“The Certainty of Uncertainty:  Do you welcome the uncertainties of life or do they just make you anxious?”
Sunday Service January 17, 2009 by Merle Wenger

Chalice Lighting

by theologian, Paul Lakeland from Paul Rasor’s Faith Without Certainty.

The postmodern sensibility, let me suggest, is nonsequential, noneschatological, nonutopian, nonsystematic, nonfoundational and ultimately, nonpolitical.  The postmodern human being wants a lot but expects a little.  The emotional range is narrow, between mild depression at one end and a whimsical insouciance at the other.  Postmodern heroes are safe, so far beyond that we could not possibly emulate them, avatars of power or success or money or sex—all without consequences.  Postmodernity may be tragic, but its denizens are unable to recognize tragedy.  The shows we watch, the movies we see, the music we hear, all are devoted to a counterfactual presentation of life as comic, sentimental, and comfortable.  Reality doesn’t sell.  So here we stand at the end of the twentieth century, a century that has seen two world wars, countless holocausts, the end of the myth of progress, and the near-depth of hope, playing our computer games and whiling away the time with the toys that material success brings.

My “I Believe” statement

I believe in science and the inherent mystery of the universe.  I believe change and unsettled truth are two constants of liberal religious thought. I believe it is my daily religious task to prevent my senses from being numbed by the demands of cerebral information overload.  I believe great joy is borne out of the struggle to experience our feeling and thinking selves and at the same time to integrate with the living and non-living forms of our planet.  I believe a good life is inherently available when we see ourselves as good.  I find it fascinating that sooner or later we all become involved in doing less than good.  I experience great hope and fear and peace, but I choose to believe in peace.

Message:  The Certainty of Uncertainty

Raking the fluffy yellow-brown leaves in my sun-drenched backyard on this past Thanksgiving Day, I reflected on what I was really thankful for in 2009.  Putting my finger on one specific item was difficult, and my mind wandered to more philosophical and spiritual aspects of the past year.  It had been a difficult year: the economy faltered, my business followed suit; a relationship I was in ended, I felt lonely, and two friends of mine were dealing with difficult legal problems that worried me. I felt like the proverbial dingy lost at sea.  I struggled to find any contrasting events that made me feel grateful.  I was starting to feel a little like the grump pilgrim who stole Thanksgiving but really did not want to dwell on such negativity, and set about seeing if I might find some remote positive aspect of my difficulties that might be worth celebrating.

The leaves were really fluffy.  I notice this attribute because for some reason, the farm boy in me isn’t too keen on raking leaves.  It’s easy for me to observe the beauty of newly fallen leaves, contemplating, rather than raking, during the subsequent 30 day picturesque “fluffy period” and then watch guiltily as the leaves are transformed to a mat of brown, mulchy, slippery, organic thatch covering my backyard.  I look and see “protection for the lawn” through the winter: I imagine my neighbor sees a “lazy neighbor who doesn’t care about keeping up the hood.”  But I really felt determined to change my non-urban tendencies and move into a more urban lifestyle.  I was enjoying the raking: I was stymied about my gratitude. [Read more…]

All Souls Day service
by Chris Edwards
Nov. 1,  2009:

These few days are observed as Halloween, Samhain, All Souls Day, All Saints’ Day, Dia De Los Muertos…days when nature slows down toward winter and legend says the veil between living and dead becomes most thin.

I took our title from Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, Slaughterhouse 5. The character Billy Pilgrim gets abducted and taken to the planet, Tralfamadore, where past, present and future are one. When Tralfamadorians encounter death, they say, “So It Goes.” Billy had first survived the same WW2 traumas Vonnegut had…so the story contains many instances of death. Each one –from the most hideous carnage down to the demise of an insect– concludes, “So it goes.”

I found that mantra running through my mind one summer evening here, watering the new plants. A laurel had died: So it goes. A truck full of birds headed to the plant for butchering: So it goes. And… around the bend to the east, a cross bears the name of Tiffany, a girl killed there in an accident two years ago. So it goes.

Commentators have called “So it goes” a memento mori (remembering we will die), comic relief, “fatalism, stoicism and the acceptance that no use will come of shrinking away when the worst has happened.”

To me, it just says what is.

I’ll offer two other accounts, about ways of dealing with death:

1 (one): In a memoir whose title I’ve forgotten, the author visits a small Irish village and gets to know her in-laws’ extended family. They often talk about a relative named Fred—not somberly; they tell funny stories about him—but she can tell this man is especially loved. One day she says “I can’t wait to meet Fred.” They tell her, “Oh, Fred lies in the churchyard under the roses . . .but I guess we still can’t think of him as gone.”

2 (two): In Watership Down, the rabbit heroes meet a colony of rabbits who seem to live in great luxury. Fresh carrots appear each morning for these rabbits, who are big and sleek, but somehow sad and spiritless. They have a taboo: never ask where another rabbit is. Truth is, the same invisible hand that sets out the carrots sets snares. If you ask where Flopsy’s gone, the others just turn away. If she doesn’t come back, her name is not mentioned again.

Which of these is more like our culture in dealing with death: the nonfiction memoir, or the talking-rabbit fantasy?

During El Dia de Los Muertos, the Mexican custom of grave-side picnics with the departed one’s favorite foods sounds like the Irish memoir in spirit. But for most middle-class, fairly healthy 21^st Century Americans, death is a far-off abstraction. Except when it isn’t.

Both my parents died before I turned 24. More recently I’ve lost a few friends, and a nephew who’d been like my little brother growing up, and my former husband, who was a member here. The passing of generations brings sadness, but it’s natural. My son, Albert, died eight years ago from an auto accident. That wasn’t natural. Albert’s life was a work in progress, filled with struggles and promise. He was 31. [Read more…]

October 11, 2009

21^st Annual

National Coming Out Day

&

The National Equality March

On Washington DC

First Reading

~ from 1 Corinthians 13

The Gift of Love

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Second Reading

~ from Paul Robeson in

Singing the Living Tradition

I shall take my voice wherever there are those who want to hear the melody of freedom or the words that might inspire hope and courage in the face of despair and fear.  My weapons are peaceful, for it is only by peace that peace can be attained.  The song of freedom must prevail.

Additional Thoughts for Reflection

Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for [humanity] to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. [Humanity] must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

~  Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., December 11, 1964

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars… Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

~  Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. [Read more…]

Presented by Julie Caran
August 30, 2009

Adapted from a 2001 service by Rev. Enid Virago and Julie Goldman Caran presented at First Unitarian Church of Richmond.

Good morning. I’m Julie Caran, and I’ll be directing the Children’s Religious Education program at HUU this year.  Those of you who are new to HUU and even some of the current members might be curious about what we teach the children in our church, being that we are a non-creedal congregation and do not require people to subscribe to a specific statement of faith.  If you take a look at the yellow paper in your hymnal, you’ll see the list of seven principles that the Unitarian Universalist Association espouses, as well as the sources from which our tradition draws its lessons and principles.

This year our youngest members, ages 0 to 4, will be in the nursery with Pax Helferstay and parent volunteers.  The older nursery kids will be using a curriculum called Celebrating Me and My World.  The curriculum does not tackle major theological stories or debates, but rather speaks to the children where they are at this age.  As psychologist David Hay explains in the book The Children’s God, “All children are interested in the fundamental questions of meaning: ‘Who am I?’ ‘Where have I come from?’ ‘Where am I going?’ ‘What am I meant to do?’” (Crompton 51).  Celebrating Me and My World helps to address these questions.  Its lessons emphasize our first principle, the inherent worth and dignity of all people, and lead the children through activities that teach them to appreciate their own unique abilities.  As the year progresses, they will gain understanding of how their actions impact the world around them, and begin to figure out what kinds of choices make a positive impact.

Children ages 5 and up will begin an imaginative exploration of “God.” Tabatha LaFreniere, Robin McNallie, Angelina Gonzales, Kevin Caran, Jenn Spiller, and I will be leading them on this journey.  As UUs are particularly aware, “God” can be a hot button word because it can mean so many different things, depending on who is saying it, claiming it, and using it.  The curriculum Stories About God will give our children the context they need to have meaningful dialogues about God with people of diverse views.  They will gain some idea of what “God” means to people of different faiths, and participate in exploratory exercises that allow them to express their own thoughts and feelings concerning God.  The curriculum recognizes that one perspective is an atheistic view of God, and thus introduces each perspective on God in the context of a story that some people believe, but not as one ultimate truth that we should all agree upon. [Read more…]

Presented by Eric LaFreniere
6.21.09

Chalice Lighting: “Olympism [is] exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, mind, and will”

Good Morning! And Happy Father’s Day. Father’s Day. I hope that a service on the relationship between sports and religion makes good sense on today in particular. Actually, I was inspired by an associate who, knowing that I’m not a huge fan of either popular religion or popular sports, sent me a youtube link to a commercial for a videogame called Blitz: The League II. In that ad, “football legend” Lawrence Taylor manhandles a pigskin while shouting these words from the center field of a CGI coliseum:

“Every Sunday, when America goes to church, we go to war!

While they pray for salvation, we play for survival.

This is our cathedral! The game is our religion!

And every religion has a judgment day.”

Which prompted me to ask myself: What does the coliseum have to do with the cathedral? Thinking about it, I realized that there are obvious major similarities between religion and sports: both excite our emotional core and mobilize masses of followers, both prescribe our thought and behavior and provide meaningful epics and exemplars, and both inspire us to create institutions dedicated to their orderly expression and perpetuation. Moreover, both religion and sports have been with us for as long as we can remember; they are beyond ancient – their beginnings are shrouded in the mists of prehistory.

Given the parallels between, and hidden origins of religion and sports, it’s tempting to treat them as if they’re actually the same thing, or as if one were a subset of the other. As it turns out that, some folks have espoused exactly those positions, but others have argued that the similarities between religion and sports are only superficial and that they’re essentially different.

But another approach is possible: using a broad evolutionary framework, we can say that religion and sports share a common ancestor – that is to say, they are simultaneously different but essentially related. Indeed, this service makes them out to be fraternal twins. [Read more…]