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…

4/6/2015 Happy Easter! Yesterday, when Christians celebrated the resurrection of Jesus, Rev. Mike brought us a message exploring the Christian roots of Unitarian Universalism, and what part of that Christian inheritance we might embrace as universal.  We can take universal lessons from Jesus’ teachings about how to treat one another, but Rev. Mike argued that…

3/29/2015 Today, retired reporter Bob Priddy visited the Fellowship to talk about the largest religious revival in Jefferson City history.  Invited by an alliance of what were then the four main Protestant Churches in town, a renowned revivalist preached for more than a month in 1915, urging repentance from such sins as drinking, cigarettes, card-playing…

3/22/2015 Today, Rev. David Avery, a retired Disciples of Christ minister, visited our Fellowship to give us a talk about Light and Darkness.  So often, our language equates light with goodness and darkness with evil and fear (and what does that do to the way we view dark-skinned people?), but Avery encouraged us to embrace…

3/16/2015 Sunday, Rev. Nancy brought us a message about “Intelligent Sensibility” — about the challenge of opening ourselves to awe and mystery while also keeping a responsible grip on our critical faculties.  The senses, the intellect, and the realms of mystical experience can all be gateways to that awe and mystery, if we resist the…

3/8/2015 Today, Dr. Serese Smith-Haxton, OB/GYN of Capital Region Medical Center, visited our Fellowship to talk about “Empowerment of Women.”  In her work, she sees that most immediately in the area of healthcare, where she said women have more opportunity than ever to take charge of their health in critical ways.  Advances in technology allow…

3/1/2015 Due to the wintry weather, today’s services have been canceled. Stay safe and warm! Next Sunday, March 8th: Daylight Saving Time Begins – Remember to “spring” your clocks forward! Adult Forum – 9:15 amTBA – Leader Needed! Service and Religious Education – 10:30 amMessage: “Empowerment of Women,” Dr. Smith-HaxtonDr. Smith-Haxton is an OB-GYN with Capital Region…

2/22/2015 Today, Doctor-in-training Taisei Suzuki visited our Fellowship to talk about his years of humanitarian work in Africa.  Suzuki opened and closed by inviting us to ask ourselves: “What is ‘Aid’?”  He made the crucial point that, in our desire to help others, we must not simply impose our ideas of what’s good on them;…

2/15/2015 I missed services today.  I always hate to miss Rev. Nancy, but I was spooked by the weather forecast.  Everyone, stay safe and warm! Next Sunday, February 22nd: Adult Forum – 9:15 am“Understanding Nonviolence,” Betty CooperNonviolent understandings are needed to displace misunderstandings.  We will examine the work of two pioneers of nonviolence, Badshah Khan…

2/8/2015 Today, friend of the Fellowship Dr. Cliff Cain returned to deliver the message for our annual Evolution Sunday, exploring the impact Darwin’s theory has had on many worldviews shaped by Christianity.  For someone who believed the story in Genesis, Chapter 1, that humans were created special and apart “in the image of God” and…

2/1/2015 This morning, Rev. Mike brought us a message about the progress of science and how it affects our worldviews.  We UUs join spiritual progressives of all stripes in our respect for science and embrace of the truths revealed by its rigorous methods.  However, incorporating it into our worldviews is an ongoing challenge as new…

1/25/2015 Today, author and researcher Gary Kremer of the Missouri State Historical Society visited our Fellowship to give an excellent and challenging talk on the historical background of the racial issues we see today, in Ferguson and elsewhere.  He traces the problem to different experiences of history.  Many white people look to the past and…

1/18/2015 This morning, in both our Adult Forum and Rev. Nancy’s message, we explored the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and reflected that when a “prophet” like him confronts us with profound and challenging truths, it’s easier to praise the prophet as a hero than to absorb their challenging truths into our lives. …

1/11/2015 I hope everyone is keeping warm and safe in this weather!  I myself stayed off the roads today and missed our own Jim Davis’s talk about the Origins of Universalism in America.  According to Katherine Connor, it was very good.  She writes: “Jim started with Origen of Alexandria, went on to John Murray who brought…

1/4/2015 This morning, we began the new year with a look back at the history of Unitarianism.  As Rev. Mike argued, Unitarians have always aspired to universality of religion, ethics, and inclusion, but as we forge our identity, it necessarily creates a boundary, a wall between who we are and who we aren’t.  Through our…

12/28/2014 This morning was our last Sunday service of 2014 — I can hardly believe it!  We marked the occasion with an open mic on the topic,”Thoughts for the New Year.”  Among the diverse thoughts shared, several of us were especially concerned about the needs for justice that were revealed in this past year, and…

12/21/2014 This morning, Rev. Nancy reminded us how people have always understood this season in story.  Today in the US, many point to one particular story of the reason for this season (and many more define ourselves in part by how we view that story).  However, there is a rich, diverse history throughout the world…

12/14/2014 At our service this morning, Rev. Mike and Patt Behler got us into the holiday spirit, singing lots of Christmas Carols.  Some of them were childish and some were overtly Christian, but it was an opportunity to reconnect with the holidays’ childhood sense of fun, and perhaps to reconnect too with some of the…

12/7/2014 This morning, Kathlene Woodruff of the local YMCA addressed our Fellowship about the work of her organization, particularly their Respite Care events, which provide a safe, supervised place for foster children and give their foster parents some needed time for themselves.  Although “YMCA” stands for “Young Men’s Christian Association,” through its long history the…

12/1/2014 Sunday morning, Courtney Waters, Teen Librarian of Missouri River Regional Library, visited us to talk about Banned Books.  Thankfully we don’t live in a country where books are banned nationwide, and even the local bannings that remove books from schools and libraries are not very commonly enacted (although they are very commonly proposed).  So…

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…

11/23/2014 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…

9/7/2014 This Sunday was our annual Water Communion.  With the summer travel season wrapping up, we gathered our members and friends back to our Fellowship home bearing water from many moments and places, and we brought the water together on our altar to mark another year in our Fellowship’s journey together. This week, our Fellowship…

8/25/2014 Our members continued to watch events unfold in Ferguson, Missouri last week, and in our service Sunday we remembered that beyond looking at the events there and the wider patterns of racism and politics they represent, we must look to our own community.  Kevin Rome, President of Lincoln University, addressed the Fellowship and was…

8/10/2014 This morning, our own Don Love brought us a message about his experience in Unitarian Universalist Religious Education in the 1950s.  Some of the lessons have stayed with him to this day, like a lesson about the story of the Blind Men and the Elephant.  A story from another culture highlighted a universal truth:…

8/3/2014 Dear UUFJC Members and Friends, This morning, Rev. Nancy brought our attention to the “Verdant, Chaotic Green” of the Summer season and recalled the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who called us to be truly alive to the wonder of the world around us. Part of being alive to that wonder is being mindful…

8/31/2014 At our service this morning, Seth Bauman of the Missouri Juvenile Justice Association addressed the Fellowship on the ways our juvenile justice system disproportionately impacts youth of color.  People are doing good work, moving the system toward a focus on restoration and rehabilitation, but progress is needed at every stage of the process, from…

7/27/2014 Today, our own Betty Cooper traced for us the idea of justice, from Plato’s justice in ancient Greece to today’s movement toward Restorative Justice.  How can we acknowledge harms done and obligations owed while moving both victim and offender toward wholeness in a healed community? UUFJC News and Events this week: The August Newsletter…

7/20/2014 Today, Rev. Mike brought us a message about Jeremiah, who is remembered as a major Hebrew prophet despite being unpopular in his own day.  He told the people of Judea just what they didn’t want to hear — about how they failed the most vulnerable among them, about whether their political strategies were workable.…

7/14/2014 Yesterday, both our Forum led by Bob Boldt and our Sunday message by Don Love focused on the German philosopher Hannah Arendt.  Arendt is most famous for the idea of “The Banality of Evil,” developed in response to the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.  Eichmann argued (truly or not) that he was…

7/6/2014 Today, Rev. Nancy brought us a message for Independence Day weekend, when we celebrate America as a land of liberty and justice.  Nancy asked which comes first, the liberty or the justice, and concluded that they are always intertwined.  To truly follow them in their conjoined spiral dance, we must look beyond liberty and…

6/23/2014 Yesterday, our own Jim Davis brought us a message about the fascinating history of University City, Missouri (a suburb of St. Louis) and its founder, Edward Gardner Lewis (Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Gardner_Lewis).  Lewis published a magazine for women and founded the American Woman’s League, as well as an Art Academy, People’s University, and a mail-order People’s Bank.…

6/15/2014 Today, we had a potluck celebration to say goodbye to the Ordway family, who have been a part of our Fellowship community for many years and now are moving away.  We wish them the best in their new home and new work, and we look forward to the times when they can come back…

6/9/2014 Yesterday, Michael Lester visited us from The NEEED Project to talk about Heart of Missouri Gardens and their general mission to find local solutions for “Nutrition, Energy, Environment and Economic Development.”  The organization is working on providing fresh, wholesome food for local charities — the Senior Center is already getting a taste — and even fighting Global Warming,…

6/1/2014 Usually I take this space to recap the message from service, but this week I wanted to talk about the Adult Forum we had this morning.  Bob Boldt led us and some guests in a forum focused on poetry.  Several of us brought poems to read aloud, from the universal spiritual themes of Khalil…

5/26/2014 Yesterday we held our service at Memorial Park pavilion to enjoy the beautiful weather and delicious food, including cookout fare from some of our grillmaster members.  In such leisurely surroundings, Rev. Mike brought us a message about the paradox of action and contemplation; we feel like we have to do one or the other…

5/19/2014 Yesterday our members came together to live out the 5th Unitarian Principle (the one about democratic process etc.) with our Annual Business Meeting.  We adopted resolutions supporting marijuana decriminalization and a constitutional amendment to reclaim elections from corporate money.  We also elected a new slate of officers, so say hello to your 2014-2015 Board…