First UU Logo Wares

The First Unitarian Universalist Religious Education students have been rehearsing “Who Wants to Hold the Baby,” created by Joyce Poley and Frank Henning as their holiday pageant. The students invite the community to the 10:30 a.m. Sunday, December 18, service which will be built around the children’s holiday play. The First UU Choir will lead the holiday carols incorporated into this program. Shown practicing in the front row are Henry Powers, Hannah Baumer, Lucy Powers, Lilly Boulard, and Kellan McDaniel; second row are Rachel Okey, Stella Chepaitis, Erin Okey, India Krug, and Haley Baumer. In the back are Nicolas Chepaitis with Javen and Joey Cook. For additional information, please call 724-349-2776

Choir member, Pauline Simms, poured her collected water vial along with Laura Ferguson, Bob Rittle, Mark Minser, Josiah Gromley, prepared to share in the water ingathering ceremony, while Sean and Kellan McDaniel observe the ceremony. This ceremony began in the early 1980s to celebrate the start of the new church year.

Sara Fortnam, First UU Religious Education Director, is shown reading A Prayer for the Earth, The Story of Naahmah. Traditionally, all children are welcome to participate in the sanctuary with a “Story for All Ages Moment” before the children enter into their classrooms.

First UU members Ruth Thomas along with India and Corbin Krug are shown with Fair Trade Equal Exchange coffees and chocolates available for sale at the church.

The community was invited to personally meet the Buddhist Monks who specialize in Tibetan Visual and Performing Arts at the church. Prior to the potluck dinner, the monks are shown taking a moment to give thanks.  The evening was designed so guests could share food and exchange ideas related to their life’s journey and beliefs.

Nicolas Chepaitis released one of six homing pigeons in hopes they would be able to find a new home.  This simple act follows one of the principles of the religion: “Respect for the interdependence of the web of life of which we are a part.”

It was a wonderful experience, delivering the prayer for the PA Senate.  I felt like a VIP, for sure.  Special elevators, seat, parking space,  and a general feeling of respectfulness.

Most importantly Senator Don White was cordial and seemed genuinely impressed with my “prayer.”  After my delivery, he made a point to come out and speak with me.  He said, “that was beautiful.  Just what we needed to hear.”  He acknowledged that he doesn’t often get clergy from Indiana to make the drive to Harrisburg for a short prayer for the Senate.

For me, it is important not only to promote First UU Church of Indiana, PA but also to spread the “good news” of Unitarian Universalism in our world.  That is why I took on this responsibility.

Here is the prayer I delivered:

Let us be together in prayer –
Infinite and ultimate mystery — You who are called by the citizens of Pennsylvania by many names, You who from ancient times has joined us in agreements like covenant, compact, and constitution, as the means by which we may co-create a human, educated, and prosperous society, we give You thanks for the blessings of our lives and ask that You continue to bless us.

As this body begins another legislative session may You help these leaders remember that they are joined with the past and the future by all who serve in these chambers and by all of the people who reside in this great commonwealth who have placed with them a solemn and reverent trust.

May each of us assembled here, as we work in whatever ways we are called in this world:
Remember to use our eyes that we may not be blind to what is going on about us.
To use our ears that we may not be deaf to those who ask for our help or offer to teach us.
May we use our minds, that we might understand what we see and hear and use this understanding to improve this world.
And May we use our hearts that we may not falter to choose the best for the good of the whole and not be swayed by selfish aims.

Oh Thou who made us one nation out of many people, amidst our diversities of race, tradition and faith, unite us once again in a common cause of goodness.

On this new day, accept us anew, as we join again with the calls to stewardship, justice, righteousness and love.

So May It Be.
AMEN.

I got up this morning and wrote a letter to the editor.  Not a common practice for me.
Here is the text:

I have absorbed news reports from Wisconsin, and other states, in dismay this past week.  I needed only to remember the courageous efforts of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the sanitation workers strike in Memphis, TN in 1968 to know that as a pastor in our community I must speak out in defense of public worker collective bargaining rights.

My Unitarian Universalist faith calls me to “affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of all humans.”  Like the sanitation workers strike, the protests in Wisconsin are not about balancing a budget, but about human dignity.  An assault on collective bargaining in one state has the potential to spread to all of our United States.

Like Wisconsin, in Ohio stripping public employees of their rights to bargain will not demonstrably save the state money.  Yet, when the sponsor of the legislation was asked why she wanted it passed, she replied, “It’s my philosophy.  We think that public employees should not have the rights that they have now.”

WE ARE THE PEOPLE.  Together we create the best democracy in our world.  If workers lose their voices (even after agreeing to bargain), it is just one more step in the systematic elimination of the middle class.

In his last speech, King preached: “we have the opportunity to make America a better nation.”  A similar opportunity is before us now.  Stop this wave of injustice.  Stop the momentum toward an only rich or poor economic reality in our county.

Below is Josiah Gromley’s original poem that he shared in the service this morning.  Thank you, Josiah, for being willing to serve as our first Worship Associate at First UU.  rev joan

The Spiral Path
I want to walk the Spiral path, the long path, the path that sees the whole mountain.I want to walk the path that touches all the other paths.
I want to be the last to reach the top.

Whatever being meets me at the top I’ll have seen it through so many eyes and from so many angles that a familiar peace will fall upon me.

If no being meets me at the top I’ll look down over the mountain I’ll have seen it through so many eyes and from so many angles that a familiar peace will fall upon me.

I want to walk the Spirit path, the long path, the path that sees the whole mountain.I want to walk the path that touches all the other paths.
I want to be the last to reach the top.

Josiah “Gwelt”

One of my New Year Resolutions is to post more often to this blog.  Requests were made after the service this morning for book references and poems.  I am responding quickly.

The book I referenced several times this morning is, A Language of Reverence, Edited by Dean Grodzins, Meadville Lombard Press, Chicago, IL.  Contributors include:  William Sinkford, David Bumbaugh, Laurel Hallman, Sharon Welsh and Thandeka.

You can order from the UUA Bookstore or purchase a copy from our UU Bookcart and the church will make some money.

Below are the two poems I used in the sermon.  Both are in the book mentioned above.

First Lessons, Philip BoothLie back, daughter, let your head
Be tipped back in the cup of my hand.Gently, and I will hold you.  SpreadYour arms wide, lie out on the streamAnd look high at the gulls.  A dead-
man’s float is face down.  You will diveand swim soon enough where this tidewaterebbs to the sea.  Daughter, believeme, when you tire on the long thrashto your island, lie up, and survive.As you float now, where I held youand let go, remember when fearcramps your heart what I told you:lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.

Sinkford called the next, “a bit of a poem that came to me in an email by Tom Barrett:”

If I say the word God, people run away.
They’ve been frightened—sat on till the spirit cried
“uncle.”
Now they play hide and seek with somebody they can’t
name.They know he’s out there looking for them, and theywant to be found,But there is all this stuff in the way.I can’t talk about God and make any sense,And I can’t not talk about God and make any sense.
So we talk about the weather, and we are talking about God.

A discussion group based on this book, A Language of Reverence is being formed.  If you are interested, please feel free to contact me.
rev joan