with John DiLeo

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John DiLeo © 30th October 2022

When I signed up to lead today’s service, I figured it would be easy to come up with things to say. I mean, after all, there’s no shortage of writings and opinions around the Church’s appropriation and subjugation of non-Christian customs and occasions.

with Rachel Mackintosh

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Rachel Mackintosh © 23 October 2022

Ki te kahore he whakakitenga ka ngaro te iwi

“Without foresight or vision the people will be lost.”

This past week a colleague of mine who lives in Taranaki mentioned the town of Patea, which he described as being “nothing since the freezing works closed”.

For 100 years from 1883, the local freezing works had been the heart of the Patea economy. In 1982, the works closed. That’s 40 years ago – 40 years of “nothing”.

The freezing works closed without a vision or a plan for what else could be at the heart of the local economy.

Forty years on, the damage from that lack of foresight can still be felt.

with David Hines

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David Hines © 16th October 2022

Intro

A couple of days ago I heard about a friend who was 80 years old and said he had aged more in the past year than the previous 10 years. He had a heart attack and prostate problem in the same year.

I had a similar experience this month. I went to my GP for my routine checkup, but I took a longer than usual list of questions: five of them. Two of these were old issues, up to about eight years ago, but had got so used to them I didn’t bother reporting them any longer.

with David Hines

The above include contributions from:-

Sara Passmore, NZ Humanists

Penny Ehrhardt, Secular Education Network (NZ)

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David Hines © 9th October 2022

Introduction

After two years of waiting, I’m excited that a government proposal for religious education in state schools is about to be revealed.

But I’m also concerned, because very important questions have still not been answered, like:

• Will it include teaching about non-religious views?
• Will it be neutral and professional, or will it be a soft-sell of our main religions.
• I know the release will include a report on the subject by Professor Paul Morris, but I don’t know whether his suggestions are going to be:
  • slashed back or
  • Whether this will be the start of a thorough public discussion. That would be my hope. But
• Releasing it on November 18 also makes me suspicious. That is just before the Christmas break … this is a favourite way of burying something controversial.

with John DiLeo

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John DiLeo © 2nd October 2022

As I’ve mentioned a few times in the past, the themes and musings present in the services I lead tend to reflect things that are on my mind at the moment. In this case, it happens to be birthdays. Mine is this coming Tuesday. It also happens to be one of those “milestone” birthdays – I’ll be turning 55.

Worship Leader: Nina Khouri

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Nina Khouri © 25th September 2022

So, the government has now lifted basically all remaining COVID restrictions. We don’t have a traffic light system anymore, we have very few mask requirements, government vaccine mandates are ending and you don’t even have to isolate if a household member tests positive, so long as you monitor yourself for symptoms and do RATs.

Does anyone else feel like this is just another massive change we have to get our heads around? Another round in the whiplash of the last 2.5 years?

For the last couple of years there’s been a constantly changing regime that intrudes into our daily lives.

To be clear, I think it’s been justified and appropriate and I’m grateful for a government that has protected us this way. But it hasn’t been easy, right?

Worship Leaders: Kate Lewis and Ted Zorn

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Ted Zorn © 18th September 2022

I’ve titled my random musings today “FOMO, Imagined Lives and Reclaiming Joy”. FOMO is an acronym for “Fear of Missing Out”.

I’ll start with a confession. I chose this topic because I suffer from FOMO and it has had a profoundly negative impact on the quality of my life and in some cases, the lives of people I care about. But I’m working on practising JOMO (the Joy of Missing Out) and my life is richer as a result.

with Max Moss

Today’s talk was a reading from “A Dead Soldier Looks at the War” by Rev. David Rankin.  Read by Rev. Max Moss.

Links

with John DiLeo

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

Today’s talk was a reading of “The Answer I Wish I’d Given” By Erika A. Hewitt

Meditation / Conversation starter:

These questions can be answered either individually; or as a Unitarian Community; or as a wider society:-

• Are we giving enough?
• Are we giving for the right reasons?
• Are we giving what’s needed?
• Do we know what’s needed?
• If not how can we find out?