Ministry

This is a personal testimony of how a girl raised in the Southern Baptist church came to be ordained by the Unitarian Universalists. There is a message here for anyone seeking their true vocation. Our guest minister, Rev. Linda Bunyard, is celebrating her twentieth year of parish ministry. Ten of those years have been served in interim ministry – in Joliet, IL; Laramie and Cheyenne, WY; Phoenix and Chandler, AZ; Spokane, WA; Las Vegas, NV; and Savannah, GA. Her Masters of Divinity is from Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley, California. She was raised in Southern Colorado and her first career was in human services, especially services for women. She is happy to be in the Carolinas this year. Note: This is a pulpit exchange Sunday. Rev. Dave Johnson will be speaking in Spartanburg, SC today.

"My candle burns at both ends," wrote Edna St. Vincent Millay.  She was a non-conformist in many respects. We'll pay tribute to her life and poetry, and consider its relevance for our free faith tradition.

Valentine's Day includes hearts and flowers, and expressions of love:  from the sappy and sentimental to the deepest longings of the heart.  It's also the occasion to celebrate -- and to partake of -- the wondrous varieties of chocolate.   I'll offer some historical and contemporary perspectives on the allure of chocolate.  Then during coffee hour, we'll have a "chocolate communion":  Please bring decadent chocolate treats to share!

Fundraising is more than just paying the light bill. Patty Ricono and Geraldine Zurek provide a (semi)-serious look at the surprising theological bases for how and why we raise money for the UUFWS.

“The creation of something new,” wrote Carl Jung, “is not accomplished by the intellect, but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.” This service will be an opportunity to hold up a mirror to ourselves as UU’s, on this very-rare occasion of lightening up just a bit.

“Empires may be born by force,” writes former UUA President Bill Schulz, “but they are not long sustained by it. They are sustained by a capacity to peddle a better idea and to practice what you preach, to resolve conflicts equitably.”  Biology does not condemn humanity to adversarial combat.  How might we shift the emphasis from “survival of the fittest” to altruism and cooperation?

“Empires may be born by force,” writes former UUA President Bill Schulz, “but they are not long sustained by it. They are sustained by a capacity to peddle a better idea and to practice what you preach, to resolve conflicts equitably.”  Biology does not condemn humanity to adversarial combat.  How might we shift the emphasis from “survival of the fittest” to altruism and cooperation?

TBA by Ministerial Search Committee

Burnout has been around for eons, even though the word “burnout” appeared in the literature only about 25 years ago.  Burnout reflects the dislocation between what people are, and what they feel compelled to do.  It can become a downward spiral.  How might we recognize the symptoms, and restore a healthy balance? The service will include our annual Service of the Living Tradition, during which we will name significant milestones and life transitions occurring during 2011.

How will you celebrate -- or navigate through -- the holidays?  Garrison Keillor writes: “The aim of a festive season is to attain amiability, and perhaps actual joy, which we may find in our private moments, but which at Christmas we seek to attain together.  The family gathers, with its checkered history, hoping to share warmth, and to instill in even the most sullen member a measure of good cheer.  The beauty of Christmas is that it is not about us, our creativity, our fabulous décor, or the glittering gifts we can afford. It is about a story and a ritual that can lift us all.”  How might we re-claim the timeless stories that transform the human heart?

The essayist Samuel Johnson observed: "Where necessity ends, desire and curiosity begin. No sooner are we supplied with everything nature can demand, than we …contrive artificial appetites." Desire is inherent in the human condition. How shall we distinguish life-giving desires from those that diminish our best selves? 

Humanity longs for saviors. Pacific Islanders believe that a great ship will arrive to transport the tribe into heaven. Muslims await the return of the revered Mahdi to herald the final days. Buddhists believe that Maitreya will deliver all beings from ignorance. Native Americans believe that the White Buffalo will signal a restoration of ancestral lands.  For whom might Unitarian Universalists be longing – if anyone?  How might we recognize such a person?   Some reflections on messianic hopes, and the Marx brothers’ quip about sanity clauses, as the ministerial search process moves into high gear.