Author: UUFJC1

6/15/2015 Sunday morning, Father George Kramer returned to share his thoughts on “the new Pope” another year into Pope Francis’ tenure.  In his last visit, Father Kramer said that change in the Catholic Church would take a generation, and today he reminded us to judge leaders by their actions and not just their words, but…

6/8/2015 Sunday morning, Rev. Mike’s message was entitled “How Are You Using Your Future Today?”  As UUs we can have many different visions and ideas about the future, including that age-old religious question of what happens after we die.  Such questions may seem far on the horizon, but Rev. Mike argued that our ideas about…

5/25/2015 Sunday morning, Rev. Nancy got a bit “meta” with a message about how we approach our time together on Sundays.  She described worship as “a crossroads between the apprehension of the holy and daily life.”  In our sort of Fellowship, we don’t necessarily agree on what (or whether) “the holy” might be, but we…

5/17/2015 This morning, we held our Annual Business Meeting and elected a new Board for the 2015-2016 term, with some people continuing in their offices and others stepping up to do challenging jobs: President: Katherine Connor (returning)Vice President: Alexis Engelbrecht-VillafañeTreasurer: Bob Antweiler (returning)Secretary: Laura Gilkey (returning)Director of Religious Education: Kim Connor This year’s meeting saw…

5/10/2015 This morning, Sultan Ahmad visited our Fellowship to talk about the looming ecological crisis from an Islamic point of view.  While Ahmad’s interpretation of Islam — like common interpretations of Christianity — sees humankind set apart as the greatest of God’s creation and given Nature for the purposes of human wellbeing, he sees this…

5/4/2015 Yesterday morning, our Adult Forum tried to engage our Fifth Unitarian Universalist Principle (“The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large”), as we discussed whether to create for ourselves an Adult Forum Policy.  While the members present felt that we didn’t need a formal…

5/31/2015 This morning, our own Alexis Engelbrecht-Villafañe brought us a message harking back to the great Romantic poets and thinkers, from William Wordsworth to Henry David Thoreau.  Alexis reminded us that the Romantics were not fluffy, nature-loving sentimentalists, but rebels in the age of the Industrial Revolution.  “The world is too much with us,” wrote…

4/27/2015 Yesterday, Essex Garner, a retired National Guardsman and professor of Art Education at Lincoln University, visited the Fellowship to talk about his award-winning paintings of the Buffalo Soldiers.  In an engagingly personal talk, Garner described how existing images of African-Americans in the military just didn’t cut it for him as a black man or…

4/19/2015 This morning, Rev. Nancy brought us a message about “The Cost of Spring.”  Nature nurtures the softly sculpted petals, the delicate vibrant colors that we see emerging all around us, but Nature also brings the battering rains and the harsh summer sun.  Nature is both nurturing and implacable, and we are no exception.  Will…

4/12/2015 Spring is here, plants are growing, and that means it’s time to start tending our gardens.  At today’s service, our own Bob Boldt and local farmer Mike Oney came to talk about the NEEED Project’s Heart of Missouri Gardens, a community garden that last year supplied fresh produce to local senior centers.  They’re looking…