If you do not select by category you will be presented with all sermons in descending date order. If you wish, you can select to view just previous sermons by our minister Rev. Barbara Threet, or previous sermons by guest ministers, or previous sermons by lay leaders. Selection is made by using the “Categories” drop down located in the right hand column of this page.
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What is (or should be) the purpose of education? My talk will explore this question as it relates to higher education in general and also more specifically within the context of the merger of Castleton University, Vermont Technical College, and Northern Vermont University (Johnson and Lyndon) into a single entity to be called Vermont State University.
In 1801, Thomas Jefferson said there should be a “wall of separation between church and state”. There wasn’t such a ‘wall’ in most states then, and that ‘wall’ seems be rapidly crumbling in many parts of our country now. What built that ‘wall’, what role did our religious forebears have in dismantling it, and why does separation of church and state matter now?
We assume that our system for selecting a president is the only way, even though the process is fraught with problems which can reap results that are real humdingers! Some Unitarians and Universalists from our past would have made excellent presidents – (I can dream) – so how can we ensure that this most powerful of jobs is filled by such people of competence, capability, and compassion? Come explore ideas of justice and hope for our future through our own UU heroic history, and by some daring presidential dreaming.
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The talk will focus on how to build a solidarity society, one that is compassionate and eco-friendly, and the values and qualities we need to draw on to make that happen.
In this Valentine’s Day month, we’ll explore how the end of the life of a loved one might affect those of us who loved them. Then we’ll create a collective memorial to those we’ve each lost by bringing a picture or a small memento of them, which we’ll share as we speak briefly about these ancestors.
Americans have been thinking about, feeling about, and debating the subject of equality for as long as we can remember. Some inequalities disturb us to the core. Some inequalities we have been taught to celebrate. Some of the same are hardly noticed. This talk looks at equality and inequality from a philosophical, religious, and historical perspective, and asks us all to consider just how our attitudes toward different forms of inequality have been shaped without leaving an inventory.
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