Our Board of Trustees has been wondering how the congregation imagines our future. Jim Schlosser will invite us into the beginning of a longer conversation about what we can build together. We will also welcome new members into the congregation with a covenanting ceremony.
Online Only As we reflect on another year of our country’s existence, what can we truly do to honor and celebrate the best of America’s principles? I suggest that this cannot simply be another year, where we mark the passing of time, with fireworks and frivolity; instead, I will offer some of my perspective on … Continue reading Of Civics and Civility
“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
As progressives, UUs tend to celebrate the idea of diversity and the importance of being welcoming to all – whether in our churches or society at large. Religious liberals are turned off by the rhetoric of “building walls” yet ignore the reality that we all need “walls” that keep us safe, create a sense of … Continue reading The Walls We Build
Humans, as all life forms, depend on diversity for their evolution, their resilience, their survival. We also excel at identifying patterns of difference among us despite the overwhelming similarities that unite us. And somehow our pattern recognition favors framing those differences in binary terms despite the underlying continuums. How do we let go of our … Continue reading Embracing Fluidity
Has liberalism failed? How can we find common ground in questions of right and wrong in an increasingly diverse society? We will reflect on ethical growth, both cultural and individual.
As religious liberals, UUs want to be explicitly welcoming to other faith traditions, and especially Islam, during this time of cultural Islamophobia. Yet UUs are also a part of the general culture and need to honestly name and address their own discomfort where it exists. This service will help us face and explore our personal … Continue reading Discomfort with Islam
As the waves of culture and belief systems threaten to submerge each other they encounter the corresponding waves of fear about loss of identity and tradition. And they generate distress about the loss of progress made on the path toward justice. All cultural/faith corners of our country and globe seem to see themselves under attack … Continue reading In Search of the Golden Age
