GETTING OLDER: THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY Thoreau said “Every time something is gained, something is lost.” When it comes to aging, it’s easy to see what is lost but rather hard to see what is gained. A meditation. Joan Shiels is a longtime friend and a frequent...

HOW DO WE KNOW IF WE’RE DOING ANY GOOD? As well-meaning people or institutions, is there a way to measure our impact on the world? If so, should we crack down on the delinquents? If not, then what? Rev. Paul Beckel has served the First Universalist Unitarian Church of Wausau...

THE MORAL URGENCY OF CLIMATE CHANGE SRC and the Climate Change Coalition will continue to explore the most serious threat facing the planet and thus all life on Earth, using background materials from Bill McKibben, climate change activist, with science and researched examples by Kathleen Dean Moore, PhD, nature writer...

IMPROVISATION, FREEDOM AND THE MEANING OF JAZZ Jazz, much like Unitarian Universalism, is essentially an improvised democratic process that is constantly changing and evolving. It combines the most individualistic act of the solo with the collective decision-making of the group. James will touch on the origins of jazz and also...

SOWN IN TEARS: UNITARIAN LETTERS FROM BLEEDING KANSAS Rev. Dr. Bobbie Groth will talk about her great, great grandfather, the Unitarian missionary to the Kansas Territory in 1855, and reflect upon the lessons for our time in her book, The Incredible Story of Ephraim Nute: Scandal, Bloodshed, and Unitarianism on...

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH OTHER CREATURES Why do we know so little and care so little about the many creatures with whom we share this planet?  We will, very briefly, visit five “animals.”  A couple that are reasonably familiar, for example a white-tailed deer, and several that are less familiar, for...

Sharon Auberle, David Clowers, Larry Eriksson, Hanne Gault, Phil Hansotia, Cynthia Johnson, Estella Lauter, Cynthia Oliver, Nancy Rafal, Jack Redell, Henry Timm One of the seven principles Unitarian Universalists agree to affirm and promote is “respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” On...

THE COURAGE TO BE A CYNIC Typically we use the word cynicism to mean belief in nothing and criticism of everything. But its original definition was not simply unreflective naysaying and whining, but an opposition and questioning of ordinary cultural values. The ancient Greek cynics were a highly disciplined resistance...

WOMEN’S SPIRITUALITY In the 1970s and ’80s, the idea of “women’s spirituality” gained traction in the U.S. as a result of extensive research into pre-patriarchal religions and the original languages of mainstream religious texts, along with the publication of religious thought by women that went back to the Middle Ages! ...

GOD BLESS THE IRISH A number of years ago Thomas Cahill wrote a book entitled “How the Irish Saved Civilization”. He begins the book with a negative observation: When we think of people as civilized, the Egyptians, and the Greeks, the Italians and the French, the Chinese and the Jews may...