The real honor comes with our acknowledgement of the enormous responsibility that mothering and fathering is. To offer new mothers blessings for the journey. To honor the mothers we have or had. To honor the mothering we do – or did. To honor all mothers who do the best job it is within their wisdom and power to do. To […]
“They were not social thinkers, but their friends were. Their summer friends, in particular, harvested facts row on row from newspapers like mice on corncobs. The Maytrees were not always up -to-the-minute. Their city friends envied their peace.” — The Maytrees by Annie Dillard From this hour, freedom! “From this hour I ordain myself loos’d […]
Every time I go to my doctor for my annual or semi-annual exam, I am given a printout of my prescriptions. Although I am not fluent in the language of pharmaceuticals, I dutifully refresh my knowledge of what and why and when and how much. Recently I prescribed something similar to myself from myself regarding […]
“For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.” Aristotle 384-322 B.C. Should we be a little surprised that we can learn really important things from sources as diverse as Aristotle, Tiger Woods, and April-the-Giraffe? Hmmmm… Cynthia Johnson, a retired Unitarian Universalist minister who served UU congregations […]
There it is, a brand new year arrayed before us. How do we live attentively and bravely and authentically and lovingly in a year in that invites us to reexamine our own priorities of a hurting world? How do we help one another with the living of all 365 days of 2017? Let’s ask Michael […]
The Meaning of Life in Our Town in the Bleak Midwinter At the very same time, each of us can be an original thinker in the present with access to yesterday’s trove of wisdom. Advent is an invitation to be still enough to hear what’s inside our heart. I’ve been strolling around with Christine Rosseti, […]
Q: How is the Niagara Escarpment metaphorically related to Unitarian Universalist history? A: It’s time to look under the surface to see what we can see. We don’t talk much about UU history at UUFDC, mostly because here we’re so busy living in the present and trying to shape the future. It’s time to talk […]
Major anniversaries of significant achievements are worth celebrating, as we are doing this 20th anniversary of the founding of the Fellowship in 1996. UUFDC’s first building on Koessl Lane was formally dedicated with a lot of hoopla on June 11, 2000. Now it is our joy to hoopla with words and music, art exhibits and […]
“I look at this life as a puzzle without all the pieces in the box.” — Jonathan Anthony Burkett Thirteen UUFDC Members and Friends in their 60s, 70s, and 80s recently gathered to discuss how our lives were shaped by the Women’s Liberation movement of the 1970s. We talked and listened and pondered how our individual lives unfolded amidst a cultural shift […]
I came really close to naming the two recently-hatched bald eagles at the National Arboretum. Sunlight and Shadow. So perfect, I thought. But then, I probably should have noticed when the contest closed. I console myself with William Blake’s wisdom: [We were] made for joy and woe Then when this we rightly know Through the world we safely go. Joy […]