Many of Bill Monroe's early recordings with and without the Blue Grass Boys continue to be reissued in modern formats.   A handful of musicians and performerscan be said to have laid the groundwork for and popularized whole genres of American music—Scott Joplin with ragtime, Louis Armstrongwith jazz, Robert Johnson with Delta blues, Jimmie Rodgers with modern country music, and perhaps Elvis Presley for rock and roll.  Only one, in the words of an admiring Ricky Skaggs “…was so influential…he’s probably the only musician that had a whole style of music named after his band.”  That was Bill Monroe.  His band was called the Blue Grass Boys. Monroe was born a hundred and ten years ago on September 13, 1911 on a hard scra...

Like Unitarian Universalists preachers do with the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth and his disciples, today's progressives and nationalists treat ...

Worship For All Ages: Water Communion Hosted By Miami Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Event starts on Sunday, 12 September 2021 and ...

          It was on this day, the 13th of September, in 1848 that poor Phineas Gage took a railroad spike through his head. What exactly happened after is disputed. What is indisputable is how this incident opened up wide the question of how much we are biological creatures, where our sense of […]

UU Mindfulness Meditation Circle via Zoom Sep 15, 2021 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm UU Mindfulness: What the Buddha Taught Contact emailProtector.

The First Unitarian Universalist Church of Berks County is an open, nurturing community that encourages respect for and knowledge of all spiritual ...

CLF, which produces Daily Compass, also serves some 1,350 incarcerated Unitarian Universalists. Too many people are caught right now in the carceral state, often held for unjust reasons, and dehumanized daily in the name of “justice.” Think about how you can make change in that system. Consider becoming a penpal to an incarcerated person. Details … Continue reading →

As the church year came to a close this past June, Facebook groups of UU ministers filled with stories of congregations treating their ministers poorly. What ministers define as poor treatment can take many different forms, but the result is usually the same: the minister determines it’s time to move …

The experience of spirit evolves our consciousness, develops our character, and makes us more real. Our experiences of spirit, however, are not only personally beneficial; they can also benefit others by inspiring us to share our gifts and bring spiritual experience into the lives of our fellows.

McIntosh, Steve. The Presence of the Infinite . Quest Books. p.2 

Unitarian Universalism seems to have forgotten its mission and vision. It has become hung up on social justice and forgotten its primary mission which is to facilitate spiritual development. Most UUs don’t even know what spiritual development is let alone how to facilitate it, nurture it, and guide it.

Steve McIntosh in his book, The Presence Of The Infinite, provides excellent definitions and ideas about how to develop our spirituality. His overall approach is what is called “evolutionary spirituality.”

The point of pursuing a path of evolutionary spirituality is to facilitate one’s own spiritual development, that of one’s associates, and the world.

How can a person “bring spiritual experience into the lives of our fellows” if we aren’t even consciously aware of our own spiritual experience and have a map for its development?

If you were asked, “Where are you in your spiritual development” what would you say? Do you even have a way of thinking about this question, let alone answering it?

Stick with us for the next month or two as we explore The Presence Of The Infinite on UU A Way Of Life.

 THE FLAMING CHALICE: What it means to Unitarian Universalists

August 14, 2011
Rev. Kit Ketcham

Hey, remember our teenage years when we’d go to summer camp and sit around a big bonfire at night, make googly eyes at each other across the flames, and sing goofy songs like this:

One dark night, when we were all in bed, old Missus O’Leary put a lantern in the shed. The cow kicked it over and winked her eye and said “There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight! Fire, fire, fire, fire!”

Whether we experience it in a friendly way---around a campfire or in front of a fireplace in a cozy room----or as a frightening event in our lives, there’s something compelling about fire. We seem drawn to its light, its warmth, its flickering magic, the smoke that rises into the skies. And we also may shrink from its glare, its inferno-like heat, the caustic fumes it can generate and we fear its destructive power even as we kindle a small cooking fire.

We light candles for our own quiet times, or when we desire a sense of the holy. We take care not to let fire get out of control, we keep fire extinguishers handy in our kitchen, by the hearth, and at the campsite. We gaze in horror at the destructive nature of fire upon homes, forests and, property, and we also marvel at its regenerative powers when the ravaged forest begins to bloom again.

A cup, too, a goblet, a container for lifegiving substances, has significance to us. How many mugs with funny sayings on them have you received over your lifetime? We give and receive gifts of containers, from silly mugs to beautiful silver goblets to beer steins and even pasta bowls.

All of these gifts are intended to hold something we value---our morning cup of tea, a celebratory glass of champagne, a cold brew, a hearty meal. We look at the goofy mug and think of its giver----our child who tells us we’re the best mom or dad ever, our sister or brother who can’t resist making one more joke about the difference in our ages.

We raise our champagne goblets high and drink a toast to the bond between newlyweds. We look at the intricate designs on that authentic German beer stein and marvel at the colors and figures on its surface. We pour savory sauce over the pasta in the wide bowl and anticipate its delicious flavors.

Our flaming chalice is a combination of these two things: a bit of fire and a container to hold it. A flame and a safe environment for that flame.

Today we’re going to consider how our flaming chalice came to be important to Unitarian Universalists, the variety of meanings ascribed to it, a bit about its history, and what it means that we light it at the beginning of every worship service and even at board meetings and committee gatherings. And I’m going to ask you for your thoughts a few times to be shared during our social time.

The flaming chalice was not always our iconic symbol of UUism. It came into being at least twenty years before Unitarians joined forces with Universalists to become the religious movement we are today, and it took 20 more years to become our symbol.

The flaming chalice design was the creative idea of an Austrian artist named Hans Deutsch, in 1941. Deutsch had been living in Paris but ran afoul of Nazi authorities for his critical cartoons of Adolf Hitler. When the Nazis invaded Paris in 1940, he fled, with an altered passport, into Portugal where he met the Rev. Charles Joy, who was the director of the Unitarian Service Committee.

The Service Committee had been founded in Boston to assist Eastern Europeans, among them Unitarians as well as Jews and homosexuals, people who needed to escape Nazi persecution. From Lisbon, Rev. Joy oversaw a secret network of couriers and agents.

Deutsch was impressed by the work of the Service Committee and wrote to Rev. Joy: “There is something that urges me to tell you…how much I admire your utter self denial (and) readiness to serve, to sacrifice all, your time, your health, your well being, to help, help, help.”

The USC (Service Committee) was an unknown entity in 1941, which was a huge disadvantage in wartime, when establishing trust quickly across barriers of language, nationality, and faith could mean life instead of death. Disguises, signs and countersigns, and midnight runs across guarded borders were how refugees found freedom in those days.

So Rev. Joy asked Hans Deutsch to create a symbol for the USC’s papers, as he said, “to make them look official, to give dignity and importance to them, and at the same time to symbolize the spirit of our work…When a document may keep a (person) out of jail, give (them) standing with governments and police, it is important that it look important.”

So Hans Deutsch drew a simple design, and Rev. Joy wrote to his colleagues in Boston that it was “a chalice with a flame, the kind of chalice which the Greeks and Romans put on their altars. The holy oil burning in it is a symbol of helpfulness and sacrifice…”

And for all of us who have a little case of cross cringe when we see one, Rev. Joy noted that the chalice suggests, to some extent, a cross, and he emphasized that for Christians the cross represents its central theme of sacrificial love.  So you can tuck that information away in your thesaurus of religious words you don’t really have to be disgusted by.  We UUs do sacrificial love all the time, with our families, our friends, and our faith community, to say nothing of our social justice efforts.

The flaming chalice design was made into a seal for papers and a badge for agents moving refugees to freedom. In time it became a symbol of Unitarian Universalism all around the world and of the humanitarian call to action by people of faith who were willing to risk all for others in a time of urgent need.

 Every Sunday UUs all over the world light the chalice as a time-honored ritual---in huge congregations and tiny ones, big historical sanctuaries, rented strip mall spaces, and even home living rooms. And now, by the magic of technology, in Zoom services as well.

I’m wondering----what does lighting the chalice mean to you all, when we kindle this flame at the beginning of our worship time? During our social time after the service, we’ll have a chance to share our thoughts.

The chalice lighting is often preceded by words of dedication or poetry or the wisdom of some sage, carefully chosen to focus on the event beginning, whether that is a time of worship, of memorializing, of honoring, or doing sacred work.

The lighting of the chalice signifies, to many, the moment at which we move into another realm, into a sacred time, into a time in which we consider matters of worth and value, a time in which we find wisdom and strength in the act of being together in community. It focuses our attention on the work at hand, when we light the chalice before a board or committee meeting, and it reminds us that the work of the religious community is sacred work.

Now let’s think about the possible meanings of combining the vessel of the chalice with the living, breathing flame. Here is a container for nourishment—the chalice--and here is an ever-changing, comforting yet dangerous element—the flame. What spiritual significance might be found in this juxtaposition of these two disparate elements? Let’s think about this idea. And during social time, we’ll share our thoughts.

A couple of years ago, our UU ministers’ email chatline considered the significance of the flaming chalice and how that meaning has developed in our own understandings since the custom began, sometime in the 80’s, introduced by the youth’s and women’s caucuses at a long ago General Assembly, when youth and women were beginning to have a huge effect on the direction of Unitarian Universalism.

Here are some of their thoughts: the chalice is a container for the holy. The chalice signifies open-hearted community where all are welcome. The chalice is a poetic, visual metaphor for community. In dreamwork it indicates a need for spiritual nourishment. The chalice bowl is deep and wide, big enough to contain many paths and ideas, hopes and intentions.

The flame is a conduit to the transcendent. It is ever-changing, alive, untouchable, dangerous; it can tempt and it can also heal. The flame is a symbol of spiritual transformation; it reminds us of the sacrificial flame of antiquity. It is a light in the darkness. It brings change, creation, rebirth. It is a cauterizing, purifying element.

The flaming chalice, as our iconic symbol of UUism, came into being at a time of great global turmoil. The forces of oppression and tyranny were strong across the earth. Few were able to withstand and survive that assault, but underground, beneath the surface, there was constant clandestine activity by those who resisted, those who dedicated themselves to saving others who were in danger, regardless of the personal cost.

Interestingly, a chalice design similar to our original design by Hans Deutsch mysteriously appears on the cover of a book entitled “The Ideal Gay Man: the Story of Der Kreis” or the story of “The Circle”, the international gay literary journal published from 1932-1967. Except for a slight difference in the curve of the flame, the two drawings might be the same thing. Did Deutsch draw both symbols? I can’t say for sure and am not willing to pay over $100 for this out of print book!  Though I did get a peek at it when a colleague gave me a link to a Google document of the book.

But the significance of a chalice and a flame adorning official-looking documents enabling refugees to leave Nazi Germany and serving as the symbol of an underground journal which published gay European writers-----that’s interesting. Not only interesting, but compelling.

It makes me ask, what does the flaming chalice stand for? And what might it challenge us to do? Let’s think about this symbol and its challenge. And we can talk about it a bit during social time.

In the songs today,  the flame’s reputation for passion and intensity comes through, hot, ardent, eager. Also steamy! Light My Fire and Ring of Fire are classics in the country rock world, making no secret of the heat of passion that drives us mammals to find each other and make new mammals.

Passion drives us in many ways, not just sexually, and it is this passion for action that the flame of the chalice expresses to me. Your thoughts also may reflect your desire for passion, for fire in your lives as well as the comfort of the sacred space we create with our Beloved Community.

I like the symbolism of our congregation, our sanctuary, being a sort of chalice, a community that is safe, healing, and nourishing, welcoming all into its circle. I like the symbolism of our passion to help our community being the flame set inside the chalice, warming us, inspiring us, moving us to action.

I like to think of the lighting of our chalice on Sundays and before our meetings as a visual and heartfelt reminder that we are together in love and commitment, safe within these walls but eager and ready to move out into the community to be of service to those who need us.

And each of us embodies the message of the chalice; each of us can be that safe haven, that healing presence, that source of nourishment to those we meet on life’s path. And each of us can offer the passion nourished within these walls to those beyond these walls. As one of my heroes the late Dag Hammersjold once famously wrote, and Veja repeated these words earlier: “Each morning we must hold out the chalice of our being to receive, to carry, and give back.”

Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.

Our closing song is Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire”.

EXTINGUISHING THE CHALICE 

BENEDICTION: Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, remembering that we carry within us the same fire that lights our chalice flame. May we carry our passion and fire into our daily lives, committed to doing whatever we can to serve our neighbors and friends as we live out the symbol of our flaming chalice. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

Leonora Carrington's Surrealist artwork and writings have come again to the forefront with the rising interest in mystical art. Continue reading “I didn’t have time to be anyone’s muse”: the mystical works of Leonora Carrington at The Wild Hunt.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on September 12, 2021. How do we live into the second UU principle and practice justice, equity, and compassion in human relations? What does it look like to incorporate the vast variety of prayerful practices into our lives?

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211111041110/http://www.austinuuav.org/audio/2021-09-12_Down_to_the_river_to_pray.mp3

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211111041049/https://whitebearunitarian.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/09-12-21-audio.mp3

"New Eyes and Not Afraid" (September 12, 2021) Worship Service

This Sunday is this confluence of holidays and holidays and anniversaries raising the question not just of how we begin in the midst of ongoing challenges, but how people have always done so; even we ourselves did 20 years ago. We frame that exploration with music, special music, for the occasion. Come join us.

Rev. Vanessa Rush Southern, Senior Minister; Rev. Alyson Jacks, Associate Minister; Richard Davis-Lowell, Worship Associate; Reiko Oda Lane, organist; Sarah Brindell, Guest soloist/songwriter; Bill Klingelhoffer, shofar; UUSF Church Choir, conducted by Mark Sumner

Eric Shackelford, camera; Shulee Ong, camera; Jonathan Silk, OOS Design & sound; Joe Chapot, live chat moderator; Carrie Steere-Salazar, flowers; Alex Darr, Les James, Tom Brookshire, Zoom Coffee Hour

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211111041028/https://content.uusf.org/podcast/20210912VRSSermon.mp3

My left knee had its second birthday this week. The ice machine above that I used for pain and swelling relief post surgery now lives in our basement. I hope I haven’t worn the new knee out in two years with all the hiking I have done! It does ache sometimes, worse than the the […]

Turning sap into syrup takes attention and diligence and wouldn’t most of us agree it’s worth it? likewise, unfolding the meaning of our lives, sorting out one way of understanding for one that fits us better is a life-long undertaking worthy of our time and attention.

Rev. Linda Whittenberg is no stranger to us. She was a member here during the first years of Dale Arnink’s ministry and has visited to read from her several books of poems and to speak on numerous occasions. She has called Santa Fe home for 42 years, even during the years she served as minister in California and Washington. After her husband, Bob Wilber’s death in 2020, she moved to Colorado to be near her three children who all live in the Denver Area.

SERVICE NOTES

WELCOME!

• New to our church community? Sign our guestbook and let us know if you’d like to get more connected.
  
• For more information on our church community, visit us on the web at http://www.uulosalamos.org or call at 505-662-2346. 
• Connect with us on Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/uulosalamos
• If you would like to submit a joy or sorrow to be read during next week’s service, we invite you to write it in our Virtual Prayer Book.
  
• Have questions? While our minister, the Rev. John Cullinan, is on sabbatical, contact our office administrator at office@uulosalamos.org.

MUSIC CREDITS

• “Beau Soir” by Claude Debussy. (Kathy Gursky, viola & Yelena Mealy, piano). Music Public Domain, video used by permission.
• “O Life That Maketh All Things New,” words: Samuel Longfellow, music: Thomas Williams’s Psalmodia Evangelica, 1789. (Yelena Mealy, piano). Hymn Public Domain, video used by permission.
• “What Wondrous Love,” words: American folk hymn, music: melody from The Southern Harmony, 1835. (Wade Wheelock, violin). Hymn Public Domain, video used by permission.
• “Find a Stillness,” words: Carl G. Seaburg, music: Transylvanian hymn tune, harm. Larry Phillips (Nylea Butler-Moore, piano). Used by permission of the UUA (Unitarian Universalist Association).
• “Sicilienne,” Op. 78 by Gabriel Fauré. (Kathy Gursky, viola & Yelena Mealy, piano). Music Public Domain, video used by permission. 
• “Romance” by Claude Debussy. (Kathy Gursky, viola & Yelena Mealy, piano). Music Public Domain, video used by permission.
• “The Way,” text: unknown author, music: Nylea L. Butler-Moore. (UU Virtual Singers with Larry Rybarcyk, acoustic guitar & Nylea Butler-Moore, piano; Nylea Butler-Moore, Music Director; Rick Bolton, AV Engineer.) Used by permission. 

Permission to stream the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE with license #A-730948. All rights reserved.
Permission to stream music in this service obtained from CHRISTIAN COPYRIGHT SOLUTIONS with license #10770.

OFFERTORY

Our Share the Plate partner for September is Lutheran Family Services. 
100% of all offered this month will be given to our partner.
We are now using Givelify.com to process the weekly offering: https://giv.li/5jtcps

SERVICE PARTICIPANTS

• Rev. Linda Whittenberg, Guest Speaker 
• Felicia Orth, Worship Associate
• Tina DeYoe, Director of Lifespan Religious Education
• Nylea Butler-Moore, Director of Music
• Yelena Mealy, piano
• Kathy Gursky, viola
• Wade Wheelock, violin
• UU Virtual Singers: Kelly Shea, Nylea Butler-Moore, Rebecca Howard, Anne Marsh, Kathy Gursky, Mike Begnaud, & Skip Dunn  
• Mike Begnaud, Rick Bolton, and Renae Mitchell AV techs

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211111041002/https://www.uulosalamos.org/ucla/pulpit/2021/20210912-Boiling_It_Down.mp3

Turning sap into syrup takes attention and diligence and wouldn’t most of us agree it’s worth it? likewise, unfolding the meaning of our lives, sorting out one way of understanding for one that fits us better is a life-long undertaking worthy of our time and attention. Rev. Linda Whittenberg is no stranger to us. She was a member here during the first years of Dale Arnink’s ministry and has visited to read from her several books of poems and to speak on numerous occasions. She has called Santa Fe home for 42 years, even during the years she served as minister in California and Washington. After her husband, Bob Wilber’s death in 2020, she moved to Colorado to be near her three children who all live in the Denver Area.

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, September 12, 2021.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211111040941/https://www.ascboston.org/downloads/podcast/210912.mp3

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 Lesson #354

We stand together, Christ and I, in peace and certainty of purpose. And in Him is His Creator, as He is in me.

The Christian church has taught for centuries that all people have been born in original sin and fallen short of the glory of God. The Universalists and A Course In Miracles teach the opposite that all people are born into an original blessing of inherent worth and dignity.

It is suggested in Alcoholic Anonymous, in step 12, that we share this spiritual awakening, that God loves us unconditionally, with others.

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

Today, in lesson #354, we are reminded that the Body of Christ is God’s Son of which each of us is a part.

One of the core themes of the Autumn Equinox is balance. We need warmth and cold, growth and rest, sunshine and rain. Could we truly appreciate pleasure if we never experienced pain? But some of us like the dark, and we welcome its return.

      “All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final.” Hypatia Perhaps you’re familiar with the Neoplatonist philosopher Hypatia? An amazing figure, the daughter of an Alexandrian philosopher, she became a major thinker and teacher during the cusp of the fourth and fifth centuries of our […]

Walter Huston and Jeanne Madden as Peter Stuyvesant and Tina Tienhoven in Knickerbocker Holiday. There must be something about September that inspires songwriters.   Other months, of course, get a lot of musical traffic but the transition month between summer and autumn has produced some stunningly memorable tunes often laden with wistfulness and tinged with melancholy.   Several have become standards.   Think of Try to Remember from The Fantasticks, Frank Sinatra’s rendition of September of My Years by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn, or Neal Diamond’s schmaltzy power ballad September Morn .   Lately Green Day’s When September Ends shows signs of similar legs.   You can probably think of others.   But all must bow before the...

If you have shelter, witness the reality of those around you who are unhoused. If you are experiencing homelessness, we witness you. How can you bring some humanity to someone unhoused today? The Daily Compass offers words and images to inspire spiritual reflection and encourage the creation of a more loving, inclusive and just world. … Continue reading →

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Luke Babb writes about their experiences with those entities some call "the good neighbors," some "the fair folk," and some by dozens of other names - not all of which may refer to the same class of being. Continue reading Column: Living with the Locals at The Wild Hunt.

My eyes, my tongue, my hands, my feet today have but one purpose; to be given Christ to use to bless the world with miracles.

The classic song sung by Dionne Warwick originally back in 1967 is “What’s it all about, Alfie?” Today’s lesson, #353, teaches us that it’s about blessing the world with the Love of God.

In Alcoholic Anonymous, it is suggested, in step twelve, that we share with others what we have learned from the program about spiritual awakening.

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth.

Today it is suggested that we use our physical bodies to bless the world with the Love of God. A kind word, a compliment, and expression of gratitude, forgiveness, initiates a ripple effect sanctifying the world.

As many are also doing this morning, I look back 20 years ago to the morning when much of our world changed. On that morning, 9/11/2001, I was just starting as a part-time woodworking teacher for kids at the brand new Clear Spring High School. As the news began coming from New York of the terror assault on the World Trade Tower, we attempted to gather around a large TV. We were all shaken. And then responding to parental desires that they be able to hold their kids close, we closed early on that terrible day. Today is a milestone for our nation as it represents miles of twists and turns (many of them false and delusional) that followed from that day. Today also represents the start of my 20th year as a woodworking teacher of kids and mar...

as presented at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston, September 11, 2021 Welcome to this service marking the twentieth anniversary of the attacks on September 11th. I am the Rev. Dr. Colin Bossen, and along with the Rev. D. Scott Cooper, and on behalf of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston, I thank […]

A recorded version of the following piece can be found at this link On Tuesday, September 11th 2001, I was just over a year into my ministry at the Cambridge Unitarian Church. I was working in my study on the church premises (where I am recording this today) and had just stopped to make a cup of tea after my lunch. I turned on the radio to listen to the 2pm news to find that both towers of the World Trade Center had been hit by aircraft and were ablaze. Not surprisingly, like everyone else, I was truly shocked by what I was hearing, so shocked in fact that I knew I needed both human company and to see myself whether this was really happening. Since my wife, Susanna, was at work and we did not have a television I left my study and went a ...

Note —Twenty years after America’s most traumatic experience the memory of the 8/11 attacks is everywhere—news specials and documentaries all over broadcast and cable, newspaper front pages, special commemorative magazines at the grocery check-out, made-for-TV movies, new books both serious and refloating conspiracy theories.  Today there will be live coverage of memorial services at the site of the Twin Towers in New York, at the Pentagon, in a Pennsylvania field, and in cities and towns across the country.  Witnesses, survivors, and family members will be interviewed.  Pundits will try and find meaning and too often echo old, discredited conclusions.  Not just a calendar milestone, the event is made more poignant by the chaot...

      Twenty years.  Hard to imagine. A life time, or certainly near to it. Men and women not yet born have fought and some have died in the conflicts that followed that terrible morning. I remember. The Sunday that followed 9/11 I was expected to preach. Casting about to find something that might […]

Today is the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. Many people around the world feel the trauma of this day in their bodies and hearts.

Many people, every day, carry pain from trauma with them. It is important to be gentle and kind with this pain. You did not cause it. You do not deserve it.

How can you be gentle and kind to yourself today? How can you recognize and honor the pain you are feeling?

The Daily Compass offers words and images to inspire spiritual reflection and encourage the creation of a more loving, inclusive and just world. Produced by The Church of the Larger Fellowship, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation with no geographical boundary. Please support the publishing of The Daily Compass by making a $10 or $25 contribution (more if you can, less if you can't)! Thank you for your support!

Please join us on Sunday (12 September 2021) at 11:00 AM for “Even So, There is Sweetness” by Rev. Barbara Jarrell.

Our service will be livestreamed on Facebook Live here.

Watch for our weekly email announcements for info on the next in-person worship service and other opportunities to gather in smaller groups in person.  You can sign up for these announcements using this link.

Our September 2021 give-away-the-plate recipient is North Louisiana Interfaith.

We will have a  virtual coffee hour after the service on Zoom.

While we are remaining physically distant, we want to know how you are doing, what you need, and what you are interested in.  You can let us know using these online surveys.

And you can contribute to All Souls using this online resource.

We are holding a series of parent meetings this coming week via Zoom.

We want to determine what kind of religious education format and schedule will work best for your family and your children.

You only need to just one session though you are welcome to attend as many as you like.  It is the same meeting at several different times.

The same Zoom link will be used for all four meetings on the following dates:

• Tuesday, 14 September 2021, at 12 Noon
• Tuesday, 14 September 2021, at 7:00 PM
• Wednesday, 15 September 2021, at 8:30 PM
• Thursday, 16 September 2021, at 12 Noon

Email Susan Caldwell to let her know which meeting you will attend.

If none of these times work for you, text her at 318-465-3427 to set up an appointment.

Please join us on Sunday (12 September 2021) at 9:00 AM for our adult religious education class via Zoom.

We have completed our White Fragility book study group using the book by Robin DiAngelo.

This week we continue our exploration of the 8th principle and anti-racism as we look at racial disparities in health care.

In just about every aspect of health care in the US, racial disparities are often stark.

Whether the inequities are present in access to care, in attitudes of medical personnel that impact the treatment of people of color, or in a lack of trust in the medical profession brought about how they treat people of color, the inequities are very real.

Come join us to learn more.

Please join us next Wednesday (15 September 2021) at 12 noon for our weekly Zoom lunch.

Bring your lunch and meet up with your All Souls friends, have lunch, and just catch up.

Please join us on Saturday (11 September 2021) from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM for our monthly building and grounds work day.

There are tasks indoors and out for all ages and abilities — come for the whole time or for whatever part of the day you can make it.

Vaccinated or not vaccinated — please wear your mask when you are working near others.  Hope to see you there.

Please join us on Saturday (11 September 2021) 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.

The group is free and open to all.

For more information, contact Larry via email or phone using (318) 272-0014.

Continue reading "Outraged By Texas Abortion Law, UUs Remain Committed to Reproductive Justice"

In the midst of devastating climate change, the appalling stripping away of voting and reproductive rights, the criminalization of migration, and the state sanctioned violence of policing - it can feel as though we are powerless to stop the tides of oppression. But nothing could be further from the truth. 

This Sunday is our Side With Love Action Center Launch, where we will come together as communities and as a faith and claim our collective power. We will learn from leaders of critical campaigns, and begin to mobilize within our own congregations and communities to make life-saving, liberation-cultivating change.

We are excited to have Aquene Freechild (Co-Director of Public Citizen’s “Democracy is for People” campaign), Rev. Tamara Lebak (Founder of the Restorative Justice Institute of Oklahoma), and Cherri Foytlin (Founder of the L’Eau Est La Vie Camp in Louisiana) sharing their wisdom and calls to communal action that will have an impact. And we will build our interdependent web of liberation within and between our congregations as we mobilize in intentional, relational, and sustainable ways.  

We know you wouldn’t be here with us if you did not believe another world is possible, and that we have the power to make it come to life. As we organize and activate our campaigns for Climate Justice, Decriminalization, LGBTQ+ & Gender Justice, and Democracy & Voting Rights, we need you to bring your faith in that liberated world, and your commitment to moving us towards it. 

Sunday’s Action Center Launch is a turning point, not just for Unitarian Universalists, but for our world. Today we face those tides of oppression together, knowing that we are rooted in something stronger, more powerful, and more true than their violence. Today, tomorrow, and every day after, we will build interconnected teams, take impactful action, and change the world with our collective love. 

In faith, justice, and power,

Rev. Ranwa Hammamy

Congregational Justice Organizer

PS - There’s still time to invite others in your congregation to join your team and sign up for today’s launch! Send them the event sign up page so they can be a part of our movement!

Susan Frederick-Gray

Continue reading "A Reflection from the UUA President: Choosing Love On This Anniversary of September 11"

This past Monday was Labor Day. In addition to enjoying a three-day weekend, it is important to be mindful that Labor Day is about much more than a last bit of time off at the symbolic end of summer. The first Monday in September is also an invitation to remember and celebrate the labor movement’s […]

By Joan Murray

Last week, I got a call from a stranger. She was an elder at a church planning a remembrance ceremony for the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and asked if I’d read a poem. It was a poem I wrote on an Amtrak train four days after the attacks, and when I read it on NPR four days later, it became something of an anthem. Thousands of people from all over the world wanted copies: A factory owner in the Midwest wanted to read it to his workers; a Maryland police sergeant wanted to read it to her officers before they went on duty; a Canadian physician wanted to read it at a conference. People said they needed the poem.

The poem shot out of me after I ran into a group of young men in the train’s café car. They were wearing shorts and jeans but were standing in a way that made it seem they were on a mission. When I asked them, they said they were firemen on their way to New York “to dig at the Pile.” I said, “I hope you find some survivors,” and went back to my seat, and out came “Survivors—Found.” I believe its power lay in its empathy and compassion, the way it paid tribute to the goodness of everyday people, the way it shone a light on our better natures and gave us something to weigh against the horrors of that day. Those horrors were unspeakable, but, as people said, the poem spoke to their souls. It didn’t mention burning buildings. It mentioned window washers, waitresses, and firemen.

My grandfather was a New York fireman, yet it was the firemen on the train who reminded me of my parents’ generation, the so-called “greatest generation,” who did difficult and selfless things, often because they had to. My own generation was the movement-politics generation that questioned authority and created positive social change. With our casual anti-American posture and intellectual-class privilege, we dominated the media. But in the four days following the attacks, there were other people on our screens: Latina women ladling soup to rescue workers; iron workers cutting tangled beams; people in small cities donating blood. Everyday Americans. And we found ourselves among them.

That vision was widely embraced. I was invited to read the poem at the official New York State 9/11 Memorial Observance, at a stadium unveiling of the 9/11 stamp, and at a Fallen Brothers Foundation fundraiser. NECN TV in Boston used my reading as the voiceover for a 9/11 video, and three publishers asked me to put together an anthology in response to the attacks.

I agreed to do an anthology with Beacon since they’d published me before and I knew they’d do something meaningful and respectful. (No burning buildings on the cover!) I called the book Poems to Live By in Uncertain Times, and, for its contents, I chose poems from my home library that I’d turned to before in difficult times: poems about loss by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Jane Kenyon, Daniel Berrigan, and others; poems of wisdom by Lucille Clifton, Seamus Heaney, and Primo Levi, and more; poems that spoke directly to the soul about fear, courage, war, and the elusive need to pray. And, at my editor’s insistence, I included “Survivors—Found.”

For two months, I worked day and night, as did everyone at Beacon, to ensure we’d have Poems to Live by in Uncertain Times in hand on November 11 (two months after the attacks) when I read at the firefighters’ fundraiser. The book quickly became a Beacon Bestseller, and five years later, in response to the unconscionable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I put together another anthology, Poems to Live By in Troubling Times. The books remain popular because they’re not about 9/11 or the post-9/11 wars, but about the struggles in the human heart and conscience. As a stranger said by phone, “My wife died a year ago, and the only thing that’s helped me is your book.”

So how do I feel about “Survivors—Found” now? I’m proud and grateful to have written it, and I’m enormously gratified that it helped so many who were wounded or traumatized by 9/11, or who needed words to express their grief and sympathy. But after all the horrifying deaths of the past twenty years—the COVID deaths of more than 640,000 people in the US alone; the opioid deaths of 500,000; the deaths of 7,000 US troops and untold Middle Easterners in the post-9/11 wars; as well as the numerous people killed by fires or floods or at the hands of civilian racists or police—is it still appropriate to remember those lost on 9/11?

I don’t believe tragedies vie for exclusivity or for a high notch on a sliding scale of grief. If I grieve for the mass-shooting victims at Sandy Hook Elementary, Pulse Nightclub, the El Paso Walmart, or Mother Emanuel Church, can’t I also grieve for those murdered on 9/11? If I mourn for Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Ahmaud Arbery, Stephon Clark, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Daunte Wright, and Elijah McClain, can’t I also mourn for Father Mycah Judge, the openly gay NYC firefighter chaplain; and Bernard Brown, the eleven-year-old Black boy on the plane that hit the Pentagon; and Walter Hynes, the brother-in-law of one of my oldest friends, who was one of the 343 firefighters among the nearly three thousand people murdered that day?

The 9/11 attacks came before all those other tragedies. I believe it hit us so hard because it was so unimaginable, because it was so instantaneous and enormous, because its images were so searing, and because we felt so innocent. But I also believe that the acute sense of loss we felt on 9/11 opened our hearts, and I hope that on this significant anniversary, our hearts will open even wider.

***

“Survivors—Found”

and the heroes standing ready—
not glamorous enough—
on days without a tragedy,
we clicked—and turned them off.

We only say the cynics—
The dropouts, show-offs, snobs—
The right- and left-wing critics:
We thought that they were us.

But with the wounds of Tuesday
When the smoke began to clear,
We rubbed away our stony gaze—
And watched them reappear:

the waitress in the tower,
the broker reading mail,
the pair of window washers,
filling up a final pail,

the husband’s last “I love you”
from the last seat of a plane,
the tourist taking in a view
no one would see again,

the fireman, his eyes ablaze
as he climbed the swaying stairs—
he knew someone might still be saved.
We wondered who it was.

We glimpsed them through the rubble:
the ones who lost their lives,
the heroes’ double burials,
the ones now “left behind,”

the ones who rolled a sleeve up,
the ones in scrubs and masks,
the ones who lifted buckets
filled with stone and grief and ash:

some spoke a different language—
still no one missed a phrase;
the soot had softened every face
of every shade and age—

“the greatest generation”?—
we wondered where they’d gone—
they hadn’t left directions
how to find our nation-home:

for thirty years we saw few signs,
but now in swirls of dust,
they were alive—they had survived—
we saw that they were us.

 

About the Author 

Joan Murray is a National Poetry Series winner, a two-time National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship winner, and winner of Poetry Society of America’s Gordon Barber Award. Her five full-length collections include Swimming for the Ark: New & Selected Poems 1990-2015, Dancing on the Edge, Queen of the Mist, Looking for the Parade, and The Same Water. She is editor of The Pushcart Book of Poetry and the Poems to Live By anthologies from Beacon Press.

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Judgment and love are opposites. From one come all the sorrows of the world. But from the other comes the peace of God Himself.

My classmates and I were taught in our graduate program for a Master’s degree in Social Work that to be a good Social Worker one must have a “nonjudgmental attitude.” Carl Rogers, the humanistic psychologist, and the father of client centered therapy or “Rogerian therapy,” called it “unconditional positive regard,” and here in lesson #352 the idea arises once again that “judgment and love are opposites”.

In Alcoholic Anonymous it is suggested that we drop our judgment and in step three turn our will and lives over to the care of God as we understand God. In lesson #352 we are told that it is in this turning over that peace arises.

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning and where is this “truth and meaning” to be found? In lesson #352 it is taught that truth and meaning is found in a nonjudgmental attitude and in unconditional positive regard.

Today, it is suggested that we drop our judgmental attitudes and recognize and acknowledge that peace arises when we turn our willfulness over to God’s will.

A rider and light festooned bike at a previous Ride to Leave a Light On event.

It looks to be a warm, pleasant evening this Saturday, September 11 at 6:30 pm in Woodstock, Illinois for a special bicycle ride through the streets and neighborhoodsof charming city.  It will be neighbors helping neighbors at the Ride To Leave a Light On As a Beacon for Others.  Sponsored by Ken West’s Material Things shop the bike ride will raise funds for local organizationsthat support community members who are struggling in one manner or another. 

This year those organizations will include New Directions Addiction Recovery Services;  Live4Laliwhich “works to reduce stigma and prevent substance use disorder among individuals, families, and communities, and minimize the overall health, legal and social harms associated with substance use”; CLBreak, a Crystal Lake teen center; Illinois Migrant Council; the Community Foundation for McHenry County; CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates for children) of McHenry County; and Compassion for Campers which provides gear and supplies to the unhoused.

Folks can support any or all of these great causes by purchasing strings of lights for $10 each to decorate bicycles and riders and, of course, by riding.  Strings can be purchased from participating organizations, from Material Things using this link, or the evening of the event.  You can designate your purchase to support any of the organizations or to be split evenlyby all.

Strings and information on the organizations will be available on Woodstock Square beginning at 6:30 as riders gather.  There will be opening remarks and instructionsbeginning at 7, and the ride will set off at 7:20.  Ride is approximately  4.5 miles on level terrain and take 45 to 50 minutes.  When riders return to the Square there will be live music by Big Fish.

It promises to be a family friendly, joyous eveningfor riders, supporters, and folks out and about around the Square.

Material Things, a fine crafts artisan market at 103 East Van Buren Street on the Square is donating the lights for sale.

Bednarik will be the guest speaker at Olympic Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, his presentation will stream on Zoom. PORT ANGELES — Joseph Bednarik ...

Kate Lore is a minister at the Quimper Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Port Townsend. Her email is katelore@gmail.com.

Services will be conducted outside the Olympic Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 1033 N. Barr Road. Kol Nidre service is at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

  You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes […]

Speakers. Kitty Valbuena (she/they) (Speaker) Unitarian Universalist Church of Vancouver; Mali Gottfried (Speaker); Ellie Ferris (Speaker) ...

THE UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST POCKET GUIDE is one of the most complete introductions to Unitarian Universalism available, covering ministry, worship, ...

Come celebrate this quintessential Unitarian Universalist annual ritual. Bring water that is meaningful to you, but, as always, there is water for ...

GUUF - Greenville Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (SC), Greenville, SC. 1670 likes · 23 talking about this · 1813 were here.

... an event sponsored by the West Virginia branch of the Industrial Workers of the World at a Unitarian Universalist Congregation church, ...

To donate to the food pantry: Send check payable to First Parish Church of Newbury, 20 High Road, Newbury, MA 01951 and put “food pantry” in the memo.

Shoe Drive: 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 8:30 a.m.- 1 p.m. Fridays, 8:30 a.m.-noon Sundays, through Oct. 15, First Lutheran Church, ...

Sept. 11. Hot dogs, chili dogs and county ham sandwiches will be for sale. Masks are required. Zoom worship service. Unitarian Universalist Church of ...

“We’re staying home. Love has never asked this of us before. We’re staying home, this is our gift to humanity. Let us wish each other well.” -Linda Barnes As the COVID-19 pandemic continues around the world, many of us are still forced to stay at home. How can you bring spiritual connections into your home? … Continue reading →

... that supports it will be followed by a vegetarian cooking class and meal facilitated by long time Vegetarian and UU member, Candis Harbison.

First Parish Duxbury is a vibrant, loving congregation guided by Unitarian Universalist principles and traditions. We nurture and encourage ...

The threat of white supremacy and extractive capitalism are root causes of multiple and intersecting crises. Voter suppression, anti-protest bills, ...

You are invited to attend a meeting whether you want to observe, want give feedback or input, or are considering participating in planning and ...

Unitarians to hold Water Communion. Namaqua Unitarian Universalist Congregation will hold its traditional Water Communion Sunday, Sept. 12, outdoors ...

Support UU FaithAction NJ. Join us! Put your faith into action by becoming a friend ... 2021 Unitarian Universalist FaithAction NJ. OUR VISION

Road construction near the ancient site of Rathcroghan revealed what researchers believe to be the representation of a Pagan deity. Continue reading Archaeological find in Ireland may have Pagan origins at The Wild Hunt.

NORTH STONINGTON — The Congregational Church of North Stonington will offer in-person ... Unitarian Universalist Congregation of South County.

Beacon Press is proud to announce the expansion of its poetry program, adding new voices to those of the press’s renowned poets—including James Baldwin, Mary Oliver, Sonia Sanchez, and Richard Blanco—who have been an essential part of the press’s catalog. The new series is called RAISED VOICES and will serve the overarching goal of representing marginalized voices and perspectives in poetry. The series authors will offer books that affirm progressive values, give voice to many identities, are accessible to a wide readership, and celebrate poetry’s ability to access truth in a way no other form can. Beacon plans to acquire about three new titles for the series each year.

First United Methodist Church, 900 Spring St., Johnson City: Pastor Jodie Ihfe's sermon for the 10:30 a.m. worship service will be “One True God,” ...

The Unitarian Universalists of Southern Delaware will hold online ... 14, in the fellowship hall of Lewes Presbyterian Church, Kings Highway, ...

The Tribe celebrates victories against border wall and fracked gas terminals

    Fifteen years In 2006, as I was getting ready to take off on my first (and it would turn out to be only) sabbatical I was advised by an elder colleague that it would be wise to keep in touch with the gang back home. You know, the people who are paying me […]

 A person asked about A Course In Miracles and how it might relate to the twelve step program of Alcoholics Anonymous. The question also was raised about how ACIM might be incorporated into Unitarian Universalism. In attempting to relate the ACIM workbook lessons to AA and UU has resulted in this year's study of the workbook of ACIM which we are coming to an end of in the next two weeks after one year.

The ACIM workbook lessons relate to people at different stages of spiritual development. However, the lessons are easier to understand and apply if the student understands the underlying metaphysical model of the Course which is based on the nonduality of the Divine.

The Course uses a post integral world view based on the idea that the Course was channeled to Helen Schuman by Jesus. The post integral world view is a stage or level of development which only a small percentage of the population have attained so far at this point in human evolution. Therefore, the number of students using this material is very small.

If you have been studying this material, the usefulness of it is found in the application of the daily lessons in one's own life and in sharing the ideas and applications with others.

It would be helpful to improve our understanding of this material if you would comment on how the material has been useful in your life and in the lives of those you have shared it with.

Thank you for your attention and assistance.

  Sunday, September 12, 10:30am Multigenerational Water Communion  ~ An Online Service with Rev. Alice Anacheka-Nasemann   Honor the waters that touch our lives: rivers, oceans, lakes, and tears of joy and sorrow. In this family worship service we will celebrate our virtual coming together after the summer months. Join us on Zoom with some fresh   [ … ] The post Sunday, September 12 ~ Online Multigenerational Water Communion Service ~ 10:30 a.m. appeared first on Unitarian Church of Marlborough and Hudson.

My sinless brother is my guide to peace. My sinful brother is my guide to pain. And which I choose to see I will behold.

As comedian, Flip Wilson, would say in his Geraldine routine, “What you see, honey, is what you get!” When we look at our brothers and sisters what do we see: sin or sinlessness? Do we look at the ego stuff or the spark of the Divine? Today’s lesson teaches that what we focus on is what we get.

In Alcoholic Anonymous it suggests, in step nine, that we make amends in cases where it would do no harm. Step nine involves repairing the ruptures in relationships seeking to heal rather than to harm.

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person and a world community of peace, liberty, and justice for all.

Today, it is suggested that we seek to behold the sinlessness in our brothers and sisters and in doing so we see the sinlessness in ourselves and experience heavenly peace and joy.

Yesterday I began preparing materials for my students to make bat houses. While we could spend days with students designing their own bat houses, in this case it's important that we adhere to science and make use of designs that have already been proven in use. The four chamber bat house offers the opportunity for bats to seek warmth by congregating together and to move around inside to the spot they find most comfortable. We have a large colony of bats nesting in vents under the eves in one of our school buildings and while it can be a challenge to lure a colony of bats to a new location, luxurious new bat houses carefully engineered for their safety and happiness may help. Experimental designs my not. A good source of information about...

The Hearst papers were early band beaters for the Lincoln Highway as this 1913 cartoon in the San Francisco Examiner attests. On September 10, 1913 Henry Joy,President of the Lincoln Highway Association, announced the selection of a routefor a proposed coast-to-coast improvedand paved highway that would stretch from New York City’s Times Square to Lincoln Park in San Francisco.  Just over a month later the route would be dedicated as a memorial to Abraham Lincoln on his birthdayeven though not an inch of new pavement had been laid down. The highway was the brainchild of Carl Fisher, an innovative automotive pioneer who made his fortune manufacturing the compressed gas headlamps then used on most American cars.  He also owned and mana...

Twitter has been arguing about standard meanings vs. intuitive readings in Tarot readings. Rather than deconstructing the “debate” I’d rather start with a clean sheet of paper. Where do these meanings come from? And more importantly, what works best?

      It was today, the 9th of September, in 1850, that California was admitted to the union. The name comes from a Sixteenth century Spanish romance, The Adventures of Esplandián by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. In the novel Queen Calafia ruled a wonderful land  of black Amazon women. Before the name, before Europeans humans […]

When baseball players are facing a close call, they often slide their bodies into the base, hurling themselves towards their goal in the hopes of beating a throw. What do you have to slide in order to reach today? How can you stretch yourself to get there? The Daily Compass offers words and images to … Continue reading →

TWH – While opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline succeeded in halting its construction, another oil pipeline is nearing completion despite resistance. This other pipeline, Line 3, will replace and enlarge a currently existing pipeline. Line 3 cuts across Ojibwe lands in Minnesota and threatens the wild rice crop of the Ojibwe tribe. It also threatens the Ojibwe waterways and the Mississippi’s headwaters. The Ojibwe, the Chippewa, and other tribes belong to the Anishinaabe cultural and linguistic group. Continue reading Another Pipeline threatens Native Lands at The Wild Hunt.

I used to buy my courage secondhandAt the Lucky Duck Thrift ShopWhere every purchase supportedLocal kids with autism,And emboldenedLocal queers with trembling handsAnd pounding hearts. They shut downSome time ago;The economy doesn’t seem to like usWhen we’re full of courage,Thirsty for our own power. These daysI hunt it on the street,Holding my own handAs I … Continue reading "Brave"

Whether we are online or in-person, one of the best gifts we can give is presence-being fully present with one’s self, one another, and open to the sacred, the mystery of life, the Holy. This month, we’ll explore various ways we can live our Unitarian Universalist faith more fully, while deepening our practices of presence.

The post September Theme – Deepening Presence appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

September greetings, dear UUSS~ Shana Tovah! Happy New Year, and Rosh Hashanah! We are thinking of all those honouring the Jewish High Holy Days, all those in the process of beginning a new school year, and all those who are welcoming (or dreading) the coming of ... read more . The post Co-Ministers’ Colloquy – Sept. 7th appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

The next book for our Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) Authors Book Discussion is The Round House, by Louise Erdrich. Join in the discussion on Monday, September 27, at 6:30 pm. This month’s discussion will be facilitated by Don and Lois Porter. A member of the Turtle Mountain ... read more . The post September Read: The Round House, by Louise Erdrich appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

I'm working my way through the last of the edits for my new book, with just a few minor tweaks and corrections before it goes through the copy editing process. My article about making spoon carving knives came out in Quercus Magazine this month and I received a copy in yesterday's mail. In the meantime, I have meetings this morning with the teaching staff the Clear Spring School as we plan integrated woodworking projects for the coming months.  A friend of mine asked me about my writing processes. Typical questions are like this: "Do you set aside a number of hours each day to write?" "Do you set a target for the number of pages you hope to write each day?" I tried to explain how much of my work I do at night. Caught in that space betwe...

Miracles mirror God’s eternal Love. To offer them is to remember Him, and through His memory to save the world.

It’s hard for us as mortals to realize that we were born to save the world. And yet when we forgive, we join with others in Love. Salvation is when everybody loves everybody all the time. We’re on our way. Keep the faith as we move forward.

In Alcoholic Anonymous it is suggested in step eleven that we improve our conscious contact with God through prayer and meditation, what today we call “mindfulness.”

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote a respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

Today, it is suggested that we offer miracles, that is Love, to everyone and thereby save the world.

                         Rev. Francis Bellamy, a Christian socialist and author of the original version of the Pledge of Allegiance.   On September 8, 1893 a Pledge of Allegiance crafted by Francis Bellamy for the popular children’s magazine Youth’s Companion , where the Baptist minister was on staff , made its first appearance.  He was not only a Christian, but also a socialist and first cousin of the utopian socialist Edward Bellamy, whose novel Looking Backwards was one of the most influential books of the late 19th Century . Pledges of allegiance were still controversial in those days.  After the Civil War former Confederates who wanted their civil rights restoredhad to swear allegiance to the Union.  Even as l...

    It was on this day, the 8th of September, 1966, that the very first episode of Star Trek, “the Man Trap,” premiered. I came a tad late to the Star Trek thing. I missed pretty much the whole first season. This was the sixties, and my young adulthood, after all. So I wasn’t […]

Jami A. Yandle

Continue reading "Reframing Rejection"

The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, is often celebrated with apples and honey, for a “sweet new year.” It is seen as a blessing to be able to partake in sweetness, and it evokes gratitude.

How can you bring sweetness into your life today?

The Daily Compass offers words and images to inspire spiritual reflection and encourage the creation of a more loving, inclusive and just world. Produced by The Church of the Larger Fellowship, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation with no geographical boundary. Please support the publishing of The Daily Compass by making a $10 or $25 contribution (more if you can, less if you can't)! Thank you for your support!

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Today is the first full day of Rosh Hashanah which began at sundown last night.  In the United States that was also the evening of Labor Day which for many Americans is itself a kind of new year—the traditional end of summer and the beginning of a new work/school year when we are supposed to get back down to business.

For Jews it is Yom Teruah, the Day of Shouting (or Blasting) which marks the first of the High Holy Days as well as the start of the New Year.  It falls on first day of Tishrei, the seventh month of the ecclesiastical year that began with Passover in the spring and represents the first of the civic year.  This year it ushers in 5782 on the Hebrew calendar.

This 1904 Austrian greeting card depicts the traditional blowing of the shofar during a Rosh Hashanah service.

It is a joyous celebration filled with the hope of a brand new year and is celebrated at synagogue services highlighted by the blowingof the shofar, a hollowed-out ram’s horn, as proscribed in Leviticus to “raise a noise” on Yom Teruah.   It is also it is also a symbolic wake-up call, stirring Jews to mend their ways and repent and begins a period of preparing for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.  Poems called piyyutimare added to the regular services and a special prayer book, the mahzor, is used on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  A number of additions are made to the regular service, most notably an extended repetition of the Amidah, the central prayer of the Jewish liturgy. The Shofar is blown during Mussaf at several intervals a total of 100 times. 

Items that might be found on a Rosh Hashanah plate.

A Rosh Hashanah seder is offered by many communities but reflecting the years of exile and repression when many Jews could not openly worship at the Temple in Jerusalem or in Rabbinic synagogues, there are also rituals for the home and family including ritual foods especially apples dipped in honey to symbolize a sweet new year.  Depending on customs and traditions, other foods are also included.  Among the Ashkenazi Jews who make up most of American Judaism the ritual plate may also include dates, pomegranates, black-eyed peas, pumpkin-filled pastries called rodanchas, leek fritters called keftedes de prasa; beets. and a whole fish with the head intact. It is also common to eat stuffed vegetables called legumbres yaprakes.  Wine accompanies the blessing.

Details and customs vary depending on the origins of communities in Europe, the Mediterranean, or the Mid-East.  And also between Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform congregations.  Many entirely secular Jews still observe some of the traditions culturally.

To my many Jewish friends L’shanah Tovah no matter how you keep the day.

Repressive governments understand the power of art. So do artists. What are your skills? Where is your passion? What is your vision? Share it with the rest of the world. Make good art.