On rare occasions, it is an honour in this congregation to recognize an individual for their outsized and enduring contributions over time to this church and the wider Unitarian community. In accordance with the By-Laws of the Unitarian Church of Vancouver, the Board of Trustees can extend a Life Membership in this congregation—that means, no matter where life may take this person, they hold an honoured place in our hearts and minds and all the privileges of membership in the Unitarian Church of Vancouver.
Today it is my privilege to call Mary Bennett to the stage to receive an Award of Life Membership in this congregation.
Mary has been an active member of UCV for more than a quarter century. She served with distinction as Executive Director of the Canadian Unitarian Council in those extraordinary first years when the UUA and the CUC separated institutionally, and was tasked with helping to create a new and distinct national religious denomination. She has served in a range of capacities in this congregation that I can’t keep track of—and that’s a good thing: from Nominating Committee to Forum Coordinator, from creator of labyrinths, to stick handling the publication of UCV Events. Mary has been an effective celebrant of worship services, Circle Dancing Organizer, and instigator and organizer of Hygge dinners. And I’ve so appreciated finding out how, behind the scenes, she has encouraged and supported volunteer service at 49th and Oak, and for tending to myriad details on our website and our communications.
For all this and much more, Mary Bennett, please accept this award of Life Membership with our sincere thanks.
Mary Bennett and Mairy Beam are sharing a worship service on the morning of August 20th.
We will talk about our experience on sacred circle dance as spiritual path.
Throughout the service (and the prelude) songs from Singing the Living Tradition and Singing the Journey will be played, sung and danced.
Can you join us? It would involve being at the church by 10:30 am on August 20th and being part of a rehearsal in advance. When we know who’s in, we’ll find a time and date that will work for all of us.
Nicola Hamilton will be the soloist leading the songs. Eric Wyness will be the pianist.
Contact Mary if you can be part of what we hope will be an inspiring and joyful worship service.
Come and enjoy a hyggelei (cosy) potluck dinner with a few other Unitarian church members and friends at the home of Melody Mason (in Kitsilano) this coming Thursday, June 29th. RSVP to [email protected]
The evening will include a salon-style discussion about civil liberties.
Melody is on the board of the BC Civil Liberties Association. She’s concerned about, among other things, collection and retention of data by governmental agencies, the state of our prison system and privacy issues especially as it relates to the internet.
She’s interested in both sharing her own knowledge including BCCLA’s stance on these issues and also hearing from you about your take on these important issues and how UCV can engage with these issues.
The BCCLA’s policy director, Michael Vonn, has spoken at UCV Forums including the assisted dying issue.
BCCLA’s current priorities are working on solitary confinement, reforming the assisted dying act and data privacy and retention of data by government agencies. Also an issue Melody feels would be of interest to you is Anti-SLAPP legislation. Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (“SLAPPs”) are when Big Resources (private or public sector) sue Little Resources (individuals, non-profit organizations) in order to silence them.
Melody feels Unitarians will be interested in the work of BCCLA in protecting ciil rights and hopes we might support some of the issues through actions such as letter writing to senators and members of parliament.
Come and discuss. It’ll be an interesting evening!
Melody is on the Environment Committee and ushers on the first Sunday of every month.
You can hear Michael Vonn on CBC IDEAS in the afternoon next Monday.
Monday, June 26 POLICING: OLD COPS, NEW EXPECTATIONS Counter-terrorism, fighting cybercrime, policing highly diverse societies:
Can the police do it all? Should the police do it all? Do the police want to do it all? Cal Corley, CEO of the Community Safety Knowledge Alliance, and former Assistant Commissioner with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; Inspector Shawna Coxon, Toronto Police Service; Micheal Vonn, Policy Director, B.C. Civil Liberties Association; and moderator Ron Levi, Director of the Munk School’s Global Justice Lab, weigh the implications, the challenges and the trade-offs for the police, for justice and for all of us.
Taking a walk on the planted labyrinth, you’ll see a lot more detail than the view from outside.
Here’s what’s showing up on June 15, 2017.Thank you, Darlene, for enjoying walking the labyrinth in the rain in her bare feet and taking these photos as well.
There are strawberries, lambs ears blossoms, geraniums, and the calendulas are just beginning.
Labyrinth: April 29, 2017 Photo: Gail StephanLabyrinth: April 29, 2017 Photo: Gail StephanThe Courtyard Labyrinth is made in this pattern. A 3-circuit Cretan square style. The entrance is by the central doors in Hewett Centre.
There are two new labyrinths in town, thanks in part to Mary Bennett, who says that although walking a labyrinth can be a form of meditation, it’s also a process with a beginning, a middle and an end. Photograph By Dan Toulgoet
From a distance, it can be weird to see people walking by themselves slowly in a circle. Up close, it can still look odd. But when you understand the intention of people pacing a labyrinth, it is charming and enticing.
By definition, labyrinths can often be almost invisible. A new one at the Unitarian Church of Vancouver could be mistaken merely for a nice design in the paving stones of a courtyard. On the other hand, many are elaborate and unmistakable. There are, according to a global database of labyrinths, no fewer than 10 in the city of Vancouver that are open to the public and dozens more throughout the province. But who are the people who find comfort or spiritual fulfilment in this ancient yet unusual pursuit? It’s a diverse group, from pagans to devout Christians, atheists to New Agers.
There are two new labyrinths in town, thanks in part to Mary Bennett, a Vancouver woman who is the former executive director of the Canadian Unitarian Council and a regular at the 49th and Oak Unitarian church. She and two friends stumbled upon the idea of labyrinths about 20 years ago during a women’s spirituality conference.
“People have sometimes described it as a meditative technique that works better for Western people because it’s active rather than sitting passively,” says Bennett. “I find it useful as a kind of walking meditation.”
Another thing that appeals to her is that some of the fundamental labyrinth designs appeared throughout the ancient world at remarkably different locations — Scandinavia, South America and parts of what are now the southwestern United States.
In Greek mythology, Daedalus constructed the first labyrinth to contain the half-man, half-beast Minotaur and nearly got lost in it himself. The point of today’s labyrinths, though, is not to get lost like you might in a corn maze or to replicate a house of mirrors. Most have a single path leading from the mouth to the middle.
The classic Cretan or seven circuit labyrinth is designed like the double-headed axe (“labrys”) of the Minoan mother goddess of Crete. Another of the most common styles is the Chartres labyrinth, which resembles a four-petalled flower, designed in the 13th century at the French cathedral.
Rather more recent are the two labyrinths at the Unitarian church.
“There is a courtyard area that we thought could accommodate a small labyrinth and this year they were replacing some of the concrete there and fortunately somebody remembered that we had had hopes and dreams of having a labyrinth there,” Bennett says. Using concrete pavers, they embedded a labyrinth into the concrete. A second one, on the east side of the church property, will be a garden labyrinth.
“It’s still kind of a work in progress, but you can walk it,” she says of the garden version. “It’s not as beautiful as it will be next year at this time.”
While walking a labyrinth can be a form of meditation, she says, it is also a process with a beginning, a middle and an end.
“What people say, and I do experience this myself, is when you walk into the centre, you could walk in with some kind of phrase on your mind, or an intention,” says Bennett. “But sometimes, and this is what I usually do, just kind of open.”
People will occasionally begin walking with their palms up until they get to the centre. This is a gesture of openness.
“And then in the centre, sometimes, if you have a labyrinth experience,” she says with a laugh, “you receive what I say is… not necessarily an answer to your question or dilemma, but some kind of a response.”
Quite simply, she admits, it is probably just a matter of finding the answer you seek once you quiet yourself.
“Then, on the way out, people sometimes walk turning their hands palm-side-down to kind of ground that intention,” she says.
Bennett does more than just walk labyrinths. She is part of a group called G.L.A.D. — The Gathering for Labyrinth Art and Dance. The group meets the third Thursday of each month — the next one is Sept. 15 — from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Unitarian church.
“The first half-hour is doing art, usually relating to labyrinths, drawing labyrinths, painting labyrinths on stones, making labyrinths out of clay,” she says. Labyrinth art allows you to “walk” a labyrinth with your eyes or trace it with your finger. “Then the second half-hour, if it’s good weather, we go out and walk one of the two labyrinths that have just been put in at the church over the past year and then the last hour is doing circle dancing together.”
Circle dancing is not very proscribed. It is just what it says, a group of people dancing without partners in a circle to music of any sort.
“Most recently, the first dance that I choreographed, I took one of Buffy Sainte-Marie’s songs from her Polaris-winning album ‘Power in the Blood,’ It’s called ‘We are Circling.’ It just called out to be danced to.”
The Unitarians aren’t the only ones in the city getting into labyrinths. At least four Anglican churches in town have labyrinths, including St. Paul’s, in the West End, which does a big celebration around the labyrinth on New Year’s Eve. There are labyrinths in the Renfrew Ravine, in Strathcona Linear Park and at VanDusen Botanical Garden.
“It had a real surge 20 or 25 years ago,” Bennett says of modern humans’ interest in the design and practice, adding that there are probably plenty that almost no one knows about. “People sometimes just install them in their backyard if they got the space.”
When I jokingly made a new year’s resolution to become spiritually developed and have matching towels, I had no idea where that would lead.
This church was one of three religious groups I checked out back in 1989–and with all of its (and my) warts and all, this is what stuck. I joined in 1991 after “just browsing” for two years.
Mary joined the congregation in 1991 after “just browsing” for two years and has been an active member ever since. She was the Executive Director of the Canadian Unitarian Council from 2000-2008. In 2017, she was given the award of lifetime member.
You’ll find her gardening the labyrinth, at circle dance events as well as most Sunday mornings.
Mary usually offers at least one worship service each year, sometimes including the annual Fire Communion in late December.
She enjoys sacred circle dancing at the church and elsewhere. She’s a graduate of Paganism 101 course and is dreaming up a circle dance cum pagan ritual for the coming year.
As chair of the Connect and Engage Membership subcommittee, she loves helping new members get connected with the community.
As well as the Unitarian church, she’s an active volunteer in her Kitsilano neighbourhood and at arts and culture events in Vancouver including the Fringe Festival, DOXA Documentary Film Festival and the Firehall Arts Centre Theatre.
A friend once commented that Mary was more likely to attend events where food was involved. That’s very true.
I’ve been a full member of this congregation since 2012. Among other things, I serve on the Worship Service Committee, the OWL (Our Whole Lives Sexuality Education) Committee, co-chaired the 2016-2017 Vision Task Force with Paul Prescod, and organized the congregation’s Young Adult Welcoming and Inclusion Project group. I’m trained as a THRRC (Truth, Healing and Reconciliation) facilitator, and in Spirit Play.
Ever since I learned the word, my favourite question has been “why?” which made me both a difficult child and an inevitable Unitarian Universalist. As a UU, I’m a liberal Christian, a student of Trickster, in conversation with the Buddha, a disciple of the great Sir Terry (Pratchett), and endlessly fascinated by the intricacies of the external and internal worlds.
As a human being, I’m a bisexual, genderfluid-female, Scots-German Canadian humanist storyteller and performer with ADHD. I’m an advocate for recognizing and celebrating plurality in faith, culture, ability, age, perspective, politics, sexuality, gender identity, relationship identity and (consensual) expression, and really the whole glorious tapestry of human existence. I’m not queer, but if pressed, I will accept the sobriquet “strange and wondrous.” It seems appropriate.
Whenever I go to a Unitarian church or event, I feel “at home”. Unitarian Universalists are diverse, and congregations are diverse, but I find some things are common in most of them.
They are one of the few places where different generations enjoy each other: from babies to centenarians. We are a rainbow of ages. Since I am a life-long Unitarian (I am also a Universalist, but too many syllables), I have experienced our religion from all the ages up to 72, so far.
A Vancouver Courier article featuring Karl from 2012.
I was born in 1945 in Detroit, Michigan. My mother was a devoted Unitarian. As a self-educated farm girl, she loved the honesty and intellectual stimulation she found in our church. As a child, Sunday School was sometimes boring, sometimes fascinating. I remember curricula like “Jesus, the Carpenter’s Son” and “The Church Across the Street”, but my favourite was a class led by an engineer, where we each made an “electric whirli-gig”, which spun like crazy when you plugged it in. It was thrilling to learn science from people who loved science.
When I moved from Detroit to Vancouver. Vancouver seemed like a whole city of Unitarians, compared to Detroit. I came to church once annually for the Thrift Sale.
My 40’s were marred by major depression. I found that worship services were the one place where I could break down and cry, and that felt so good. Our minister’s passionate and courageous sermons give me the courage to persevere. Church saved my life: feeling worthless, I found the worth in worship. Through psychiatry, I recovered from major depression. In 1993, I read Al Gore’s Earth in the Balance and realized the enormous challenge of Climate Change. I vowed to my son and his generation that I would do everything in my power to prevent his premature death in 2050 from civilization’s collapse due to climate change. I decided that the best place to put my volunteer energy was our church’s environment committee.
In 1999 I decided to spread my spiritual wings and became a lay chaplain for a six-year term.
I contribute what I can. I have a lot of confidence that when a need arises, our congregation will respond. We are a force for good. I’m so proud of our denomination, down through the centuries, and our present expression. We are blossoming, once again.
The evening will include a salon-style discussion about civil liberties.
Counter-terrorism, fighting cybercrime, policing highly diverse societies:
