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Friday, 21 February 2014 00:00 |
March 9: 99 Problems, Palsy is Just One. Rev. Jim shares the story of Maysoon Zayid, a Palestinian woman with Cerebral Palsy who overcame her vulnerabilities and became a comedian and co-founder of the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival.
March 16: Into the sweet darkness: The Journey of Vulnerable Unitarian Universalists. How can vulnerability be shared in Community and at Community Church? Rev Darcy Roake explores how vulnerability provides us our deepest exploration of self and, as such, is the absolute last thing most of us want to face. How does this fear of vulnerability, of our own "shadow selves," draw us away from the work of true leadership in our Unitarian Universalist faith? How might we begin to draw upon all aspects of who we are to become the people and the faith tradition we were truly meant to be? Rev. Darcy Roake will make herself vulnerable in the service itself, in word and deed, and asks the Community Church Community to carry their vulnerability with them into our shared sacred space.
March 23: I'm Feeling Vulnerable. There is often a difference between a feeling and the reality. Rev. Jim leads us on a journey toward a step we often face, especially since we value open-mindedness, seeing the difference between a feeling and the facts of the matter.
March 30: Bafflement: What Do We Do with It? For Rev. Jim, bafflement is an ever-present condition. There are few moments when bafflement disappears. One of our challenges is to work through confusion, frustration, and self-questioning as we open the door to appreciating life's blessings more fully and completely.
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What Is Unitarian Universalism? |
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Wednesday, 23 April 2008 19:10 |
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Unitarian Universalism began within the Christian Church as two separate heresies: belief in the oneness of God (Unitarianism) and belief in universal salvation (Universalism). These ideas, though preceding it, gained followers after the Protestant Reformation in the 1500's and were widely taught in the United States in the 1700's at Harvard College and within the congregationalism of the Pilgrim church.
In 1785 King's Chapel in Boston was the first American church to declare its Unitarianism. Through the years as they were affected by transcendentalism and the rationalist humanists, Unitarianism and Universalism grew further from traditional Christianity and closer to one another and officially merged in 1961.
From their founding both Unitarianism and Universalism were non-creedal, claiming freedom of belief as a basic value. The authority for our individual beliefs is the evidence of our local experience refined through reason and spirit and tested in community. Although those beliefs may range from liberal Christianity to naturalistic humanism, it is probably true that nearly all of us can agree to these four statements:
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Each of us has the right and the responsibility to seek his or her own truth.
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Our faith, although it may transcend reason may not be contrary to it.
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We respect all people for their individual worth without regard to color, creed, gender, or sexual orientation.
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We must focus on the needs and purposes of this life rather than an afterlife in which some of us may believe, but for which we have no evidence.
This only scratches the surface, there is a wealth of information about Unitarian Universalism available on the web site of the Unitarian Universalist Association.
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We believe that we are all family and we all have value.