http://uuellsworth.org The Downeast beacon of liberal religion. Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:01:04 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 2006-2008 web@uuellsworth.org (Unitarian Universalist Church of Ellsworth, Maine) web@uuellsworth.org (Unitarian Universalist Church of Ellsworth, Maine) 1440 http://uuellsworth.org/uucelogo144.jpg http://uuellsworth.org 144 144 Recordings of sermons and other events at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Ellsworth, Maine (http://uuellsworth.org/) Recordings of sermons and other events at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Ellsworth, Maine (http://uuellsworth.org/) Unitarian, Universalist, Church, Ellsworth, Maine, Downeast Unitarian Universalist Church of Ellsworth, Maine Unitarian Universalist Church of Ellsworth, Maine web@uuellsworth.org no no http://uuellsworth.org/featured/pancake-breakfast-sunday-feb-12/ http://uuellsworth.org/featured/pancake-breakfast-sunday-feb-12/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:01:04 +0000 caitlin http://uuellsworth.org/?p=650 http://uuellsworth.org/featured/pancake-breakfast-sunday-feb-12/feed/ 0 http://uuellsworth.org/featured/film-call-me-malcom-this-saturday-feb-4/ http://uuellsworth.org/featured/film-call-me-malcom-this-saturday-feb-4/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:58:42 +0000 caitlin http://uuellsworth.org/?p=648 http://uuellsworth.org/featured/film-call-me-malcom-this-saturday-feb-4/feed/ 0 http://uuellsworth.org/featured/february-book-group/ http://uuellsworth.org/featured/february-book-group/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:57:50 +0000 caitlin http://uuellsworth.org/?p=647 http://uuellsworth.org/featured/february-book-group/feed/ 0 http://uuellsworth.org/featured/adult-re-jan-29-muhammadlegacy-of-a-prophet/ http://uuellsworth.org/featured/adult-re-jan-29-muhammadlegacy-of-a-prophet/#comments Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:55:46 +0000 caitlin http://uuellsworth.org/?p=645 http://uuellsworth.org/featured/adult-re-jan-29-muhammadlegacy-of-a-prophet/feed/ 0 http://uuellsworth.org/featured/theres-still-time-to-sign-up-for-the-intro-to-uu-class-starts-jan-18/ http://uuellsworth.org/featured/theres-still-time-to-sign-up-for-the-intro-to-uu-class-starts-jan-18/#comments Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:53:22 +0000 caitlin http://uuellsworth.org/?p=643 http://uuellsworth.org/featured/theres-still-time-to-sign-up-for-the-intro-to-uu-class-starts-jan-18/feed/ 0 http://uuellsworth.org/featured/january-book-discussion-group/ http://uuellsworth.org/featured/january-book-discussion-group/#comments Fri, 30 Dec 2011 20:25:23 +0000 caitlin http://uuellsworth.org/?p=640 http://uuellsworth.org/featured/january-book-discussion-group/feed/ 0 http://uuellsworth.org/featured/december-book-group/ http://uuellsworth.org/featured/december-book-group/#comments Tue, 29 Nov 2011 19:29:52 +0000 caitlin http://uuellsworth.org/?p=631 http://uuellsworth.org/featured/december-book-group/feed/ 0 http://uuellsworth.org/sermons/december-21-2009-circle-of-the-sun/ http://uuellsworth.org/sermons/december-21-2009-circle-of-the-sun/#comments Sun, 21 Dec 2008 14:30:12 +0000 Leela http://uuellsworth.org/listen/?p=88 http://uuellsworth.org/sermons/december-21-2009-circle-of-the-sun/feed/ 0 0:00:01 Circle of the Sun Leela Sinha Ellsworth, Maine Dec 21, 2008 What do you believe? Do you believe? The sun is returning, the days are lengthening, the hope is coming, do you believe? Do you believe in light and brilliance and beginning? Do you believ[...] Circle of the Sun Leela Sinha Ellsworth, Maine Dec 21, 2008 What do you believe? Do you believe? The sun is returning, the days are lengthening, the hope is coming, do you believe? Do you believe in light and brilliance and beginning? Do you believe in plants? Do you believe in leaves? Do you believe that the oak and the maple and the beech and the birch will flower and bud and be once again green and growing things? Do you believe? This is the season of our belief.  This is the season of knowing it can be and making it so.  This is the season of repairing old machinery and old relationships, of getting ready, of making whole, of starting again.  This is the season of faith rewarded, of hope reborn, of promises kept.  This is the season when maybe becomes yes, when word is made flesh, when the world is saved.  This is the season when the sun still rises, once again rises, finally it rises and for one sweet day all the world’s people are one—all of us are one. This is what solstice is about, what the sun is about, about belief that is deep, about belief that is strong, about belief that goes beyond logic, beyond reasoning to truth embedded in our very souls, truth that needs no proof, truth that needs no testing, truth that we know like we know that our heart beats, that time unfurls, that the sun rises, that the sun always rises, because we are turning, days after days turning toward the morning. We know, and we do not know.  We hope, we pray, we anticipate.  And it puts us in our places, this not-knowing, this life that is larger than our life, or any one life. In these grey and uncertain days of fall and winter we are beyond knowing what the next hour will bring, rain or snow or sleet, sun or cloud, triumph or failure, joy or disappointment.  We are beyond knowing; we are beginning to understand how little we understand; how little we control. And we are scared. And we are unsure. And we are unbalanced. And we are hurting. Because we have believed for lo these many years that we must know everything, we must absorb every idea, we must divine every truth; we have believed that we are only strong when we are in control, when the world is in our hands, when the earth is at our mercy, we have believed this as truth, like we know our breath and we know our hearts, but we were wrong. We have been wrong. And it is not the lack of control that is hurting, although we think that is what hurts. And it is not the uncertainty that is unsettling, although we think that is what throws our balance. It is the expectation that anything should be otherwise.  It is the mistaken understanding of the world as under our control, it is the hubris, the mistaken belief that we can do less than our very best for this fragile planet and these, our people, and do no harm. Do no harm.  It is, it should be, a primary goal.  But we know that it is not always possible, not really ever possible, that everything we do to stay alive harms something, somehow, eating and drinking, using the planet’s resources for our living requires a full cycle of destruction and regeneration to be sustainable.  It is hard, coming to terms with the price of our lives.  It is hard, learning to look for the welfare of the collective, the institution, the group, the population rather than the good of the individual.  To expect that we are somehow exempt from this cycle, more pure or entirely separate, is to forget who we are, to believe ourselves above living, above relationship, above life itself. Whatever else we are, we are not immortal. If we have that of god within us, that light of something that connects us to everything alive, it is not to make us bigger or more controlling; it is not to make us all-powerful, it is not to make us supreme.  It is to make us wiser than we might have been, and gentler; it is to build connections among us and help us stay in community.  It is to help us be graceful; it is to help us be humble by everything that is so big, so impossible [...] PDF, Sermons Unitarian Universalist Church of Ellsworth, Maine no no http://uuellsworth.org/sermons/december-14-2008-gathered-in-mystery/ http://uuellsworth.org/sermons/december-14-2008-gathered-in-mystery/#comments Sun, 14 Dec 2008 10:30:38 +0000 UUCE http://uuellsworth.org/listen/?p=84 http://uuellsworth.org/sermons/december-14-2008-gathered-in-mystery/feed/ 0 0:00:01 Gathered in Mystery Dec 14, 2009 Ellsworth, Maine Leela Sinha What if there is a god? What if all the skeptics are off track and all the atheists are wrong, and there is a god, or gods?  What if that god is really a god who listens, a god who resp[...] Gathered in Mystery Dec 14, 2009 Ellsworth, Maine Leela Sinha What if there is a god? What if all the skeptics are off track and all the atheists are wrong, and there is a god, or gods?  What if that god is really a god who listens, a god who responds, a god who hears and is heard? What kind of god would you have, if you had a god?  What kind would you claim?  Where would you find your god, or gods?   Would you lie with them, sleep with them, eat with them?  Would you argue with them?  Would you have fireside chats?  Where would you find them, or where would they find you?  If there were a god or gods, and if you could choose, what kind would suit you best? Fiddler On The Roof’s Tevya likes to pace, and shout and shake his fist at the sky; Mary Oliver goes walking; more than one biologist has found god at the end of a microscope; in the movie Contact, Jodi Foster’s character finds something so beautiful it brings her to tears on her way to another universe.  As humans we have been seeking the divine for thousands of years; what we have found has filled volumes, transformed careers, caused the rise and fall of empires.  We all crave contact with the divine.  We all want to be united with that which is precious, special, delightful, holy.  How we understand that divinity varies, and ways to encounter the divine are almost limitless. In the end it’s much simpler than everything we have built up around us.  Here, we believe in direct access to god or that which is holy—no priest, minister, or saint needs to intercede for us.  We are all we need and have all we need to be in the presence of infinite love and to be infinitely loved.  But none of us are expected to be infinitely loving.  We are human, just human, deeply and intensely loving but with limits of time and place and body and spirit.  When Tevya paces, wants to know why he’s not rich, why his daughters have chosen unsuitable men, who decided he should have five daughters and no sons, he is arguing into a long line of traditional argument, shouting at the sky like his father and his father before him.  But that’s okay.  His god can take it.  His god is capable of infinite love and infinite patience, of the kind that no human can give. How, then can all of us receive such love if none of us can provide it?  The too-easy answer is that god gives us that love.  But that answer depends on the existence of a god and that god’s willingness and ability to be that which we are not.  For many of us that’s too much to believe, too much imagining and not enough proof,  too much faith for a faith built on rational thought and transcendent connections of earth and sky.  None of this universe shows intense and regular compassion; none of the world is nice or sweet or giving, not the way humans understand it—none except humans ourselves, and we have our limits.  if we are to believe in love that overcomes and transforms everything, we need to see it somewhere, to know that it exists already, somewhere outside of fairy tales, holy books, and our own fertile imaginations.  We need to see it somewhere here, in this world, in this time. When the Genesis creation story begins the god of that time and place says let there be light, and there was light, and he separated the light from the darkness, and then there is an earth, and plants and animals and every living thing and finally humans, who are instructed to go forth and multiply. Go forth and multiply.  Have sex and have children and let them have children until the world is richly populated, which since before the five billionth human arrived we have been questioning as a survival strategy since we seem to be using resources faster than we can make them. But there’s something about the infinity of life; there’s something about the boundless capacity of beings to make something from not much of anything: where there is one or two there can be more, and where each one is, there can be everything they are.  So where we have two humans[...] PDF, Sermons Unitarian Universalist Church of Ellsworth, Maine no no http://uuellsworth.org/sermons/october-12-2008-association-sunday/ http://uuellsworth.org/sermons/october-12-2008-association-sunday/#comments Sun, 12 Oct 2008 10:30:01 +0000 UUCE http://uuellsworth.org/listen/?p=75 http://uuellsworth.org/sermons/october-12-2008-association-sunday/feed/ 0 0:00:01 Association Sunday October 12, 2008 Who would we be without each other? Would we be lonely? Would we be sad? Would we be finally, totally at peace? UU Singer/songwriter Peter Mayer, who wrote “Blue Boat Home”, also has a song about intro[...] Association Sunday October 12, 2008 Who would we be without each other? Would we be lonely? Would we be sad? Would we be finally, totally at peace? UU Singer/songwriter Peter Mayer, who wrote “Blue Boat Home”, also has a song about introverts. “People upset me when they interrupt me with calls and unannounced visits, and on top of that when they chat about nothing at all and I ask what is it? I do have a lot to do. Can you return at two? I will not be here by then. Just leave what you need me for on a note on the door so I can ignore it, my friend.” “I’d like to hire my own secretary who’s mean, someone who says things like, “Mr. Mayer can’t be reached; he is not in, you see. He’s in a meeting ’till ten. I suppose I could take your name. Who are you anyway? Please never call here again.”" (“The Introvert Song”, from the album “Elements”) Some of us are clearly more externally-oriented than others. But humans are made to be social. We are made to live among each other, to laugh and cry together, to love and fight and heal in unending circles of days and months and years. No matter how introverted we are, there is a basic human need for each other; without touch, without companions, infants die and adults go insane. We are made for contact: challenging contact, intimate contact, creative contact, religious contact. Each of us has different priorities: Some of us come for the intellectual stimulation; some for the emotional support; some come for conversation, or comfort, or spiritual enrichment. The one thing that everyone among us seems to agree on is community. Connection. People. We engage in ritual, in struggle, and in caring together. We know we are not isolated, not rejected, not unworthy, despite a nagging sense that every day we are given is an unexpected grace. We are witnessed and we witness others; and in seeing and being seen we are made somehow more truly who we are. We need this. We crave it. We wonder: If a person’s life is transformed and no one sees it, is the transformation real? Yesterday was National Coming Out Day, a day set aside to honor and encourage people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or asexual to come out–to name their own identity and let it be visible, because there is something different about being known really, being known entirely. This visibility in community is crucial. This visibility transforms not just individuals but whole communities over and over again. Each coming out–each claiming of identity– reinforces and reestablishes the sanctity of self-definition and the obligation we each have to continue to discover and examine ourselves and to share what we have learned. If we are so ashamed of what we have learned, or so afraid of others’ shame that we are unwilling to bring it to light, then either the shame or the quality must change. Only our hearts can tell us which is wrong. Over time, shame that festers in a community, coupled with lack of safety and lack of visibility can be fatal. Ten years ago today Matthew Shepherd died from exposure and untreated injuries after having been robbed, beaten, tortured, tied to a fence and left for dead because he was gay. It was eighteen hours before someone found him, and five days from the attack to his death. At the time, there was no state or federal law under which Matthew Shepherd’s death could be prosecuted as a hate crime. Invisibility kills. Isolation kills. Silence kills. It also snowballs. If no one talks about something, then the lesson is that it is either shameful or nonexistent or both. And it’s not just about sexual orientation. Among liberals, there are those who wince if they hear the word church. They may have had a bad experience; they may believe that theologically and socially conservative churches are the only churches out here. And since none of their friends talk about church, except perhaps the[...] PDF, Sermons Unitarian Universalist Church of Ellsworth, Maine no no