Heart of Democracy” and draws on the work of Quaker teacher and writer, Parker Palmer (“Healing” also seems an appropriate focus…). Please join us!

“The human heart is the first home of democracy. It is where we embrace our questions. Can we be equitable? Can we be generous? Can we listen with our whole beings, not just our minds, and offer our attention rather than our opinions? And do we have resolve in our hearts to act courageously, relentlessly, without giving up – ever – trusting our fellow citizens to join with us in our determined pursuit of a living democracy?”
~ Terry Tempest Williams, “Engagement”

And…if you happened to miss our service this past Sunday, you will find the text version of the sermon and selected readings on our website sermon archive page. As last Sunday was the last in our month-long exploration of “reverence,” we have created a resource sheet if any of you are interested in further reading.

October 23: “The Humanist Manifesto: An Invitation to Reverence”

10/23/2016

Our service will feature a message from our minister titled “The Humanist Manifesto: An Invitation to Reverence” – we hope you will join us!

“When the Humanist Manifesto declared that we are part of nature and we have emerged as the result of a continuous process, it…also gave us a language of reverence because it provides a story rooted not in the history of a single tribe or a particular people, but a history rooted in the sum of our knowledge of the universe itself. It gave us a doctrine of incarnation which suggests not that the holy became human in one place at one time to convey a special message to a single chosen people, but that the universe itself is continually incarnating itself in microbes and maples, in humming birds and human beings, constantly inviting us to tease out the revelation contained in stars and atoms and every living thing. A language of reverence for Humanists begins with our understanding of this story as a religious story - a vision of reality that contains within it the sources of a moral, ethical, transcendent self-understanding.”
~ David E. Bumbaugh

October 16: What Protagoras Meant

10/16/2016

Our service will feature a message from our minister titled “What Protagoras Meant.” We hope you’ll join us!

“The story comes as a surprise from Protagoras, because we know that he said he was an agnostic. Why should he, of all people, tell a story about Zeus? We shall see that he is not alone among humanists who support reverence. But why should Protagoras of all people say that reverence is part of the package that Zeus gives to us? Later philosophers thought that justice was the foundation of society. Why add reverence? Why insist that the foundation of society is justice and reverence? ~ Paul Woodruff

October 9: Against Nature

10/9/2016

Our service will feature a message titled “Against Nature,” written and presented by Guy Newland, with Laura McBride leading us in worship. We hope you’ll join us!

“Rejecting a Calvinistic notion of human nature as fundamentally depraved, Unitarian Universalists turn to the celebration of life. But can this lead to a tendency to romanticize or idealize nature, including human nature? Does goodness rise from “going with flow” of our soft animal bodies? Or is virtue always a matter of swimming against the tide?” ~ Guy Newland

October 2: On the Necessity of a Forgotten Virtue

10/2/2016

In worship our minister will share a message titled “On the Necessity of a Forgotten Virtue” – a topic as timely as can be for the times we live in. We hope you’ll join us!

“Reverence has more to do with politics than religion. We can easily imagine religion without reverence; we see it, for example, wherever religion leads people into aggressive war or violence. But power without reverence – that is a catastrophe for all concerned.” ~ Paul Woodruff

October 30: Toward Healing the Heart of Democracy

October 23: “The Humanist Manifesto: An Invitation to Reverence”

October 16: What Protagoras Meant

October 9: Against Nature

October 2: On the Necessity of a Forgotten Virtue

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