Auckland Unitarians

Speaker:- Peter Lineham

Worship Leader:- Ruby Johnson

Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church 28th April 2024

Ralph Waldo Emerson knew how to upset Unitarians, for he had been one of them. Emerson was from a Unitarian family, trained at Harvard College, and his brother William was educated at Gottingen and was a minister. Waldo became minister of Second Church Boston in 1829. But he took a break, after the death of his wife, and headed to Europe. Returning he wrote this extraordinary essay, Nature, from which I read. He was a mystery to his fellow Unitarians. In 1838 he spoke to the Divinity Class at Harvard, in words that caused a huge controversy...

For more information see:-

https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/the-american-transcendentalists/

with Karn Cleary

Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church 21 April 2024

I titled today’s service “Remembering Anzac Day”, purposely. It disturbs me to see or hear references to “celebrating” Anzac Day, when I believe it should always be a day of mourning for all those who died so futilely at Gallipoli, and all the others whether they returned or not, who have gone off to war from New Zealand.

The 24th April, the day before Anzac Day is the anniversary of the death of my father, Bror Muller, who died in 1967. This talk is really about my father’s experiences during the Second World War as an enemy alien and, in his words, 100% committed pacifist. I’ll also talk about how those experiences affected his life after the war, and the impact on his family, or at least on me, growing up in the 1950s and 60s.

For more information see:-

https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/remembering-anzac-day-2/

With Rachel Mackintosh & Betsy Marshall

Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church 14 April 2024

Unitarians are a mixed metaphor. Roots from flora, wings from fauna.

There is no exact Greek mythical creature to represent this idea but perhaps we can think of a dryad or tree-nymph, maybe combined with a phoenix, the bird who rises.

We are a mixed metaphor and a mixed faith, one that values pluralism and whose hymn book is called Singing the Living Tradition.

For more information, see:-

https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/roots-hold-me-close-wings-set-me-free/

Speaker:- John Maindonald

Worship Leader:- Shirin Caldwell

Recorded 7 April 2024 @ Auckland Unitarian Church

For more information see:-

https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/charles-darwins-religious-life-journey/

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh

Recorded 31 March 2024 @ Auckland Unitarian Church

I preached in this church last year on Easter Sunday. My theme was resurrection — I spoke about the power of love over hate. In the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Knowing that when life is gone, love is left for shining.”

Since then, as most of you know, I have become a widow. My husband and your minister Clay Nelson died last November. In preparing for this year’s Easter Sunday service, I have read all eight of the Easter sermons he preached here in this church. I have seen that he talked about the necessity of experiencing Good Friday if we are to experience Easter.

For more information see:-

https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/the-empty-tomb-holding-lament-in-one-hand-and-joy-in-the-other/

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rev. Sally Mabelle of Taupo Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church 24 March 2024.

During my 12 years as a member and lay worship leader at Auckland Unitarian church, we sang that ‘Spirit of Life’ song hundreds of times, to begin nearly every Sunday service. Today, I’d like to draw our attention directly to that same Spirit of Life, which is intimately with us in every moment – I’m talking about our very breath – literally our IN-spiration – and our EX-spiration…a free gift that we receive at birth and is our closest and most constant spiritual companion throughout our whole life.

https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/breathing-the-spirit-of-life-what-does-it-mean-and-why-does-it-matter/

Speaker:- John Maindonald

Worship Leader:- Shirin Caldwell

Recorded 17 March 2024 @ Auckland Unitarian Church

Charles Darwin, who lived through the middle years of the 1800s, is familiar to most of us as the man who laid the foundations of the modern theory of evolution. His ideas have had dramatic continuing effects on our view of ourselves and of the world of which we are part. The idea that living things shared a common evolutionary heritage was not new. What was new was the mechanism that Darwin, along with Alfred Wallace who came up with very similar ideas at the same time, proposed. Darwin worked his arguments into a book of almost 500 pages that was widely read and finally carried the day in the world of science. It is a careful assembly of evidence, from animal breeding, from geology, and from the way that different life forms are distributed across different continents and islands.

For more see https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/part-of-nature-or-separate-from-nature-charles-darwin-and-evolutionary-biology/

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh

I have recently watched all three seasons of Ted Lasso.

I had been aware of the show for some time but had been put off by the moustache, and the fact that it seemed to be about sport. Though I admire physical grace, I really don’t care about all the winning and losing and fighting over a ball.

I had been missing out. Ted Lasso is a gift.

It is a gift that slowly unwraps. When one of the characters, Danny Rojas, says, “Football is life”, I like his joy but really don’t connect. Football isn’t my life.

Turns out though, that in Ted Lasso, football is a metaphor for life. Turns out that Ted Lasso himself really doesn’t care about all the winning and losing either. He cares about community and people being their best selves. He’s probably a Unitarian, though that doesn’t get mentioned in the script.

For more see:- https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/constrained-and-sustained-and-still-we-rise/

With Karn Cleary

Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church 3 March 2024

For more information, see:- https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/the-liberal-church-finding-its-mission-its-not-all-about-you/

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Viv Allen

Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church 25 February 2024

I had intended to read one of Clay’s talks entitled, Why should we learn another language? From Sept 2020 in its entirety but after I read it I realised that a lot of it was about Clay’s personal journey. I have experience with my own journey regarding this topic so I’ve added some of my own thoughts and picked out parts of Clays’ speech that are relevant and added some from other sources,

What has this topic got to do with any of our Unitarian principles? A lot.

For more info, see https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/why-should-we-learn-another-language/