HUU Community Cafe

by Cheryl Talley, Ph.D.
April 5, 2009

I began my 50 week negativity fast on Monday, November 26, 2007 as an act of desperation. The fast from all news media was an alternative plan from abstaining from all food for a year…which had been a very fleeting thought.  I remembered the benefit of fasting from food from back in my early thirties. Back then I had been in a church that advocated periodic fasting as part of a spiritual discipline. The longest period I had fasted was for 21 days. I knew the wonderful feeling of “after the fast” a clean feeling of having  detoxified myself physically and emotionally. It always worked. I felt more at peace after a fast…especially when it was coupled with a commitment to substitute spiritual readings instead of food…an emphasis on feeding my mind instead of my body. And I also noticed that I was less inclined to fight with people. I was much more sensitive during a fast of the impact of negative emotions. I also smiled more, especially at babies. Smelling fresh flowers or watching a sunset all seemed more intense in their pleasure. Continue reading No News is Good for You

March 15, 2009 By Julie Caran

When Kevin and I came to Harrisonburg in 2002 for his interview with the JMU chemistry department, one of my first tasks was to look at the church listings in the local yellow pages.  Because I was leaving my position as a Director of Religious Education at another [...]

March 8, 2009
by Rev. Emma Chattin

First Reading

~ from Matthew 25:29

“To those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance;
but from those who do not have, even what they have will be taken from them.”

Second Reading

~ from “On Giving”, in “The Prophet”, by Kahlil Gibran

Then said a rich man, “Speak to us of Giving.”
And he answered:

You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?
And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the over-prudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand  as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city?

And what is fear of need but need itself?
Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, the thirst that is unquenchable?

There are those who give little of the much which they have-and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.

And there are those who have little and give it all.
These are the believers in life and the bounty of life,
and their coffer is never empty.

And there are those who give with joy,

and their joy is their reward.
And there are those who give with pain,
and that pain is their baptism.

And there are those who give and know not pain in giving,|

nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue:
They give as in yonder valley

the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.
Through the hands of such as these God speaks,

and from behind their eyes
[God] smiles upon the earth.

Continue reading Giving In the Living Tradition

J. Barkley Rosser, Jr.
Presented  February 1, 2009

Economics as a Faith System

• Economics is derived from moral philosophy.  This is how St. Thomas Aquinas viewed in the 1200s when he introduced Aristotle’s economic analysis into Roman Catholic Church doctrine in a society dominated by the Church.  Aquinas reconciled the Church with Aristotle and his golden mean, a view of compromise as good in a complicated world in contrast with the purism and extremism of Platonic idealism that had long been acceptable to the Church.  Later, Adam Smith, the father of classical political economy in the 1700s, who wrote The Wealth of Nations, also wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments.  He was a professor of moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow, following in this tradition.  It was only in the early 19^th century that the first professor of political economy was appointed in Britain, Thomas Robert Malthus of the famous population doctrine, and he was an ordained Anglican minister.  As religion began to give way more to science in the late 19^th century, economics emerged from political economy and attracted people from the clerical classes who sought to “do good for society.”  In the US, this manifested itself with many economists coming out of the Christian Social Gospel movement that would become allied with the Progressive Movement.  Even now, many who become economists have at some level a motive to “do good for society,” whatever their views. Continue reading The Economy As A Faith System

by James J. Geary
December 7, 2008

Good morning

Guess what! I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m  a very old man. And lately I’ve been feeling my age.

I read that the Czech novelist, Franz Kafka, wrote that the meaning of life is that it ends. Well, as I near that end, I’ve been looking back at the various periods of my life. The period of my grade school years, is one I wish I had the power of memory and of words to describe to you. It was a time you can’t imagine, it was so primitive compared with the world of the late 20^th and the 21^st centuries.

I entered the first grade in 1920. The school was in an ancient two-story brick building. The principal’s office was off a landing half way to the second floor. It was a terrifying place with a frightening smell of iodine, or linament, or something that signaled it was a place for scrapes and cuts, of  stuff that burned,  and bandages by that formidable old maid.

Perhaps you’ve seen relics of the cars of those days. They had no streamlining, no automatic gear shift, no radios. Some were open except for isinglass that you could button on either side to keep out the weather. Dimmers were hand operated and they only reduced the brightness.

The roadbed of  U.S 11 between Roanoke and Christiansburg was packed earth and gravel, no blacktop. Later when there was blacktop, I have seen places on U.S. 11 where the edges had so crumbled there was hardly room for two cars to pass. There was no striping. Continue reading Fate and Finis

Presented by Beryl Lawson
November 30, 2008

Uncle Murray was a hobo. Well that’s not really true. He was a hobo but he wasn’t really my uncle. He was my mother’s boyfriend and I called him that even after they married  and until he became Grandpa Murray when the kids were born.

But he was a hobo during the depression.  He rode the rails mostly in search of a spiritual home. He said he tried everything in his spiritual journey: Christian science, vegetarianism and who knows what else.  One evening he found himself at a lecture in San Francisco.

After the lecture a man came up to him and handed him a card. It said “United Lodge of Theosophists.” The man indicated that Uncle Murray might be interested. He asked:  will I see you there. No, replied the man, this is for you.  Well to make a long story short he went, found what he was looking for and took the first box car home.

Theosophy is a philosophy which offers ancient teachings about the universe and ourselves in terms that the western world can understand. Its three fundamental propositions state that there is One Life, one inclusive Cause of all that exists, its nature far surpassing any human concept. That there is law in the universe which is cyclic and which pertains to all within the universe both animate and inanimate. and that all life is on a progressive march to greater and greater perfection. That there are those great beings such as Buddha, Jesus and Krishna, who, through great effort, have come to see the true nature of things and are willing to devote their efforts to helping humanity in its evolution. To be part of this great effort to help is a goal to be striven for. Continue reading My Spiritual Journey

Rev. Robert T. Hughes, one of our regular guest ministers presented Beyond Capitalism on November 16th 2008

I appreciate all of our UU Principles. For many years now I’ve been particularly concerned with economic justice. I see our 2nd Principle – “We the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association covenant to affirm and [...]

by Julie and Kevin Caran
November 9, 2009

Opening Reading:

From There is No Me Without You by Melissa Faye Greene

Our chalice-lighting reading today is from the book There is No Me Without You, by Melissa Faye Green.

Dr. Rick Hodes is a white, Jewish, American medical director who has lived in Ethiopia for more than twenty years, serving the Ethiopian Jews, the Beta Israel.  Hodes has five Ethiopian adopted sons and half a dozen foster sons.

Dr. Hodes recently had a family meeting.  The boys had flopped over sofas and chairs in the living room and looked at him.

“Are we a real family?” he began.

“Yeah, Hodes, we’re a real family,” said Addisu Hodes, fifteen.  Addisu wore his long hair in cornrows and favored satin soccer jerseys since he was a soccer star in high school.

“Are we a happy family?” asked Hodes.

“Yeah, yeah, we’re a happy family,” said Mohammed.

“Do we have any family problems?” asked Hodes.

“Well, all right, yeah, there are some problems,” the boys agreed.

“Okay,” said Hodes.  “What’s our worst problem?”

The boys conferred briefly among themselves, after which Dejene removed his music earphones and announced, “Farts.” (373)

An Adoption Journey

Julie:

A couple of years ago when we were fairly early in our adoption journey, Bernie invited us to present a service on adoption.  I suggested that she get back to us the following year, after the adoption had gone through.  [Insert laughter.]  When we started the process in August 2006, we were told that people like us, who were open to children of any race or sex and comfortable with mild disabilities, would likely be matched with an infant in less than a year.  When Bernie mentioned the service topic again in early 2008, I suggested that we wait until November, since it is National Adoption Month – and because surely we would have a baby by then [insert laughter] and would have the perspective of people who had been through the adoption process from start to finish.  Although we have had quite a journey so far, we are a long way from the finish line.  Throughout the process, we have kept in mind the very UU notion to appreciate the journey, not just the destination. Continue reading An Adoption Journey

Presented by Elizabeth Ihle
19 October 2008

Well, Halloween has just about rolled around again, and I’ve bought Hershey’s miniature chocolates to give to my Trick or Treaters; that way I’ll have something good to eat if I don’t have many callers. It’s an appropriate time to talk about witches, and I am going to focus on the Salem witch trials, which caught my interest about a year ago.  I’d like to use what little about what I’ve learned to underscore the need for toleration and compassion in our daily lives.   Barbara Moore was kind enough to suggest the title for this service.  Witchcraft is divided into good and evil kinds, making it both sacred and profane.

I began thinking about this topic when my friend Ann was working at a college north of Boston and asked if I’d like to come along and explore the area while she worked.  Among the places I visited that week was Salem, Massachusetts, a location that, of course, piqued my interest because of the witch trials of just over three hundred years ago.

Witchcraft is often defined as practices that influence another’s mind, body, or property usually against his or her will or as practices that are believed by the person doing the labeling to undermine the religious or social order.[1] That would be black, profane, or evil witchcraft. The good stuff, the sacred, would be witchcraft that seeks to heal.  In a number of cultures these strains coexist.

On a separate note, we have witnessed the growth of Wicca over our lifetimes, and it’s even one of the spiritual streams of the Unitarian Universalist Association.  Wicca is too complex for me to get into this morning, but it is often associated with sacred witchcraft, and that’s a topic for another service.

I really didn’t know what to expect in Salem, but I was unprepared for a city with such a widespread and pervasive witch motif.  The logo of the Salem News, the local newspaper, sports a witch flying on a broom through a full moon.  There were plenty of ghost tours, the Spellbound Museum, the Salem Wax Museum, the Salem Witch Village, and numerous stores like Wicked Goods for Cool Stuff and The Broom Closet to supply all of a witch’s needs.  Apparently, the witch business thrives year round but goes into a real frenzy in late September and all of October.  Now, I’m not the Grinch Who Would Like to Steal Halloween, but I was quite frankly appalled by the commercialization of the Salem Witch Trails. Continue reading Witches: Sacred and Profane

by Elizabeth Ihle
September 7, 2008

When I volunteered to do this service, I didn’t realize what I was getting into.  Yes, the end of our mortgages and coming together as a congregation are wonderful things, but what a responsibility to say something memorable and useful to the congregation, especially when we’ve invited former members and friends to join with us this morning!!!  Welcome again to everyone!

Let me say at the outset that what I say is entirely mine.  I’ll be naming names a bit this morning, and if I’ve omitted someone important it’s pure oversight or ignorance on my part, and I’ll ask forgiveness ahead of time.  I’ll offer a couple ideas for our future too, and again it’s me talking.  I’m not someone else’s mouthpiece.

Today is our in-gathering, our homecoming, our celebration of being a congregation again as many of us scattered for summer vacations and other travels and as we start our new HUU year.     Waters ebb and flow, and I think this congregation does as well.  Some of us move away for a while and then come back.  We welcome all to our service this morning and hope for your return.

We are using the symbols of fire and water to illustrate the power of our communal lives.  During the service itself, we are going to do an ingathering ritual in which we’ll give everyone a chance to pour water from summer travels into a common bowl as a symbol of showing how individual lives unite after being apart for the summer and the power of uniting our individual offerings to accomplish what we couldn’t have singly. If you forgot to bring your own wter, we have a vase of generic travel water for you to use.  Our mortgage burning, outside as the service closes, will symbolize fire. Continue reading Crossing the Waters and Burning Our Bridges