With Clay Nelson
No text this week.
Auckland Unitarian Church
1a Ponsonby Road
Grey Lynn
AUCKLAND 1011
www.aucklandunitarian.org.nz
13 August 2019
The Rt Honourable Andrew Little
Minister of Justice
Freepost Parliament
Private Bag 18 888
Parliament Buildings
WELLINGTON 6160
Email copy sent to
a.little@ministers.govt.nz.
Email Copy sent to
The Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern
Prime Minister
jacinda.ardern@parliament.govt.nz.
Dear Minister,
We are writing to express our deep concern after hearing of the distress experienced by many of the victims and their supporters at the first hearing of the alleged perpetrator of the March 15 2019 Mosque attacks.
Continue reading Letter to Andrew Little, Minister of Justice, & Reply from the MinistryThe Auckland Unitarian Church is an open, progressive and welcoming faith community. To learn more about our community and values, please look around this website, or follow Auckland Unitarians on Facebook.
We are seeking a motivated, compassionate early childhood teacher to help us build our preschool children’s programme. We are looking for someone to provide safe, welcoming, developmentally appropriate care for infants and toddlers (up to age 5) during Sunday morning services, to ensure a safe environment for children and allow parents to participate fully in church life.
Continue reading Early Childhood Teacher WantedRead below or download the PDF
Clay Nelson © 11 August 2019
We are living in a time I find exceedingly painful. It seems that all too many feel it is okay to treat others as if they are less than human. Part of the problem is I spend too much time following what is happening in my home country. This past week the mass gun shooting in El Paso where over 22 died and 48 were wounded was the 250th this year. According to the shooter’s manifesto posted online he was inspired by the shooter in Christchurch. The difference was he was seeking to kill Mexicans instead of Muslims. Just a few hours later the 251st mass shooting happened in Dayton Ohio. Police were able to stop the shooter in Dayton in less than one minute but he was still able to kill 9 including his own sister and wound 27 others.
Continue reading What happened to compassion?John DiLeo © 28 July 2019
Before I begin my talk, I want to give you a brief rundown of my history, with regard to religion and church.
Although my parents were both active in their respective churches as children and teens, they remained largely unchurched after they married, and never did much to encourage my siblings or me in that regard. I would occasionally go to church with various relatives, but really didn’t have any sort of a religious upbringing.
Continue reading Store up Your Treasures in HeavenRead below, or download the PDF
Clay Nelson © 21 July 2019
I confess to being cursed. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m definitely not swimming in the mainstream. It may explain why I’ve ended up a Unitarian, where atheists go to church. Contradictions, which lead me to paradoxes, mesmerise me. What could be more exciting than when two opposing, irreconcilable truths seek to occupy the same space? What could possibly go wrong when an unstoppable force meets an immoveable object? While sometimes a clear right or wrong answer to life’s immutable questions would be comforting, they smell to me like a bottle of snake oil to cure all my ills that has passed its use by date. The rising hair on the back of my neck warns me that life is just not that simple.
Continue reading Living with contradictions
The Tree of Life appears in almost every faith, but it could be the Jewish Old Testament tree in Eden, the Christian, Mormon or Baha’i Tree of Life, the Bodhi Tree of Enlightenment of the Buddhist, The Norse tree of Yggdrasill, the Oak tree of the Druid or the Fig tree of Hinduism.
All are pictures of the archetypal Sacred Tree, a metaphor for the source of life and connecting all forms of creation.
A variety of artists with different influences and views on a common theme of spirituality, illustrating the very many ways art can be spiritual.
Due to a brief illness no new talk was prepared for this week, you can find the text of this talk at Roots and Wings of a Unitarian Lent.