First Unitarian Universalist Church of Winnipeg's Podcast

2023-11-05 - “Gather the spirit, harvest the power; our separate fires will kindle one flame,” we sing in the words of singer-songwriter Jim Scott. What is this power? Where (or who) does it come from? And how can we harvest it? The answer is found in our congregational affirmation, which asserts that service is our prayer. It then falls upon us to discern where we are called to serve – individually and collectively.

2023-11-19 - “We all have within us a centre of stillness surrounded by silence,” reflected Dag Hammarskjöld on the dedication of the Meditation Room at the headquarters of the United Nations. He believed that, in the place where the nations of the world gathered to debate the great issues of the day, there should be “one room dedicated to silence in the outward sense and stillness in the inner sense.” We need such spaces in our individual lives, too, where we can attain inner calm through what Harriet Beecher Stowe called “the grace of silence.”

2023-11-12 - Octavia MacIsaac has said that sometimes she has felt judged by what was in her pocket, not by what was in her heart. Come and join her on November 12 for an exploration of giving without guilting ourselves over the dollar amount, and showing generosity without money.

2023-12-10 - Reinhold Niebuhr, one of the preeminent theologians of the 20th century, is best remembered for describing the ethics of Jesus as an “impossible possibility.” Apparent impossibilities really are possible, he maintained, “and lead to new actualities in given moments of history,” but each new actuality is only “an approximation of the ideal.” We long for a fairer world, the good society, a cooperative commonwealth – whatever we may call it – but that world always seems beyond our reach. So it’s easy to succumb to despair and give up, but if we embrace the idea of impossible possibilities, we might learn to accept that the ideal is always coming into being, even if it never quite arrives as we imagined it.

2024-12-24 - “Lighting trees in darkness, learning new ways from the old, making sense of history and drawing warmth out of the cold,” sings Dar Williams in her playful seasonal ballad, The Pagans and the Christians. There’s no shortage of people prepared to tell us how we ought to keep the season, how we should express our greetings to one another, what we should call our trees, and what the true meaning of Christmas really is. I’ll have none of it, for Christmas today is a marvelously eclectic celebration, and I’m content to weave together its varied strands as I see fit, learning (and fashioning) new ways from the old. And I’m happy for others to do the same.

2024-01-14 - It’s hard to move forward if you’re mired in your own past. This is as true for communities as it is for individuals. The more people focus on old conflicts and grievances and disappointments, real or imagined, the more likely it is that their efforts will be retrospective rather than forward-looking. At the beginning of a New Year, it is natural to look ahead towards the promise that awaits us, but that promise will only be realized if we learn to let go of the things that hold us back.

2024-01-21 - When asked about Unitarianism, a good many of us will use “not” in our answer. We are NOT this, or NOT that. But what are we? Where is the ground on which we stand?

2023-12-31 - Reflections of an Ordinary Life: Looking at the Past (2023), and to the Future (2024, and beyond). Meanderings on an everyday life as lived in Canada 2023 as a Unitarian Universalist and as a Canadian. Also as a sibling, an aunt, a widow, an apartment dweller living 16 plus floors up, with St. Boniface in the short distance and The Forks almost below me.

2024-01-28 - “Sometimes he went to church – preferably to the Unitarian Meeting House, where ideas, not emotions, were exploited,” wrote novelist Laura Goodman Salverson about her father, Larus. Our congregation is distinctive among Unitarian Universalist congregations, but not quite unique, in having been first established among immigrants – in our case, Winnipeg’s Icelandic community.

This Heritage Sunday, we will look at religion through the eyes of Laura Goodman Salverson, who twice won the Governor General’s Literary Award. “It is as natural to the Icelandic heart to turn to poetry in times of stress as for another to search his Bible,” she asserted, which explains a lot about our congregation’s story.

2024-06-02 - You’ve heard coming out stories, but the first person we come out to is ourselves. Join Octavia as she explores the challenges of self-acceptance when one is afraid of rejection and exclusion.