UU Community Church of Washington County's Podcast

In our flower ceremony, we give and receive flowers, to feel a connection to each other and to the interdependent web. The pandemic and past conflicts might have lessened this feeling of connection. What do you need, for our walls to come down and for our connection to bloom?

How does change happen? When is it worth it to reform a system, and when is it worth it to start fresh? How connected do you want to be to your roots, and how much do you want to scatter seeds? How have you experienced transformation in your own life? What makes a tradition a living tradition?

Many UUs (including UUA leadership) are prioritizing the notion of harm: Caring for those who say that they have been hurt by someone else's words. There can be an expectation of accountability: changing your behaviour if someone says you have hurt them. We will explore harm and accountability - both the benefits and the shadow side - including possible changes in how we do democracy and community.

Several religions celebrate the victory of love over evil. Is this victory possible? Can we achieve a world community with peace, liberty and justice for all? What compromises would we need to make, and what risks would we need to take, in the quest for heaven on earth?

Do you love trees?  Come learn about the spiritual aspects of human connections with trees. We also will meet a small group of neighbors who were inspired to band together to form a local grassroots organization called Treekeepers of Washington County. They were concerned about the mature trees being cut down in our neighborhoods and about the lack of any tree protections in our urban county, even as climate change is upon us.  Treekeepers will share the purpose and meaning of their work as advocates.  Along with talking about why members of Treekeepers have chosen to take action, they will let us know how we church members can get involved.

We support a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. When we think we've found truth, we act on it, to make the world a better place. This Sunday, we explore the tension between searching and finding. Through this lens, we look at conflict within the Unitarian Universalist Association. This is the first of a two-part series on the UUA.

This Sunday, we will explore four archetypes of how we might be together, so that we might consciously choose who we are called to be, as a church and as a denomination.

Ralph Waldo Emerson's message to the next generation of Unitarian ministers was a call to reform how we do church. He describes how to overcome the staleness of organized religion and have a genuine experience of a larger love. Emerson's address is very long; we will hear it rewritten in a briefer and updated style.

As we launch our annual pledge drive, we consider how we could make choices that  more fully resonate with our principles, our hopes, our vision. Where are you putting your time, your energy, your attention? How could you more fully feed your dreams?

The ability to reason has given us such wonderful gifts as calculus, mRNA vaccines, and smart phones that allow us to stay in touch with loved ones hundreds and thousands of miles away. But reason has also given us such treacheries as calculus, bio weapons, and smart phones that beckon us like candy. We respect reason, not because it always leads to good things, but because it is a powerful tool for understanding and working in the world.

This Sunday, we get a better handle on reason. Why is it so often hard to reason well, as individuals and as groups? How far can reason take us? What other tools are at hand, if we open our eyes to see?