UU Update

We are once again running two Sunday Services:

  • A service in the building at 10.00AM,
  • A service via Zoom at 11.00AM.

Next Services:- Sunday, 29th November

Information for joining our 11.00AM Zoom Service:-

The link contains the password and will take you straight in, use the shorter password if joining manually.

2nd Trans-Tasman ANZUUA Service

This is an opportunity to make connections with Unitarian Universalists across New Zealand, Australia, and the Asia-Pacific region.

Topic:– Things Worth Protecting
Leader:– Daniel Jantos, from Spirit of Life UU, Sydney

3.00pm, Sunday 29th November

Meeting Details:-

The link contains the password and will take you straight in, use the shorter password if joining manually.

Hold your own

Sunday Talks

with Nina Khouri

Video to come

Listen, or download the MP3

Read below, or download the PDF (to come).

Follow this shortcut to the bottom of the page for the various readings, videos, etc. shared in the service.

Nina Khouri © 22 November 2020

Text to come

Discussion / Meditation

Links

Welcome includes:- ‘Be Here, in This Moment’ By Chip Roush

Opening Hymn: “Spirit of Life” by Carolyn McDade. Sung by Amelia Wisniewski-Barker and Brittany Ann Tranbaug of First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia

Time for All Ages is ‘Quaky Cat‘ by Diana Noonan (Author), Gavin Bishop (Illustrator)

Koha Hymn: ‘There Is More Love Somewhere’ Traditional. Performed by Bernice Johnson Reagon
Reading:  ‘Hold your own’ By Kate Tempest
Closing Hymn: ‘Singing for Our Lives’, written and performed by Holly Near

Closing words include part of ‘The Holy Work of Showing Up’ By Ashley Horan

It’s hard to be a humble Unitarian

Sunday Talks

with Rev. Clay Nelson

It’s hard to be a humble Unitarian
Listen, or download the MP3

Read below, or download the PDF.

Follow this shortcut to the bottom of the page for the various readings, videos, etc. shared in the service.

Clay Nelson © 15 November 2020

A year before jumping from Anglicanism to Unitarianism, I exchanged pulpits for three months with the priest in an Anglican Church in Barcelona. It was not easy for either me or the congregation, for they were of the evangelical branch of Anglicanism. They were quite certain of their conservative Christian beliefs and were none too happy that their vicar had foisted a heretic from New Zealand on them.

It turns out they have Google in Spain too.

Continue reading It’s hard to be a humble Unitarian →

The elections are over. Phew! Now what?

Sunday Talks

with Rev. Clay Nelson

The elections are over. Phew! Now what?
Listen, or download the MP3

Read below, or download the PDF.

Follow this shortcut to the bottom of the page for the various readings, videos, etc. shared in the service.

Clay Nelson © 8 November 2020

My advertised title for today’s musing was “The elections are over. Phew! Now what?”. After the predictably chaotic US election I think a better title would have been “The elections are over. Phooey! Now what?” But. upon reflection, I am now leaning towards “The elections are over. It was a curate’s egg”.

You may not be familiar with the phrase. I wasn’t before coming to New Zealand. It goes back to a cartoon published in Punch by the Victorian era’s most celebrated cartoonist, George du Maurier, grandfather of novelist Daphne du Maurier. The cartoon shows two clerics having breakfast. One is a bishop and the other is a curate, the lowest of the low in Anglican Church hierarchy. The bishop apologises to the curate, “I’m afraid you got a bad egg. Mr Jones.” To which the curate responds, “Oh no, my lord. I assure you parts of it were excellent!” The joke of course is that if part of a boiled egg is bad, all of it is bad.

Continue reading The elections are over. Phew! Now what? →

Leaving a Mark

Sunday Talks

with Rev. Clay Nelson

Leaving a Mark
Listen, or download the MP3

Read below, or download the PDF.

Follow this shortcut to the bottom of the page for the various readings, videos, etc. shared in the service.

‘Faded coat of blue’ by John H MacNaughton (1865)

My brave lad sleeps in his faded coat of blue
In a lone solemn grave lies the heart that beat so true
He fell faint and hungry among the valiant brave
And they laid him sad and lonely within his nameless grave

He cried, “Give me water and just one little crumb
And my mother she will bless you in the many days to come
Oh! tell my sweet sister, so gentle, good and true
That I’ll meet her up in heaven, in my faded coat of blue.”

No more the bugle calls the weary one
Rest, lonely spirits in thy grave unknown
I’ll know you and find you among the good and true
When the robe of white is given for the faded coat of blue

Long, long years have vanished, and though he comes no more
Yet my anxious heart will start with each footfall at my door
I gaze over the hillside where he waved his last adieu
But no gallant lad I see, in his faded coat of blue

No more the bugle calls the weary one
Rest, lonely spirits in thy grave unknown
I’ll know you and find you among the good and true
When the robe of white is given for the faded coat of blue

Clay Nelson © 1st November 2020

It might strike you as odd that I open these musings with a lamentation on what most of Christendom celebrates today as All Saints’ Day. Faded coat of blue was a folk song written by J. H. MacNaughton following Gettysburg, the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War. I do so because it is about remembering. Ultimately All Saints’, All Souls’, Samhain, Dia de la muerte, the Buddhist celebration of Obon in Japan, Chuseok in Korea, Gai Jatra in Nepal, Pchum Ben in Cambodia, and Hungry Ghost Month celebrated by Taoists and Buddhists all centre on remembering the dead.

Continue reading Leaving a Mark →