All Services

Here are all our previous service posts; some are the full text of the service.

Sunday, 21 December, 2025: People, Look East - People, look east. The time is nearOf the crowning of the year.Make your house fair as you are able,Trim the hearth and set the table.People, look east and sing today:Love, the guest, is on the way. Please join us at 10:30 for a service of Yule, Solstice, Hanukkah, Christmas songs and readings. Please bring a … Continue reading

Sunday, 14 December 2025: Random, Beautiful Marvels - The boy had heard of Shakespeare but was more interested in testing how firmly the shells were attached. I wondered aloud about the owner of the boot, but its origins were of no concern to the boy. It was the boot covered in shells, the object itself, so rich and strange, that enchanted. It was … Continue reading

Sunday, 7 December 2025: Why I Wrote “The Crucible” - I remember those years — they formed “The Crucible” ’s skeleton — but I have lost the dead weight of the fear I had then. Fear doesn’t travel well; just as it can warp judgment, its absence can diminish memory’s truth. What terrifies one generation is likely to bring only a puzzled smile to the … Continue reading

Sunday, 30 November 2025: Is It OK To Be Happy? - As I write these words, humanitarian disasters are unfolding in Gaza, Sudan, Yemen, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Global climate action has not moved fast enough, and we are perilously close to creating an uninhabitable planet. Meanwhile here in the United States, immigrants have been rounded up and shipped to foreign countries without … Continue reading

Sunday, 23 November 2025: The Dance of Not Knowing - What need do we really have for certainty, for knowing, when we have the all of space and time to relax into. For that certainty we long for is often an illusion, not even as reliable as those algae covered rocks we stumble across at the beach, not as lasting as the poorly constructed ticky-tacky … Continue reading

Sunday, 16 November 2025: Awakening to Love - In a 1967 lecture opposing war, King declared: “When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads … Continue reading

Sunday, 9 November 2025: The Hardest Principle - The Principles are not dogma or doctrine, but rather a guide for those of us who choose to join and participate in Unitarian Universalist religious communities. — Rev. Barbara Wells ten Hove The Seven Principles of Unitarian Universalism help guide us through the mysteries and obligations we encounter in the world. Robert Helfer will lead … Continue reading

Sunday, 2 November 2025: Knowing What We Do Not Know - On any particular topic, people who are not experts lack the very expertise they need in order to know just how much expertise they lack. The Dunning-Kruger effect visits all of us sooner or later in our pockets of incompetence. They’re invisible to us because to know that you don’t know something, you need to … Continue reading

Sunday, 26 October 2025: A Modest Proposal - In the essay, published in 1729, Swift began by realistically detailing the grim condition of Ireland’s poor. Then, considering that Ireland’s landlords “have already devoured most of the parents” metaphorically, Swift declared that these same landlords therefore “seem to have the best title to the children” — literally. Swift’s modest proposal was that the poor … Continue reading

Sunday, 19 October 2025: The ‘Ostrich Effect’ - Humans have this propensity to want to resolve uncertainty, but when the resolution is threatening, people might flip to avoidance instead. I think there’s something to be said about being able to tolerate and even embrace some level of uncertainty. I think that might help in not falling prey to information avoidance. — Radhika Santhanagopalan, … Continue reading

Sunday, 12 October 2025: The Sunny Shore - What would we say if someone threw rubbish into our room through an open window? And yet, isn’t the same thing happening in the realm of thoughts, when someone throws their mental rubbish into our consciousness and subconsciousness, from which bad moods then inevitably arise? The way some people, instead of engaging in directed thinking, … Continue reading

Sunday, 5 October 2025: Living in Parlous Times - I’m convinced that if the world survives these dangerous times it will be tens of millions of small things that do it. Keep on. — Pete Seeger As I write this, my husband is mowing our paths in a cap that says “The beatings will continue until morale improves.” I have one too, and he … Continue reading

Sunday, 28 September 2025: How Do We Save a Ghost? - Now there’s another koan, question, riddle, invitation to encounter who we are at the deepest levels that has no backstory at all. It goes, “Save a ghost.” So, for all of us, how do we save a ghost? And who is that ghost that needs saving? — James Ford, “Our Divided Hearts: A Zen Meditation” … Continue reading

Stained glass roundel, The Unitarian flaming chalice in touch with all faiths Made by Stephen Pask 1999, The Octagon Unitarian Chapel, Norwich, Norfolk, England, UK Photo by Leo Reynolds

Sunday, 21 September 2025: Talking About Religion - More than 80% of the world’s population identifies with a religion. Yet in many parts of the world – especially in the west – religion is treated as a private matter, something best kept out of polite conversation, or at worst, a source of division and danger. We live in a paradox: a deeply religious world … Continue reading

Sunday 14 September, 2025: It Goes On - “In all your years and all your travels,” I asked, “what do you think is the most important thing you’ve learned about life?” He paused a moment, then with the twinkle sparkling under those brambly eyebrows he replied: “In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on. In all … Continue reading

Sunday, 7 September 2025: A Fulfilling Life - As a social psychologist, I have dedicated my research career to a simple, but universal question: what makes for a good life, and how can we achieve it? For much of human history, we have been presented with two possibilities: pursuing a life of happiness, or a life of meaning. Each of these paths has … Continue reading

Sunday, 31 August 2025: Even a Grain of Sand - There will be no in-person or Zoom service on Sunday, 31 August 2025. We are offering a reading suggestion for those who are interested. But sand is not just sand. Each grain of sand exists in relation to other grains, its context and a teeming mass of beings from the microscopic to the lazing sea lions or even … Continue reading

Sunday, 24 August 2025: Rules for a Good Life - To live well, we should practice specific virtues and make them into habits. As Aristotle wrote in his Nicomachean Ethics, “If it is better to be happy as a result of one’s own exertions than by the gift of fortune, it is reasonable to suppose that this is how happiness is won.” Here are 10 of the virtues … Continue reading

Sunday, 17 August 2025: Go to Places That Scare You - We currently conduct a full worship service on the first Sunday of each month, and discuss a different short reading each of the remaining Sundays. On Sunday, 17 August, we will open with a very brief service and chalice lighting, followed by our discussion. Robert Helfer will lead the service and discussion. This week’s reading … Continue reading

Datura wrightii flower opening, pure white with pinkish highlights in a silky pinwheel

Sunday, 10 August 2025: Everyday Awe - Awe blows us away: It reminds us that there are forces bigger than ourselves, and it reveals that our current knowledge is not up to the task of making sense of what we have encountered. — Dacher Keltner, “The Quiet Profundity of Everyday Awe” We currently conduct a full worship service on the first Sunday … Continue reading

Sunday 3 August, 2025: Democratic Process - Still, no metrics exist to measure life without institutions, because they’ve been around as long as humankind. The first institution was the first family. The tribe was the first community. The first tribe’s leader was the first politician, and its elders were the first legislature. Its guards, the first police force. Its storyteller, a teacher. … Continue reading

Sunday, 27 July 2025: No In-Person or Zoom Service - There will be no in-person or Zoom service on Sunday, 27 July 2025. We are providing a reading suggestion for those who are interested. The great inspiration Thomas Jefferson drew from Jean Jacques Rousseau’s writings on the “social contract” before penning one of mankind’s most eloquent documents in July of 1776 was based on his … Continue reading

Sunday, 20 July 2025: Watters Smith Memorial State Park - “I always wondered how a real estate man could buy up a farm and put a whole city on it.” He said. “ I don’t think it’s right. When we first came out here there was just one other house in the whole area. Now there is a subdivision across the street.” “I guess I … Continue reading

Sunday 13 July 2025: The Sacred - Where does this leave secular societies in which technological or policy-focused solutions to environmental problems are not working, but where identification with the sacred has waned over time? Can something as deeply personal and experiential as the sacred be meaningfully shaped by design? Could mundane, often thankless tasks — cycling, tree-planting, recycling — be reframed … Continue reading

Sunday July 6, 2025: The Courage to Be Disliked - In a world the human inhabitants of which are currently being polarised into either the fiery or the ice-bound there often seems no longer to be any point in adopting a more temperate approach. After all, at the moment, those of us who do try to make temperate points in the public space often quickly … Continue reading

Sunday 29 June 2025: Not Being Offended - Naturally, life is happier if you’re not being offended. One strategy is to try avoiding anyone who might offend you and put up barriers against any exposure to them. If this involves curating your friendships to shun someone who’s liable to hurt your feelings repeatedly, that’s fine. But if taking measures against being offended means … Continue reading

Sunday, 22 June 2025: Republics and Tyranny - When I started seeing some of the earliest readers of Machiavelli and the earliest comments you get from republican authors, they all see Machiavelli as an ally and they say it. They say he’s a moral writer. — Erica Benner, quoted by Sean Illing in “Are We Reading Machiavelli Wrong?” We currently conduct a full … Continue reading

Sunday, 15 June 2025: Spiritual Outing at Valley Falls State Park - To Hindus the universe itself was a perpetual motion machine, and there seemed nothing absurd in an endless and spontaneous flow of energy. Bhāskāra speaks of the siphon as though it were a device for perpetual motion, and his fourteenth-century European imitator insists that his mercury wheel is in perpetual motion, even though when he … Continue reading

Sunday, 8 June 2025: Is It True? - The ability of religious social practices to serve their purposes does not depend on their myths being literally “true,” or even being believed. In the light of this usefulness, secularists might respect religion, even practice it in some sense, even though these days there are also non-religious ways of meeting these needs. — Winston Higgins, … Continue reading

Sunday June 1, 2025: Grace, Gratitude, and Privilege - “To live a life of gratitude is to open our eyes to the countless ways in which we are supported by the world around us.” Gregg Krech, Naikan: Gratitude, Grace, and the Japanese Art of Self-Reflection Much of the time, we focus more on what we lack than what we have. In troubled times, it … Continue reading

Sunday, 25 May 2025: To Stand in the Middle of All This - Equanimity is said to be an anchor. It protects you against the “worldly winds” — pleasure and pain, praise and blame, gain and loss, and fame and disrepute — by keeping you anchored so you’re not tossed about by those winds. Or hurricanes. — Daisy Hernández, “The Noble Abode of Equanimity: On not getting swept … Continue reading

Sunday, 18 May 2025: Trusting Each Other - Trust is a necessary component in every relationship. Without it, we’re unable to be vulnerable, to share our dreams, to hold secrets, to feel safe. Hardly anyone would prefer to be made the fool — healthy skepticism can prevent you from clicking on a phishing link in an email or joining a multilevel marketing scheme … Continue reading

Sunday, 11 May 2025: An Unforgiving Place - We all have things that we don’t want other people to know about us. Things that might be hard to explain, even to ourselves. The world can be an unforgiving place, quick to judge, and friendships can be fleeting. Would the people whose regard means the most to us look at us differently if they … Continue reading

Sunday May 4, 2025: Flower Ceremony - Please bring flowers to share in the service. Whatever is blooming, or a twig in bud, is fine. We will have our Flower Ceremony, which was created by Dr. Norbert Čapek for the Liberal Religious Fellowship he founded in Prague, then Czechoslovakia, in 1925, and which became the largest Unitarian Church in the world. He … Continue reading

Sunday, 27 April 2025: Are You an Anarchist? - Everyone believes they are capable of behaving reasonably themselves. If they think laws and police are necessary, it is only because they don’t believe that other people are. But if you think about it, don’t those people all feel exactly the same way about you? — David Graeber, “Are You An Anarchist? The Answer May … Continue reading

Sunday, 20 April 2025: Ivan the Fool - In a certain kingdom there lived a rich peasant, who had three sons — Simeon (a soldier), Tarras-Briukhan (a fat man), and Ivan (a fool) — and one daughter, Milania, born dumb. Simeon went to war, to serve the Czar; Tarras went to a city and became a merchant; and Ivan, with his sister, remained … Continue reading

Sunday, 13 April 2025: The Great Hunger - The profoundly uncomfortable truth is that Ireland started to become modern when its poorest people were wiped out or sent into exile — a reality that is too painful to be faced without deep unease. — Fintan O’Toole, “‘Rot: An Imperial History of the Irish Famine,’ Reviewed”, March 2025 We currently conduct a full worship … Continue reading

Great Blue Heron striding along a drifting log in Reelfoot Lake State Park, Tennessee

Sunday, 6 April 2025: With Feathers - “Hope” is the thing with feathers – That perches in the soul – And sings the tune without the words – And never stops – at all – — Emily Dickinson, “‘Hope’ Is The Thing With Feathers” This Sunday we will consider “hope” and “things with feathers” as the reawakening we call Spring changes the … Continue reading

Sunday, 30 March 2025: No In-Person or Zoom Service - There will be no in-person or Zoom service on Sunday, 30 March 2025. We are supplying a reading suggestion for those who are interested. … everything is seemingly up for grabs. In theory, a lack of consensus on so many subjects should mean that we live in a time of widespread intellectual foment, in which … Continue reading

Sunday, 23 March 2025: No In-Person or Zoom Service - There will be no in-person or Zoom service on Sunday, 23 March 2025. We are supplying a reading suggestion for those who are interested. Adding to the internal tension was something I’d observed among my beetles: the spectre of evolved selfishness. What looked like coöperation was, I discovered, laced with sexual conflict. The female beetles, … Continue reading

Sunday, 16 March 2025: No In-Person or Zoom Service - There will be no in-person or Zoom service on Sunday, 16 March 2025. We are supplying a reading suggestion for those who are interested. “For years, I felt like I’d done enough damage and didn’t want to speak out,” they said. “Then I realized silence was not a moral decision.” — R Derek Black, quoted … Continue reading

Sunday, 9 March 2025: Medieval Faith or Fiction? - Evidence from the late Middle Ages reveals that even in an era dominated by the Church, there were those who doubted, questioned, and sometimes openly rejected religious teachings. — “Medieval Faith or Fiction? When Believers in the Middle Ages Questioned Religion”, August 2024 We currently conduct a full worship service on the first Sunday of … Continue reading

Sunday, March 2, 2025: Our UU US Presidents - Jefferson, though a sincere student of the teachings of Jesus and a Unitarian, was denounced as an atheist. We know the contumely, insult, and mob violence to which Priestley was subjected in England. Franklin, the Adamses, and Fillmore were all Unitarians, but they were looked at askance. Lincoln, one of the most deeply religious men, … Continue reading

Sunday, 23 February 2025: Imagining the End of the World - The truth is, a world that endures forever actually makes less sense than one that doesn’t. And the same goes for us. We can imagine existing a thousand years, maybe even ten thousand — but a million? Surely Heaven will present us with a few longueurs. — Arthur Krystal, “What We Learn About Our World … Continue reading

Sunday, 16 February 2025: Five Smooth Stones - Progress is now seen not to take place through inheritance; each generation must anew win insight into the ambiguous nature of human existence and must give new relevance to moral and spiritual values. A realistic appraisal of our behavior, personal and institutional, and a life of continuing humility and renewal are demanded, for there are … Continue reading

Sunday, 9 February 2025: How the Occult Gave Birth to Science - In 1936, the economist John Maynard Keynes purchased a trove of Isaac Newton’s unpublished notes. These included more than 100,000 words on the great physicist’s secret alchemical experiments. Keynes, shocked and awed, dubbed them “wholly magical and wholly devoid of scientific value.” This unexpected discovery, paired with things like Newton’s obsession with searching for encrypted … Continue reading

Enshrining Our Values in Our Homes: Sunday, 2 Feb 2025 - People from time out of mind have built altars. People who didn’t have permanent homes, who gathered around campfires, or in rock shelters, built shrines. They were rocks carefully placed, or circles drawn in sand, or handfuls of wildflowers carefully placed. All of the civilizations we know of had altars in or near their homes … Continue reading

Black and white image of fish and birds blending into each other

Sunday, 26 January 2025: Are You Being or Becoming? - Christians, for example, believe that each of us has an unchanging, permanent essence called the soul. Buddhists, however, believe that a core self is an illusion, and they focus instead on the anatman, or “not-self.” Even within the same philosophical tradition, such as that of the ancient Greeks, disputation on this issue went back and forth: … Continue reading

Sunday, 19 January 2025: Pardon, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation - We can say that there might sometimes be an obligation to pardon. There is never an obligation to forgive. “Forgive” is from the Old English word forgyfan – “to give, grant, or bestow.” It’s a gift. It cannot be required. If it is forced or coerced or pressured, then it’s not a gift. — Rev. Meredith Garmon, … Continue reading

Sunday, 12 January 2025: It’s Worse than You Think - In fact, your situation is worse than you think — because the truth is that the incoming supply of things that feel as though they genuinely need doing isn’t merely large, but to all intents and purposes infinite. So getting through them all isn’t just very difficult. It’s impossible. — Oliver Burkeman, “It’s Worse than … Continue reading

Sunday, 5 January 2025: In Every Newborn Child - Whatever else Christmas is about, its origins lie in a very ancient tradition that, whatever else God is, or the gods are, they are, “with us.” In the singular, the phrase, “God is with us”, is … the meaning of the name, Emmanuel, given to the newborn baby Jesus by the author of the Gospel … Continue reading

Potluck Brunch: Sunday, 29 December, 2024 - Potluck Brunch! New Year’s Potluck Brunch! We have a tradition of a brunch on the Sunday after Christmas instead of a service. Bring food to share, or just bring yourself! Come and join us at 10:30 a.m., Sunday, December 29, 2024, for good fellowship and food and a small devotion. This year, Robert and Lisa … Continue reading

Sunday, 22 December, 2024: People, Look East - People, look east. The time is nearOf the crowning of the year.Make your house fair as you are able,Trim the hearth and set the table.People, look east and sing today:Love, the guest, is on the way. Please join us at 10:30 for a service of Yule, Solstice, Hanukkah, Christmas songs and readings. Please bring a … Continue reading

Sunday, 15 December 2024: Humility - Being humble is virtuous but devilishly elusive, especially for some people. As Benjamin Franklin — known by contemporaries for his lack of humility — joked in his autobiography, “Even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome [my pride], I should probably be proud of my humility.” — Arthur C. Brooks, “Why Humility Is the … Continue reading

Sunday, 8 December 2024: Hope and Abundance - The Tigers and the Strawberry There was a man walking across an open field, when suddenly a tiger appeared and began to give chase. The man began to run, but the tiger was closing in. As he approached a cliff at the edge of the field, the man grabbed a vine and jumped over the … Continue reading

Sunday, 1 December 2024: Thanksgiving - And here we are. A very problematic story attached to a communal call to give thanks for what is good, and to celebrate. A terrible memory of the possibility of evil, and its actual manifestations. And the sense of powerlessness while also wishing for some reconciliation among people and this little planet upon which we … Continue reading

Sunday, 24 November 2024: In Plato’s Cave - Utter ignorance, however, for which the dictionary offers the term ignoration, is yet more profound: The prisoners in Plato’s Cave do not know what they do not know; they do not even know that they do not know. They dwell in ignorance, but cannot recognize it. Ignoration is thus a predicament, a trap — one that is not comprehended by those who … Continue reading

Sunday, 17 November 2024: Words and Behaviour - A particular collectivity, the army or the warring nation, is given the name and, along with the name, the attributes of a single person, in order that we may be able to love or hate it more intensely than we could do if we thought of it as what it really is: a number of … Continue reading

Sunday, 10 November 2024: The Good Guys - What I have always found attractive about the Panchatantra stories is that many of them do not moralise. They do not preach goodness or virtue or modesty or honesty or restraint. Cunning and strategy and amorality often overcome all opposition. The good guys don’t always win. (It’s not even always clear who the good guys … Continue reading

Sunday, 3 November 2024: The Veil - There was a Door to which I found no Key; There was a Veil past which I could not see: Some little talk awhile of ME and THEE There seemed — and then no more of THEE and ME. — Edward FitzGerald, translation of a poem attributed to Omar Khayyam We are told that there … Continue reading

Sunday, 27 October 2024. No Service - Due to schedule conflicts, there will be no WFUU service and no ZOOM session on Sunday, 27 October 2024. We will return on Sunday, 3 November, and hope to see you all then. Thank you.

Sunday, 20 October 2024: Do Our Morals Change? - The seasons have been shown to influence many elements of our psyches and behavior: mood, color preferences, how charitable we are, even cognitive performance. But recently, researchers found they may also affect what we tend to consider among our most profoundly held convictions: how we decide what is right and wrong. — Alice Sun, “Our … Continue reading

Sunday, 13 October 2024: Tailoring Spirituality - You see, I’ve increasingly come to realize that many people are tempted to fall into thinking that what’s being offered within the local community is the well-fitting, bespoke spiritual suit or dress itself. But it’s not. What’s on offer here, in the company of fellow students and experienced free religious and spiritual seekers, is an … Continue reading

Sunday, 6 October 2024: Spiritual Outing at Valley Falls State Park - To Hindus the universe itself was a perpetual motion machine, and there seemed nothing absurd in an endless and spontaneous flow of energy. Bhāskāra speaks of the siphon as though it were a device for perpetual motion, and his fourteenth-century European imitator insists that his mercury wheel is in perpetual motion, even though when he … Continue reading

Sunday, 29 September 2024: Trust in Institutions - Frustrated citizens have tried to fill the vacuum. Like-minded “followers” and “friends” feed us news online; people sometimes barter on eBay rather than bow to big corporations; and parents increasingly homeschool their children rather than expose them to failing public schools and unsafe streets. But this is coping, not institutional adaptation. And sociologists say we … Continue reading

Sunday, 22 September 2024: Repugnant Views - It’s one thing to find views repugnant. It’s another thing to claim that — to hear them constitute a kind of injury that no reasonable person should be expected to stand up to. That’s theatrical because it’s not true. Nobody is hurt in that immediate, lasting and intolerable way by some words that a person … Continue reading

Sunday, 15 September 2024: Is Democracy Possible? - If we look at ourselves in this light, as trustees for democracy, the means for which have been lavishly supplied to us, we have not been doing very well by ourselves or others. Domestic and foreign policy appear to be conducted without regard to the democratic history or intentions of our country. Now that the … Continue reading

Three women picking over a harvested field, seeking any scraps of grain that remains

Sunday, 8 September 2024: How To Make It Better? - I remember talking to my grandfather when I was a child. He was a good specimen of a nineteenth-century artisan. He was highly intelligent, and he had a great deal of character. He had left school at the age of ten, and had educated himself intensely until he was an old man. He had all … Continue reading

Sunday, September 1, 2024: Deegan and Hinkle Lakes, Bridgeport - Little Blue Heron at Deegan & Hinkle Lakes Park After our spring and summer 2024 hiatus we are resuming our series of Spiritual Outings, held on the first Sunday of each month during the summer and into the winter. For this year’s September outing, we will return to Deegan & Hinkle Lakes Park in Bridgeport … Continue reading

No Sunday Service Until September 2024 - We are taking a break in our services. There will be NO Sunday service, either in person or on ZOOM, until September 2024. We are on hiatus for the summer. We will return to weekly meetings in September, beginning with a Spiritual Outing on Sunday September 1. We will continue with a weekly service of … Continue reading

Sunday 2 June 2024: Spider-Stomping - “When the good guy finally wins, viewers are then able to reassert control over their own inner tendencies, repress them, and re-establish a sense of goodness without coming to any insight about their own inner evil. The villain’s punishment provides catharsis; one forswears the villain’s ways and heaps condemnation on him in a guilt-free orgy … Continue reading

Sunday, 26 May 2024: Perceptions of Misfortune - This is what I gathered. That in that country if a man falls into ill health, or catches any disorder, or fails bodily in any way before he is seventy years old, he is tried before a jury of his countrymen, and if convicted is held up to public scorn and sentenced more or less … Continue reading

Sunday, 19 May 2024: The Artist At Work - My mother’s name will only appear in texts or in conversations because she was my mother — the mother of a man who inexplicably became famous. I want you to know, however, that my mother was a great artist, a powerful artist who poured creativity and ingenuity and brilliance into raising her children, infusing us … Continue reading

Sunday, 12 May 2024: Seeing - I put on my newly acquired and still frustrating reading glasses and lament my middle-aged vision. The words on the page float in and out of focus. How is it possible that I can no longer see what was once so plain? My fruitless strain to see what I know is right in front of … Continue reading

Sunday 5 May 2024: Church! What Is It Good For? - People who have never been Unitarian Universalists often ask me why we bother with the whole church thing. Buildings and ministers are expensive. Committees and classes and Sunday services are time-consuming. And for what? Our churches don’t promise to take us to heaven. At the end of the day, we’re going to make up our … Continue reading

Sunday, 28 April 2024: Margaret Fuller’s Transcendentalist “Credo” - [Margaret Fuller] was a leading light among the Transcendentalists. While for much of America Transcendentalism was a literary explosion, in fact it was a religious revolution. Birthed within Boston and the immediate surrounding areas among Unitarians, clergy and laypeople, Transcendentalism’s influences have continued to this day. James Ford We are currently having a full service … Continue reading

Sunday, 21 April 2024: Ready-Made Religion - … just as some of us understand that when we are trying to buy a new dress or suit, the ready-made cuts and sizes are never going perfectly to fit us, some of us also understand that the ready-made religions are never going perfectly fit us either, and that something more fitting can be made. … Continue reading

Sunday, 14 April 2024: Ocean Parable - However, sometimes, whilst we are flailing away, we have all experienced “times when waves overtake us from behind, lifting us up and along” and from these moments, Bugbee says “we may take courage and be thankful.” But our new-found courage and thankfulness can all too easily and quickly morph into the delusional thought that, somehow, … Continue reading

Sunday April 7, 2024: Flower Ceremony - Please bring flowers to share in the service. Whatever is blooming, or a twig in bud, is fine. Everyone is invited to lunch at Robert and Lisa’s house after the service; ham, potato salad, and rolls will be provided. Other dishes to share are welcome. We will have our Flower Ceremony, which was created by … Continue reading

Sunday, 31 March 2024: Building Your Own Theology, Volume 2, Session 10 - Touch not my lips with the white fireFrom the glowing altar of some peaceful shrine.Thrust not into my hands the scroll of wisdomGleaned through the patient toil of the centuries;Give me no finished chart that I may followWithout effort or the bitter taste of tears.I do not crave the comfort of the ancient creeds,Nor the … Continue reading

Sunday, 24 March 2024: Building Your Own Theology, Volume 2, Session 10 - I call that mind free, which sets no bounds to its love, which is not imprisoned in itself or in a sect, which recognises in all human beings the image of God and the rights of his children, which delights in virtue and sympathises with suffering wherever they are seen, which conquers pride, anger, and … Continue reading

Ancient stone tomb called Trethevy Quoit, near Tremar Coombe, Cornwall

Sunday, 17 March 2024: Building Your Own Theology, Volume 2, Session 9 - Persons are part of the everyday world with which science is concerned, and the conditions which determine their existence are discoverable. A drop of water is not immortal; it can be resolved into oxygen and hydrogen. If, therefore, a drop of water were to maintain that it had a quality of aqueousness which would survive … Continue reading

Sunday, 10 March 2024: Building Your Own Theology, Volume 2, Session 8 - Is this to say that suffering is indispensable to the discovery of meaning? In no way. I only insist that meaning is available in spite of – nay, even through – suffering, provided, … that the suffering is unavoidable. If it is avoidable, the meaningful thing to do is to remove its cause, for unnecessary … Continue reading

Sunday March 3 2024: Saving Daylight - “Beginning with the first day of Daylight Savings Time, those entering the contest must begin saving daylight. Those who save the most daylight by midnight of the last day of Daylight Savings Time will be awarded a prize.” “Only pure daylight is allowed. No pre-dawn light or twilight will be accepted. Daylight on cloudy days … Continue reading

Sunday, 25 February 2024: Building Your Own Theology, Volume 2, Session 7 - From the beginning the weakness as well as the strength of the democratic ideal has been the people. People cannot be free unless they are willing to sacrifice some of their interests to guarantee the freedom of others. The price of democracy is the ongoing pursuit of the common good by all of the people. … Continue reading

Sunday, 18 February 2024: Building Your Own Theology, Volume 2, Session 6 - A homogeneous community, one exhibiting almost total similarities of taste, habit, custom and behavior is culturally dead, aside from being downright boring. New and different life styles, habits and customs are the lifeblood of America. They are its strength, its growth force. Just as diversity strengthens and enriches the country as a whole, so will … Continue reading

Sunday, 11 February 2024: Building Your Own Theology, Volume 2, Session 5 - If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy … Continue reading

Sunday, 4 February 2024: Love Is Too Strong a Word - In 1984, Kurt Vonnegut asked what makes us so bloodthirsty, in the Ware Lecture "Love Is Too Strong a Word" at the Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly. Vonnegut was a third-generation Unitarian, and great-grandson of a founder of the Freethinker’s Society of Indianapolis. We will hear a tape of his lecture, which is still startlingly topical today.

Sunday, 28 January 2024: Building Your Own Theology, Volume 2, Session 4 - “Do you believe in the soul?” It wasn’t quite the question he had been going to ask, and it took him by surprise to hear it coming from his mouth. He had intended to say something less direct, but there was nothing less direct that he could say. “Depends. Back in my day, we had … Continue reading

Sunday, 21 January 2024. No Service - Because of the cold weather and apparent road problems here tomorrow morning, we have decided to cancel tomorrow’s service and again postpone this week’s session of Building Your Own Theology until next week. We hope everyone stays warm and safe, and that we will see you all next week. We expect to return next Sunday, … Continue reading

Sunday, 21 January 2024: Building Your Own Theology, Volume 2, Session 4 - Strange! that no one has ever been persecuted by the church for believing God bad, while hundreds of millions have been destroyed for thinking him good. The orthodox church never will forgive the Universalist for saying “God is love.” It has always been considered as one of the very highest evidences of true and undefiled … Continue reading

Sunday, 14 January 2024. No Service - Because of the developing weather situation, we have canceled our service and RE session for Sunday 14 January 2024. We expect to return next Sunday, 21 January. Thank you.

Sunday, 14 January 2024: Building Your Own Theology, Volume 2, Session 4 - Strange! that no one has ever been persecuted by the church for believing God bad, while hundreds of millions have been destroyed for thinking him good. The orthodox church never will forgive the Universalist for saying “God is love.” It has always been considered as one of the very highest evidences of true and undefiled … Continue reading

Sunday, 7 January 2024: Building Your Own Theology, Volume 2, Session 3 - My text this morning is taken from no Hebrew Scriptures, whether of the Old or New Testaments. America is every whit as sacred as Judea. God is as near to you and to me, as ever he was to Moses, to Jesus, or to Paul. Wherever a human soul is born into the love of … Continue reading

Sunday, December 31, 2023 - Potluck Brunch! New Year’s Potluck Brunch! We are continuing our tradition of a brunch on the Sunday after Christmas. Bring food to share, or just bring yourself! There will be a Zoom session, if you can’t attend in person, where we will share the conversation but sadly not the food. Come and join us at … Continue reading

Sunday, December 24, 2023: People, Look East - People, look east. The time is nearOf the crowning of the year.Make your house fair as you are able,Trim the hearth and set the table.People, look east and sing today:Love, the guest, is on the way. Please join us at 10:30 on Christmas Eve for a service of songs and readings. And stay after for … Continue reading

Sunday, 17 December 2023: Building Your Own Theology, Volume 2, Session 2 - See, our differences are our strengths. We have got to pull together. In athletics, we know it. See, divided teams lose; united teams win. We have got to unite and pull together, and there’s nothing we can’t do. But if we sit around blowing all this energy out the window on racial strife and hatred, … Continue reading

Sunday, 10 December 2023: Building Your Own Theology, Volume 2, Session 1 - Almost every sect, that has ever been, makes Christianity rest on the personal authority of Jesus, and not the immutable truth of the doctrines themselves, or the authority of God, who sent him into the world. Yet it seems difficult to conceive any reason, why moral and religious truths should rest for their support on … Continue reading

Sunday 3 December 2023: First Sunday in Advent - — J.R.R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories” (1938) This Sunday we will be entering the Christmas holiday season. We will be talking a bit more generally about the winter holidays and the coming year. We will also consider how we need to proceed with services through this month and the coming new year. We will open with … Continue reading

Sunday 26 November 2023: Building Your Own Theology, Session 10 - Whilst we compose a Catechism, we prescribe nothing to any man: whilst we declare our own opinions, we oppress no one. Let every person enjoy the freedom of his own judgment in religion; only let it be permitted to us also to exhibit our view of divine things, without injuring and calumniating others. For this … Continue reading

West Fork Unitarian Universalists

Gathering north central West Virginia UUs

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