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Ministers Column December 2019

12/02/19 by

Dear Ones:
When I explain Unitarian Universalism to people who have no familiarity with our faith, it is predictable that those who have at least some exposure to Christianity will ask some version of this question: If you do not believe Jesus is the son of God, why do you celebrate Christmas? It might also be this question: If you do not believe in the virgin birth (or the star, or the wise men, etc.,) why do you celebrate Christmas? A corollary question, which is even more difficult to answer: If you do not believe in the resurrection of Jesus, why do you celebrate Easter?

I am not sure why, but this year, I am finding these kinds of questions frustrating. It is not the people who ask them—they are usually genuinely curious. What is frustrating is the uncritical assumption that a full-on, heartfelt embrace of Christmas requires a very specific set of beliefs. I am frustrated at having to explain (or at anticipating having to explain) that belief is only one pathway into Christmas. So much of what happens at Christmas has nothing to do with belief. It has to do with culture, family traditions, and the survival of ancient pre-Christian rituals. And it has to do with hope. The earth begins tilting its northern latitudes back toward the sun on the winter solstice. For millennia that phenomenon inspired hope in human hearts. Christianity came along relatively recently in the grand scheme of human history and grafted its stories and beliefs onto a more ancient and diffuse set of celebrations.

I do not read the Biblical stories about the birth of Jesus through the lens of belief. I read them as stories of hope—hope for peace on our planet. And that is all I am going to say when people ask me this year. I am a hopeful person. Moreover, our Unitarian Universalist faith is a hopeful faith. We celebrate Christmas—we worship on Christmas Eve—because we are hopeful people. And like everyone else, we hunger for hopeful messages, hopeful stories, hopeful visions. Like everyone else, we need that reminder that love keeps breaking into the world, repeatedly, bringing healing, transformation, and peace.

Yes, that is what I am going to say this year. We are hopeful people. We celebrate Christmas as, among other things, a way to affirm hope, to instill hope in our hearts, and to spread hope into a hurting world.

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On another note: A friend of UUS:E is looking for housing, preferably an apartment with one bedroom that can accommodate two twin beds in the Manchester, Vernon or Rockville area, and preferably on or near a bus line. She can afford a maximum of $700. If you know of any leads, please let me know, and I will forward the info.

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Friends: I wish you the very best holiday season, a Merry Christmas, and a very happy new year.

With love,

—Rev. Josh

 

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Memorial Garden Rededication

05/21/19 by

We Dedicate This Garden

(Rev. Josh Pawelek)

One: As a place to hold the ashes of our deceased loved-ones, our liberal religious siblings, our spiritual ancestors—a place for their spirits to rest…

All: We dedicate this garden.

One: As a place to remind us of our highest values, our Unitarian Universalist principles,

our deepest commitments and our most enduring loves…

All: We dedicate this garden.

One: As a place for silence, for quiet contemplation, for meditation, and for prayer…

All: We dedicate this garden.

One: As a place for communion with Nature, communion with the birds, the deer, the turkeys, the coyotes, the turtles, the trees, the shrubs, the grasses…

All: We dedicate this garden…

One: As a place to experience oneness, to apprehend “the peace of wild things,” the

peace that resides at the heart of creation…

All: We dedicate this garden.

One: As a place to receive our ashes when it is our time to die, a place for our spirits to rest, to sing, to dance, in the midst of all the living things that grace this land with their presence…

All: We dedicate this garden.

One: Amen and blessed be.

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Interfaith Vigil for Orlando

06/13/16 by

Join  Muslim, Jewish, Christian and Unitarian Universalist leaders for a

vigil in honor of the victims of Sunday’s mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando

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Wednesday, June 15th at 7:00 PM

Unitarian Universalist Society: East

153 West Vernon St., Manchester, CT

All are welcome. 

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For information call (860) 646-5151 or email [email protected]

 

 

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P.E.A.C.E.

11/04/12 by

P is For (Chris Sims)

Peace can enhance a performance. Endurance peacefully is enormous. Eradicating indifference, this is significant.

We pursue the kindred with a purpose. Peace is incredible. Indicating that we can stop hating.

Hope in peace is definitely possible. Predicting bright futures, we connect in person, on cell phones, through the connections on our computers.

Connecting, six degrees of separation, we imagine a most peaceful nation. Liberation. A continuation.

Visualizing a world yet to come. Peace is the sun. We sit on Sundays hoping for a peaceful transformation.

P makes a sound. We pronounce prophetically the “peace language.” Which equates love, life, positive energy, divinity. Peace is who I am. Peace is what I was born to be.

We take peace to the people, peace to the streets, peace to the Occupy movement, peace as improvement to politics gone bad. Peace is needed now, not to be considered something we used to have.

Worldwide: marches, gatherings, demonstrations, war torn nations, in soup lines, empty factories and assembly lines, we all seek peace.

 

E is for Energy (Rev. Josh Pawelek)

Energy is necessary for peace. Energy unleashed and available for the work of hands holding hands, hands holding hammers for pounding nails, hands holding sandbags before storms, hands holding blankets around homeless children, women, men.

Hands holding signs against war, holding signs against greed, holding signs against hate, holding signs for peace, for fairness, for justice, for loving who you love, for being who you are.

Hands holding hands, keeping us together, connected, one, whole, unified.

Energy is necessary for the making of peace because so much energy is harnessed for the making of war. So many hands hold in place systems that build the weapons of war: the same systems that can’t seem to house every person, can’t seem to feed every person, can’t seem to give health care to every person. The same systems that put a bullet in every gang-banger’s gun, that launch a drone strike over every village in Waziristan, that build a new Jim Crow prison cell for one out of every three black and brown men.

This is no time for entropy, for running down to disorder.

This is a time for organizing our energy for the waging of peace, organizing our hearts for the collective, common yearning for peace, organizing our voices for the collective common speaking of peace, organizing our melodies for the collective, common singing of peace, organizing our bodies for the collective, common dancing of peace, organizing our lives for collective, common peaceful living.

Peace is gonna take energy, organized energy.

 

A is for Ascension (Chris Sims)

A is for us ascension, not for us depending on politicians to pull us out of poverty and homelessness. There is no peace in not having any progress.

We can ascend if only we begin to take another look at being our brothers and sisters  keeper. At “we are the change we’ve been waiting for.” Taking a collective attitude towards allowing ourselves to recognize our own leadership.

Peaceful people asking the right questions of our leaders, our representatives, our school districts, our bosses. The losses have cost us too much.

What impoverished woman knows peace? What homeless man sees peace? What unequally educated child experiences peace?

We can acquire this ascension. We can remain determined. We can create our own jobs. Self-sufficiency in a time where talk is too much. We need real answers.

All we have is us. All we need is us.

Conversations, collectives, calls for action.

We will rise. We will elevate. We will accomplish a better way by being in unison and peace amongst one another.

 

C is for Contemplation (Rev. Josh Pawelek)

Yes we will accomplish a better way.

We each have a role to play in making peace, crafting peace, waging peace, sustaining peace.

What is my role? What is your role?

Ah. . . . Good question. Pause. Wait a moment. Wait another moment. Breathe. It’s OK. Take time for contemplation. Don’t skip this part. The movement won’t move that quickly, won’t leave you behind, won’t leave us behind. Building a lasting peace takes time—takes time after time after time.

Take time for contemplation, because starting out, we must be centered.

Starting out, we must be grounded.

Starting out, we must be mindful.

Starting out, we must be peaceful inside.

Starting out we must know, trust, believe in our minds, hearts, bones, spirits:

All life is sacred.

All life is holy.

All life is music, is magic, is mystery.

All life matters.

Knowing, trusting, believing this in our minds, hearts, bones, spirits will keep us steady,

keep us focused,

keep us resilient,

keep us strong,

keep us gentle,

keep us creative,

keep us courageous

keep us keeping our siblings.

Take time for contemplation. Don’t skip this part. Only peaceful people build peaceful neighborhoods, peaceful communities, peaceful cities, peaceful nations, a peaceful world.

Take time for contemplation.

 

E is For…  (Chris Sims)

Elevation; equality; Echoes of ancestors and freedom fighters Who once fought for peace. Who could see the coming nations living in a land of peace.

E is for elegance: the elegance of children smiling, because they know peace and can teach us adults more about peace.

E is for education: we must educate one another about calm, serenity, collective behavior that creates peace.

Positive. Energy. Always. Creates. Elevation.

We need that in this leading nation. This struggling nation.

Peace is patience. Peace is power. Let peace be the word of the hour. The word of the hour.

May all of the children whisper peace in their sleep. May all of the women sing about peace. May all of the men gather in peace as we live in multitudes and moments of community.

Imagine Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, John Lennon’s, and Ghandi’s peace existing today.

May we have peace.

May we seek peace.

E is for an eternal peace.

Peace for eternity.

 

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November Ministry Theme

10/29/12 by

Peace

by Marlene J. Geary Sunday Services Committee

“Large parts of the world are faced with starvation, while others are living in abundance. The nations were promised liberation and justice, but we have witnessed and are witnessing, even now, the sad specta­cle of liberating armies firing into populations who want their independence and social equality, and sup­porting in those countries by force of arms, such parties and personalities as appear to be most suited to serve vested interests. Territorial questions and arguments of power, obsolete though they are, still prevail over the essential demands of common welfare and justice.” – Albert Einstein, 10 December 1945, speak­ing on a Voice of America broadcast about world peace.

I listened to the speech above and thought “Well, not much has changed; the geography has simply shifted.”

In October, the Nobel Prize for Peace was awarded to the European Union [EU]. I remember hear­ing the news and thinking “um, why, exactly?” All I hear about these days are the economic problems go­ing on in Europe. So I went and looked it up and the Nobel Organization had this to say:

“For over six decades [the EU] contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democ­racy and human rights in Europe”. (“The Nobel Peace Prize 2012”. Nobelprize.org. 17 Oct 2012)

Fair enough. Sixty years ago, Europe was just a few years into rebuilding after the second world war. Germany was still occupied by four separate powers. The Marshall Plan had just ended and the vari­ous economies within Europe were on their developmental way up. Groups of European countries were forming that would later coalesce into the powerful economic, political and diplomatic force that the Euro­pean Union is today. The Nobel Organization goes on to say that in the seventy years prior to this period in the 1950s, France and Germany fought three separate wars and it is an achievement to have reached a point in 2012 where war between France and Germany is inconceivable.

And further, democracy has been introduced to three former dictatorships: Greece, Spain and Portu­gal. We no longer think of Europe as strictly “East” and “West” in the Cold War sense, not since the Berlin Wall was torn down and the countries in the Eastern bloc were brought into the union. The European Un­ion has done much to restore balance to the countries of the Balkan peninsula. And Turkey has made sig­nificant advances in the field of human rights as a part of its effort to achieve full member status of the European Union. All of this was mentioned as a part of the reason the EU was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.

I wonder what Albert Einstein would say about this new Europe, this union of 2012. Sure, there are still power and economic struggles and vast philosophical differences between and inside of the countries of the European Union. Europe was torn in half by the Iron Curtain for decades. In 1945 and for many years afterwards, it was barely possible to hope for more than formally strained relations. But here we are: peace in Europe is a Nobel reality.

The wars beginning in Europe in the 20th century alone wreaked devastation upon the entire planet and killed millions upon millions of people, often by the tens of thousands in a single day. If Europe can find believable Nobel peace after all of that, then maybe we can believe that the countries of other regions of the world can, too.

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