Sunday Services Gallery

Artemis Two’s photographs remind us our planet is just one of an uncountable number of planets circling an uncountable number of stars. But it is our home, our own Blue Boat Home. Help celebrate our earth with song, story, and plant sharing.

Helen Pluckrose is a British political and cultural commentator and a liberal humanist. Her work has addressed ideologically biased and shoddy academic publishing within cultural and identity studies and traced the evolution of postmodern thought into Critical Social Justice activism. She writes about why we should care about what is true, individual liberty, and our shared humanity. Ultimately, Helen wants to persuade people to value evidence-based epistemology and consistently liberal principles.

The Unitarian minister, Rev. Fred Wooden, challenged the Fellowship to learn more about its Unitarian roots, and we accepted the challenge! The 3-part series began in December when three members of the Fellowship described the surprising evolution of their personal religious and spiritual beliefs. Now, Part 2 will explore the roots of Unitarianism and how controversies led to changing beliefs. Unitarian “heretics” were burned at the stake? Who were they? And why? Was that evolution in belief still relevant to current UU controversies?

We can use the word “wonder” in a variety of ways. On one end, we have the wonder of the cosmos and of atoms, the things that bring us awe, great questions that will never be answered fully. On the other end, we can wonder how to spell a word, or what’s the weather outside, quotidian questions answered easily and immediately. I wish to explore the large space in between those two kinds of wondering, a realm where knowing dances with unknowing, and to suggest spiritual practices we might employ to encourage everyday wonder.

Because we are humans, we live in a human-sized scale model of the universe. Because we encounter the world through our minds, we try to fit it all into our model, into our minds. It doesn’t fit. Let’s try another perspective. Let’s get reoriented.

The Ten Commandments are back in the news, thanks to the Texas Legislature. Steve Brooks deconstructs them to offer a fresh take on morality and its supposed opposite: moral relativism. He shows how relativism can be a source of human progress, and how the key moral question is not, “Who is my God?” but “Who are my relatives?” Want to take the M-word back from the immoral minority? Here’s a way to start.

There’s an old joke, “If you see a fork in the road, take it.” The fork represents the uncertainty of our lives; seldom entirely sure about the choices we face. What if a good rule of thumb is to make the choice that’s the least convenient rather than the one that appears easiest? In this sermon, I’ll make the case for doing just that.

Have your beliefs about religion or spirituality changed since you were a child? What are they now? Want to find out? Try taking the Belief-O-Matic Quiz. See the link below. It’s fun. But is it wrong? During the service, three people will discuss their religious journeys from then until now. Was your journey different? Let’s find out. Link to the Belief-O-Matic Quiz: https://www.beliefnet.com/entertainment/quizzes/beliefomatic.aspx

The Beholder's Share: Art and the Mind Art historians consider the beholder's share to be all the necessary sensing, thought, experience, and interpretation that a viewer brings to a work of art. It's an idea that's at least a century old. Viewers are not passive, but actively bring their experience to bear upon the art, and this is necessary in order for the art to have meaning. More recently, neuroscientists have used the term to describe how the brain works. The conscious being is not a passive receiver of input; rather, the subconscious brings its previous experience to bear upon all of the senses. This is called Predictive Processing, and it forms - one might say creates - all of conscious experience. In this sermon, Rebecca ponders The Beholder's Share in literature, art, emotion, and memory.