Sermons & Newsletter – UU Church of Rutland

“Activism as a Spiritual Practice”
Activism as a spiritual practice allows us to dig in and take responsibility for our own small part of the planet. With the lead up to presidential elections starting so much sooner, and anxiety over national politics, digging in helps us focus on the good we can do right here.

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Kathy Harm purchased a sermon topic at last year’s auction, and she’s chosen our fifth principle, “…The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large”. She asked to explore: what if the democratic process doesn’t yield the just or right result? By itself, would it provide basic rights? If the democratic process doesn’t provide the results we’re committed to as UUs, what do we do? This is certainly a very timely topic!

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For a relatively small church, we have significant impact. Our members and friends enjoy our church community with all its services, activities and opportunities. We open our doors to the wider community through concerts, open-mike evenings, and other community events. How can we best sustain all we do, and do it even more effectively?

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The experience of illness and healing is central to our humanity. In modern medicine, the path to healing is often frustratingly obscured by uncertainty and doubt. There’s diagnostic uncertainty, doubt in our ability to heal, and skepticism toward medicine as a whole. This contributes greatly to the suffering that comes with illness. I will investigate the theme of doubt in medicine with contributions from ancient Greece, Native American spirituality, and my own clinical practice.

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November 4th: Joe Kraus: “Project Vision: One Town’s Innovative Response to Decline and Addiction” This will be a brief overview of how Project Vision came to be, what it has achieved and the challenges that remain.

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“Go Tell Mary: a Reflection on Service, Sacrifice, and Burn-Out”
As UU’s, our calling is to make love effective in the world through service to others and opposition to injustice. It can be fulfilling, but it can also wear us out. Rev. Barnaby Feder reflects on some ways to embrace that reality.

We live in what is perhaps the most individualistic country in the world, yet our UU principles call on us to attend to, and draw strength from, the larger community. Resolving this conflict is important to our personal happiness and our spiritual growth.

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The past forty years have seen a dramatic increase in the accumulation of wealth and political influence in the hands of relatively few Americans. Beginning with the onset of deregulation and the abandonment of the Bretton Woods system in 1974, wealth inequality in the United States has skyrocketed to the point that the wealthiest 1% of the population owns more wealth than the bottom 50%. This talk examines the origins and fallout of that process, and identifies the fundamental disconnect between the values and morals of American capitalism and democracy.

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May 27th: Nancy Banks
“The Challenge of Change: A Call to Action”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. exhorted people “to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas … and to face the challenge of change.” For most of us this challenge can be daunting. On Sunday May 27th, Nancy Banks, former Executive Director of UU Mass Action, will talk about how UUs around the country have created to state advocacy networks to wake up to the possibilities of action that are needed today.

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