Sunday Services: 11:00 am949 West 49th Ave, Vancouver, BC V5Z 2T1Office: 604-261-7204 |  |
It’s no secret that we’re contending with a world awash in bullying, post-truth, and alternative facts. Unitarians are committed by covenant to a “free and responsible search for truth and meaning.”
We look at what’s being called the new war on truth and consider how we could and should fight back
It’s the season of Samhain/Halloween/Day of the Dead. For the fourteenth time, we summon eminent ancestors from our Unitarian Universalist history to experience their stories. Join us to welcome these visitors from the past: an occasion to reckon our good fortune as heirs of an amazing religious tradition.
Ancestors:
Andrzej Wiszowaty 1608-1678
Hannah Greg 1766-1828
Fannie Farmer 1857-1915
Adlai Stevenson 1900-65
The poem that opens this podcast is an excerpt from Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman.
See previous Ancestors services at: http://vancouverunitarians.ca/topic/ancestors/
The venerable Rev. Fred is our featured speaker. He writes “Many religious people have devoted their lives to seeking a religious experience. One fellow named Mert asked (Methodist) Bishop Quayle, ‘Bishop, how can I have an experience of God?’ The bishop said, ‘Well, Mert, go into a deep forest….’.”
Fred finishes the story in his sermon.
Dr. Bruce McIvor, lawyer and historian, is principal of First Peoples Law Corporation. Bruce represents First Nations across Canada. His recent and ongoing work includes litigation involving treaty rights, the duty to consult and Aboriginal title. He also works with numerous clients across Canada to negotiate agreements based on consent and recognition of their Indigenous laws and jurisdiction.
Bruce is a proud Métis from the Red River in Manitoba.
Jen Rashleigh shares stories, learnings and dreams from Growing Eden, a garden-based program in South East Vancouver for refugee and immigrant families.
In the wake and ripples of #metoo and #timesup, and the rising tide of men’s rights activists and incels, what does it mean to Reimagine Masculinity, as a recent conference in Victoria encouraged? What does it mean now to be a boy or a man, and how can we heal the wounds that lead too many men to harm others, and themselves? What does Unitarian Universalism offer to the dialogue on a re-imagined masculinity? By Chris Wulff.
Our world is on the edge. The situation is urgent, and suddenly we have startling opportunities. Our responses as global citizens can regenerate a civilization with more joy, abundance, and life-affirming relationships than most people and other creatures experience now. Collaborative grassroots energies are “connecting to life” together for a fair and equitable future. This is rooted in shared awareness of the interdependence of all life, a universal ethic of dignity and respect, and the priority of love and care for the ecosystems of earth, including humans.
Louise is a current Board Member of the MultiFaith Action Society (MAS), the oldest interfaith organization in Canada. For over 40 years MAS has fostered public and comprehensive spiritual awareness of the capacity of world religions to help nurture global peace and harmony.
I always knew I was a Unitarian, but I didn’t know I had ADHD for 29 years of my life. When I was diagnosed, suddenly a lifetime of nameless frustrations made sense. Not only wasn’t I somehow broken, but I was in no way alone in my experiences. With this new understanding of why my square peg could never be jammed into the round hole it was given, and the memory of a lifetime of isolation, the 2017 CUC vision of a world in which our interdependence calls us to love and justice speaks to me profoundly. Let me tell you why.
Most of us are comfortable thinking about our physical bodies, the ones made so substantially out of electron clouds, protons, space, and perhaps dark energy. We’re often less comfortable thinking about our mysterious minds – what they are, where they’re located, and the self which may be part of the mind.
Perhaps most mysterious of all is something we call spirit. Lying in hospital recently, recovering from open heart surgery, I started thinking about these things, and about the spiritual impulse that brings many people to the Unitarian Universalist movement. As I lay there, the idea of a Spirit Flag kept rising in my mind. This is an account of my Spirit Flag.
And a brief comment about Canada Day.
June 11 is designated “National Day of Healing and Reconciliation” whose aim is to “effect healing and reconciliation among all races, creeds and denominations residing in Canada.”
Did we know how wide and deep that aim is? And what does is mean to heal and reconcile? What would that look like?
