Author: UUFJC1

11/23/2014 This morning, Katherine Connor led a special service and our own Alexis Engelbrecht-Villafañe delivered a message based on the quote, familiar from Theodore Parker down to Martin Luther King: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” A glimpse of such a majestic arc can comfort us in times…

11/16/2014 Today, Rev. Mike Adamek brought us a message about the ways we relate to the past, history, and tradition. He argued that there is a crucial difference between Memory that engages the complexity of the past to inform a living present, and Nostalgia that flattens the past into simplistic images and imposes those images…

11/3/2014 We had a great turnout Sunday morning for our Adult Forum, where we discussed issues and races in the coming election. Maybe we were a little too much “of like mind,” but we still found we had a lot to teach each other, and I’m glad everyone enjoyed coming together to help each other…

10/26/2014 This morning, Bob Boldt led our Adult Forum in reflections on the Day of the Dead. The observance calls on us not only to remember those who have gone before us and the loved ones we’ve lost, but to get beyond our fears and our impulses to pretend it away and remember death as…

10/19/2014 Today, we were reminded of our UU commitment to flexibility and open-mindedness — our speaker canceled at the last minute. However, our own Katherine Connor graciously stepped up and read us a sermon by Rev. Jane Rzepka, a crash course in UU history. Modern UUs draw on diverse traditions that taught the unity of…

10/12/2014 Today, UUFJC hosted Rev. John Bennett and Rev. WT Edmonson for a dialogue on racial justice. They spoke about their backgrounds — one grew up in an all-white “sundown town,” the other watched white neighbors abandon the local school after integration — and about experiences that shaped their commitment to social justice. They reminded…

10/5/2014 Today, Rev. Mike brought us a message whose title tells the story: “Tough-Minded Optimists are Needed Now.” Our stereotype of optimists is of naive Pollyannas who always look on the bright side, but Rev. Mike argued that a truer picture is of optimists as problem solvers — it’s not that they see nothing wrong,…

9/28/2014 This week, Tom Durkin was here from the Missouri Attorney General’s Office to talk about Missouri’s Sunshine Law and the importance of providing open access to public proceedings to secure citizens’ rights and build their trust.  The law applies to public bodies, but represents a standard of good practice for private organizations as well. …

9/21/2014 Today, Rev. Mike brought us a message about the increasing militarization of police forces throughout the US, both in tactics and in equipment.  The results can be frightening for the health of our communities and for our civil rights, as we have recently learned once again from the events in Ferguson, Missouri.  However, pitting…

9/15/2014 This Sunday, educator Lorie Steele spoke to our Fellowship about Montessori Education, which Wikipedia describes as “an educational approach developed by Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori and characterized by an emphasis on independence, freedom within limits, and respect for a child’s natural psychological, physical, and social development.”  Lorie’s description of the mixed-age environment…