First Parish Cohasset

This past Sunday the children were in the Parish House. Upstairs, the pre-school and kindergarten children heard the Spirit Play story The Magic Seed. In this story, a poor man is caught stealing bread from the bin behind a bakery. As he is being led away to his punishment (which is death), he begs to tell the King about the magic pomegranate seed in his pocket, lest his treasure perish with him. This magic seed will sprout, flower and fruit in one single night, provided it is planted by someone who has never lied or stolen. The condemned man offers the seed to the King, who remembers something embarrassing from his youth and offers the seed to his General, who offers it to the Prime Minister…you get the idea. The King gives the seed back to the poor man, along with his freedom. The group (seven children this week) talked about the story and then explored the theme through play and art. Some of their art from this and prior weeks is on display in the upstairs classroom. Please feel free to visit and look around before or after RE class.

Meanwhile, the older children began the morning in the Atkinson Room with our usual chalice lighting and sharing ritual. They then heard the story of Miss Rumphius, written and illustrated by Barbara Cooney. (The link will take you to Bowdoin College’s Museum of Art, which holds the original illustrations for this and three of Cooney’s other books. Thank you, Penny Myles, for that information.) We talked about why it was so important to Miss Rumphius that she make the world more beautiful. We then moved to Trueblood Hall and considered motivations, what “makes us tick,” both through a thinking-and-writing activity and an “energy burner” that let us physically express what motivates us.

The children then considered what motivated some famous Unitarian Universalists to achieve their dreams, including Olympia Brown, Tim Berners-Lee, and Linus Pauling. In a related conversation, they decided that Miss Rumphius’s life exemplified 6 or 7 of our UU Principles (there was some debate over principle 5, “the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process, etc”).

The children are getting ready to participate in a social action project this spring, by considering what in their community needs their attention and energy, and what activity or issue they might reasonably tackle as a group.

As time ran out we adjourned to the Atkinson Room for our closing ritual/extinguishing the chalice and a brief reminder about next week, when First Parish will be hosting Union Sunday.

I look forward to seeing you in church on Sunday, March 11, when the children will begin in the Meeting House.

Last Sunday the children were in the Parish House. The pre-school group heard the story of The Wise Men and the Elephant in the upstairs Spirit Play classroom. After the story, they engaged with the story’s themes through art and play.

Downstairs, the older children welcomed some new friends to class with their old favorite game, Name Toss. This game requires concentration and cooperation and is a fun way to learn each other’s names. Next was the opening chalice lighting and sharing ritual. We played and sang We are Free, a song by Nick Page, and talked about the 6th Principle — the goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all.

Conversation about the intangibles of peace, liberty and justice was pretty thin, to be honest. On the last morning of February vacation, these ideals weren’t sparking any debate. The goal of world community, however, was very engaging. The children (and their leaders and youth helpers, too) held a lively discussion (aided by a large world map) about people we know in far-flung places and the differing customs they encounter. We learned that even in other English-speaking places you might not understand the conversation due to local slang; that in large parts of the world things we take for granted like indoor plumbing is a pie-in-the-sky luxury and going to school is not an inevitable part of childhood.

While the children created two large collages that represented the world community, they talked about everyday, ground-level choices that have to be made to “wage peace,” like being deliberately welcoming rather than unfriendly or talking out a dispute rather than shouting or wrestling.

After the collage activity we held a closing circle, singing We are Free and extinguishing the chalice.

On Sunday 3/4 the children are in the Parish House again. Please note the change in our usual schedule, due to special events on March 11 (Union Sunday) and March 25 (Youth Sunday).

See you in church.

Thought for Contemplation: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good (people) to d o nothing.” Edmund Burke 1729-1797

“Still Standing on the Side of Love”
The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
February 26, 2012

Readings(attached at end):
Gospel according to John 8:1-11
Spirit of the Pioneer by Melvin Hoover

There are stories in which evil triumphs. And there are stories in which good is triumphant. But in real life, history is made up of the stories of real people. In that it is like us- not all good and not all evil, but a composite where sometimes one is ascending and sometimes the other is triumphant. Such is the story of Duluth, Minnesota, as disturbing, complex and encouraging as any told of a people.
I share it as I first heard it told by Victoria Safford, minister of the White Bear Unitarian Universalist Church in Mahtomedi, Minnesota.

…in the center of the city, there is a statue of three young men, college-aged, strong and hopeful, looking out of the stone toward the world. On a summer night in 1920, not so very long ago, these three – Isaac McGhie, Elias Clayton, and Elmer Jackson- were lynched there by a mob that may have numbered as many as ten thousand people. The three were road workers for a traveling circus, arrested days before on charges of raping a white woman. The crowd broke into the jail and dragged them to a lamppost. It did not take very long for these thousands of citizens to gather themselves around a murderous idea. Not even the circus would have brought out ten thousand people without notice.
Evil was easily organized, as it so often is, from the fragments of possibility that lie around ever ready, the tiny sharp shards of potential, the fertile seeds that exist inside each one of us. Of the ten thousand, a few were masterminds and most were “merely” spectators, carrying no weapons, no coils of premeditated rope. But how to draw lines? …

Eighty-three years later a different crowd gathered in that same street, some of them descendents of those present the first time. This patchwork of humanity was smaller, and no doubt more difficult to organize than the first, but this one was lovely and intentional, healing and brave. The people of Duluth-African Americans and white Americans and others-came together to tell this story out loud, publicly to claim shared ownership of this history which for decades had been hidden like a festering family secret. Onto the monument they dedicated are carved the words of Edmund Burke:

“An event has happened upon which it is difficult to speak and impossible to remain silent.”

My friends, it was more than 200 years ago that Edmund Burke uttered those words. Unspeakable behavior has happened before. Some of it has been sanctioned by the powers that be, and some of it has taken place in the hands of vigilantes. Human history is both a sad and proud story of evil and of good.
When Jesus comes upon a crowd about to engage in vigilante justice he listens to their complaint, acknowledges their accusation and even accepts that it might be valid. Maybe the woman is an adulteress. Maybe she did commit the crime. He isn’t asking those questions. He engages the crowd, the angry, self-righteous crowd.
“Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

The first line of accountability Jesus puts forth is to the ones who would administer the punishment. Check in with yourself first, he says; have you too not erred at some point? Have you too not violated a relationship at some point? It may not be adultery, but maybe you lied, or distorted the truth, maybe you were disloyal to another who trusted you, or failed to fulfill your responsibilities. Maybe you broke their heart, or spent their money, or let others take advantage of them. Have you not hurt another?
“Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

No one likes to hear that. We all have times we just want to throw stones.
On Thursday, February 16, a week and a half ago, in Bridgewater State University’s parking lot right after 6 p.m., Destinie Mogg-Barklalow was approached by a couple, a man and a woman while walking.

Such encounters happen all the time. The Bridgewater campus is lovely, spread out with buildings separated by broad lawns and connected with a network of gently curving pathways. People are walking all around, strolling, talking, getting to classes or meetings, or at that time of day, dinner. The young woman was walking from an office through the parking lot. I do not know her intended destination. It no longer matters.

Destinie was a writer/reporter for the college’s student newspaper. She had written an article supporting gay marriage which had appeared in the paper. In the parking lot, the approaching couple asked her if she was the one who had written the pro-gay marriage article and she acknowledged that “yes” indeed she was. The woman hauled back, punching Destinie squarely in the face.
Thursday, Feb. 16, a week and a half ago this happened. 2012, in our cultivated, enlightened Massachusetts.
Destinie was dumbfounded. In a daze she made her way back to the office from which she had just come. When she arrived, the shocked staff immediately called for help.

Destinie was not the only person in shock. The school was reeling, traumatized as a body by the incident, that such a thing could happen there, that the respect for free speech and the value of free and open dialog had been violated, and what had once felt like a safe place in which to live and learn, suddenly seemed otherwise. It was not only ideas that were attacked, but a person.
Sometime Monday, President’s Day, I received an e-mail from Bill Zelazny, our District Executive. Ed Hardy, minister of the Unitarian Universalist church in Bridgewater was participating in the University’s efforts to pull together an event in support of Destinie, and in repudiation of such violent behavior. The district ministers were informed that the next day, Tuesday, there would be a march and rally on the campus of Bridgewater State. We were invited to gather at the parking lot of the UU church at 10:00 AM from where we would walk together to the gathering place on campus and then march with the students to the area where the speeches were to be made at 11:30.

It was not a lot of notice. Monday was a holiday. Many of the colleagues never opened their e-mails until the event had already happened, or was about to happen. But when I got there, to Bridgewater on Tuesday morning there were five UU clergy gathered in the church parking lot, quite a few lay people, and the large yellow Standing on the Side of Love banner was unfurled, with folks from the UU church in Duxbury proudly carrying it forward. I was impressed, and very proud.

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good (people) to do nothing.” Edmund Burke

Surely the incident at Bridgewater State pales in comparison to the incident in Duluth. Nobody died in Bridgewater. And the response of the community was immediate and clear. This behavior is not to be tolerated. And that is good- very good. For surely evil will continuously surface, and as long as there are people who will respond clearly and forcefully to repudiate such attacks, it is less likely that evil will triumph.
But I believe that the charge to religious community is more basic than simply responding to evil when it occurs, of repudiating acts of hate as important as it is to do so. I am talking about a culture war. I am talking about eliminating the hateful talk as well as the hateful behavior. I am talking about creating a culture in which hate by categories, be it race or gender, education or income, abilities or orientation, is an aberration. That should such prejudice and bigotry rear its ugly head we will have finely attuned antennas to pick it up and address it before it spreads or hurts any further.
I am talking about standing up for love, about saying no to hate speech by our candidates and politicians. I am talking about demanding a standard of civil discourse. And it begins here, at home.
It is about how we speak to and about each other, here in our congregation, and in our community. How we speak about our teachers and our public servants, our elected officials and our volunteers. It is how we conduct ourselves at town meeting and in the supermarket, on the road, and in line at deli.
Many years ago shortly after I moved to Hudson, Massachusetts, I went to a meeting of the historical society. The talk was very interesting. The people were engrossed and engaged. “Oh,” I said to myself. “I think I am going to like this town.”
We broke for coffee and tea and light refreshments. Folks were standing around in little groups talking. I joined one of the groups. The people there were talking about a particular immigrant population that was growing in Hudson. One man was talking. The name he used for these people was not the name of their country of origin. It was a slur. And everyone listened and no one flinched. I felt the heat rise in the back of my neck. I was new in town. I did not feel empowered to say anything. I waited desperately for someone to tap him on the arm and say “Sam, they are …… and remind him of the right name for those immigrants. But nobody did. Nobody did. Not even me. I went home that night feeling disappointed- because my new town was not going to be the happy safe haven I’d hoped, and ashamed. Ashamed because I had stood there, and said nothing.
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good (people) to do nothing.” Edmund Burke
We may not engage in public lynching any more. But we do see folks get caught up in the discourse of hate and blame and scapegoating. We have lost our way and forgotten civil discourse. The inflammatory language used by many lawmakers and candidates about our immigrant populations is the language of evil, and it needs good people to do something. The assaults against women and women’s health that are disguised as protection of religious freedom need to be named and confronted. Good people need to do something.
When the civil right to choose one’s spouse is put up to a vote through referenda and propositions we need to say “No!.” Civil rights are never appropriately put up to a vote. And when one young woman stands up and is assaulted for saying so, we need to stand too- not only for her, but for every person who is the target of hate or disempowerment, on the personal scale of a punch in the face, or the grand scale of legalizing practices based in hate.
Good people, my good people, there is no time for rest.
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good (people) to do nothing.”
Good people, we know what to do. Emboldened by faith, we must dare to proclaim that we are still standing on the side of love. May we be so brave. May we ever do so. Amen.
Readings:
John 8:1-11

while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, sir.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’]]

The New Revised Standard Version (Anglicized Edition), copyright 1989, 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Spirit of the Pioneer
We can’t change the past, but we canlearnf romit and build on it.
We can’t control the future, but we can shape it and enhance the possibilities for our children and our grandchildren.
We can’t discern in the present the fullness of our actions and their impact, but we can be pioneers in our time, exploring fully the crevices and cracks where knowledge and new insights can be found.
We can explore our spectrum of relationships and confront our complacency and certainty about the way things are.
We can dare to face ourselves in our entirety
To understand our pain
To feel the tears
To listen o our frustration and confusion and
To discover new capacities and capabilities that will empower and transform us.
Melvin Hoover, In Been In the Storm So Long,
ed. Mark Morrison-Reed and Jacqui James.

This is the link to the photo of the monument:

http://www.hmdb.org/PhotoFullSize.asp?PhotoID=171440

Last Sunday the children began the morning in the Meeting House, where we heard about a famous Unitarian Universalist minister, the Reverend Mark Morrison-Reed. Much of the information I shared with the congregation came from this article in the spring 2009 issue of UU World.

In the Parish House, all the children gathered in the Atkinson Room with their teachers and youth helpers for our opening ritual of chalice lighting and sharing time. I told the story The Butterfly Friends, from Elisa Pearmain’s book Once Upon a Time, which addresses the themes of friendship, loyalty and prejudice. After the story, the youngest children went upstairs with their RE leaders to talk and explore the story through art. Downstairs, the older children brainstormed situations where exclusion or inclusion can happen; times when they have felt welcomed or welcomed another; times when they experienced prejudice. It’s a privilege to be present for these conversations. First Parish’s children think and feel deeply, and generously share their experiences with each other.

This Sunday the children will be in the Parish House for regular curriculum lessons. I hope you are enjoying the school vacation week and are finding time for all the things you want to do.

See you on Sunday.

Thought for Contemplation: “Our history in regard to racial justice is brave enough to make you proud, tragic enough to make you cry, and inept to make you laugh, once the anger passes.” The Rev. Mark Morrison-Reed
“Reflections on Black History”
The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
February 19, 2012

Readings: All of our readings this morning are by African American Unitarian Universalists and are in the 1991 Meditation Manual, Been in the Storm So Long, edited by Mark Morrison-Reed and Jacqui James.
They are attached at the end of this document.
What We’ve Started by Betty Bobvo Seiden
Dream It by Henry Hampton
I See Her From Time to Time by Rewv. David Eaton
It’s Hard Work by Rosemary Bray McNatt
The Church Must Decide by Whitney Young, Jr.
Sin Brought Me Back by Betty Bobo Seiden
Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone? By Rev/ Yvonne Seon
Love Is All by Lewis Latimer
Reflection #1
Betty Bobo Seiden member of the Oakland, CA Unitarian Universalist congregation, says that “we want our religious journey to include more than one holy land , more than one vision, more than one scripture.”

She knows what she wants, what she thinks the others who share our faith want. “…more than one holy land, more than one vision, more than one scripture,” is what she wants; it is not fully what we have right now.
Henry Hampton says “When you dream of something, you can begin to take it upon yourself, make it yours, change it. But you have to dream it first….I don’t mean wish it. I mean dream it. And sometimes I think Unitarian Univeralists wish more than they dream.”

So today I am asking us to press into the dreams, the dreams we have had for our Unitarian Universalism, and the dreams others have had, others who have had to struggle to hold onto their dreams while a part of us.

They push us to ask, “What is Unitarian Universalism? Who are we? What do we dream? What does it tell us about ourselves and our future? Who do we include? Who are we?”

February is Black History month. Often in Unitarian Universalist churches there is some effort to acknowledge Black history. I think that is important. Too little is known and acknowledged of the contributions of African Americans to our common life and common story. But I decided to do something different this year- something I think we need; something I have never done before.

I thought that it would be helpful for us to leave aside the famous names we already know in American history and look closer to home, to our spiritual home. I asked “What do we know of African American history within the Unitarian Universalist Association? What roles have African Americans played in shaping who we are and what we have become? Do we know them? Claim them? Celebrate them.

There is, in your order of service, a list of significant African American players and race-related milestones within the UUA. I culled it from a longer list of ways in which Unitarians and Universalists have been in the struggle for racial justice. While UU’s have been involved in the racial justice struggle for a long time it is time to hear the voices of African Americans, their concerns, their disappointments and their delights. I want us to feel their humanity with all its angst and wonder, to feel their love and their yearning as Unitarian Universalists, as us.

Reflection #2

In preparation for this Sunday I looked at a lot of material I have accumulated over the years… books about race, books about Unitarian Universalism, books about race and the UUA. I was looking for the words and experiences of African Americans within our UUA. There is not that much on record.

I didn’t want to use the words of white folks to tell the story of black folks. And although I thought I knew a lot about the dynamics of race in me and in the UUA, I was once again surprised. I was surprised at how hard it was to find the words of black folks, not only because the information was hard to surface, but because I kept wanting to talk about what white folks had done- how we’d helped or hindered. It is hard to take the big white ego and ask it to take a rest. At least it is hard for me.

So I am going to tell you two stories of African Americans in the UUA- stories to enhance our pride in our faith, and our humility as we try to make it live in our daily lives.

Whitney Young was known to me, and maybe you, as President the Urban League in the thick of the civil rights movement.
Having graduated as valedictorian, he served in the Army in an all-black regiment under a white captain. Invariably there were racial tensions and Young found that he could be very effective in diffusing them. He said
“It was my army experience that decided me on getting into the race relations field after the war. Not just because I saw the problems, but because I saw the potentials too. I grew up with a basic belief in the inherent decency of human beings.”

In 1954 Young became Dean of the Atlanta School of Social Work, moved to Atlanta and joined the Atlanta Unitarian Church.
“The summer after he joined, the church had planned its annual picnic, and it would take place in a park that did not accommodate blacks. Young was surprised that the white church members had never thought about the possible offense in utilizing such a venue and he protested. The church agreed that beginning with the next picnic, a different place would be used. Despite the bittersweet victory, Young would remain a UU.”

Later, in an article in the New York Times Magazine he said:
“For more than three hundred years white America has received special consideration or “preferential treatment” …over the Negro. What we ask now is that for a brief period there be a deliberate and massive effort to include the Negro citizen in the mainstream of American life.”
Whitney Young’s grounding in his Unitarian Universalist faith and his commitment to the inherent worth and dignity of every person empowered him to keep with the struggle.
There were others who carried on.
It was the fall of 1992. The newly appointed Racial and Cultural Diversity Task Force for the UUA was were gathered at the Walker Center in Auburndale, Massachusetts. Our charge was to make the UUA reflective of the global village in which we lived. In other words, to become racially and culturally diverse. It was to be a three day workshop led by two organizations that had been doing anti-racism work for years. Along with members of our task force were members of the UUA’s Black Concerns Working Group. We went around the room, each saying who we were, in what capacity we had been invited to this training event, and why we cared about this at all.

About halfway around the circle we got to Norma Pointsett. I did not know her, although she had been a member of the UUA Board of Trustees. And she was the chair of the Black Concerns Working Group. She was an older woman, and as she spoke, her passion came through. She told us more than what the initial questions posed requested, and we listened.

Norma said she had been part of the initial Black Concerns Working Group, created by denominational leaders in 1985 and charged with eliminating racism within the UUA. They gave the group a few thousand dollars to do it. She stopped and looked at us, one by one around the room. We wriggled and laughed uncomfortably. She repeated. “They gave us a few thousand dollars and told us to go off and eliminate racism in the UUA.” More silence. “And now they have asked you. Good-luck.”

Happily the Black Concerns Working Group, which had created Jubilee World, a program for congregations, did not just drop the ball in our lap and leave. They kept on keeping on, creating Jubilee World II. Norma and I developed a warm respect for one another. I look forward to seeing her each year at General Assembly and hearing what she has been up to. Age doesn’t keep her down. Why should it? Race never did!

Every year Norma reminds me that with all we have done, we still have not eliminated racism in the UUA. But if we maintain the fire of our commitment, we will keep getting closer. Bless you Norma. You keep me honest, you keep me accountable, you keep me faithful to my faith.
Readings:

What We’ve started
By Betty Bobo Seiden

We are here today because we want our religious journey to include more than one holy land, more than one vision, more than one scripture…
We sing praises in many styles and in many languages. We make a joyful noise unto whomever nourishes and sustains all life.
When we look around us here today we see the beauty of diversity-people of various sizes and shapes, heads of different colors and textures. We see an age span of several generations. WE are aware of personality differences, of differences in perspective, of ancestors who represent every continent of our world.

Come let us celebrate our diversity.
Come let us worship together.

Dream It
By Henry Hampton

I am given to talking about dreams because dreaming separates us from other animals, other forms. I have a favorite line from a play I read years ago, a Chaucerian drama. The line goes: “In dreams begins responsibility.” And indeed it’s true. When you dream of something, you can begin to take it upon yourself, make it yours, change it. But you have to dream it first. And the Unitarian Universalists don’t dream. …You have to think of the world as you would really have it. I don’t mean wish it. I mean dream it. And sometimes I think Unitarian Universalists wish more than they dream.

I See Her From Time to Time by Rev. David Eaton

Many people left the church, and some for legitimate reasons. A lot left because they could not stand what I am talking to you about this morning.

Something wonderful and beautiful happened in the midst of it all. A woman 62 years old, came to my office. She was crying and I went over and held her in many arms.
She said, “I’ve got to leave the church.”
I asked, “Why?”She said, “I’m just not comfortable anymore. It was all right before, with ministers who were white. There were a few blacks, but not there are too many joining the church. I’m not comfortable anymore. I feel ashamed of myself.”
She said, “I’m liberal, and I never thought that I could have racist feelings, but I do.” I said, “Well, you can try to change.”
She said, “No, I’m too old for that. I can’t change. When I go to church I want to be comfortable. But I’ll send you money every now and then to help the church out.” And she left.
I see her from time to time. She is out in one of the suburban churches. I see her through the corner of my eye. And if she sees me before I see her, she vanishes quickly. And I let her. But if I see her first, she smiles and we hug each other. She asks me how things are and we quickly part. But I appreciate her honesty.

The Church Must Decide

Instead of an asset, religion has been a liability in the struggle for social reform. The Church, until recently, anesthetized one of the major forces of social change: the American conscience. It provided people with a place where they could congregate regularly in a beautiful setting to hear pious platitudes and mouth meaningless cliché’s.
Then it turned them loose to discriminate against their fellow (humans) the other six and nine-tenths days of the week. Eleven to twelve a.m. on Sundays has been the most segregated hour in America, and it has been easier to integrate the chorus line of a burlesque show than to integrate a choir in most of our churches.

The Church must decide what it is going to do and what it is going to be. It is a physical plant or is it a social institution? Is the ministry a profession where practitioners are more concerned with the facial expressions of their largest contributors than with helping their congregations to live up to the tcachings to Scriptures? Will ministers only reflect the congregation, will they merely mirror the prejudices of the congregation, or will they mold and lead their congregations?

Whitney M. Young, Jr.

Sin Brought Me Back
By Betty Bobo Seiden

Sin is what caused me to leave the church and give up religion, and sin is what brought me back.

In my grandmother’s house, sin was associated with pleasure. All those things that I thought were fun were of the world, and therefore sinful. Dancing, playing cards, going to the movies all condemned me to Hell-which made it sound like a pretty interesting place. In my father’s house, sin was associated with form and ritual. Eating meat on Friday, coming into church with the head uncovered-these were mis-deeds to confess. But I couldn’t feel guilty about them.

Years later my three-year old son came running to the house to tell me that a neighbor’s boy had just told him that God would kill him if he told a lie. I decided that it Ws tine we found a religious community that would sustain and encourage our beliefs:
That we are a part of a universe of diversity and interdependence,
That the diversity of our world suggests that truth and beauty take many forms,
That God is concerned with the enhancement of life, that evil is life-destroying,
That sin is associated with self-absorption, and that salvation lies in selflessness and service.

A religious community is in the world and concerned with the world.

Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone?
By Yvonne Seon

Some of you have heard me say, “Don’t take Jesus away from me!” You may have thought this strange coming from a Unitarian Universalist minister. But, when I say that, I don’t mean Jesus, a Being whose perfection removes him from most of us in this realm. I mean Jesus, the human person, like me; Jesus, capable of divine inspiration, insight and response, like me; Jesus, responsible, like me, for creating change, here and now! In liberation theology, Jesus bears the cross as a powerful; symbol that e can each have the capacity to transcend the pain of our crosses to achieve a higher life of meaning. “Must Jesus bear the cross alone, and all the wo4rld go free? No, there’s a cross for everyone, and there’s a cross for you and me”. Amen

Love Is All
By Lewis H. Latimer
What is there in this world, beside our loves,
To keep us here?
Ambition’s course is paved with hopes deferred,
With doubt and fear.
Wealth brings n joy,
And brazen-throated fame
Leaves us at last
Nought but an empty name.
Oh soul, receive the truth,
E-’er heaven sends thy recall:
Nought here deserves our though but love,
For love is all.