Speakers & Worship Leaders:-
Rachel Mackintosh & Betsy Marshall

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Rachel Mackintosh, Betsy Marshall © 14 April 2024

Unitarians are a mixed metaphor. Roots from flora, wings from fauna.

There is no exact Greek mythical creature to represent this idea but perhaps we can think of a dryad or tree-nymph, maybe combined with a phoenix, the bird who rises.

We are a mixed metaphor and a mixed faith, one that values pluralism and whose hymn book is called Singing the Living Tradition.

Speaker:- John Maindonald
Worship Leader:- Shirin Caldwell

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John Maindonald © 7 April 2024

From the time when he returned from his five year journey around the world, Darwin thought long and hard, not just about the relationships between living things, but also about life and living. He moved from relatively orthodox Anglican to an agnostic who never ceased to wonder at the world of nature and the place of humans in it. While he never identified as a Unitarian, he was exposed to multiple sources of Unitarian influence. A Unitarian fellow scientist wrote that:-

“as a Man he exemplified in his own life that true religion, which is deeper, wider, and loftier than any Theology.”

[W B Carpenter. Charles Darwin: his life and work. Modern Review 1882 3: page 523.]

Three weeks ago, we looked at the manner in which, from a very privileged position in society, Darwin was able to gain the knowledge and skills that fitted him to work as Naturalist on the British Admiralty ship the Beagle. We saw how this passionate student of Nature felt forced to the conclusion that a common evolutionary origin for all living things was needed to explain his observations.

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rev. Sally Mabelle of Taupo Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

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Rev. Sally Mabelle © 24 March 2024

During my 12 years as a member and lay worship leader at Auckland Unitarian church, we sang that ‘Spirit of Life’ song hundreds of times, to begin nearly every Sunday service. Today, I’d like to draw our attention directly to that same Spirit of Life, which is intimately with us in every moment – I’m talking about our very breath – literally our IN-spiration – and our EX-spiration…a free gift that we receive at birth and is our closest and most constant spiritual companion throughout our whole life.

Speaker:- John Maindonald
Worship Leader:- Shirin Caldwell

Due to gremlins with recording the early part of the service is missing from the recordings.

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John Maindonald © 17 March 2024

Charles Darwin, who lived through the middle years of the 1800s, is familiar to most of us as the man who laid the foundations of the modern theory of evolution. His ideas have had dramatic continuing effects on our view of ourselves and of the world of which we are part. The idea that living things shared a common evolutionary heritage was not new. What was new was the mechanism that Darwin, along with Alfred Wallace who came up with very similar ideas at the same time, proposed. Darwin worked his arguments into a book of almost 500 pages that was widely read and finally carried the day in the world of science. It is a careful assembly of evidence, from animal breeding, from geology, and from the way that different life forms are distributed across different continents and islands.

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh

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Rachel Mackintosh © 10 March 2024

I have recently watched all three seasons of Ted Lasso.

I had been aware of the show for some time but had been put off by the moustache, and the fact that it seemed to be about sport. Though I admire physical grace, I really don’t care about all the winning and losing and fighting over a ball.

I had been missing out. Ted Lasso is a gift.

It is a gift that slowly unwraps. When one of the characters, Danny Rojas, says, “Football is life”, I like his joy but really don’t connect. Football isn’t my life.

Turns out though, that in Ted Lasso, football is a metaphor for life. Turns out that Ted Lasso himself really doesn’t care about all the winning and losing either. He cares about community and people being their best selves. He’s probably a Unitarian, though that doesn’t get mentioned in the script.

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Karn Cleary

Karn Cleary © 3 March 2024

Our speaker planned for today had to drop out at the last moment due to illness. Karn Cleary has thankfully stepped up to fill in and is going to lead our service with a reading, with a few minor changes, of “The liberal church finding its mission: It’s not all about you”, an article by Rev Peter Bullata in the US. Here’s his web page and blog, which is very interesting in itself: https://peterboullata.com/about-4/

Links

Opening Words:- “How” by Marta Flanagan

Chalice Lighting:- is by Jay Atkinson

Closing Words:- “With faith in the creative powers of life” by Lindsay Bates

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Viv Allen

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Viv Allen © 25 February 2024

I had intended to read one of Clay’s talks entitled, Why should we learn another language? From Sept 2020 in its entirety but after I read it I realised that a lot of it was about Clay’s personal journey. I have experience with my own journey regarding this topic so I’ve added some of my own thoughts and picked out parts of Clays’ speech that are relevant and added some from other sources,

What has this topic got to do with any of our Unitarian principles? A lot.