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. [Read more…]

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. [Read more…]

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. [Read more…]

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 promote: Justice, equity and compassion in human relations.” As I’ve mentioned before, I think one must have economic justice as well as legal justice in order for society to function well.

A question is, “how do we have a just society in regard to economics?” I think that our current economic challenges provide us an opportunity to reflect on that.

I’ve recently found helpful some of the work done by Rudolf Steiner and people who have drawn on his insights. I’d like to share some of that thinking and see if it might be helpful to you.

You can download Beyond Capitalism as a pdf document.

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)

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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. [Read more…]

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. [Read more…]