We mark the start of a new church year by instituting an integrated, intergenerational curriculum based on monthly themes. Each month, from September 2009 through June 2010 worship, religious education, community outreach ministry, covenant groups and Wellspring Wednesday programs will offer opportunities to contemplate, consider, contend with and discuss a theological theme. Our hope is that this approach will bind us more closely together and inform our lives in effective and positive ways.
Newsletter Reflection (pdf)
Sermons
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Newsletter Reflection (pdf)
Books
Apprenticed to Hope, by Julie Neraas
The Impossible Will Take a Little While: a citizen's guide to hope in a time of fear, a timely and honest anthology of hope, edited by Paul Rogat Loeb.
An Interrupted Life and Letters from Westerbork, by Etty Hillesum, the diary and letters of a vibrant, articulate and artistic young woman writing in Nazi occupied Amsterdam.
Sermons
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Meditations and Readings
The Lifted Voice, the Open Ear (pdf) Karen Hering -- May 2, 2010
Newsletter Reflection (pdf)
Sermons
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Sermon Archive
Newsletter Reflection (pdf)
Books
Finding Beauty in a Broken World, by Terry Tempest Williams
Broken for You, by Stephanie Callos
Repair: the impulse to restore in a fragile world , by Elizabeth V. Spelman
Movies
Mystic River (2003) Clint Eastwood directs this film about the rule of the bone on the neighborhood streets of Boston Massachusetts. ‘Jimmy,’ ‘Dave’ and ‘Sean’ grew up together and although they went their separate ways, they remained connected. Tragedy brought them back together only to tear them apart. All of the performers are at their best. It is a brutal classic.
The Hours (2002) Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore and Nicole Kidman star in a brilliant film directed by Stephen Daldry. Three generations of women explore a Virginia Woolf novel called “Mrs. Dalloway.” It is a story of fragility and brokenness, of subtle beauty and survival.
The Reader (2008) A deeply effecting and difficult film about pride and passion in Germany in the aftermath of World War II. The fault lines run deeply through the obviously evil enemy as they do through the hero, as they do, perhaps, through all of us.
Sermons
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Newsletter Reflection (pdf)
Books
General Theory of Love byThomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon
Into the Garden edited by poets Robert Haas and Stephen Mitchell
The Wisdom of Love: Toward a Shared Inner Search by Jacob Needleman
All About Love by bell hooks
Strength to Love by Martin Luther King
The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi by William C. Chittuck
Love: A Novel by Toni Morrison
For Preschool and Elementary:
Mama, Do You Love Me? by Barbara Joosse and Barbara Lavallee
I Love You As Much… by Laura Krauss Melmed
All the Places to Love by Patricia Maclachlan
For Older Kids:
Consider Love…by Sandra Boynton
A Wrinkle in Timeby Madeleine L’Engle
Movies
Ghost (1990)
Sam (Patrick Swayze) and Molly (Demi Moore) are a very happy couple and deeply in love. Walking back to their new apartment after a night out at the theatre, they find tragedy.
Sam is murdered and finds he must warn Molly about the danger that she is in. As a ghost, of course, he cannot be seen or heard by the living. Only love lets him find a way to keep her safe.
What Dreams May Come (1998)
Robin Williams and Anabella Sciora expand the famous poetry from Hamlet into an artistic adventure beyond imagination. Annie (Sciora) is a painter who finds herself alone in life. Through her painting, she reaches beyond this world into the next.
Up(2009)
A young Carl Fredrickson meets a young adventure spirited girl named Ellie. They both dream of going to a Lost Land in South America. 70 years later, he remembers the promise he made to her. Faced with being moved into a retirement home, Carl and his house up and fly away. He sets out at last to fulfill his dream…but with surprises.
Sermons
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Meditations and Readings
Love Is a Lamp -- Rev. Karen Hering -- February 7, 2010
Newsletter Reflection (pdf)
Books
When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by PemaChodron
The Courage to Be by Paul Tillich
Paul Tillich’s classic work on how we can confront the anxiety which drives our lives. He writes of the courage it takes to be part of a larger whole, the courage to stand alone and the courage to accept the fact that we are carried by “the creative power of being.”
The Courage to Teach by Parker Palmer
This is an inspirational book for teachers and also for those who love actually and learn actively. The Courage to Teach argues that good teaching comes from the integrity of the teacher. This is true, of course, for all of us. We are asked to turn our minds inward to develop a deeper understanding of what it means to fulfill one’s calling. As actual teachers and as active learners, we weave a complex web of connections among our subjects, our students and ourselves.
The Human Line by Ellen Bass
Ellen Bass is a wonderful poet. The author of The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, Bass muses to ”pay attention, appreciate, give praise, struggle, grieve, rage, and pray.” Through poetry (and humor), she embodies her great love of this world..
. . . When I get home,
my son has a headache, and though he’s
almost grown, asks me to sing him a song.
We lie together on the lumpy couch
and I warble out the old show tunes, Night and Day...
They Can’t Take That Away from Me . . . A cheap
silver chain shimmers across his throat
rising and falling with his pulse. There never was
anything else. Only these excruciatingly
insignificant creatures we love.
The Strength to Love by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Coretta Scott King wrote: If there is one book Martin Luther King, Jr. has written that people consistently tell me has changed their lives, it is The Strength to Love. I believe it is because this book best explains the central element of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s philosophy of nonviolence: his belief in a divine, loving presence that binds all life. By reaching into and beyond ourselves and tapping the transcendent moral ethic of love, we shall overcome these evils.
In short meditations, Dr. King articulates his commitment to justice and to the intellectual, moral, and spiritual conversion that makes his work timelessly powerful.
Films
Stand By Me(1986). “Do you think Mighty Mouse can beat up Superman?”
“Mighty Mouse is a cartoon. Superman is a real guy. No way a cartoon could beat up a real guy.”
“In all our lives, there is a fall from innocence, a time after which we are never the same. It happened in the summer of 1959…a long time ago.” Stand By Me is a story for beauty and becoming. A group of young boys set out on the adventure of their lives. And they sure find it, with courage, in one another.
The River Wild (1994). Meryl Streep and Kevin Bacon star in an thriller. Gail Hartman (Streep) is struggling through what seems like the last stages of a marriage. She decides to dust off her old skills and take the family on a rafting trip. When her adolescent son is abducted by other rafters, the adventure begins for real. Gail must navigate dangerous rapids and even worse, her own fear.
I Am Sam (2001). Sam Dawson (Sean Penn) loves Starbucks coffee. He loves The Beatles. Most importantly, he loves his daughter who is seven years old. Her name is Lucy Diamond, as in Lucy in the sky with diamonds. The problem is that Sam Dawson has the mental capacity of a 7-year-old boy. He fights courageously to keep his family together.
Sermons
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Curiosity and Courage -- Rob Eller-Isaacs -- January 3, 2010 (pdf)
Setting the Course -- Rob Eller-Isaacs -- January 17, 2010 (pdf)
Meditations and Readings
Learning Courage -- Karen Hering, Sunday, January 10, 2010 (pdf)
Newsletter Reflection (pdf)
Books
The Body of God by Sallie McFague
The Barn at the End of the World: the Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd by Mary Rose O’Reilly
The Eros of Everyday Life by Susan Griffin
Films
Starman (1984) NASA sent Voyager II into outer space with an invitation to whomever might receive it… “Come and visit us.” When someone did, we weren’t ready. The alien incarnated, assumed the identity of a dead house painter and it tooled around the countryside in a hopped-up, 1977 Mustang. How do we open to the possibility of encountering one who is truly different from us? Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen star in a retro-80s almost classic.
Kundun (1997) In 1937, the 14th incarnation of the Dalai Lama was discovered in a small village in Tibet. On the shoulders of a young boy was laid the future of a people, of a nation and of a way of spirit. This young boy would learn and grow wise against a backdrop of violence brought by an advancing Chinese army. Martin Scorsese directs a powerful film about endurance and grace, about the survival of human compassion against all odds.
K-Pax (2001) Having ridden a beam of light from a planet that is impossibly far away, Prot (Kevin Spacey) arrives at Penn Station in New York City just in time to be committed to the crazy house. Who could understand his incredible story? Incarnation to incarceration in the blink of an eye. The view of Earth from K-Pax allows us to see ourselves anew. Perhaps, we are not a different from one another as we dream that we are.
Sermons
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What Are We Waiting For? -- Rob Eller-Isaacs -- December 6, 2009 (pdf)
Meditations and Readings
Uncovering the Spark Within -- Karen Hering (pdf)
Worship Readings: December 6, 2009 9pdf)
Newsletter Reflection (pdf)
Books
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
After a life lived in the midst of controversy and struggle Malcolm X makes the Hajj to Mecca. The experience breaks his heart open.
Journey to the East — Herman Hesse A group of seekers travel together learning lessons both about themselves and the nature of leadership.
Fumbling: a Pilgrimage Tale of Love, Grief and Spiritual Renewal — Kerry Eagan
A graduate of Harvard Divinity School walks along the Santiago de Compostella pilgrim path as she grieves the death of her father.
Films
Cold Mountain (2003)
The tragic, romantic journey of Inman to return to his love, Ada Monroe. In the context of the American Civil War, Inman abandons his assignment in the Confederacy to return to Cold Mountain to find his love and to live out the truth of his life.
Get on the Bus (1996)
Twelve men, each of them African American, get on the bus for Washington, DC, bound for the Million Man March of October, 1995. See the struggles, the joys, the sorrows and the strength that is required to survive the social challenges of American life after the end of the Cold War era and the beginning of the age of terrorism.
The Trip to Bountiful (1985)
Nearing the end of her life, Carrie Watts feels that she is a prisoner in her own home. Her final wish is to return to the place of her youth in Bountiful, Texas. While family life presents predictable challenges, Carrie Watts creates an unlikely escape.
Sermons
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Meditations and Readings
Meditation: Pilgrimage Toward Justice -- Karen Hering (pdf)
Worship Readings: November 1, 2009 (pdf)
Newsletter Reflection (pdf)
Films
Rope
1948 Arthur Hitchcock film about two young men who try to carry out the perfect murder. Brandon Shaw and Phillip Morgan think themselves above the fray. They believe that ordinary morality does not apply to them. For them, the taking of life is the prerogative of the elite.
Glory (1989)
Robert Gould Shaw was a Unitarian who was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts in 1837. He died in 1863 in South Carolina after leading the 54th Regiment, one of the first regiment of black soldiers, in a on Fort Wagner on the 18th of July. Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman star in this truly inspiring dramatization of a powerful moment in American history.
Stranger Than Fiction (2006)
Harold Crick doesn’t want to die. Crunching numbers for the IRS and strictly regimenting his personal life has not fulfilled his goals for joy and happiness. When Harold finds himself trapped within the story of his own life, he seeks the most unlikely mode of escape.
Sermons
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Meditations and Readings
Meditations and Readings on sacrifice from Sunday Worship in October (pdf)
Newsletter Reflection (pdf)
Newsletter Reflection for Families (pdf)
Books
Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation by Parker Palmer
Leading Lives That Matter: What We Should Do, Who We Should BeEdited by Dorothy C. Bass and Mark. R. Schwehn
Films
Stand and Deliver (1988)
Edward James Olmos stars as Jaime Escalante, a math teacher at Garfield High who didn’t give in to the students and their self-defeating story. Instead, Escalante challenged his students doubly hard and brought out the best in them.
The Insider (1999)
The true story of Jeffrey Weigand, a tobacco industry researcher, who discovers a company secret that endangers the user. In the hope that his actions might save lives, he agrees to an interview with 60 Minutes and everything seems to unravel.
The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
The Devil Wears Prada mixes elegance and style with real life lessons in interesting and surprising ways. A double triumph… one for independent thought and the other for the charismatic, voguish seeming excesses of the fashion world.
Sermons
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Meditations and Readings
Readings from Sunday, September 27 (pdf)
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