Throughout this pandemic, the lesson that keeps showing up in my life and maybe yours too, is to pause. There is wisdom in pausing during a traumatic pandemic year. There is wisdom in pausing and lessons in patience throughout the healing process. There is wisdom in pausing when it comes to determining what is best for your personal learning, growth, and moving forward. There is also wisdom in the pause when we look at collective healing. Let's explore how a simple pause makes a difference in our personal lives and how these same pauses can be applied to our collective and communal lives.

Unitarian Church of Los Alamos

The Wisdom of the Pause/Paws in Times of Trauma & Healing

When we are young we think we have to figure out what we want to become, but becoming is something we do from the moment we are born until our last day on earth. We can't control the future, but we can control our intentionality around what we become. Jenny McCready returns as our visiting worship leader from Lakewood, Colorado. She is in the last stages of pursuing fellowship with the UUA and hopes to be an ordained UU minister by the end of the year.

Never Finished

What is July 4? For many, it is a chance to see family, fireworks, and celebrate our independence from the British crown, or more generally to revel in patriotic sentiment. However, if we look just under the surface, the US' 4th of July might mean many things to many people, some good, some bad, and some contradictory. Join Mix'alh Adams, and Mike Adams for the church's first in-person service since the great 2020 pandemic arrived. Mix'alh and Mike are Indigenous North Americans, they are Lil'wat people from the area near Whistler, BC, Canada. Both grew up in the USA, but have fostered relationships with their Canadian family. Mike works in National Security, and Mix'alh considers himself a modern socialist. Come explore the 4th of July, this year, with Mix'alh and Mike.

What is July 4?

There’s a good reason this topic just won’t go away and can’t get solved: it involves a clash of two fundamental human rights. That makes discussion, debate, and legislation really hard. Understanding this is crucial to any hope we might have of civic peace and social justice. The Rev. Christine Robinson was the senior minister at First Unitarian in Albuquerque for 28 years until her retirement four years ago. Christine estimates that she has been a guest speaker in Los Alamos 30 times in those years, and we’re delighted to welcome her back for #31!

Abortion Complexity

American physicist Alvin Weinberg was Director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, as well as a thoughtful amateur philosopher on the implications of his own work. One of the ways he made sense of his involvement in the development of nuclear weapons was to propose the concept of "The Sanctification of Hiroshima." Guest preacher Jake Morrill has served the UU congregation in Oak Ridge for almost twenty years, and knew Dr. Weinberg personally. This morning, he'll share Weinberg's concept as an invitation to reflect religiously upon the legacy of nuclear weapons. Since 2003, Jake Morrill has served as Lead Minister of the Oak Ridge UU Church in East Tennessee. A licensed therapist and former Chaplain in the U.S. Army Reserve, he is Associate Faculty at the Bowen Center for the Study of the Family. He and his wife, Molly, have two school-age children, three cats, and a dog.

The Sanctification of Hiroshima

In Paulo Coelho’s novel, Brida, the main character says, “I’m afraid of committing myself.” Coelho writes, "She wanted to follow all possible paths and so ended up following none.” How can making commitments help us focus and keep us on the paths we choose to travel? Is it better to commit to the wrong thing than commit to nothing? Jenny McCready is our visiting worship leader from Lakewood, Colorado, a suburb of Denver, her hometown. She just completed seminary at Meadville Lombard Theological School (Rev. John's alma mater) and is in discernment about her next steps into chaplaincy or parish ministry. She is in the last stages of pursuing fellowship with the UUA and hopes to be an ordained UU minister by the end of the year. Jenny has four biological children (Devon 21, Grainne 17, Conall 13, and Cliodna 11), and has become a mother to her fiance's 7 year old, Kyle as well. Jenny and Jason plan to be married this summer and continue to live in Lakewood with most of their combined collection of offspring, and a pet menagerie of three dogs, two rabbits and a pig named Maisy. Any moments that Jenny is not studying and working, you will find her learning to play her new banjo and hiking in the foothills. Jenny and Jason love New Mexico and visited UULA during the summer of 2019. She is excited to be back and nurture her connection with our UULA community.

Just Pick Something!

News reports, social media and communications with family, friends and even strangers have been rife with malicious, harsh, judgmental, and unkind exchanges. Susan Gisler will be exploring some thoughts about skillful ways of speech that have come from the Buddhist tradition as well as recent works that deal with non violent communication. Can observing and changing our own speech habits be part of a practice that leads to a more compassionate world?

Right or Wise Speech in a Time of Hurtful Rhetoric

I like The Lion King, The Monkey King, and Horton the elephant. These stories tell me about humans. When I compare the stories with the real animals, I learn even more about humans. As a child, I learned from my friend Nellie, the elephant who lived across the street from my childhood home in South Africa, and I wonder why there is not a story about The Elephant Queen. Mike McNaughton was born in South Africa and has lived and worked in many places in Africa and Asia. He has been a member of our church for more than 40 years.

MEGA: Make Elephants Great Again

We close another church year with scenes from our annual Flower Ceremony (see Rev. John's column in this issue of the VOICE for information about our live, drive-in flower communion). We give thanks for our volunteers, congratulate our high school seniors, and give Rev. John a sendoff for his sabbatical.

Flower Communion: The Care & Feeding of the Soul

This week, Rev. John closes out our series on STORY with a new story about who we might be.

A Brief History of the Future

To paraphrase one of my writing gurus: "Writing is when we make the words. Rewriting is when we make them good." If we are shaped by our stories, we must be ready to revise them when they no longer serve us well. It's never too late to tell a new version of the story.

It’s All in the Rewriting

We are constantly engaged in the human endeavor of shaping the stories we tell about where we come from and who we want to be. But how are WE shaped in the telling?

The Story Tells Us

A moral compass is a set of personal values that guide our decision making. Sherry Hardage will explore deep corruption in America and the ethical assumptions used to justify it.

The Moral Compass of Corruption

What are we reaching toward? And are we reaching toward the right thing?

Becoming: …How It’s Going

As a people of faith, we are formed by the dreams and convictions of those who came before us. What threads have we inherited, and which shall we carry forward?

Becoming: How It Started…

Podcasts for the Unitarian Church of Los Alamos, New Mexico

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Unitarian Church of Los Alamos

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