All posts by Clay Nelson

Have the Seven Principles passed their use-by date?

A Living Tradition, Sunday Talks / Random Musings
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Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rev. Clay Nelson

Have the Seven Principles passed their use-by date?
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Clay Nelson © 23rd April 2023

Last week we explored the many challenges of being a living tradition, the biggest being finding a consensus when we don’t have a creed, holy book of revelation or ecclesiastical authority.

This morning our focus is on the Seven Principles. How they came to be? Their role in our faith. Have they passed their use by date?

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It isn’t easy being a “Living Tradition”

A Living Tradition, Sunday Talks / Random Musings
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Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rev. Clay Nelson

It isn’t easy being a “Living Tradition
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Clay Nelson © 16th April 2023

This morning I would like to focus on what it means to be a living tradition. As Unitarian Universalists we sing about it. We proudly proclaim it as what we are. But what does it mean? Most simply put our beliefs are etched in pencil and not carved in stone. But there are consequences. Like being green, being a living tradition isn’t easy.

It is a big topic, so this is the first of several random musings exploring who we are, how we got here and where we are being led. My hope is that we might better understand our Kaupapa, our mission and purpose.

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It’s a Wonderful Life, a UU Christmas Carol

Christmas, Sunday Talks / Random Musings
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Speaker and Worship Leader:- Rev. Clay Nelson

It’s a Wonderful Life, a UU Christmas Carol
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Rev. Clay Nelson © 18th December 2022

I don’t consider it Christmas until I have watched It’s a Wonderful Life. I ticked that off last Sunday. So, for me, it’s now Christmas.

I don’t know when it became one of my treasured Christmas traditions, but I can’t remember when it wasn’t. When my kids were teenagers, there was lots of eye-rolling when I insisted that watching it was a family event. Something about it appealed to my Unitarian heart, and I wanted to inoculate theirs. They would ask me when I would find a new tradition. My answer was, “When I stop tearing up at the end.”

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A rose by any other name is not a rose

Sunday Talks / Random Musings
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Speaker and Worship Leader:- Rev. Clay Nelson

A rose by any other name is not a rose
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Rev. Clay Nelson © 4th December 2022

Shakespeare had it wrong. When Juliet tells Romeo, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” she is arguing that it does not matter that Romeo is from her family’s rival house Montague. The reference states that the names of things do not affect what they really are. I disagree. Nothing could be further from the truth.

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The idiot flight of butterflies

Sunday Talks / Random Musings
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with Rev. Clay Nelson

The idiot flight of butterflies
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Clay Nelson © 24 July 2022

Think back two and half years ago to the day before you heard of Coronavirus breaking out in Wuhan, China. Whatever that was like for you, that was normal. For me, I was a newlywed. I had not even learned what that new normal meant for me yet. I certainly hadn’t anticipated that we would spend most of two and a half years sheltering in place, just the two of us with Waldo for company, discovering what our normal was. So when I hear someone longing for life to return to normal, I’m not sure what their normal is. Perhaps, I should focus on knowing the future instead. Irony, apparently, is my forte.

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Unconstrained Imagination

Sunday Talks / Random Musings
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with Rev. Clay Nelson

Unconstrained Imagination

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Clay Nelson © 17 July 2022

I would like to give you a peek behind the curtain to see one of the blessings, or possibly curses, of being in my line of work. If you have been doing it as long as I have, it is nearly impossible not to see the world continuously through theological lenses. It is not a conscious decision anymore. It is just my reality and as involuntary as breathing. Nothing I’m doing is exempt from theological reflection. It doesn’t matter if it is reading my Facebook feed, bingeing on Netflix, hearing music in many genres, holding Rachel’s hand, playing peek-a-boo with a grandchild, eating a Macca burger, playing fetch with Waldo, or walking on the beach after a storm. You get my gist. Bloody everything reverberates with theological discernment for me. Everything. It can be exhausting as it feeds my imagination to overflowing.

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It’s written in the stars

Sunday Talks / Random Musings, Treaty of Waitangi / Te Tiriti O Waitangi
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with Rev. Clay Nelson

It’s written in the stars

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Clay Nelson © 26 June 2022

Welcome this morning to history. This is the first public celebration of an indigenous peoples’ holiday in the world. Matariki, sometimes referred to as the Maori New Year, has become a celebration for all New Zealanders. It centres on a cluster of stars that in the west were known as The Pleiades or Seven Sisters. They are 410 light years away and are part of the constellation Taurus.

The Maori named them after the brightest of nine stars called Matariki, the mother of the other eight. Each star is honoured for a specific thing.

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Keeping your balance in an unbalanced world

Sunday Talks / Random Musings
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with Rev. Clay Nelson

Keeping your balance in an unbalanced world
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Clay Nelson © 12 June 2022

A quick perusal of the internet tells me I should wait for one of the equinoxes, when day and night are equal, to muse on balance and absolutely not when the winter solstice is approaching, but where is the fun in that? When reality is in balance in perfect alignment with my life, where is the challenge? My experience says that when I really need to know how to keep my balance is when my world is dark, nameless, unknown, and infinite. It is my spiritual practice to find light in darkness, name the nameless, accept the unknown, and welcome the infinite.

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Forgive us our debts

Sunday Talks / Random Musings
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with Rev. Clay Nelson

Forgive us our debts
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Clay Nelson © 5 June 2022

Forty years ago, this past week, my seminary released me into the world to begin my ordained ministry. In all those years, an Annual General Meeting has never provoked me to preach a musing on one of the discussions held.

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Outed as a Unitarian

Sunday Talks / Random Musings
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with Rev. Clay Nelson

Outed as a Unitarian
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Clay Nelson © 22 May 2022

No one was more surprised than I when moving to New Zealand that I would put my Anglican collar back on after eight years with the American Unitarian Universalists. I did impose one condition on myself before doing so –– I would no longer dance around my progressive religious views in the pulpit. Traditionalists and conservatives be damned. It was time to stand up for my beliefs. Yet a lot had changed. My sermons were not just on a table at the back of the church gathering dust but on the Internet for all to see. They still are and may always be. I think of them as my afterlife. Taking a position at St Matthew-in-the-city had already made me suspect in the eyes of traditionalists and conservatives. I was about as popular as a skunk at a garden party after my first billboard to go viral globally drew attention to my views on TV, radio, the press and blogs. My notoriety gained me few friends throughout the country. My hate mail and death threats increased dramatically. I gained no popularity when one of my conservative colleagues did some deep dumpster diving on the Internet, discovered my Unitarian connections and outed me on his blog.

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