We are all souls who want to belong somewhere.  Many of us are hybrids or hyphenated people of multiple faiths and beliefs.  The culture, however, prefers easily defined lables… no hyphens allowed.  All those who believe like they do are the saved humans and everything else is less than human.  They have identified themselves by whom they exclude.

The great thing about the UU church is that religious hyphens aren’t just tollerated, but are welcomed as the first-choice sort of people.  The hypens are accepted as seekers and not just tolerated as religious peeping-toms.   Sometimes ideas come out and are explored in our UU congregations that make us feel uncomfortable, but we keep returning because we know we are not alone.  Love has no boundaries or barriers, because we are ALL on the same side of love.

The UU General Assembly is in Minneapolis later this year.  If anyone is interested in going please see Stan.  Another one of the friends of this congregation is under threat of lay-off and, subsequently, will be losing health care benefits.  We lit a candle for the Congress and the President to find a solution to the health care problem in this country.  Kimberly has the joy of a new job offer and the concern of what on earth to do about care for little Owen.  Courage has had a health setback also… he has fallen on his injured arm and the re-injury has threatened his ability to get back to work before he too has a problem with health care benefits.

Sue was soliciting information about what people want to have in the way of Sunday services.  She has a nifty form for you to fill out to tell her what you want to have more of and what you want to have less of.  You need not be afraid of it because the categories are already lined up on the page… you don’t have to think up categories of stuff on your own.  Just see Sue, OK?

Interestingly, voyages played a pivotal roll for each man.  Lincoln’s voyages on boats taking goods down the Mississippi river forced him to confront slavery and see through the veneer of lies about its virtues.  Darwin’s famous voyage on the Beagle forced him to confront the flawed version of natural history that some people taught through the bible.  It never made any sense to Darwin that he should be condemned for doubting an obviously a flawed interpretation of the bible stories.

Today the Humanists will be using our building for their meeting at 2PM.  The Ohio Meadeville meeting is coming up March 26 and 27.   Stan will be attending to represent our congregation.  Anyone else who wishes to go should contact him.  Next week’s service will be the reschedule of the one that we did not enjoy because of the snow storm.

Our next pot luck is scheduled for the third Saturday in March.  We don’t expect the weather to continue to cause us to forgo that fellowship.  This week, let us remember the Chilean people suffering from earthquake damage in South America.  Another relative of a chuch member was laid off from employment this week.  Keep those who are suffering in your thoughts this week.  Betty returned to her traditional role of reading the Children’s story this week.  Her voice of wonder is always appreciated.  The most unappreciated among us is Thurman Sinks, who tirelessly and silently (well, mostly silently) cleans up after every Sunday service.   Lets all thank him once in a while.

Rick

The Space Cadets have really cleaned up the sanctuary to make more… um… space.  The Statue of Liberty was bubble-wrapped and stored… ok, she was put out on the back porch but there is a foot of snow on the ground right now.  The easy chair was easily taken by Material Subsistence Providers who apparently take furniture and keep it until someone needs it.  I couldn’t find a link on the internet to this outfit so you have to take the Space Cadet’s word for it.

A group called Sustainable Reynoldsburg has contacted us to inquire whether we would be interested in participating in their community garden project.  We told them our garden project had guardn’ problems because the rabbits and raccoons feasted until the deer came to muscle them aside.  Anyone interested in participating in Sustainable Reynoldsburg can find out more at:   http://groups.google.com/group/sustainable-reynoldsburg?lnk=srq

The Potluck is canceled for February 2010.  We are all looking forward to March.  More snow tomorrow– President’s day.  Stay healthy.

Rick

In Western culture, New Years celebrations are one big party followed by not very much introspection.  Introspection that is accomplished is usually done in the form of New Year’s resolutions.  Chinese New Year is customarily a 2 week observance.  It takes that long to attend to the unfinished business of the previous year and take time to reflect upon it and put it in perspective.  Holding on to the past can can interfere with your ability to move on into the future.  This is especially true if you need to seek someone out to bring closure to disagreements.

Don’t let past events define you.  This is often said of the bad things that happen in our lives, but positive events can have hidden problems.  Once you let an event define you, you stop growing.  You put on that identity and stop expanding your horizons looking for new growth and new identities.  Positive identities can be just and confining as the negative ones when looked at in this prospective.   Points of view can define limits that are only limits because of your point of view.  From the jellyfish point of view, the shoreline is the end of the entire universe… the lip of the bowl that is the ocean.  It is New Year’s again… make an effort to look at things anew.

Announcements:  We are saddened to report the passing of Connie.  Funeral services will be next Saturday at St Pius X.  Betty announced two new hymnals have been dedicated at Stan’s request.

Dance lessons last week went well.  Next Friday Dance lessons will be at 7PM Friday… an extra half  hour of rest before the fun begins.

Take note of the Interfaith Power and Light movement.  Earth day is coming.  http://interfaithpowerandlight.org/

Today, Gordon informs us that Connie’s funeral Mass at St. Pius X has been moved up one hour.  The viewing will be at 10 and the Mass will begin at 11:00

St Pius is at 1051 Waggoner Rd in Reynoldsburg.

http://www.spxreynoldsburg.com/

евтини мебелиGood Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe

Friday Feb 5, 2010 Jim and Sue are going to give dance lessons at the church.  First up is the Cha Cha…  the basic steps for getting along at any wedding now-a-days, everyone is invited to come out and learn just enough to not make a fool of themselves on the dance floor.  Expertise will come later… right now we are just trying to get everyone up and out of their chairs.

Today Shawn gave us an excellent introduction to meditation.  We were growing in harmony with the divine.  After the introduction to what meditation is all about, he brought us through a guided meditation.

Announcements:  The Three Cranes are inviting us to celebrate on January 31, 2010 at Feast of Imbolc.  See www.threecranes.org for details.

The joint Jan and Shawn birthday party/pot luck was very successful.  Betty has volunteered to provide reminder call service to anyone who wants to attend the monthly pot-lucks but cannot be lucky enough to remember it when the right week rolls around on the calendar.  Contact Betty for the reminder service (if you can remember to do that).

After the pot luck Sue and Jim took some food over to Connie and Gordon.  They report that Connie is looking very good although she tires very quickly.

Jan presented some of the latest information on how planet A was doing.  When we make planet A unlivable, we shall all embark for planet B… when we discover planet B… and a way to get to planet B.  Meanwhile, the rate of tuberculosis seems to be a measure of how bad the air pollution is in a region.  When the

Becca presented some of the news from Copenhagen.  The big story was that the Northern most nations and the island nations are the vulnerable ones who have to suffer the most from the climate chaos.  The industrialized nations can continue to enjoy the benefits of dumping pollution into the sky and force those nations to pay the price.  It’s like being able to dump your garbage over the fence into your neighbor’s yard when they aren’t allowed to stop you from doing it… and they have no ability to clean it up or move it.  They simply have to live with the consequences of all your cat litter and rotten vegetables being thrown into their back yard.

Becca played a video called Tick Tick Tick… or tck tck tck.   It seems that the young have a better understanding that eventually all that garbage is going to be a problem for them, even while their elders are laughing at the poor people who have to suffer from their profligate pollution habits.   If anyone knows where to link to that video, contact me at rpittaway@yahoo.com and I will post it here.