Live in the building and live streamed here at 10.00AM
also, we will meet at 11:00AM by Zoom
Zoom meeting ID: 894 916 3748, Passcode: 12345.
The History of Unitarian Universalism, in 15 Minutes or Less
The History of Unitarian Universalism, in 15 Minutes or Less
What is Unitarian Universalism, and where does it come from? In this video, Rev. Lee Paczulla explains the origins of our religious tradition, the essentials of our core beliefs, and how our movement has grown and changed over time.
You are warmly invited to participate in a winter solstice weekend, 19-20 June.
10-4pm Saturday the 19th will be a day of dance deepening, open to all who wish to deepen in their experience of the Dances of Universal Peace and associated walks and meditative practices. Please bring a vegetarian plate to share for lunch.
5pm Sunday will be an evening dance gathering, followed by a community shared vegetarian supper, 6:30-8pm.
From 2-4pm on Sunday, 20th June, Dance leaders are invited to join together in the spirit of collaboration and mutual support/growth by contributing in a shared reflection gathering preceding the dance evening.
Although Tonga fortunately has no community transmission of COVID-19, travel there is not possible at present and thus the pandemic has seriously affected our ability to train teachers in the use of Steps as well as supply laptops to schools.
Our main effort has shifted to attempting to collect from New Zealand companies laptops which are up for replacement. We will then provide them to Tongan primary schools as soon as we can. In addition, fund raising continues in order to purchase new laptops for the schools.
We look forward to being able to return to Tonga and assist their Ministry staff to expand this valuable and well received Steps literacy programme, especially helpful for dyslexic children.
Tongan teachers and Ministry of Education and Training staff with certified Steps Pacific Islands literacy trainer Dr Paul Henriques of our Auckland Unitarian Peace and Social Justice Group, in January 2020.
In 1964 I lived in a small town near the top of the Rockies, 60 miles from a town of any size. It was the year I got my learner’s permit to drive. Like most males of that age I took every opportunity to practise driving our new car, our third, but our first with an AM radio. As it was in the top 10 on the charts, I frequently heard Dylan’s new hit, warning that, “The times they are a-changin’”. Even at 15that seemed obvious. It had been only six months since JFK was assassinated. As a country we were still grieving. But whether we were ready or not for more change, 1964 was to be momentous. The Beatles kicked off the year, invading in February. The closest I got to them was watching them on the Ed Sullivan show. Besides, I wasn’t impressed, and thought the Fab Four were just a flash-in-the-pan fad. Little did I suspect I would have in my music library all of their albums by the time I was wondering who would still need me at 64. Nor did I suspect that my next birthday would be celebrated living in LA going to a high school six times larger than my previous one.
To be a Unitarian Universalist is to have a sense of humour, even about ourselves. There are so many jokes about us. Garrison Keeler, of course, teased us constantly. The comedian, Lenny Bruce, said this about us: “I know my humour is outrageous when it makes the Unitarians so mad they burn a question mark on my front lawn.” Somerset Maugham in his classic “Of Human Bondage” said “A Unitarian very earnestly disbelieves in almost everything that anybody else believes, and he has a very lively sustaining faith in he doesn’t quite know what.” On a M.A.S.H. episode the character, Col. Sherman Potter, said: “The General answers his own phone. Must be a Unitarian.”
Then there are the UU bumper stickers; there is lots of folk wisdom condensed into bumper stickers, by the way. One I saw said: “Honk If You’re Not Sure”. Another says: “We have questions for all your answers.”
While NZ has been at Covid-19 Alert Level 1 for some time and life for most has largely returned to “normal”, the Covid-19 virus is spreading exponentially overseas, and especially so in India. With more infectious variants occurring, India is in crisis and in desperate need of medical supplies including oxygen, respirators, PPE and isolation facilities. Hospitals are overflowing.
We have just heard Polonius’ collection of proverbs as advice to his son Laertes, who is off to university in Paris. It contains one of Shakespeare’s most oft quoted lines in valedictory speeches, blogs, music and films, “To thine own self be true.”
Third Lightning Round (Multiple choice:- What does “To thine own self be true” actually mean?
Be yourself?
Don’t change who you are?
Follow your own convictions?
Don’t lie to yourself?
All of the above?
None of the above?
It depends?
I wager that the correct answer is 7. It depends to some extent upon the meaning of “self,” the meaning of “true,” and perhaps even the meaning of “meaning.”
The pandemic is a great rupture. Those who seek hastily to sew up the rupture and return to pre-pandemic normal are seeking to preserve a world where wealth is funnelled to the already wealthy at alarming rates, while millions upon millions pay.
The alternatives to a return to normal are political. It is a cliché that politics is the art of the possible. We are at a moment in the arc of history where what once was politically impossible is possible. We can now perform the art of the impossible. It will take all of us.
