UU Community Church of Washington County's Podcast

What is it that is passed on from one life to another? Why do we remember what we remember? The sermon on this Memorial Day weekend will explore the mystery of memory and the ties of love that bind us together.   

With Pride and Juneteenth coming up this month, we celebrate freedom and equality, and explore the many challenging and meaningful pathways to liberation.  

You have so much wisdom to share, and other people don't always get it. We will explore the human psyche, and consider how to approach others so that you might be heard. You might also learn how to help someone else persuade you.  

How can we embody equity and compassion in human relations in a fractured and polarized world? How can we be UU missionaries? Should we even try? We’ll consider what it means to practice gritty hospitality.  

In our flower ceremony, we give and receive flowers, to feel a connection to each other and to the interdependent web. The pandemic and past conflicts might have lessened this feeling of connection. What do you need, for our walls to come down and for our connection to bloom?  

How does change happen? When is it worth it to reform a system, and when is it worth it to start fresh? How connected do you want to be to your roots, and how much do you want to scatter seeds? How have you experienced transformation in your own life? What makes a tradition a living tradition?  

Many UUs (including UUA leadership) are prioritizing the notion of harm: Caring for those who say that they have been hurt by someone else's words. There can be an expectation of accountability: changing your behaviour if someone says you have hurt them. We will explore harm and accountability - both the benefits and the shadow side - including possible changes in how we do democracy and comm...

Several religions celebrate the victory of love over evil. Is this victory possible? Can we achieve a world community with peace, liberty and justice for all? What compromises would we need to make, and what risks would we need to take, in the quest for heaven on earth?  

We support a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. When we think we've found truth, we act on it, to make the world a better place. This Sunday, we explore the tension between searching and finding. Through this lens, we look at conflict within the Unitarian Universalist Association. This is the first of a two-part series on the UUA.  

Do you love trees?  Come learn about the spiritual aspects of human connections with trees. We also will meet a small group of neighbors who were inspired to band together to form a local grassroots organization called Treekeepers of Washington County. They were concerned about the mature trees being cut down in our neighborhoods and about the lack of any tree protections in our urban county, even...

This Sunday, we will explore four archetypes of how we might be together, so that we might consciously choose who we are called to be, as a church and as a denomination.  

Ralph Waldo Emerson's message to the next generation of Unitarian ministers was a call to reform how we do church. He describes how to overcome the staleness of organized religion and have a genuine experience of a larger love. Emerson's address is very long; we will hear it rewritten in a briefer and updated style.  

As we launch our annual pledge drive, we consider how we could make choices that  more fully resonate with our principles, our hopes, our vision. Where are you putting your time, your energy, your attention? How could you more fully feed your dreams?  

The ability to reason has given us such wonderful gifts as calculus, mRNA vaccines, and smart phones that allow us to stay in touch with loved ones hundreds and thousands of miles away. But reason has also given us such treacheries as calculus, bio weapons, and smart phones that beckon us like candy. We respect reason, not because it always leads to good things, but because it is a powerful tool f...

The new year can be a time to reflect on what we are carrying with us into the future. What patterns are you ready to let go of, and what patterns do you want to carry forward with intention? What hurts need to be resolved, and what might be let go of as water under the bridge? How we move forward together is at the core of interim ministry.  

We first shared the story about the English colonizers who set up a golf course in Calcutta in an area populated with monkeys in 2019.  How could we have imagined what the next two years would bring?  We will revisit this and a few more of my favorite stories as we come back to Buddhist concepts of impermanence, equanimity, and living in the present moment.  We will reflect on the value of communi...

As UUs we welcome and learn about a diversity of beliefs and celebrations that occur not only around the world, but within our own country. Join us this week to learn about a holiday once celebrated in Appalachia