It is always wonderful to welcome back Dorothy Latta of the Plattsburgh, New York UU Fellowship to our congregation. Dorothy will will speak about when in a rush and feeling stressed, sometimes the hardest thing in the is to stop: often we may feel compelled to go even faster. How can we find it easier to pause?
Chad is a Mohawk of Kahnawake, working at Aboriginal Initiatives in conjunction with Corrections Canada as an Assistant Elder and Cultural Facilitator. In his spare time, he is a volunteer fire fighter and first responder, as well as a Pow-wow drum carrier, drummer and singer. In his words, “I try to live my life as a positive role model and inspiration to others.” He was dealt a deck of cards that included many challenges … He says: I would not change them if I could. I accept these, because they are a part of me, just like my left arm, or foot are. They have allowed me the opportunity to grow, test myself and through the knowledge and experience gained – HELP OTHERS.
Three words. Ecstatic Thanks. Giving. Capitalized. What do you feel, think, suppose, when these words appear before you? Where is the pleasure and the pain within these few words? Where is the challenge and the hope?
Whether face down in the mud or dancing a jig, may we dare to be lifted by the Spirit and Mystery of Life. This Thanksgiving. May there be Ecstatic Thanks Giving.
In his talk, Mark Abley will explore questions that continue to baffle a lot of Canadians. He emphasizes that he will not speak for Indigenous people — they are more than capable to doing that for themselves. Instead he will ask: how could well-meaning Canadians, fifty or a hundred years ago, be so blind as to the nature and impact of the schools? What did the government and the churches believe they were doing? How did they justify their actions, and do these justifications have some resonance for us in 2021?
Like many of people I’ve left lessons from my childhood behind me. I suspect many of them will stay in the past, but more frequently I find myself discovering wisdom in old understandings. Join with me as we consider if some abandoned beliefs are worth another look.
Serge Bouchard, Québec’s celebrated anthropologist and broadcaster, keen observer of the human heart in many places, passed away suddenly at the young age of 73. I wish in this service to tell a bit of his story, which represents the very best of what our Québec society offers in terms of values and care.
It’s a new ‘church year’ – but the ‘same old pandemic’ is still hanging around. So we dedicate this, our opening service, to gathering our strength and renewing our will to meet this continuing challenge with steadfastness and equilibrium.
In my generation, fathers, like mine, were sometimes partly occulted figures wrapped up in the business of being the family breadwinner. But whatever generation you are from, who your father was, and even who your grandfather was, has meant a great deal to the person you have become through your own life’s journey.
It is summer! Time to play. Rev. Heather Fraser-Fawcett, at McGill and later at Oxford, learned about J. Moltman’s Theology of Play. She adds: That theology especially came alive for me at Oxford. At the beginning of COVID, I began what has been a continuing period of study of the the Swiss psychiatrist who founded psychoanalysis, Carl Gustav Jung, with a focus on dreamwork and embodiment.
Sharing how our Canadian Tapestry came about in 1977-78, and how this Lakeshore Unitarian Church Sunday school curriculum, created and led by Myrna Wood, engaged our whole congregation and inspired Unitarian Universalists across North America to develop similar locally-created programs.
