Worship Leader: John DiLeo

Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 2nd October 2022

As I’ve mentioned a few times in the past, the themes and musings present in the services I lead tend to reflect things that are on my mind at the moment. In this case, it happens to be birthdays. Mine is this coming Tuesday. It also happens to be one of those “milestone” birthdays – I’ll be turning 55.

For more information see

https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/why-do-birthdays/

Worship Leader: Nina Khouri.

Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 25th September 2022

So, the government has now lifted basically all remaining COVID restrictions. We don’t have a traffic light system anymore, we have very few mask requirements, government vaccine mandates are ending and you don’t even have to isolate if a household member tests positive, so long as you monitor yourself for symptoms and do RATs.

Does anyone else feel like this is just another massive change we have to get our heads around? Another round in the whiplash of the last 2.5 years?

For the last couple of years there’s been a constantly changing regime that intrudes into our daily lives.

To be clear, I think it’s been justified and appropriate and I’m grateful for a government that has protected us this way. But it hasn’t been easy, right?

For more information see

https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/covid-whiplash-again/

with Ted Zorn & Kate Lewis

Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 18th September 2022

I’ve titled my random musings today “FOMO, Imagined Lives and Reclaiming Joy”. FOMO is an acronym for “Fear of Missing Out”.

I’ll start with a confession. I chose this topic because I suffer from FOMO and it has had a profoundly negative impact on the quality of my life and in some cases, the lives of people I care about. But I’m working on practising JOMO (the Joy of Missing Out) and my life is richer as a result.

For more information see 

https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/fomo-imagined-lives-and-reclaiming-joy/

with Rev. Max Moss

Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 11th September 2022

Today's talk was a reading of "A Dead Soldier Looks at the War" by Rev. David Rankin

For more information see  https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/a-dead-soldier-looks-at-the-war/

with John DiLeo

Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 4th September 2022

Today's talk was a reading of “The Answer I Wish I'd Given" By Erika A. Hewitt

For more information see  https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/because-we-can/

with Rachel Mackintosh

Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 21st August 2022

Burning Down the House was part of the soundtrack of my adolescence.

The song came out two years after the 1981 Springbok tour of New Zealand that had united a nationwide protest movement from across the political and socio-economic spectrum, where tens of thousands of us had marched together periodically in the year leading up to the tour, and twice a week from 19 July — my mother’s birthday and the day our family went to the airport at dawn to protest the Springboks’ arrival — to 12 September — the fourth anniversary of Steve Biko’s death from severe beating in custody and the date of the final test match of the tour. The second match — against the Waikato provincial team on 25 July — was called off after protesters invaded the pitch. Apart from that one match, the tour went ahead. The movement didn’t achieve its aim of stopping the tour.

The introduction to the subject of the tour on the NZ History website has the subheading, “A country divided”.

For more information see  https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/burning-down-the-house/

with John DiLeo 

Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 14th August 2022 

I grew up in a rural part of Connecticut, in the northeastern United States. My home town, Plainfield, was small, the population was almost entirely white Europeans, and – as far as those in authority in my life were concerned – everybody was cisgendered and straight.

As was the social norm of the time, when someone we knew was gender non-conforming, we were all expected to act as though that fact didn’t exist. Our parents referred to their gay and lesbian relatives and acquaintances as ‘eccentric,’ and to their life partners as ‘roommates.’

We were indoctrinated to the “fact” that being cisgendered and straight was the one true “lifestyle choice,” in much the same way we were indoctrinated to believe our mainstream Christian sect was the one true religion.

For more information see  https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/am-i-doing-this-right/

with Nina Khouri

Recorded by Auckland Unitarian Church 7th August 2022

For more information see:-

https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/that-i-might-know-my-mind/

with Derek Handley 

Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 31st July 2022 

The songs and first reading discussed in this podcast are not included in this audio, links to them can be found on the webpage below.

For more information see https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/i-am-the-first-and-the-last/

with Rev. Clay Nelson

Recorded by Auckland Unitarian Church 24th July 2022

Think back two and half years ago to the day before you heard of Coronavirus breaking out in Wuhan, China. Whatever that was like for you, that was normal. For me, I was a newlywed. I had not even learned what that new normal meant for me yet. I certainly hadn’t anticipated that we would spend most of two and a half years sheltering in place, just the two of us with Waldo for company, discovering what our normal was. So when I hear someone longing for life to return to normal, I’m not sure what their normal is. Perhaps, I should focus on knowing the future instead. Irony, apparently, is my forte.

For more information, links to outside sources etc. see

https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/the-idiot-flight-of-butterflies/