Sermons & Talks

On July 3, 2016 Ray Hertzler, Beryl Lawson, Linda Dove, and Amy Thompson presented “Perspectives on Evolution." Linda A. Dove In 2006, in his last book, , Wendell Berry, cultural historian and eco-theologian, was concerned about our human devastation of Planet Earth through our aggressive commercial industrial Western culture. As a Catholic monk, he argued that this destructive behavior was sanctioned and encouraged by Christianity. (As you know, most UUs were Christian for

By Leah Rampy, Ph.D March 6, 2016 I’m very grateful for the opportunity to be with you today. Thank you, Joni, and to all of you for inviting me. How was your week? Did you find yourself calm, centered, and peaceful; breathing deeply; living joyfully and fully in the present? If you’re like many people, there were a number of times when you were distracted, worried, fearful, or anxious, times when your mind wouldn’t stop racing. Perhaps sleep was illusive and you found you

December 13, 2015by Rev. Kirk Ballin READINGS RESPONSIVE READING # 651 “The Body Is Humankind (7 Billion) Norman Cousins TO A COMMON PROSTITUTE Walt Whitman Be composed--be at ease with me--I am Walt Whitman, liberal and lusty as Nature, Not till the sun excludes you do I exclude you, Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you and the leaves to rustle for you, do my words refuse to glisten and rustle for you. My girl I appoint with you an appointment, and I charge you t

October 4 th , 2015 by Joni Grady Welcome to another step in my attempt to make sense out of an increasingly irrational world. When I picked the title, , I had a rather different talk envisioned, one dealing only with the painful bifurcation of my life and the lives of everyone involved to extent with that most dreadful task, saving the only livable planet we seem to have. In one part of my life, the dreaming world, we try to remember to vacuum the rugs and take out the tras

September 27, 2015 by J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. “Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. , K

This talk was facilitated by Richard Wolf. Both Richard (on line) and Linda Dove (in person) participated as HUU delegates in the 2015 UUA General Assembly in Portland, Oregon and the service reflected their experience this year. by Linda A. Dove August 30, 2015 At the UUA General Assembly this summer I was struck with how many good causes UUs are promoting, from food and shelter to immigrant and human rights. The mood of the entire GA was jubilant because the Supreme Court p

On May 15, 2015, three members of the HUU Fellowship shared their own spiritual journey with us. Eileen Dight I apologize in advance to anyone who is offended by my comments and I regret that so many aspects of my Spiritual Journey have been negative and controversial. Growing up in a Catholic family, the nuns at school told us we were lucky to have been born in the One True Faith, and I enjoyed this certainty, but in my teens I was already uncomfortable about rigid dogma. Pa

Facilitator Introduction I was one of the participants is our recent Adult Education Series called “Long, Strange Trip which considers our Unitarian Universalist history and heritage. Today’s speakers, Chris Edwards, Robin McNallie, Judith Hollowood, and Linda Dove were also on that journey, along with a dozen or so members or friends. Over twelve sessions we watched and discussed the , a six-part film written and narrated by Ron Cordes. Some of us attended all the sessions

by Robin McNallie April 12, 2015 , via Wikimedia Commons” href=“http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ARalph_Waldo_Emerson_ca1857_retouched.jpg”> The title of my presentation this morning, The Lengthened Shadow, is taken from Emerson’s most-quoted essay, “Self-Reliance, in which he states that “an institution is the lengthened shadow of one man. Not given to understatement, Emerson here was simply stressing that every institution owes a boundless debt to the individual

By Rev. Kirk Ballin April 5, 2015 Responsive Reading #628 “Rolling Away the Stone - Campbell Reading # 593 “Liberation Is Costly - Tutu Reading: “Our current crisis requires transformation. It’s less about changing a few individual behaviors and more about imagining radical new ways of living. Our current paradigm assumes the expendability of some people and species in service to the dominant culture. In it, we willingly forgo human health and even human and non-human life

by Tom Endress March 15, 2015 Readings: Transcendentalism- Webster’s New World College Dictionary- 1) any of various philosophies that propose to discover the nature of reality by investigating the process of thought rather than the objects of sense experience. 2) by extension, the philosophical ideas of Emerson and some other 19 th century New Englanders, based on a search for reality though spiritual intuition. Listen and see if you can guess who wrote the following: “On

by Linda A. Dove January 18, 2015 Introduction I grew up in the Anglican Church. For me, its doctrines were a source of puzzlement, skepticism, and anguish ”about my sin ”my inability to have faith. Finally, I rejected Christianity. And, with the baby, I threw out the bath-water; I turned away from all religion. How many of you had similar experience? In my 30’s I began to search again. I felt that “holy longing to understand life’s mysteries. I wanted meaning and purpose;

by Kevin J. Zimmerman December 28, 2014 I learned at last, as I came to be about seventeen, that my father was an entire freethinker, as much as I am now. It shocked me much, because he never taught me anything, allowed me to pick up religion from any one around me, and then scolded me because I embraced beliefs which he knew must condemn him. I think this neglect to be honest with children is a terrible evil. I have lost years of thought, and wandered wide and done such unwi

By Linda Dove Sunday, October 5, 2014 It's pot-luck Sunday today when we give and receive food and share fellowship among our guests and ourselves. In my recent talk on Giving I said I would follow up sometime with the flip side of the coin, Receiving. Today's the day. First, I'll remark on the topic and then I'll focus on how Receiving fits into our UU journeys together, as I see it. Of course, we all sometimes receive from one another, whether gifts, services, caring ”or e

J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. Delivered at Harrisonburg Unitarian Universalists, August 17, 2014 In each of the major northeastern Asian nations one finds three religions practices among others. One of these is the international religion of Buddhism, which originated in South Asia and entered China from Central Asia to the northwest, then to move on into Korea and then to Japan. Another is Confucianism, which originated in China and then also moved through Korea to Japan. Finally, e

August 3, 2014 © 2014 by Paul Britner Poem:

Andy Schmookler’s June 22 Message in Summary Andy Schmookler delivered the sermon at HUU on Sunday, June 22, 2014. The title of his talk was “What Liberal America Should Know about Evil. He says that America faces a crisis in which the stakes could not be higher. Both the right and the left play a role, he says, but the roles are very different. He drew upon a line from William Butler Yeats: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are filled with a passionate intens

Presented by: Linda Dove June 8, 2014 Good morning. Thank you to Steve for facilitating our service today. Our offertory says to me, . It evokes for me our 7th. UU principle, This morning I invite you to ponder with me on giving, service and stewardship. A complex topic; so just one or two aspects. I’m going to use the three terms interchangeably, though of course, they have different connotations. (Another time I’d like to explore the other side, the receiving side. But no t

by Richard Wolf March 2, 2014 I’m here this morning to invite our consideration of an apophatic mystery we call “Time . I like Time, it’s one of the only things I’m been able to really count on. So far, anyway, Time seems to have been on my side. Maybe for you, too. Particularly, what about Time here at Sunday Service? How does our experience of Time here connect with yet remain distinct from our routine and home lives? How do experiences of Sunday Services pertain to each da

This talk was given as a segment of HUU’s Jan. 26, 2014 Sunday service about teachers. It followed reflections by educators David Lane on his work with JMU student teachers, and Mary Hahn on her years teaching in Rockingham County schools. I’m not a teacher. I have huge admiration for teachers, including my husband Robin, my son Eddie, and, as an education reporter, all those I met who keep helping young people learn while weathering SOL’s and all trends thrust upon them. I