Sermons & Talks

International Women's Day (8 March) is a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future. In some places like China, Russia, Vietnam and Bulgaria, International Women's Day is a national holiday. Dorothea Dix by Judith Hollowood I speak this morning to celebrate the relentless work of Dorothea Lynde Dix, a Unitarian reformer-heroine of pre-civil war America. For many years, Miss Dix, a lifelong Unitarian Christian, di

STEWARDSHIP SUNDAY “Living Generously March 6, 2011 by Rev. Emma Chattin First Reading ~ Matthew 6: 37-38 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given unto you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured unto you. Second Reading “Looking For Mt. Monadnock by Rober

by Michael Quayle February 6, 2011 For many of us the term theology holds a lot of negative baggage. There is a tendency to associate theology with a specific approach or doctrine. If we have rejected certain religious beliefs or teachings, there is a tendency to reject theology. Within the Unitarian-Universalist tradition there are as many Religious or spiritual beliefs as there are people in this room. Some of us have suffered oppression and even violence in the nam

Harvey Yoder has been a resident of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia since 1946 when his family moved from Kansas by train. Harvey is an ordained Mennonite minister and now have a seminary degree and a master's degree in counseling and since 1988 have been a marriage and family counselor and pastor of a local house church. Harvey has spoken here at HUU on a number of occasions. On Sunday, January 23rd, he presented a sermon Justice Gone Awry. The first part is presented b

Presented by Merle Wenger Sunday January 2, 2011 Chalice Lighting: “We Dreamers We dreamers-- architects of the soul take a lifetime, to meditate, sketch, create, like Corbusier or I M Pei; then choose the bricks and stones, to build a self that suits us well and makes others cock their heads and notice. From Affirmations for the Inner Child by Rokelle Lerner I weave the patterns of my life. I hold the threads, I choose the colors, I put them on the loom in the pattern

Sunday service by Chris Edwards, Nov. 14, 2010 Chalice Readings: “The progress of mankind onward and upward forever. – Unitarian Rev. James Freeman Clarke, 1885 The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. – Ecclesiastes “Knowledge will lead to the absolute perfection of the human race. -Nicolas de Condorcet Trying to control the future Is like trying to take the master

November 7, 2010 One of the services that everyone seems to enjoy is one we present a couple of times a year. We ask for two volunteer participants who are willing to share their own spiritual journey with the Fellowship. This morning Rich Sider and Laura Dent each shared their own spiritual journey. Rich Sider When Judith asked me to participate in this service, my first thought was, I haven’t had much of a spiritual journey. A theological journey, yes, but a spiritual jou

Once in a while a UU says they have trouble with the first UU Principle: “The inherent worth and dignity of every person. I heard that more than once this past Sunday. A scene from the 1980s film “Ironweed which somehow got burned into my memory seems to illustrate that principle. A homeless, very drunken woman has frozen to death on the sidewalk in front of a shelter where she had been turned away. Other homeless people find her. Standing in the bitter cold, they bestow a

July 25, 2010 GLBTIQQ PRIDE SUNDAY by Rev. Emma Chattin Proud of What? ~ Bringing The Other Home How do we celebrate our differences? Perhaps we begin by celebrating that we are different. First Reading ~ Luke 19 : 1-9 Jesus entered Jericho and made his way through the town. There was a man there named Zacchaeus. He was the chief tax collector in the region, and he had become very rich. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but he was too short to see over the crowd. So he ran ah

A Talk By James J. Geary Delivered before the Harrisonburg Unitarian Universalist Church 16 May 2010 Chalice Reading The chalice is a symbol. We need symbols in our lives; we can’t do without them. We utilize hundreds of symbols every day, including the words we use. What does the chalice symbolize for you? For me the chalice symbolizes itself ” fire. Think about fire. Fire is energy. Fire is the essence of the universe. Fire is everything. Everything is from fire. Our su

By Rev. Emma Chattin March 14, 2010 First Reading John 6:1-13 Feeding The Five Thousand Some time later, Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee-- also called Lake Tiberias --and a huge crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he gave by healing the sick. Jesus climbed the hillside and sat down there with his disciples. It was shortly before the Jewish feast of Passover. Looking up, Jesus saw the crowd approaching and said to Philip, 'Where are we to buy

Sunday service by Robin McNallie 3.28.2010 Readings: 1) “thy eyes look to me mild. Out of maize @ air/ your body’s made and moves. I summon, see, / from the centuries it./I think you won’t stay. How do we/ linger, diminished, in our lovers’ air, / implausibly visible, to whom, a year, / years, over interims; or not;/ to a long stranger; or not; shimmer @ disappear. John Berryman, “Homage to Mistress Bradstreet 2) “Sometimes the sun is only shadowed by a cloud that we cannot

Eric LaFreniere addressed HUU members and friends gathered for the Stewardship Sunday luncheon. His comments follow. Greetings! In case you don’t know, my name is Eric LaFreniere, and I’m chair of your HUU Membership Committee. Recently I’ve had the opportunity to reflect on the idea of HUU membership as membership in a kind of extended family, with all the challenges, rewards – and food – that entails. Our HUU family encourages us to be our best selves: to adhere to core pri

Encountering Divinity Through Community (Or ¦. Is It The Other Way Around?) January 10, 2010 by Rev Emma Chattin Words of the Mystics - Thoughts for Reflection “The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.“ ~ Jalal ad-Din Rumi (Persian Poet and Mystic, 1207-1273)~ “You are not a human being in search of a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being

“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

I can hardly believe I have edited the newsletter for nine years! I started in the fall of 2000, about 10 years into both HUU’s and the “HUU Review’s existence (becoming, I think, the fourth editor). It’s been a good ride. Now, new roads beckon (as they should always do), and the time feels right for it to end. The capacity has developed for placing everything on our website that has gone in the print newsletter, and more: calendar, board and committee reports, special event

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 e

October 11, 2009 21 s t 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 i

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 p

Dale Enterprise School A talk presented to the Harrisonburg Unitarian-Universalist Church on the Occasion of the 100 th Anniversary of the Schoolhouse. Dale MacAllister July 19, 2009 Fifty-seven years ago last month, another centennial celebration was held in this very building. In June 1952 a large celebration was organized to mark 100 years since Walnut Grove School opened down the hill from here, just on the other side of Cooks Creek. The event was organized to celebr