This service gives us an opportunity to practice compassion, with two guided meditations, inspired by Buddhist and Christian teachings. For one of them, you are invited to hold onto a hand-sized stone…so please gather one prior to the service. A blunt, heavy, hand-sized replacement is fine. Rev. Stephen draws his accompanying message from his experiences in a Vipassana (Insight) Buddhist meditation retreat, hospice spiritual care, Christian scripture, and his childhood. A frequent preacher with us, he is completing his eighth year as a hospice chaplain and has served as a full-time UU parish minister for eleven years.

During this pandemic, we’re experiencing individual and family changes. We’ll turn to the work of William Bridges, author of Transitions, for guidance, as well as colorful examples of characters who did (or did not) respond to cataclysmic changes.
Our building is closed during the Covid-19 pandemic, but we’re live streaming our Sunday services via Zoom. Please begin checking in at 10:15.
Use this link to sign in, experience, and participate from your computer, tablet or cell phone: https://us04web.zoom.us/j/176735758
To dial in by phone:
Call (669) 900-9128, then enter meeting ID: 176 735 758

Using Thomas Moore’s Care of the Soul as a guide, we’ll explore how to be not fixers of problems but gardeners of the soul. Stephen’s message for us is informed by his work as a hospice chaplain. We welcome him back.

Come Sunday, oh come Sunday, that’s the day” (Duke Ellington) Why do we gather on Sunday mornings? What needs are being met – or could be? The day following a workshop on this subject, Stephen will share what he heard from participants and what he’s learned from a dozen years of UU parish ministry.
Children’s RE Today.

Rev. Stephen Landale returns to our pulpit to channel the hopeful, lyrical, and ultimately challenging message of a lovely sermon from 1828, William Ellery Channing’s “Likeness to God”. Channing is best known as the father of American Unitarianism. (Team 1)

One of the greatest gifts of Unitarian Universalism is its openness to different spiritual beliefs and perspectives. Yet this very strength can also pose challenges, particularly when people with such varied beliefs and backgrounds gather on Sunday mornings. “God” language in particular can be problematic – in both its use and lack of use.

We begin the new year exploring the two pillars of our faith: “the inherent worth and dignity of every person” and “respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part” – the first and last of the 7 Principles of Unitarian Universalism. We welcome this seasoned UU minister and hospice chaplain back to our pulpit.

Given the deep divisions in our nation and all the violence recently in the news, Rev. Stephen Landale has changed his topic on Sunday, Nov. 11, heeding wisdom expressed by J.R.R. Tolkien’s character, Gandalf, in The Lord of the Rings: “Even the Wise Cannot See All Ends…” He will tailor his message to the election results, and whatever may befall in the coming week. Steve says he keeps Tolkien’s books next to his Bible, at home, up in Eugene.

Rev. Landale will reflect on sacred places in our lives – in nature, literature, and even those we co-create, using his own experiences.

We often sing the virtues of community – of what Martin Luther King, Jr. envisioned as “The Beloved Community” yet the reality of our community reflects the reality of ourselves: with brokenness as well as wholeness. How do we co-create Beloved Community even when it, and we, are already broken? Our pulpit guest has been a hospice chaplain in Corvallis and Eugene for the past six years, following a dozen years serving UU congregations.