The bird is an intriguing metaphor appearing in many religious traditions, stories, songs and legends. We have long been fascinated by (or sometimes afraid of) the winged creatures. What lessons can we learn through the lives of birds?
Pastor Katie Culbert is a graduate from Meadville Lombard Theological School, where she received two graduation awards: Leadership in Religious Education and Excellence in Preaching. She graduated from the University of South Florida with a degree in Religious Studies. She served as Intern Minister for two years in Sarasota, Florida, where she was ordained in 2016. She was the Director of Religious Education at the UU church of Tampa for seven years and has worked as a Chaplain at Tampa General Hospital for seven years. Katie has been involved in many social justice campaigns including working to increase the minimum wage and creating common sense gun legislation. Katie lives in Tampa with her two children Desi, 14 and Casey, 13 and their rescued pit bull, Mickey. Her interests are music, nature and praying for the pandemic to end because people need hugs.
On Sunday, UUCM will conclude its summer series on “The Six Sources of Our Living Traditions by discussing the Fifth source, which asks UUs to heed the results of science and warns against the idolatry of mind and spirit. Music will be provided by Jim Helton, the Ramsey Lewis Trio, and Jon Baptiste and Stay Human. Tom Lowe will review the Ten Commandments and Mike Sullivan will address the Ten Commitments of Humanist Ethics. This service is dedicated to the memory of Steve Robert, a big man with a big heart.
Religion deals with questions of life’s meaning and purpose, and death and how we relate to it—especially to our death or the death of loved ones—is certainly one of those “big questions” that all of humankind’s religions, spiritualities and philosophical systems have addressed, as has science.
The COVID-19 pandemic that is currently ravaging the world and particularly now the U.S. with no clear end in sight has led many people—and I expect some of us—to revisit the question of our own mortality and that of our loved ones. Even if we ourselves have escaped, and even if no one close to us has been stricken, just the magnitude of the death toll around the world is emotionally shattering. We are, psychologists tell us, experiencing a period of collective grieving, along with everything else.
One way of interpreting religious and spiritual beliefs about death and what comes after is to look at them as attempts to demonstrate that the significance of human life is such that it simply does not—cannot—end with the death of the body. In other words, views about life after death are in essence views about life before death and its meaning. Join me as we explore this idea.
Source One - Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and openness to the forces which create and uphold life. Join us this Sunday Jay and Karen Moorman will share personal reflections on the message of hope in finding the connected and shared meaning between all of us. Connections are often formed through like-minded people sharing similar interests and compassion for each other. But connection sometimes is found despite differences in our backgrounds and beliefs. What ties us together as human beings despite differing beliefs? Hope can be found when we look for what we have in common rather than focus on our differences. It takes work and care but it is to this purpose that we must strive.
It's become glaringly clear that the nation cannot look to the Oval Office for emotional and spiritual support through the COVID-19 crisis. That means it needs to become a DIY operation. So how do we do it ourselves?
The process of forgiveness is complex; it is normal to experience a multitude of feelings when searching for forgiveness. It behooves us to practice forgiveness because all of us hurt other people sometimes, and we all need to give and receive forgiveness.
Rev. Bruce Russell-Jayne served UU in churches in Illinois, Utah and Ohio, as a Chaplain at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, and is now retired. He and his wife Cece are sheltering in place in Carmel, Indiana. They are members of All Souls Unitarian Church, Indianapolis. He is working on All Souls application' to become a Green Sanctuary Congregation and a project to get All Souls to Net Zero Carbon.
Sunday’s sermon weaves together a few of the stories uncovered in decades of research into how events in our local and regional history reflect issues from our national past. These include the Shawnee Prophet’s murderous purging of purported Delaware ‘witches’; the near lynching of Frederick Douglass by pro-slavery ‘ruffians’ at Pendleton; and the notorious KKK terrorism of the 1920s culminating in the last lynching in the North, which took place at Marion in Aug. 1930. Regrettably, most of these incidents are absent from our schools’ history and social studies curricula and remain largely unknown to the populace at large. When it comes to bigotry, hatred, and mass violence justified by religious belief, ignorance is not bliss! The act of remembering these past traumas in situ is the first step toward reconciliation. While we are not responsible for the malign actions of our forebears, we are morally obligated to be accountable for the ways that unacknowledged collective trauma can redound imperceptibly across generations.
“Earth is forgiveness school,” says Ann Lamott, but forgiveness is hard sometimes. We can learn a lot about it by considering the work of two great champions of forgiveness. Eva Mozes Kor was taken to Auschwitz as a child to be used as an experimental animal by Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. It took her fifty years, but she was finally able to forgive him for what he had done and experience a transformation from victim to victor. Lois Wilson is the co-founder of Al Anon, a group that supports the family members and friends of alcoholics as they try to heal the wounds that the alcoholics in their lives have inflicted. Al Anon has provided millions with wise counsel on the steps toward spiritual growth, resulting in their forgiveness of others and themselves.
So much of our world seems upended right now. Our government may not be what we had always thought, forests are burning, and even the terms with which we shape our justice priorities as a faith tradition are constantly shifting. We are in a period of deconstruction and it is uncomfortable while holding so much potential for generativity. We’ll discuss what gives us hope and direction as we put into place foundations for how to begin the next phase of reconstruction – in our individual lives, our faith, and our world.
The Rev. Sarah Gettie McNeill serves our Unitarian Universalist Association from her home in Bloomington, Indiana. Born and bred a Hoosier from rural Southern Indiana, Sarah Gettie was raised in the conservative Christian church before finding UUism after a long journey through many cultures and religions. After receiving her MDiv from Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago, she has spent her ministry in hospital chaplaincy and religious education and now serves as the Professional Development Programs Manager at the UUA. In this role, she has the absolute joy of accompanying music leaders and religious educators through professional credentialing, certification, and growth. She lives with her partner, Landon (a professor at IU’s O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs), two sons, Elijah (7) and Lucas (3.5), and two felines, Kitsie and Cuzco – a kitten, all of whom make for a very lively household!
Many, if not most, Unitarian Universalists deny the existence of a hell in the afterlife. We say that people are too good to be eternally damned! Have we, however, truly lived into this belief in our own world and faith movement? What kind of hells exist right here? Join us this morning in exploring how we disrupt and dismantle oppressive behaviors in our faith, to then build up spaces of our own kind of loving, justice-fueled heaven.
