The Holiday Season is upon us and we are planning a wonderful series of opportunities for worship, fellowship, seasonal celebrations, and social events! We hope you will join us!!
Sunday, December 7 , 10:00 am in Person and Online – Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There! – The Buddhist teacher, Ajahn Jotipālo writes:
Ajahn Sucitto once said that we often think of patience as waiting for change. I will endure this situation, gritting my teeth, until it changes. Certainly, we might want a painful situation to change, but with true patience, according to Ajahn Sucitto, it’s more like thinking, I will be with this situation, period. In other words, there’s no expectation that the situation will change or get better.
By learning to turn toward our suffering and simply be with it, we are staying at the level of feeling. We are not getting into the story, the proliferation, or creating a self around it. If someone says something to us and we become angry or feel uncomfortable, instead of going outward, as we typically do with mettā, we can go inward. (https://www.abhayagiri.org/reflections/692-turning-inward-with-patience)
This Sunday, we pause to honor Bodhi Day, the Annual Day on which many Buddhists reflect on the Buddha’s gaining enlightenment. We will explore one of the essential dynamics of this process which is our relationship to all that tries and challenges us as we seek to be our best selves in a world that is often bruised and hurting. Join us for this special service.
Sunday, December 14, 10:00 am – Wading Through The Rubble – We honor the Jewish holiday of Hannukah, remembering the ancient story and asking what lessons from this period of national discord and return apply to us today.
Sunday, December 21, 10:00 am In Person and Online – The Goddess & The Red Bird – Annual Solstice Service – Join us as we honor the Winter Solstice with the tale of The Goddess and The Red Bird. This is a service for all ages! Come prepared to participate!
Sunday, December 21, 4:00 pm In Person and Online – Reveling In The Light – Annual Holiday Vespers Service & Vespers Tea – Join us for the biggest, grandest service of the year! We’ll celebrate the season revels-style! With a story for everyone, choirs, bells, soloists, our annual carol sing, and of course, candlelight and silent night. Then we will retire to Fellowship Hall for a grand gathering with refreshments and season’s greetings for all!
Wednesday, December 24, 7:00 pm in Person and Online – A Holy Presence -Annual Christmas Eve Candlelight Service – We gather for this service of readings and carols to claim the spirit of Christmas through stories old and new, songs, soloists, and candlelight.
Sunday, December 28, 10 AM In Person and Online – Can a Science Flood Story Inspire Us as Much as the One by Noah? OR How Long Can You Tread Water? with Guest Speaker Stephen Ledoux – The biblical flood story by Noah has been inspirational for millennia. More recently, science has uncovered facts about a flood unprecedented in human history, from a time and place that indicate it was the source of the Great Flood experiences and stories. Can this flood story by science be at least as inspirational as Noahʼs story? More inspirational? Perhaps a closer look will provide an answer.
Four years of Catholic seminary high school and two years of seminary college, in the “Times they are aʼchangin” 1960s, led Stephen to complete college and an MA degree in the natural science of behavior (today called behaviorology). After teaching college in Australia (1975–1978) and China (1979)—and because, somewhat unbelievably, Ronald Reagan and James Bond signed his MA degree—he returned to studies and completed his Ph.D. in 1982. He then taught at the State University of New York in Canton, where he met and married his spouse, Dr. Nelly Case (in Cantonʼs UU Church). To preserve each otherʼs jobs—she was a professor of music at the SUNY campus in Potsdam, NY, a few miles away—they stayed in Canton for over 30 years and raised two children there. Then in 2016, they retired to Los Alamos, New Mexico, from where they visit their children, who both currently live in New England. Recently, Stephen and his wife, Nellie Case, have moved to Massachusetts and are becoming active at UUCW. Nellie is a retired Professor of Music and will accompany her husband during this service.
Sunday, January 4, 10:00 am In Person and Online – That’s a Great Question: Annual Ask The Minister Sunday – This week, we return to our annual tradition of a “Ask the Minister” Sunday, when the reflection will be made up of answers to questions asked by members and friends of the congregation. Aaron will also have a few questions of his own. Join us for this fun venture, a favorite of many!
Blessings, Aaron