Hybrid services are now being offered each Sunday. You can join in person, by phone, or online via Zoom. Please call or e-mail the Fellowship if you need more information.
October 2nd – at 10:45 a.m. Bob Clegg will speak on the topic “Two Truths and a Lie”
Recent archaeological discoveries can enlighten both our knowledge and our biases about the Jewish Bible, revealing what is accurate and inaccurate in both the scriptures and our own conceptions. By comparing examples from archaeology and the Scriptures, we will illuminate the difference between history and presentism, perhaps pointing toward a cautionary tale for the present day.
October 9th – at 10:45 a.m. Rev. Paul Britner – “Living in a Broken World”
When the world, no less than our families and ourselves, is falling apart, it can be difficult to find peace and joy in our lives. This message offers suggestions how we may do that—how we maintain a sense of well-being and even happiness in a world that is not well or happy. Hint: it does not involve pretending that all is well or accepting despair as the status quo.
October 16th at 10:45 a.m. Dr. Michael Franch – “The First U.U. Principle”
Unitarian Universalist congregations affirm and promote, as their first principle, “the inherent worth and dignity of every person.” Which implies that we must treat everyone as a person of worth and dignity. Which can be really hard to do. Let’s be honest, some individuals don’t exhibit much worth and dignity. And sometimes our first impression of a person is as a group member. We see race or gender expression or social status – all of which affect the life of the person before us but are not the totality of the person. If we really believe in worth and dignity, how do we live our lives? Dr. Michael S. Franch is Affiliate Minister with the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore.
October 23rd at 10:45 a.m. – Rev. Dr. Kenton Stone (Remote presentation via Zoom)
“Corruption – Not Just A Mexican Thing”
The topic for this sermon came to me from talking on WhatsApp to my Southern Baptist friend and former college faculty colleague Steve Fairgreve. We talk via Zoom still 3 times a week now even after my year of retirement in Mexico. He was telling me that he’d been watching the tv series Ozark. It so happened that a member of my DSPTSD group had been watching it, too. I went to college in the Ozarks and taught high school there for years afterwards, too. We talked about how even back then the kind of hijinks I saw matched the mobster corruption depicted in the tv series Ozarks. My WhatsApp to Steve about it that week ended with the ominous line that said that it seems that “corruption is not just a Mexican thing.” It’s not.
October 30th at 10:45 a.m. Rev. Karyn Bergman Marsh – “Pagan All Along”
Tomorrow many children will be dressing up in spooky costumes and going door to door in search of treats or perhaps they have already been going to parties over the weekend. Halloween has been celebrated in the United States like this for almost 150 years. Although Halloween is considered a secular holiday, it has religious origins. Samhain, the ancient Celtic harvest festival, is one of the most well known pagan bases for the holiday, but there are others like the ancient Roman holiday honoring the dead. Halloween isn’t the only modern holiday with pagan religious origins. Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and Easter also have solid pagan origins as well. In fact, many pagan ideas underlie our culture. In today’s service, Rev. Karyn Marsh will explore how we have perhaps been pagan all along. Rev. Karyn Bergmann Marsh serves as a chaplain at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD and is the affiliated community minister of Towson Unitarian Universalist Church (TUUC).
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Greater Cumberland 