theme: Questioning
Services include sermons preached by Rev. Andrew Clive Millard unless otherwise noted.
On-Line Service!
2pm on Saturday, August 4th: https://www.facebook.com/events/430987390740005/
During the last few Winters, we’ve held on-line services on Facebook when weather prevented us from meeting at the Sanctuary on a Sunday morning. As well as providing a way for members to gather in community, a number of former members and friends from further away were glad to be able to participate. This on-line service will be held on a Saturday afternoon, primarily as training for members of the Sunday Services Committee, but you are welcome to join in, too!
August 5th: “Your One Wild and Precious Life”
For most of us in our workaday lives, opportunities to be, in the words of poet Mary Oliver, “idle and blessed” are few and far between. And yet that is our romantic ideal of a Summer day, born of our culture’s collective memory of (pre-digital) childhood. How do we seek out that simple yet focused state now? How do we pay attention to what really matters right in front of us?
August 12th: “A Necessary Skepticism”
René Descartes said, “If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” It is only by questioning what we believe and how we live that we test the quality of our beliefs and our ethics. Only when we are willing to question will our faith grow.
The Rev. Cynthia Snavely lives in Hayes with her son-in-law, currently stationed at Fort Eustis, her daughter, and her four grandsons. She has served Unitarian Universalist congregations in North Carolina, Maryland, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Cynthia is a graduate of Lebanon Valley College and Drew Theological School.
August 19th: “Life, the Universe, and Everything”
According to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is the number 42. To understand that Answer, though, requires knowing what the Ultimate Question actually is! Indeed, our task is not only to find answers to our questions about Life, the Universe, and Everything, but to find better questions to ask.
August 26th: “The Endless Human Quest”
As educators and academics have studied how people of all ages learn, they have concluded that one of the bigger determinants of success is not intrinsic talent or sheer effort but a willingness by teachers and students alike to believe that ability can be developed and that mistakes can be instructive. This is known as a growth mindset, that trusts in the abundance of opportunities to learn, rather than a fixed mindset, that assumes they are scarce. How does that apply to religion?