Taken with a Fuji X100V using Øyvind Nordhagen’s Kodak Ektar 100 Recipe Just click on the photo to enlarge it.

It’s the Coming of Age service! So, things will look a little different from most Sundays: Everyone (except those under 5 who wish to go to the nursery) will start the morning in the Great Hall. After the Time For All Ages, children in grades ... read more . The post Religious Education on Sunday May 21st appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

Stay after the June 11th worship service for ice cream sundaes and socialization! If you are willing to help that day, click HERE. We’ll have dairy, vegan, gluten-free and low sugar/keto versions of ice cream available, as well as a variety of toppings. ... read more . The post Sundae Sunday is June 11th! appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

This Sunday is the Coming of Age service. Our Coming of Age program at UUSS encourages youth in our congregation to explore their own ideas and feelings about religion, faith, and beliefs. This year the advisors, Emma Horvath, Erin Piotrowski, and Arron Tyo have been ... read more . The post Dispatch from Your Interim DLRE – May 16th appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

A new survey suggests that relative importance of religion in the lives of Americans appears to be on a decline. Continue reading New survey suggests religion less important in American lives at The Wild Hunt.

Join us for a Town Hall on Wednesday, May 24 at 7 pm. The event will be in person and online. Everyone is encouraged to come! Members of the architectural team from Hastings and Chivetta Architects will be coming to Tulsa to discuss the plans for our church’s expansion and renovations. The next step after this meeting is for them to put pens to paper to generate the conceptual designs. This is a chance to meet the team, to hear them describe to us what they understand we are hoping for and envisioning and to ask questions and give final […] The post Meet the Architects appeared first on BeyondBelief.

I’ve waited to post about the baby robins because I didn’t want to presume anything or jinx it. But it seems after the mama robin laid three eggs in the nest on our back porch beam, we now have two babies who have feathers and are poking their heads up to be fed. They don’t […]

“There is, finally, only one thing required of us: that is, to take life whole, the sunlight and shadows together; to live the life that is given us with courage and humor and truth. We have such a little moment out of the vastness of time for all our wondering and loving. Therefore let there … Continue reading Take Life Whole

Sunday, May 21 Blessing of the Animals Service IN PERSON in our beautiful, historic sanctuary. This multi-generational worship service will be led by Rev. Alice Anacheka-Nasemann on May 21 at 10:30am. Well behaved animals of all varieties are welcome to join on leashes or in appropriate enclosures. There will be a slide show presentation of pets   [ … ] The post Sunday, May 21 ~ Blessing of the Animals Service ~ 10:30 a.m. appeared first on Unitarian Church of Marlborough and Hudson.

The best midwives know that birth is best left to nature,That their role is to hold space for that moment of raw creation –That moment where Mother and Child are born,Roared into reality, trial by ring of fire and labor of love They know pushing on one’s back is easier for the doctorAnd works against […]

One way to look at creativity is the creation of ourselves. Many children naturally make up and try out personas and express themselves through chant, songs, dance, mudpies, swinging, and making up stories! This occurs in children living through war, … Continue reading →

After Minneapolis Teamsters stuck city-wide in 1934 police try to move a scab truck using force against unarmed pickets.  Police and Citizen Committee thug violence and mayhem would soon both spread the strike defiantly and cause workers to take up clubs and brick bats to battle it out in the streets. Note:   The epic story of the events in Minneapolis in 1934 is too much for one entry.   We will cover it in three parts. Before 1934 Minneapolis, Minnesota was a conservative , anti-labor bastion.   A railroad and river transportation hub for the upper-Midwest breadbasket and a significant manufacturing city, the local elites organized in the Citizens Alliance in conjunction—or collusion—with local authorities had long kept the cit...

There’s a species of seaweed that grows along the coast here in Cohasset with the scientific name Ulva intestinalis; so named because it looks like intestines. A common English name for it is Gutweed, though I’d rather call it Intestine seaweed. Anyway, it’s one of my favorite seaweeds. How could I not like something that … Continue reading "Intestine seaweed"

On his Substack newsletter Counter Craft, Lincoln Michel writes: “Corporations like Google and Microsoft are moving ahead with unreliable chatbots to “power” their search engines by, essentially, plagiarizing the web. The plan is that when you search for information online, Google’s AI will spit back an answer so you don’t ever have to read an … Continue reading "Big Tech’s AI"

In this Week's Pagan Community Notes: Univision, Smithsonian Taino exhibition, the Earth-Based Spirituality Team event, conference announcements and more news. Continue reading Pagan Community Notes: Week of May 15, 2023 at The Wild Hunt.

Rachel Walden Long before Mother’s Day was celebrated with brunches and flower bouquets, Unitarian Julia Ward Howe wrote her Mother’s Day Proclamation.

  DREAMING EMILY DICKINSON James Ishmael Ford Originally a sermon preached back when Jan & I lived in New England, revisited, dusted off, and lightly rewritten in honor of the 146th anniversary of Emily Dickinson’s death. 1263Tell all the truth but tell it slant –Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm DelightThe Truth’s […]

“You see old things anew. You turn them and test them. Your wonder exhausts our old words to express them.” -From “You Matter,” by Matthew Rosin See something old in a new way today. Wonder about it.

Have you ever heard of Zentangle? Maybe not. How about this? Have you ever found your mind too cluttered with non-stop thoughts especially when you needed to focus on something else? Here’s where Zentangle might just help. Zentangle is an … Continue reading →

People in migration still face challenges as they attempt to migrate to the United States.

Pomo survivors of the massacre on the island in Clear Lake were gunned down by militia men as they swam to shore.  The few who got away were hunted along the Russian River and 50 more were killed over the next days. May 15, 1850 was a very bad day for the Pomo, a Native American people from northern California that you have probably never heard of.   Because no one wants to talk about them, or what happened that gruesome day when Lt . Nathaniel Lyon led troopers of the U . S . First Dragoons Regiment, against a village on an island in Clear Lake.   Sketchy and contradictory accounts claim that between 100 and 400 mostly women, children, and old men were killed and another 50 or more were run down and slaughtered as they tried to escap...

The Annual Meeting is Sunday, May 14. We’d love to see all of you. Your participation is essential in making our UU community strong and successful.

“God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.” –Dag Hammarskjold What is the steady radiance of wonder … Continue reading Radiance

Some thoughts on the blueprints for what it is we are building together.

Finally back on the trails this week and although I tripped a couple of times, I stayed upright and did NOT hit the ground! Yay! This pic is of the beach we hiked to and where we had lunch before looping back to the car. Only 6 miles, but it was a sweet loop on […]

  Dreaming of My Three Mothers James Ishmael Ford Mother’s Day. I find myself thinking about my mother now long dead. My auntie, my “junior mother,” more recently dead. Although also slipping back in time and memory. And, looming behind their mother, my grandmother. Each of them now among the great cloud of witnesses. A […]

  Note — This is becoming my default Mothers’ Day post.   A version first appeared in August 2015. My wife, Kathy , was noodling around on   Ancestry . com and discovered that my birth mother, Margaret High, died in June 2014 in Cheyenne, Wyoming. She was 91 years old. I never had any contact with her and only discovered her identity through the diligent research by my late brother’s ex-wife Arlene Brennan a few years ago.  Bustling downtown Twin Bridges, Montana about the year of my birth.  Margaret High may have met my birth father some Saturday night at the bar on the left.  Who knows? Margaret High came from a pioneering Montana ranching family in aptly named Twin Bridges in the remote high country of the Missouri Brakes....

Our Gods are virtuous and They rarely ask us to do things that would violate our ethics. They often ask us to do things that are uncomfortable, difficult, or dangerous. We need to learn to tell the difference.

  Mary Baker Eddy and America’s Last Witchcraft Trial  Today, the 14th of May, might be counted as a minor religious holiday of some sort. I try to note it when it rolls around. It was, as it happens, on this day, in 1878, that the last trial on a charge of witchcraft was initiated […]

The best I can do, in my spells, is to throw myself towards the chaotic overlap of symbols that I like. I try to aim for the area where, even if I miss, I will enjoy the consequences. Continue reading Crabapple at The Wild Hunt.

  LIKE A SHOT OF HEROIN Jack Kerouac on Buddhist meditation Complex, by turns wonderful and awful, the beat writer Jack Kerouac is one of the handful of people responsible for bringing Zen into the popular English speaking imagination. Any number of people have struggled to contextualize Kerouac’s beatnik Buddhism. Some with more success than […]

The spring/summer issue of the Harvard Divinity School Bulletin features a number of essays on ecological spiritualities. I turned first to the essay by Vanessa Chakour titled “Rethinking Weeds.” As someone deeply interested in urban and suburban ecology, I was curious to see how someone might reassess the presence of weeds. Unfortunately, the article starts … Continue reading "“Rethinking Weeds”"

“Sponges grow in the ocean. That just kills me. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn’t happen.” – Steven Wright What is a ridiculous question you sometimes wonder about?

The spring/summer issue of the Harvard Divinity School Bulletin features essays on ecological spiritualities. Dan MacKanan, the Ralph Waldo Emerson Senior Lecturer in Divinity, provides the introduction, “Making a Space of ‘Alternative Spiritualites’,” saying in part: “When the Divinity School committed to offering a fully multireligious master of divinity curriculum about 20 years ago, we … Continue reading "Ecospirituality at Harvard"

Fenceposts (“priests of stillness”) standing alongside Kirby Creek, Essex, in the summer of 2020 (click to enlarge) A short  “ thought for the day” offered to the Cambridge Unitarian Church as part of the Sunday Service of Mindful   Meditation. (Click on this link to hear a recorded version of the following piece)   —o0o— As many of you will know, this coming week, the church where I am minister is to host a two-day event on mindfulness being offered by a number of Zen Buddhist monastics from Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village community in France. And then, the following week, my own meditation teacher, a Higashi-Hongan-ji, Jodo Shinshu priest now living in New York, Miki Nakura sensei, will be visiting me, and he has kindl...

Mother's Day founder Anna Jarvis, right, and her own mother and inspiration, left.   The celebration of Mother’s Day as we know it now is generally credited to Anna Marie Jarvis in memory of her mother, who died on May 9, 1905.   The first commemorative service was held at the Methodist Church in Grafton , West Virginia where Jarvis’s mother had been a Sunday school teacher 116 years ago today on May 12, 1907.   The following year on May 10 the church, at Jarvis’s urging, expanded the service to include honoring all mothers and Jarvis’s friend, Philadelphia merchant prince John Wanamaker conducted a public observance in the auditorium of this store.   Jarvis tirelessly dedicated herself to spreading the observance.   She wro...

Join us on Sunday (14 May 2023) at 11:00 AM as members and friends of All Souls share original works and the works of favorite poets that have connections to the mothers and others who have filled that kind of role in their lives or to their own experience as mothers and children. Readers will … Continue reading "All Ages Worship (14 May 2023)"

Building and Grounds Work Day (Saturday, 13 May 2023) Spring Congregational Meeting — Sunday, 28 May 2023 2023 Pledge Drive — We Need Your Pledge Now

From:  Board Secretary Rovena Windsor To: All Members, Inactive Members, and Friends In accordance with the Bylaws of our church I hereby announce that All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church will hold a Congregational Meeting on Sunday (28 May 2023) at 12:00 PM or immediately following the 11:00 AM worship service in the sanctuary and via … Continue reading "Spring Congregational Meeting — Sunday, 28 May 2023"

Children and youth will attend the worship service for the first 15-20 minutes and then are dismissed to their classes. We are now discussing personal spiritual growth and how these ideas connect to our Unitarian Universalist faith. Elementary Class:  Toolbox of Faith, Part II — We started the year with Unitarian Universalist identity by exploring … Continue reading "Children and Youth Religious Education Classes — 14 May 2023"

Please join us on Sunday (14 May 2023) for our adult religious education class at 9:00 AM. Our adult religious education class is now a dual-platform class — meeting in person in the church social hall and also on Zoom. This week, we will take a quick look at progress (or the lack thereof) on … Continue reading "Online and In-Person Adult Religious Education — 14 May 2023"

Please join us next Tuesday (16 May 2023) at 12 noon for our weekly Zoom lunch. Our weekly Zoom lunch is going dual-platform — join us from home using Zoom or in person in the social hall. Bring your lunch and meet up with your All Souls friends, have lunch, and just catch up.

Please join us on Saturday (13 May 2023) at 10:30 AM for our weekly meditation group with Larry Androes. This is a sitting Buddhist meditation including a brief introduction to mindfulness meditation, 20 minutes of sitting, and followed by a weekly teaching. Please note that this group is still meeting via Zoom.  You will need … Continue reading "Meditation with Larry Androes (13 May 2023)"

The COP27 Loss and Damage Fund must learn from past initiatives and prioritize supporting migration decisions, long-term assistance, and community-specific needs for successful climate action.

If a corporation has the same constitutional rights as an individual, why couldn’t an ecosystem? Continue reading Opinion: the Rights of Nature – Securing Personhood for All of Us at The Wild Hunt.

Vibe check. Or should we say mind check? Although May 11 was declared the end of the COVID-19 health emergency, we can’t move on like the pandemic didn’t happen. Lockdown overturned the societal rock to expose many issues, including mental health. And isolation wasn’t the only thing that went at the psyche nationwide. What happens in our surroundings—housing, neighborhoods and cities, the R word—is just as important to track as what goes on in the mind. Which is why we’re recommending this handful of titles from our catalog for Mental Health Awareness Month.

 Today I completed a 5 day class at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking. I had 15 students in the class with each having made between six to eight boxes. I suspect the total number would be a record.  We all had fun. I'll be headed home in the morning, grateful for a very nice week. Make, fix and create.   Assist others in learning likewise.

When I was a scientist feeling called to the minister, a friend once asked me about the leap between the two. It occurred to me that as a scientist, I mostly asked “how” and as a minister, I mostly ask “why.”  -Michael Tino (CLF) What are the kinds of questions you find yourself asking today?

Focused as I am on my favorite obscure corners of popular culture, I usually miss the really big worldwide trends. So I was completely unaware of The Wiggles until I read about them on a science fiction fandom blog. If you too have remained blissfully unaware of The Wiggles, they’re an Australian band that released … Continue reading "A cultural phenomenon"

I am currently listening to a book entitled, “The Good Life”, written by Robert Wagner, MD and Marc Shulz, PhD. I heard about the book on NPR. It covers the longest Harvard study on happiness and spans over 80 years … Continue reading →

A Prayer for Rest Gracious Love, may we rest. May we have spaciousness to rest in dappled or deep shade on a hot day, with a nice breeze, and on a cool day in a pool of warming sun. May we have spaciousness to rest from persistent violence and aggressions...

A Prayer for Mothers' Day 2023 Mother-Parent of All, we give thanks for this day and for being birthed into being in our amazing diversity of expression, culture, movement, perception, thinking, reverence, and feelings. There are so many ways of being a person and we all come to being a...

                                                     Yogi Berra in 1953. Note —This is an experiment.   The following blog post on Yogi Berra for his birthday was not written by you reliable scribe but created, including the title, by the Artificial Intelligence (AI) program AI Article Writer 4.0.   I have not edited it in any way.   What say you?   Should the Old Man turn over his posts to this electronic gizmo, which undoubtedly contains fewer spelling errors and typos,   or should he continue to bang out stuff the old fashion way? Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra was an American professional baseball catcher, coach, and manager. He was born on May 12, 1925, in St. Louis, Missouri. Yogi Berra was o...

Auroras are becoming more frequent as we enter the peak of the 11-year sunspot cycle. An event tonight may result in the aurora borealis being visible as far south as southern Oregon and northern California, Denver, Kansas City, and Cincinnati as well as the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  Continue reading Auroras are becoming more frequent at The Wild Hunt.

                             Q: What’s the difference between cats and dogs? A: Dogs look at people and say, “They feed us. They give us shelter. They take care of our every need. They must be gods.” Cats look at people and say, “They feed us. They give us shelter. They take care of our every need. We must be gods.” In the 19th century Thomas Starr King was asked to describe the differences between the two denominations Unitarianism and Universalism. He replied, “Universalists believe that God is too good to damn them to hell forever. Unitarians believe they are too good to be damned.” And so we might say that Unitarians are cats and Universalists are dogs. As I mentioned earlier, I have been conte...

           Are you off-center?   I mean off balance internally and/or off balance between your inside and the outside world.   Sometimes I feel I am.   Sometimes I know I am.   Sometimes I am, but I don’t know it.        Near the end of my career as a psychotherapist—this was over 25 years ago-- I noticed some things about myself.   I was more tired than usual during work hours, finding myself even getting sleepy between clients.   I wasn’t as interested in my work.   Before that time, I attended many Continuing Education programs, always interested in learning more, talking with colleagues about various techniques, strategies, and client types, and taking on clients with novel conditions—many of whom other ...

             I have learned a little about myself as I have traveled this life.   One of the important lessons I have learned is that if I don’t set something, even an important something, as a priority and carve out specific time just especially for it, I will get distracted and will not make time for it in my life.   Does that resonate with you?             Back when I was new to ministry, serving Peoples Church Unitarian Universalist in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, I felt something stirring in my heart and soul.   I wasn’t clear what it was and I was prepared to ignore that restlessness, and just keep doing what I was doing.   That would have been easy.   But I was also aware that stirrings if ignored might leak...

The Trinity Foundation, a religious watchdog organization, recently released its list of “100 Highly Paid Christian Ministry Executives.” The Foundation based their salary information on IRS Form 990. However, since churches, synagogues, and mosques aren’t required to file Form 990, they don’t have to provide any salary information. Thus, highly paid clergy like Joel Osteen … Continue reading "Clearly I’m in the wrong job"

I. A Prayer For All Who Mother We reflect in thanksgiving this day for all those whose lives have nurtured ours.The life-giving onesWho heal with their presenceWho listen in sympathyWho give wise advice … but only when asked for it.We are grateful for all those who have mothered usWho have held us gently in times … Continue reading "Two Mothers Day Prayers"

The Ride/Walk to Leave a Light On will return to Woodstock, Illinois for the third year on Friday, June 16.   Folks will gather on Woodstock Square beginning at 7:30 pm with the ride starting in the gloaming at 8:40. The event is presented by Material Things Artisan Market on the Woodstock Square Historic District to support our local community organizations—CASA of McHenry County, Live4Lali, Woodstock Pride, Illinois Migrant Council, Stairway to Prosperity, The Break, and Compassion 4 Campers by purchasing colored light strings that correspond with each organization. All proceeds go to them. Each string is $9.00 Lights: Purple -Live4Lali Gold -Crystal Lake "The Break" White - Illinois Migrant Council Multi Color - Woodstock Pride Red...

“Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.” -Khalil Gibran Read a poem that makes you wonder today.

I walk through the orchard and marvel at the beauty of violets which have naturalized all over the ground. Dandelions offer a scatter of yellow along with a few daffodils, and clover has spread over the beds and paths in a swath of green. Chives and oregano and thyme are coming up in their clumps. […]

I recently heard an interview with National Public Radio journalist Mary Louise Kelly about her new memoir as a world renowned journalist and mother. Kelly told of an incident that occurred during a public forum some years ago. A woman … Continue reading →

In Chicago regular Cavalry escorted mail trains through strike lines with additional heavily armed troops mounted on the engine and the tops of cars. On May 11, 1894 one of the greatest battles in American labor history erupted as employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company walked off of their jobs to protest wage cuts.   When Eugene V . Debs and the American Railway Union took up their cause with a national boycott of trains with Pullman cars attached, the strike became a nationwide event.   National Guard and Federal troops were called in to suppress the strike and “move the mails.” 1894 was the nadir of one of those devastating financial panics that erupted with regularity in the 19th Century.   Just outside of Chicago George P...

    God as a Zen Koan or Huatou James Ishmael Ford When I am silent, I fall into the place where everything is music. Rumi I notice that today, May 10th, is one of the days that Job of the Book of Job is celebrated. Job is one of my favorite figures in the […]

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom released its annual report last week noting that the conditions for religious freedom are “worsening” around the world.  Continue reading Religious Freedom Commission releases 2023 report of “worsening” world at The Wild Hunt.

Before the landmark 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade made abortion legal across the United States, clergy from a wide variety of religious traditions developed a coordinated, skilled, responsive underground network that supported people experiencing "problem pregnancies" to access abortion care from trustworthy doctors and medical professionals. This network of more than 1400 clergy and hundreds of providers -- which included many Unitarian Universalists -- helped hundreds of thousands of people access safe abortions before the Roe decision. Now, we look back at the Clergy Consultation Service to learn so we can prepare and coordinate to take risks again for reproductive justice. Let's learn our history to plan for our future. Ready to Take Ac...

By Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma | One of the most famous verses in the Kural is about the art of learning. What the poet Tiruvalluvar said in Tamil more than fifteen centuries ago is as relevant now as ever: 391: Faultlessly study what is to be studied—then fit All that you’ve studied I’ve always been struck by how Tiruvalluvar not only urges us to learn fully, leaving out nothing, but also inspires us to bring our lives and our studies into harmony.

“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” -e e cummings Experience some spontaneous delight today. Yes, just go do it.

Heather Beasley Doyle Unitarian Universalists offer pastoral care to travelers to New Mexico.

There are a lot of places where fat liberation and disability liberation intersect in my life. Where size justice and…</p> The post Thin People Can Welcome Their Fat Friends appeared first on Taking Up Space.

Joanna Fontaine Crawford We are the hands and feet of love. And sometimes its fingernails, too. Continue reading "Fingernails as Faith Development"

2023 May – The Path of Creativity – Creative Conflicts  Welcome to our upstairs bathroom walls. The image to the left is the wall in the master bath and the wall to the right is from what used to be … Continue reading →

This is the most religiously diverse society in the history of humanity. Every religion deserves to be understood on its own terms, not just in terms of how it compares to the Protestant Christianity that still dominates the United States.

  Newton Minow as a 33 year old Federal Communications Commission Chair in 1951. Note— Newton Minow , President John F . Kennedy ’ s Federal Communications Commission ( FCC ) died last Saturday in Chicago just days before the 62nd anniversary of his famous speech .   What he must have made of the medium he chastised in his final days, especially the Fox News scandal . Some count it as one of the most important American speeches of the second half of the 20th Century right up there with Eisenhower ’ s Farewell Address, Kennedy ’ s Inaugural Address, and the most famous orations by Martin Luther King.   But it was not delivered by a towering political figure or a game changing visionary.   It was spoken by a semi-obscure bureau...

Taken with a Fuji X100V using Kevin Mullins’ Padilla recipe Just click on the photo to enlarge it

Stephen Covey, author of the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, once said: “Without trust we don’t truly collaborate, we merely coordinate or, at best, cooperate. It is trust that transforms a group of people into a team.” And we know from the work ... read more . The post May Theme: Trust & Vulnerability appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

The Jewish feast of Lag B'Omer began yesterday evening and with it renewed concerns that some celebrations are pagan in origin. Continue reading Lag B’Omer and concerns over paganism at The Wild Hunt.

What a delightful event organized by the Music Team. Eyes on the Pies had the dining room and bellies full of pizza, salad, and other delightful treats. Then bidding began in gusto for the sweet and savory pies, followed by a wonderful coffeehouse! Many thanks to ... read more . The post Co-Ministers’ Colloquy – May 9th appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

This week in Religious Education we’ll have a Children’s Chapel for children in Kindergarten through 6th grade. Everyone may start the morning in the Great Hall for the first part of the service. After the Time for All Ages, the children in Kindergarten through 6th grade ... read more . The post Religious Education programming on 5/14 appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

Diverse & Revolutionary UU Multicultural Ministries is hosting a public online worship service on May 11th at 8 pm Eastern Time. You can register here to learn more and to register to attend: https://druumm.wildapricot.org/event-5225905 The post DRUUMM online worship service May 11 at 8pm appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

This is a weekend-long social conference for UU Young Adults (18-35) and like-minded folk to socialize and build community. When: June 02, 7:00 PM – June 04, 9:00 AM Where: Fourth Universalist Society on the Upper West Side of NYC More info at https://www.concretejungle.social/. ... read more . The post Young Adult Con – CONcrete Jungle appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

                                        Singer Darlene Benton will be the featured soloist at the Juneteenth--Freedom Day Festival in Woodstock. Singer Darlene Benton will be the featured vocalist at the Juneteenth—Freedom Day Festival on historic Woodstock Square on Saturday, June 17 from 3 to 5:30 pm. Benton has been singing since the age of 4. Her roots have taken her to gospel and jazz. She has sung throughout the Chicagoland area at such notable venues as the Auditorium Theatre, the House of Blues, the Chicago Hilton, and the Hemmens Culture Center. While her vocals have been requested by such iconic gospel artists as Albertina Walker, her true love is leading and ministering to the hearts and souls of peop...

My co-worker asked me today about using A.I. as a resource in preaching. Great question. I did this once, and I don’t see myself doing it again, and here’s why: When I entered a bunch of my writing into ChatGPT in April 2023 and asked it to generate a sermon about stewardship of the earth, … Continue reading "AI And Sermon Prep"

Commensality. I introduced this word four weeks ago, on Easter, and I wanted to reflect about it with you further today. It’s from the Latin root for table. Commensality refers to the fact that who we take meals with, and how, is socially structured and recapitulates the overall social structure. I cited anthropologists Peter Farb and George Armelagos who wrote: “In all societies, both simple and complex, eating is the primary way of initiating and maintaining human relationships…. Once the anthropologist finds out where, when, and with whom the food is eaten, just about everything else can be inferred about the relations among the society’s members....To know what, where, how, when, and with whom the people eat is to know the ch...

“And in our search for peace, maybe we’ll finally see: even to question, truly, in an answer.” -Shelley Jackson Denham When have you been satisfied to question without needing an answer?

Kat McKim Deep collaborations between congregations offer mutual support, foster creativity. </p>

“What you produce is not necessarily always sacred, I realized, just because you think it’s sacred. What is sacred is the time that you spend working on the project, and what that time does to expand your imagination, and what … Continue reading →

I'm at Marc Adams School of Woodworking and am a bit frustrated when mistakes I've made put other people's work at risk. That makes this a good time for me to remind myself that our greatest learning takes place, not when things are going perfectly well, but when obstacles are faced and overcome. One of my students mentioned his need to make a wooden box for the ashes of a friend. This link is to a blog post I placed on the Fine Woodworking website in 2012 that describes the making of just such a box. https://www.finewoodworking.com/2012/05/09/making-a-crematory-urn-box-part-i The photo is from yesterday's class. Make, fix and create...

                                                                        A Canadian bottle of Searle's Enovid contraception tablets a/k/a The Pill. It’s hard to believe that only sixty three years ago today in 1960 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finally approved marketing G. D. Searle Pharmaceutical Corporation ’ s Enovid as an oral contraceptive.   That makes May 9 sort of the birthday of The Pill.   Of course, its story goes back earlier.   Pioneering birth control advocate Margaret Sanger had long sought a safe and reliable form of contraception that women themselves could use and control unlike condoms.   In 1953 she brought her long-time associate and supporter Katharine McCo...

In this Week's Pagan Community Notes, Strega Nona gets USPS stamp, a State Representative in Connecticut is skeptical of exonerations, Witches in the UK send ritual support to King Charles, Sauron's butterfly (you read the right), a shocking Bath event, and more news. Continue reading Pagan Community Notes: May 8, 2023 at The Wild Hunt.

A sermon on the significance of the Rev. Robert Wedderburn, the first Unitarian minister of African descent. The post Suffering for Blasphemous Libel appeared first on Colin Bossen.

The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.” -Jacques Cousteau Where do you find wonder in nature?

A couple of weeks ago, The Verge published an article by David Pierce that asks the question, Can ActivityPub Save the Internet? As David Pierce points out in his article, the ActivityPub protocol has the potential for making social media more like email (in a good way). Email is an open protocol. If social media … Continue reading "A new way to do social media?"

                                   Antoine Lavoisier isolated, identified, and named oxygen. What with climate change deniers, anti-evolutionists, new earth enthusiasts,   anti-vaxers, and Trumpista zealots, a lot of scientists these days are feeling pretty put upon and threatened by politics.   But, believe me, it could be worse.   Ask Antoine Lavoisier . The French Aristocrat was indisputably the most famous and important scientist in the world.   He is rightfully considered the Father of Modern Chemistry and made major contributions to biology as well.   Most famously, he identified and named oxygen as essential to combustion.   His English contemporary, the theologian/philosopher/scientist Joseph Priestley ...

Have you ever  been bullied for any of these?  I recently finished listening to How To Be A Champion by Sarah Millican. The author narrated this biography. She is one of my favorite stand up comedians. I felt like a … Continue reading →