January 29, 2023
By Linda A Dove

Lighting the Chalice: Reading 

 “Life is protected and saved by those who embody presence, wisdom, resistance, gratitude, humility. These are the gifts people can bring to one another and can foster through long participation and practice as members of religious communities devoted to saving and protecting life, rooted in rituals of praise and thanksgiving.” Rebecca Parker

SLT Hymn No. 113 Where is Our Holy Church?, verses 1, 2, 5.

Way back last November, I traced how the Unitarian and Universalist movements grew in fits and starts during the 17th. and 18th.centuries and how, in my view, their theological disputes held them back from becoming mainstream denominations in the Christian tradition. (You can read my two earlier messages on our HUU website, HUUweb.org). In the mid-19th century, exhausted and leaderless, both branches were weak and dispirited. Today, I’ll trace how they gradually came to define themselves in the USA through the next 150 years until they became a unified UUism in 1961.

As the story unfolds, see if you can discern which of our Principles became prominent. Also, see if you can detect where UUs followed or led religious trends emerging in the wider society, and how today we still deal with similar issues.

To get us in the right frame of mind, let’s stand, if we are able, and Dee will lead us in Singing the Living Tradition Hymn:No. 389, Gathered Here. We’ll sing it twice.

January 22, 2023
By Bill Faw

My outline is quite simple: An emotional episode begins as we make snap, gut-feeling or rational judgments that a person, thing, or situation is threatening or rewarding in some way. Our emotions then change as our judgments change. Our judgments change when the external situation changes, or when we clarify an ambiguous situation, or when we place the current situation into the context of past experiences, present concepts, or future expectations. As we look at some of these ways that we do this in our daily life, notice how several familiar proverbs are designed to moderate emotional responses.

First: Changing or Leaving a Situation Changes our Judgments, which Changes our Emotions

We are constantly changing situations to make them better and to decrease our negative emotional responses: everything from cleaning the house, to trying new work procedures, to apologizing for our thoughtless comments.

Of course, many changes are out of our control: especially the death of a loved one, which brings dramatic changes to our mood and emotional responses. In ‘grief work’ we change back our mood a bit, by reminding ourselves of pleasant and humorous episodes involving the loved one, by finding new activities, and by establishing new relationships which somewhat replace the loss.

In addition, adopting Tennyson’s perspective that, “’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” can temper our grief by the consolation that we grieve so deeply – why? — because we loved deeply, and that deep love and grief somehow give meaning to life and  deepen our character.        

More generally, being able to affirm that “what I have gone through has made me who I am”places our sorrows, disappointments, and guilts within a wider ‘judgment’ which mellows the emotional pain of those sorrows, disappointments, and guilts.

By Linda A. Dove
November 13, 2022

Last time, I traced our UU origin story through the long centuries of the Holy Roman Empire with leaders like Athanasius, Arius, Scotus, Wycliff, Servetus, Ference, and the Socinuses. Their efforts planted the seed of UUism’s tree within Christianity. In the 1500s and 1600s, many Protestant sects, fleeing persecution, migrated back and forth between the Netherlands and England. I ended by noting how UUs, among others, fled to America, again largely to avoid persecution by other Protestants as well as Catholics. You’ll find both talks on HUU’S website.

Today, I trace how the UU tree evolved first in England and then North America through the 17th. and 18th.^. centuries, a period when the age of faith faded a little and the age of science and reason unfolded. Then, in the first half of the 19th. century, theological disputes weakened both the Unitarians and the Universalists while some entertained secularism. Our Principles and Sources today reflect both the religious and the secular influences.

Last time I covered about 1,500 years. This time I cover only 300 but those years cover a complicated UU story. Again, I hope I don’t mischaracterize it or lose you by summarizing so much in so few minutes.

In the late-1600s, the Dutch William III of Orange took over as the British king and Parliament passed the Toleration Act of 1689. This ended 150 years of persecution from when Henry VIII broke away from Rome and established the Church of England (CofE) into those turbulent Tudor and Stuart decades when successive monarchs, depending on whether they were Catholic or Protestant, brutally persecuted dissidents. UUism evolved in part through its opposition to the rigid domination of the CofE and its sibling in America, Episcopalianism and Anglicanism.

In the mid-1600s, among other dissenters, the Englishman, the Reverend John Biddle and the Irishman, the Reverend Thomas Emlyn stand out notable. Both wrote books that inspired the Unitarian cause. In A Two-fold Catechism, Biddle argued against the CofE catechism, claimed there was only one God, not Three-in-One, and, outrageously, like Calvin and Wycliff before him, urged people to read the scriptures for themselves. Puritan Cromwell banished him to the remote Scilly Isles. Emlyn, ordained as a Presbyterian, wrote A Humble Inquiry, arguing for one God. He was imprisoned for blasphemy.

September 25, 2022
by Linda A. Dove

In my talk today, we’ll discover some roots of our many-branched Unitarian-Universalist tree, mainly in Europe. Later, we’ll climb some of our younger branches reaching into the western world. This way, I hope all of us will come to share an appreciation of how our roots and branches spread, and how we must now stand tall as a mature, life-sustaining tree. I hope this will help fertilize seedlings for the future of HUU.

UU-ism has a history of over 2,000 years and here I can only condense rich details into broad summary for the first 1,500 years, centered on Europe. I’ll emphasize events which proved turning points on our ancestors’ path and how those events point to themes relevant for us today.

I came to live here in 2009. If anything, I was spiritual agnostic/humanist. My only knowledge of UUs was from a visit to the Arlington, Virginia congregation. I found that uncomfortable; the congregation was too large for me, the worship too formal and uninspiring, and no one welcomed me, even in coffee time. Of course, it wasn’t fair to make judgements in a single visit; but I did so out of spiritual longing. After I settled here, I discovered HUU. All I remember is loving the old school-house, observing how the congregational personality was outspoken, and then, in the potluck, being wooed by the membership chair. Though protesting I was not a joiner, I came back and became a member before too long. I felt comfortable with you friendly folk also traveling your various spiritual paths. And, importantly, my soul resonates with our Principles. As I talk, you can refer to them, just after the preface in “Singing the Living Tradition.”

August 7, 2002
A service to celebrate our “Grand Reopening. Merle Wenger will present the message on what it means to “come home to our physical space” after more than two years when we met on Sunday morning through Zoom. Linda Dove will present an original poem to mark the occasion and several members will offer their reflections on coming home.

Opening Reading: “So are we bound together” By Elizabeth Lerner Maclay

As drops of rain that find each other and build to become a track, a rivulet, a stream, a river, a sea, so are we drawn together; so are we fortunate to find each other; so are we bound together, on this shared passage toward an unknown ocean and eternity.

Let Joy Ring Out
by Linda Ankrah-Dove

The sad tears of these strange years slide heavy
from my schoolhouse steeple. I’ve held our sanctuary
safe for you but it’s hollow with the silence
of your communal voice and song in worship.

My old wooden floors have not creaked,
felt no padding feet, heard no scraping chairs.
No hymns have vibrated on my walls,
no stories danced in children’s ears.

Be sure I’ve not at all forgotten you,
dear seekers after truth and love and justice.
I’ve kept our chalice glowing steadily
against the shadow of these vacant years.

Most of you, like me, have lost, suffered,
grieve for family, friends, familiar ways of life,
and all of you have shared the purple pain
that has so badly bruised the world.

But in the past few weeks, I’ve sensed a stirring—
new screens and mics, blossoms on the podium,
piano keys, bright black and white, and poised to play,
signposts of yet undiscovered paths along our UU journey.

The summer beauty of our gardens, nurtured
by your tender hands, promise us a vibrant life together.
And today I open wide my doors to welcome
your coming home to this, our holy space.

Today is not yesterday and not yet tomorrow.
Today, I celebrate with you right here and now.
That’s why my steeple bell rang out in joyful spirit
for tomorrow’s sacred possibilities.