Sermons & Talks

By Noel Levan November 17, 2013. Many years ago I wrote with some regularity, in journals, poetically, and with a questioning that I now sometimes miss. I wrote, “Standing upon the threshold of knowing, the cosmos, has no floor. I thought at that time that I had a glimmer of understanding regarding how the world worked and what part I played in ˜the grand scheme of things’. I thought too that fathoming the cosmos was very like standing upon a threshold to a room that had n

by Rev. Emma Chattin October 10, 2013 Lighting the Chalice Reading The candle wick and the flame stand apart, each one from the other. And yet together, they become something more, burning together without burning up, a thing of lasting illumination, and a cradle of warmth in the chalice. May we, like the wick and flame, learn to unite our differences into something much more than we could ever be apart. First Reading Genesis 11: 1-9 Throughout the earth, people spoke th

by Elizabeth Ihle October 27, 2013 Readings: All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his

September 1, 2013 by J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. 1. For most people, Labor Day has become an end of summer holiday for having a barbecue and shopping (now rivaling Black Friday), or even a day for changing clothing rules, such as the end of wearing white during the summer (particularly womens’ shoes). Its origins and purpose are mostly forgotten or only vaguely thought of. We shall consider the question of the meaning of Labor Day and UU views of it from a historical perspective.

This is the poem that Tom Endress read during the service Gabriela offered at HUU. , by Robert Graves Children are dumb to say how hot the day is, How hot the scent is of the summer rose, How dreadful the black wastes of evening sky, How dreadful the tall soldiers drumming by. But we have speech, to chill the angry day, And speech, to dull the rose's cruel scent. We spell away the overhanging night, We spell away the soldiers and the fright. There's a cool web of language win

August 11, 2013 by Tom Endress Jeremiah 13 The reading this morning is from the book of Jeremiah in the Bible. Jeremiah is known as the “weeping prophet of the Old Testament. Travel back over 2, 600 years with me to listen to a prophet much despised in his time, although now he is held by many as the second greatest prophet in the Old Testament. He prophesized accurately the downfall of Jerusalem and the captivity of the Jews by Babylonia. The reading is from the King J

Professor Emeritus Department of Mathematics & Statistics James Madison University Presented at Harrisonburg Unitarian Universalists June 23, 2013 Introduction The Catholic theologian Thomas Berry--who preferred to be called an eco-theologian, or better yet a ”observed, “We are in trouble just now because we do not have a good story. We are between stories. I think what Father Thomas meant was that the scientific discoveries over the past five centuries since Copernicus hav

from Richard Carl Wolf June 16, 2013 Many years before I actually left the Catholic Church, I gradually left the belief in God as a “Trinity of Persons . Thanks to the native elders who adopted me and the scholars of phenomenology who taught me, I moved around ideas of God as exclusively a “someone ; a someone who required or even appreciated anything like a worship of “Him. Yet I still wonder how to translate Trinitarian God paradigms into my post-Christian, quasi-atheistic

UU Children’s Religious Education: Passport to the World of Faith Julie Caran 5/26/13 Good morning. I want to start by addressing the title of this service. “UU Children’s Religious Education: Passport to the World of Faith. In a way, saying that UU RE provides a passport to the world of faith implies that we are not part of that world. Is Unitarian Universalism a faith? I had difficulty answering that question until I became immersed in UU religious education. When I b

May 19, 2013 Sunday service By Chris Edwards Last Fall, in the UU World’s cover story, the Rev. Thandeka explored President Obama's childhood attendance at a Unitarian Universalist Sunday school in Honolulu. She concluded by expressing regret that many who, like him, had early exposure to UU'ism have not remained in the fold. Interestingly, Thandeka gave the first report I’d seen about the opposition portraying UU’ism as the culprit for Obama’s alleged leftist worldview. Hi

May 12, 2013 Ascension Sunday Mother’s Day by Rev. Emma Chattin Lighting the Chalice, Reading We remember our mothers, those who bless us with their presence, those who have gone on before us, and the mothers among us today, our Mother Earth, and those who give birth to new things all over the world, and everywhere in our universe. We lift our gentle thoughts in gratitude, letting them rise above our being, as the flame rises and ascends from the cradle of the chalice. First

Adapted by Les Grady from Active Hope by J. Macy and C. Johnstone Sunday, April 21, 2013 What Aileth Thee Adapted by Les Grady from Active Hope by J. Macy and C. Johnstone In their book Active Hope authors Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone use the story of “Parsifal and the Fisher King to illustrate a situation of great suffering not being acknowledged and of people carrying on as if nothing were wrong.  Today we are experiencing a similar situation in climate change.  Clima

by Keo Cavalcanti March 24, 2013 Every time I read W. H. Auden’s “The Unknown Citizen poem I am reminded of the unenviable task that befalls us sociologists. We are a funny bunch ¦ We spend a lot of time looking for stable and predictable patterns of behavior in society. We do so by comparing certain groups to other groups, by identifying what members of each group share in common, and how those characteristics influence the way they act and live. The main character in

by Laura Dent February 24, 2013 ="Right</a>"> So, who is that still small voice, anyway? As Bill Cosby as Noah says to the Lord, “Who is this really? Much closer to my experience, there’s a passage from Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love where she says: “I DO NOT EVEN BELIEVE IN YOU! (that’s actually slightly sanitized for church!) and the voice very calmly responds:  “Who are you talking to, then? So, who are you talking to, then?  Who is this really?  Who is that still,

January 27, 2013 by J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. 1. In 1971 scientific opinion was evenly split between whether the world would cool due to rising particulate and sulfate emissions from burning coal or warm due to carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels. World temperatures had been gradually declining since around 1940 and would only turn around to rise in an approximately straight line in the mid-1970s. By 1975 it had come to be realized by most scientists that inde

January 13, 2013 by Rev. Emma Chattin Lighting the Chalice ~ Reading Ralph Waldo Emmerson once said: “Nobody can bring you peace but yourself." In that spirit, may the spark of life that gives peace within you become a flame to illuminate your mind, warm your soul, and guide your feet to places of peace. First Reading Matthew 25: 31-40 ~ from The Inclusive Bible At the appointed time the Promised One will come in glory, escorted by all the angels of heaven, and will sit

by Joni Grady Sunday, January 30, 2012 I’m going to talk about webs of life, at least 4 of them, and a period of time spanning 350 million years. That these webs grew and spread and intersected and finally became so inextricably mixed that I wonder if they can ever be separated, is one of the great ironies of my life. The first interdependent web that concerns us is the one that existed at least 350 million years ago when the world had erupted with life on land and sea. T

December 2, 2012 by Keo Cavalcanti Taoism has been my practice for almost 25 years, almost half of my life. The centerpiece of this practice is a little book, the Tao Te Ching , written some 2, 500 years ago (for those interested in a good translation, I recommend the edition translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English, published by Vintage Books). There are other Taoist writings that are part of the Chinese collection of philosophical classics, but the Tao Te Ching is centra

October 21, 2012 by Richard Wolf Two decades ago, in the mountains of North Carolina, I worked with two Mayan day-keepers.  I learned a time-keeping system for interpreting 13 tones and 20 glyphs, counting in concurrent cycles, within constructs of larger numbered patterns.  As with western astrology, one can look to the tone and glyph of one’s birth date for clues as to identity, orientation, or mission.  My entry count and glyph are 2 – Cimi.  This date signifies a polariz

October 14, 2012 by Noel Levan Each week I sit with people who are at odds with one another, in my capacity as a mediator at the Fairfield Center downtown. I listen intently as they lambast one another, accuse one another, deride, demean, power-trip, and so much less frequently collaborate for their mutual well-being and the well-being of their children. The relationship that they once en-joyed having gone south, will never return. I see all too frequently that these individ