Whitney is an active member of the Concord Unitarian Universalist church, teaching, singing in the choir, sharing sermons, coordinating services, and leading worship. She is an Associate Professor of History at Plymouth State University, specializing in modern world history and the history of India. Whitney is passionate about investigating questions of power and privilege as it relates to race, gender, and class in the context of imperialism, de-colonization and nation-state formation.
There is a cultural narrative about the First Thanksgiving that the United States retells on the third Thursday of November each year. However, humans have gathered for harvest celebrations and feasts of gratitude since long before colonists shared a meal with Wampanoag people in Plimoth, and our reasons for continuing the tradition of a national … Continue reading Let’s Talk Turkey
Online Only Believing one’s ethnic, cultural, religious, class, racial and/or physically-mentally fit group is superior to all others is something many of us are conditioned to do. In fact, we sometimes enjoy it. It makes us feel safe to fit into cultural norms that most people in our society agree upon. We feel this superiority … Continue reading Facing Others, Facing Ourselves
Click for Online Service The Rwandan genocide of 1994 sent shock waves around the world and left the Rwandan population emotionally traumatized and physically devasted. A quarter century later, Rwanda serves as a model of how national trauma can be transformed, step by step, into a journey of healing and hope. Whitney Howarth will share … Continue reading Toward Resilience – Lessons from Rwanda
“Why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism” is the subtitle of Robin DiAngelo’s groundbreaking book titled “White Fragility.” As Michael Eric Dyson writes in the foreword: “DiAngelo brilliantly names a whiteness that doesn’t want to be named, disrobes a whiteness that dresses in camouflage as humanity, unmasks a whiteness costumed as … Continue reading White Fragility
Do enlightened people walk this earth? What does that look like? Do these people do laundry and put out the trash? Today’s sermon features wisdom from Jack Kornfield’s amazing book about how spiritual people deal with the dirty, dank dung of life and still find time to laugh, to do good, and feel hopeful.
Perhaps there is nothing as jarring to our notion of self as when our SANCTUARY is treated with irreverence, or worse, when it is desecrated. How do we react when our sense of the sacred is violated, whether that violation happens on our national border, within our church walls, or much closer to home? The … Continue reading When Sanctuary is Violated
Is Shel Silverstein’s classic story, The Giving Tree, an example of selfless giving or of selfish taking? In this service for all ages, we will take a closer look at love and limits.
In Hinduism, the mother goddess or Devi, embodies the cosmic force of SHAKTI – all powerful ENERGY. Shakti is a primordial force that gives life as it moves throughout the universe animating, defining, expanding. For nearly 10,000 centuries, the adoration of the feminine divine has motivated people to explore the complex collection of rituals and … Continue reading Tantra and the Feminine Divine
How do we find a balance between confronting violence in this world and maintaining a sense of inner peace? When life calls us to boldly speak out and counter force with action, finding inner calm requires us to create a space of sanctuary within which we can calmly process, practice, and prepare for the work … Continue reading Seeking Sanctuary – Within and Without
African-American social activist Tarana Burke’s original “Me, Too” campaign, launched in 2007, aimed to provide support to survivors of sexual violence who were marginalized, poor, underrepresented and without a network or community to protect them. Many such women self-identify as American women of color, millions more exist globally. But despite the ground-swell of solidarity that … Continue reading #metoo & the millions of hidden identities
