Author: UUFJC1

12/24/2017 This morning, on Christmas Eve, we had a special Winter Holiday service, gathering perspectives from various members and friends through reflection, song, and a sharing of hope ceremony. We UUs tend to be “Happy Holidays” people, and for good reasons.  One of our core values is to welcome those with different perspectives and beliefs,…

12/18/2017 Sunday morning, Rev. Nancy TannerThies continued exploring our monthly theme of “Hope” with a title that she couldn’t seem to get out of your head: “Mustering the Minions.”  The word “minion” conjures up images of servility (and yes, maybe those little yellow guys from the movies), and while may we often feel that we…

12/11/2017 Sunday morning, our own Alexis Engelbrecht continued exploring our monthly theme of Hope.  It’s easy to think of Hope as just a happy feeling about a bright future that will “somehow, eventually” happen, but this kind of hope is hard to sustain and hard to be satisfied by.  For Alexis, a more inspiring kind…

12/4/2017 Sunday morning, Rev. Mike Adamek began exploring our monthly Soul Matters theme for December: Hope.  The winter holiday season is a time to celebrate hope, Rev. Mike reflected, whether that hope is the Christian coming of the savior, the Passover deliverance, or the Earth-centered watch for the return of the sun.  Like the same…

11/27/2017 Sunday morning, Alexis Engelbrecht concluded our monthly theme of Abundance with reflections and our annual Bread Communion.  The Bread Communion, Alexis said, is a symbol of the nourishing support and diversity of our community, but she also led us inward, toward the abundance of possibilities within ourselves and how we can nourish those possibilities. …

11/20/2017 Sunday morning, as we entered this Thanksgiving week, Rev. Nancy TannerThies continued our monthly theme of Abundance with reflections on the harvest — but, she reflected, the harvest is not a single event; its different phases bring us different lessons about abundance. The work of tending and weeding burgeoning plants reminds us of the…

11/13/2017 Sunday morning, we continued exploring our monthly theme of Abundance with one way Unitarian Universalists work to spread abundance in the world.  The UU Service Committee is an independent nonprofit organization that works with the UU Association to promote human rights and equity throughout the world.  Supporting refugees, deportees, and communities affected by climate…

11/6/2017 Sunday morning, Rev. Mike Adamek began exploring our Soul Matters theme for November: Abundance.  Abundance means something more and better than just having lots of stuff — as many of us know, having too much can be more curse than blessing.  So where is the “sweet spot” of Abundance as a virtue?  Rev. Mike’s…

6/28/2015 Dear UUFJC Members and Friends,Recently, the news has been an emotional roller-coaster for many of us, from the shock of the murders in Charleston to the elation of marriage equality.  In her message this morning, Rev. Nancy asked, how can we take it all in?  How can we responsibly “hold tension” between our core…

6/21/2015 Today, our own Jan Harcourt addressed the Fellowship on the topic of trauma and the body.  We often think of psychic scars as affecting the mind, but as Jan showed us through a series of brief exercises, the mind and body are not separate.  The body responds to shocks with a natural cycle of…