March 16, 2008
by Liz Ross, JMU Campus Ministry

As I sat on a plane writing this sermon, I struggled to think of where to start and how to begin. There are many different angles to cover and things to talk about when it occurred to me-there generally is no starting point in a connection. When one forms-it just keeps going, similar to the phrase or feeling of being connected to someone or something and you don’t know where you end and the other person or thing begins. It’s connected. So, I picked a point and went from there, we will see where it goes.

I got this idea for this sermon because I feel that as a culture and as a society we are losing the connection with each other and with ourselves, and not only are we losing this but we are embracing it and teaching it to our children! [Read more…]

Presented by the HUU Board of Trustees
February 3, 2008

Story for all Ages

John Godfrey Saxe’s ( 1816-1887) version of the famous Indian legend

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”

The Second, feeling of the tusk
Cried, “Ho! what have we here,
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ’tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up he spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a snake!” [Read more…]

by James J. Geary
January 27, 2008

Good morning.

The title of my talk is Evolution versus Intelligent Design. Maybe a better title would have been “Creationists Don’t Give Up.”

I’m sure you understand that I can only touch on a few of the recent highlights of this protracted debate between evolutionists and creationists. It’s been going on for nearly a century and a half. Intelligent design is just the latest effort of the creationists.

UU minister Forrest Church, in a splendid article in the current issue of UU World, writes about the battles in the early decades of the Republic between those who wanted more religion in government and those who were fearful of it. That was well before the Darwinian revolution.

Would you believe the late Jerry Falwell did not believe in evolution? Remarkable. [Read more…]

Rev. Emma Chattin
January 20, 2008

First Reading ~ From Isaiah 43:18, 19

[And God says…]
“Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.

See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.

Second Reading From Zaid Hassan in The… Axioms of Social Change

Problems are tough because they are complex in three ways. They are dynamically complex, which means that the cause and effect are far apart in space and time, and so are much harder to grasp from firsthand experience. They are generatively complex, which means that they are unfolding in unfamiliar and unpredictable ways. And they are socially complex, which means that the people involved see things differently, and so the problems become polarized and stuck.”

When studying mass social change as a phenomenon there is always a temptation to order events as they happened, in a timeline. Then by implication we assume that one thing follows another and one thing neatly causes another. A very real danger for those wishing to learn from historical social change is the trap of seeing social change in a linear fashion. This is a trap is because we know (for example from research on complex systems) that social change… is less about planning and more about creating the conditions for change. To mangle an old adage, no plan survives contact with reality. Mass social change is messy, unpredictable and often ugly.

Modern institutions are not well suited to the work of catalyzing social change because they suffer from a need for linear and predictable processes. Such processes, in turn, demand that risk be minimized and a plan be proposed, a plan which is often used as a script rather than a point of departure. If we’re being honest with ourselves, then we would recognize the function of a plan is purely psychological comfort in the face of unpredictable and frightening change. [Read more…]

A Walk in the Park with Doubting Thomas: the stormy epiphany
by Tom Endress
December 2, 2007

During the past several months, several HUU members and attenders have talked about significant spiritual experiences in their lives. Some short, some long.

I am commandeering a whole morning, possibly two, for mine because the spiritual experience I am about to describe, as best I can, occurred early in my adult life. I have spent almost a half century trying to understand that event. Accordingly, I may need extra time to give you a taste of the many paths and blind alleys I have taken in this effort. I suspect a lot of of the experiences and struggles I have gone through parallel those of many of you.

Relative to the title printed in the bulletin I was affectionately given the nickname “Doubting Thomas” as a child by my mother. She thought I resembled Jesus’ doubting disciple Thomas! The nickname came about because I frequently questioned her Christian beliefs on such things as the virgin birth and the physical resurrection of Jesus. In our home I felt free, even encouraged, to ask her what she believed, why she believed it, and how it was that she knew a particular belief to be true. This has resulted in a life-long curiosity on my part about the what, why and “how do you know?” of peoples’ religious beliefs. [Read more…]