December 6, 2020
by Reverand Anthony Makar, Worship Leader
Vicky Warden, Worship Associate
David Blazer, Director of Music
Passion for life does not necessarily come when we make huge achievements. But it comes when we know how to see beauty in the smallest things, grace in the darkest hour, and the courage to love when life is at its messiest. The gifts that keep us growing are often wrapped in the most unusual packages.
In her book Good White People: The Problem With Middle-Class White Anti-Racism, philosopher Shannon Sullivan writes, “Whiteness is not a club in which a white person can just decide to drop her membership. Whether a white person likes it or not, at this moment in history she is white and she is implicated in the effects of whiteness. How she takes up and lives her complicity in white domination will help determine the quality of her contributions to racial justice movements.” In other words, how might white people learn to develop psychologically and spiritually healthy white identities, in service to the liberation of all? What does that look like?
CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE SERVICE
October 25, 2020
by Reverend Anthony Makar
Vicky Warden, Worship Associate
David Blazer, Director of Music
Somewhere downstairs a door slammed, and my father entered the house laughing. Instantly, the whole universe joined in. Great roars of hilarity sounded from sun to sun. Field mice tittered, and so did angels and rainbows. Laughter leavened every atom and every star until I saw a universe inspirited and spiraled by joy, not unlike the one I read of years later when Dante describes his great vision in paradise, ‘D'el riso d'el universo’ (the joy that spins the universe). This was a knowledge of the way everything worked. It worked through love and joy and the utter interpenetration and union of everything with the All That Is." This story comes from psychologist and spiritual teacher Jean Houston, and it adds to an untold number of similar stories about people encountering the infinite. Let’s take a closer look.
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August 9, 2020
by Reverend Michelle Ma and
Vicky Warden, Worship Associate
Why go to church? What do we get out of it? What is church for? Rev. Michelle Ma has some ideas: at church, we build a new world, one that doesn't play by old rules.
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February 23, 2020
by Reverend Anthony Makar and
Victoria Warden, Worship Associate
If a “foodie” is someone who has refined tastes in food and drink and tends to seek out new food experiences, a “soul foodie” is someone who is like that in the religious realm. Today we talk about how Unitarian Universalism invites people to be soul foodies and what we need to be aware of in order for our worship to be hospitable to that.
Music: I am Resilient by Rising Appalachia, sung by Margaret Gardner and Ally Jagoda
December 29, 2019
by Martha Blachly-Cross and Ryan Rosu, Worship Leaders
Vicki Warden, Worship Associate
For the shortest, darkest weeks of the year, human beings have, from the beginnings of time, created festivals of light to brighten their days. Christmas, Hanukkah, Epiphany—each anticipates the longed-for return to spring, each has its rites, symbols and above all stories. For the holidays, then, a reading list. Chaucer urged, “To read and drive the night away.”
May 20, 2018
West Shore Choir David Blazer, Director of Music Join us for this year’s final installment of the B. Neil Davis Artist Series, as the West Shore Choir presents Missa Gaia (A Mass in Celebration of Mother Earth) released by Paul Winter in 1982. It is an environmental liturgy of contemporary music. The Mass features the instrumentation of the Paul Winter Consort along with choir, vocal soloists, and the calls of wolves, whales and many other animals that are woven into the pieces. Joining David Blazer with the instrumental accompaniment will be Jon Eager (Soprano Sax), Marty Neubert (Oboe/English horn), Derek Snyder (Cello), Brian Kozak (Guitar), Dan Shell (Bass), Mell Csicsila and Evan Mitchell (Percussion).
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