Sunday Service, October 24, 2021

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Linda Pallay

What Jesus Failed to Say. Speaker: Rev Dave Hunter
The New Testament’s Four Gospels report a lot of what Jesus said or might have said, but there is much that the gospel writers left out, or that he didn’t say, or that he might say if he were with us today.
Outdoor Coffee Hour follows the service (weather permitting).

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Sunday Service, October 31, 2021

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Linda Pallay

In observance of All Hallows Eve, Speaker Judy McDonald and Lay Leader Emily Quarles-Mowrer will present the following service.

Company for the Ancient Celts

Religious superstitions have been around from the time that the ancients devised their worship practices. Many of these practices have become part of our daily lives,  regardless of our religious beliefs, or lack of them.  Join us as we explore religious practices and superstitions from around the world.


Please join us for our outdoor Coffee Hour after the service, (weather permitting).

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In Memoriam — Peggy Jones — September 2021

Posted on September 1, 2021 by Linda Pallay

Our dear friend, Peggy Jones, passed away on July 28th at  the age of 90. She was a member of UUFP since the beginning, even when UUFP was just an idea. She was our last founding member and was married to Bob Jones who was instrumentational in the formation of UUFP.

Peggy served several roles at UUFP, she was an office worker in UUFP’s earlier days, was on the aesthetics committee for many years, and purchased and maintained our Memory History cabinet that is in the foyer of our building, until we closed the building due to the pandemic. When you add it up Peggy was a member of UUFP for all of its 54 years! That’s amazing dedication to the idea of supporting a liberal faith in a conservative community. Peggy was a quiet woman who attended just about every service put on by UUFP until she became too frail to attend regularly. She once said to me that UUFP was Bob’s dream and his passion and she was determined to support it even after Bob passed away in 2008.

I spoke with Peggy at the end of June and had no inkling that she was seriously ill. She was happy and sounded just like Peggy, not giving away any idea that she was ill, if in fact she was. I do not know if she suffered or passed away quietly in her sleep, I can only hope she went quietly into that good night, doing just the opposite of Dylan Thomas’s poem, “Do not Go Gentle into that Good Night.” Peggy said she had a good life and mentioned it several times over the past years. She told me that during the pandemic she loved looking out her windows into her back yard. It brought back memories of her and her immediate family and that always brought her joy.

I’m sure you’ll miss Peggy as will I, but at least we had the pleasure of knowing her for many years. ~ Linda P.

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From the Minister’s Desk — September 2021

Posted on September 1, 2021 by Linda Pallay

Here’s a question you won’t want to try to answer: Which endangers us most: the climate crisis? The Covid pandemic? The threats to democracy in the U.S.?

On a completely different topic, Saturday, September 11, will be the 20th anniversary of September 11, 2001 – I assume you’re old enough to remember what happened that day.  Here’s the text of the letter I submitted to our local newspaper in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on September 11, 2007, the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attack. They published it a week later.
 
It was truly a public service for you, on September 11, to reprint President Bush’s September 20, 2001 address.

In his speech the President held the Taliban regime in Afghanistan responsible for al-Qaida and thus for the September 11 attack.  He made a series of “demands” on the Taliban, and then stated: “These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion.” Is this a way to persuade someone? Could war with Afghanistan have been avoided?  We’ll never know.

The President asked how we will wage war against the terrorists and answered by vowing that we will use “every resource at our command.” But not many months had passed before most of these resources were shifted to Iraq, a nation that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack.

The President challenged the world by warning, “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” The real world has never been that simple. Did the President realize that he risked alienating those who were inclined to be sympathetic?

President Bush claims, finally, that God is on our side: “Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.” The President assumes that we stand for freedom and justice and against fear and cruelty. Many, in this country and around the world, sadly, now have their doubts. Perhaps President Bush should have been content to follow the lead of President Lincoln, and prayed that we might be on God’s side.

And now, twenty years after that attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we have ended our war in Afghanistan, and the Taliban are back in power. And left behind are thousands of Afghans who assisted us.

Here, in closing, is the concluding sentence from a letter to the editor on “the lessons of Afghanistan” published in the New York Times on August 21: “Reinstate national service and make it universal, and every parent and child over 18 will pay close attention to military commitments that risk their lives.”

Love, Dave



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The President’s Message — September 2021

Posted on September 1, 2021 by Linda Pallay

The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings.”    ~ Kakuzo Okakura

Readjustment to our surroundings has certainly been a major theme to our lives at the UUFP. The COVID-19 pandemic has kept us on our toes as we continue to try to figure out how to come together safely as a fellowship for services on Sundays.

It seems that everyone who has attended our outdoor services this summer has thoroughly enjoyed them. It is important to note however, that there were constant “readjustments” going on as we learned how to conduct these efficiently and effectively. Therefore, I would like to recognize these various efforts with an “Adaptability Award.”

The first Adaptability Award goes to Rick and Cassia Duske for experimenting and learning the best way to live stream, record and achieve good sound quality during an outdoor service. This has truly been a “learn-as-you-go-experience.” The next Adaptability Award goes out to the many different volunteers who showed up early and stayed a little later on a Sunday to put up and then take down our tents. A special thank you goes out to the person who suggested leaving the tent tops on and then collapsing the tents would simplify the process. This saved multiple steps and many minutes. Another Adaptability Award goes out to Lisa Jokiel. The risk of holding anything outdoors is the uncertainty of the weather. Lisa’s Sunday Service was switched from outdoors to Zoom due to rain and she conducted it beautifully. The next Adaptability Award goes to the Kitchen Committee. In order for our kitchen to be certified by the Department of Health, we had to modify how we hand wash our dishes. Well, actually, it is how we rinse our dishes. We now have a final step of rinsing the clean dishes in a diluted bleach solution. The final Adaptability Award goes out to those who have attended our outdoor services and “adapted” to all the things that this type of service brings.

I would like to ask that the members and friends of the UUFP continue to keep that adaptability spirit alive as we head into the fall months. It has previously been announced that we will return for indoor services on September 12. As I write this in late August, that is still the plan. However, the unfortunate reality is that cases of COVID-19 are on the increase. The Board of Directors, along with the Worship Committee, may need to reassess our plans. The good news is that even if we delay having services indoors, we will still meet in person, just outdoors. So, the UUFP will continue to “adapt to our surroundings.” Again.

In gratitude, Linda K.

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Sunday, September 5, 2021

Posted on August 29, 2021 by Linda Pallay

No Service today at UUFP or via Zoom. We wish you all a wonderful holiday spent with family and friends. Happy Labor Day!

Indoor services are to resume on September 12th, however if there are changes, esp. with pandemic protocols, services will either be held outdoors or by Zoom

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Sunday Service, September 12, 2021

Posted on August 29, 2021 by Linda Pallay

A Gathering of Waters – Speaker: Rev. Kerry Mueller
We will celebrate our coming together after a time apart. Please bring a small container of water from your last year. As we pour our waters into a single bowl, we will reflect on what it means to be a gathered community in times of joy and times of stress and uncertainty.

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Sunday Service, September 19, 2021

Posted on August 29, 2021 by Linda Pallay

The Three C’s: Compassion, Charity and Connection by Speaker: Terry Dixon
Lay Leader: Allan Pallay

Compassionate concern for others is instinctual. It is the ethical root of all religions and also humanism. As humans, we are hard wired to connect with and care for others. It is central to who we are from an evolutionary perspective and key to our survival as a species. In many ways, compassion is the societal expansion and expression of the fundamental maternal instinct. Indeed, the Biblical Hebrew word for compassion, rachamin, derives from the word for womb, rechem. So why do we find it so hard to practice in our lives? How can we cultivate greater compassion for ourselves and others? Our guest speaker, Terry Dixon, will explore compassion from various religious and philosophical perspectives. He will also lead us in a metta/loving kindness meditation.

Terry Dixon is a member of Main Line Unitarian Church, where he has served on the Board of Trustees, as chair of the Worship Committee, and in various other roles. He is also an intellectual property lawyer with degrees from Trinity College, Dublin and Columbia University Law School.

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Sunday Service, September 26, 2021

Posted on August 29, 2021 by Linda Pallay

Dreaming with Zeus and Hera: Toward a Unitarian Universalist Theology
by Rev Dave Hunter
Unitarians, it was often said in the past, believe in one God – at most. Today such a statement would be insufficient to describe our Unitarian Universalist theological diversity. Here’s Dave’s take on the God question.

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From the Minister’s Desk — August 2021

Posted on August 1, 2021 by Linda Pallay

At Dave’s family reunion  in July, I found myself in conversation with a young relative about the apparent gender transition of a cousin of his generation. How do we witness and bless such major life events when so many people are un-churched these days, I wondered. And on the way home I heard a book review about a novel in which a couple develop an app to create custom rituals for non-religious people.  The app goes viral, creating all sorts of disruptions  in their lives and the life of the world. So I was primed to listen carefully later in the week to an interview on Radio Times with Robert P. Jones, founder and CEO of PRRI, the Public Religion Research Institute about recent changes in religious affiliation. This major survey, based on half a million interviews in which people self identify, has data right down to the county level, and includes Unitarian Universalists as a separate group, not lumping us under “all other” as usual.

What did I learn about the religious landscape? Here are the headlines:

  • Two-thirds of the population are different kinds of Christians
  • Five percent are non-Christian religious
  • Two percent are UU — just behind Hindu and Others

The NONES – atheists, agnostics and those not affiliated with any religion have increased to one-quarter of the population.

White evangelicals have declined starkly from about 25% in 2008 to 14.5% in 2020. They are declining especially among the young. The result is that their median age is 56 – not far off from the UU median age of 53, both above the median age of 47 for all Americans.

In the interview, Jones said that younger people are leaving some forms of Christianity over values like LBGTQ rights, reproductive freedom, the climate crisis, leaving the liberal faiths looking like 30 year-olds and the more conservative religions looking like 70 year-olds.

What does this mean for this congregation? Might those young NONES realize they could benefit from a spiritual community that reflects their values? Maybe they will come looking for liberal religious education for their children and life passage rituals for their families? Might you find ways to welcome them warmly, to offer them nurture and challenge, and to receive the new ideas and skills and challenges that they would bring? What will your new normal look like? Who do you want to be? How do you want to bless the world?

Love, Kerry

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