There is so much going on right now in the world it’s difficult to track and keep up with everything. (Let alone the chores around the house and wood pile management!)  I won’t compile a list but we are well aware of the overloaded agenda. With that in mind, this week’s service topic is focused on finding ways to cope when circumstances are demanding. I will be sharing a 4 point formula that I have had great success with in recent years whenever life starts to get stressful, unmanageable, or you don’t know what the heck is going to happen next. The title of the talk is “That Was Easy!” and our music selection is by The Starcrossed Losers from one of our sanctuary concerts a few years back. Part of the song lyric is provided below.  It is also Martin Luther King Day on Monday so you will see that reflected in today’s UUSupport Page. We hope you can join us on YouTube!
The Starcrossed Losers“And I Wept”  (a portion of the lyric)written by Kyle Morgan
Where are the wonders I once dreamed of?Was I foolish to dream of a perfect love?Where is my misplaced worry ring And what was that love song we used to sing?Where was the line and when was it crossed?How was the ancient icon lost?Let us weep, not for the blame, not for our innocence but our forgetfulness.

One of our group members suggested a UU study topic that we could possibly explore this winter. After discussion about it last week during our Zoom coffee hour we decided to use part of our time each week during Zoom coffee hour to share our thoughts on the topic. Netflix has a recent documentary on the dangers and concerns regarding social media sites titled “The Social Dilemma” directed and written by Jeff Orlowski. Here is a brief description of the film found on Wikipedia:
The film features interviews with many former employees, executives, and other professionals from top tech companies and social media platforms such as Facebook, Google, and Apple. These interviewees provide their first-hand experiences of working in and around the tech industry. They state that social media platforms and big tech companies have been instrumental in providing positive change for society; they also note that such platforms have also caused problematic social, political, and cultural consequences. These interviews are presented alongside scripted dramatizations of a teenager’s social media addiction and a primer on how a social media algorithm powered by artificial intelligence may work.
If you would like to view a trailer of the film on YouTube a link is listed below. And if you don’t have a Netflix account there is also a great interview with Katie Couric and a panel of participants from the film on YouTube. That link is also included. We’ll chat more about it during Zoom on Sunday at 11AM.
Tailer for the Netflix documentary “The Social Dilemma”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaaC57tcci0

Interview with Katie Couric on YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGi2YKZZNFg

The recorded service will be available to view at 10AM on Sunday morning and archived so it can be watched later at your convenience.  I will send out the service link to YouTube later today and the link will be live on Sunday morning at 9:45AM (in case you want to come to the service early).  If you subscribe to our YouTube channel you can locate it automatically on your YouTube home page under subscriptions. The 10AM service will be followed by a Zoom coffee hour and check-in at 11AM for those who are interested in discussing the service or just want to check in. I’ll send the Zoom links out today. Have a great week-end everyone!
Practice patience and kindness.

In Ministry,

Dave

Virtual Offering Plate

If you would like to send in your pledge or donation (we still have to pay the bills) simply drop an envelope in the mail. The address is listed below.  Thank you for your support!
UU Church of Houlton61 Military StreetHoulton, ME  04730

Peace Begins With Peaceful Actions

BY JAN WILLIS

To change the world, says Jan Willis, we need hope. And hope grows from nonviolent actions, no matter how small.

Sharing this tiny planet amidst a vast universe, we are all interconnected beings, incapable even for a nanosecond of complete independence. Yet we conduct our lives as though we each possessed complete and ultimate control of our individual, isolated universes. We imagine enemies and competitors, and we fight for our share. Though we can sometimes envision a peaceful world, it becomes almost natural to see violence as inevitable and peace as impossible. But it is not.

We know in our hearts that violence does not bring peace, that hatred breeds more hatred, and that only with love and compassion can hatred ever truly be appeased. Many of us sometimes happily sing along with the words of John Lennon’s song:

Imagine all the people, living life in peace.
You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.
hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will live as one.

We seem to know innately, with our hearts, what is right, proper and just. We recognize that, as human beings, we all wish to be happy and to avoid suffering. If we could, we would change the world so that every being enjoyed respect, peace, happiness and ease. Yet often it seems we don’t know how, or where, to start.

I believe we have to start with very small actions. We may not, by ourselves, be able to change the entire world all at once, but we can begin to change a tiny piece of it in our everyday environment.

We have many wise guidelines. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, that African-American bodhisattva of our time, reminded us that we cannot truly be free until all human beings are free. He once noted that, “As long as there is poverty in the world, I can never be totally rich… As long as people are afflicted with debilitating diseases, I can never be totally healthy…. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be.” But Dr. King also knew—and demonstrated—that any war for freedom must be a war waged with love.

In 1963, as a teenager, I had the good fortune of participating in the “Birmingham campaign” for civil rights led by Reverend King. It was a hopeful time. Feeling part of a larger community of like-minded nonviolent protestors, I felt buoyed up by the possibility of triumph over injustice. When, later, after leaders like Malcolm X, King and the Kennedys had been struck down by violence, a period of hopelessness settled in.

For many of us today that hopelessness still seems to hold sway. And so, before we endeavor to change the world, we need to rekindle hope again. The thing I’ve learned about hope, however, is that it grows from action, not from thought. If we wish to see an enlightened world of peace and justice for all, we have to move beyond merely imagining it, to nonviolent actions, however small, that will help to usher it in. This goes for politicians as well.

ABOUT JAN WILLIS

Jan Willis is Professor Emerita of Religion at Wesleyan University. Her most recent books are Dreaming Me: Black, Baptist, and BuddhistThe black revolution is much more than a struggle for the rights of Negroes. It is forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws—racism, poverty, militarism, and materialism. It is exposing evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of our society. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced.—Martin Luther King Jr., 1968

Reflection by Dr. Cornel West on the 50th Anniversary of MLK Assassination January, 2018

The major threat of Martin Luther King Jr to us is a spiritual and moral one. King’s courageous and compassionate example shatters the dominant neoliberal soul-craft of smartness, money and bombs. His grand fight against poverty, militarism, materialism and racism undercuts the superficial lip service and pretentious posturing of so-called progressives as well as the candid contempt and proud prejudices of genuine reactionaries. King was neither perfect nor pure in his prophetic witness – but he was the real thing in sharp contrast to the market-driven semblances and simulacra of our day.In this brief celebratory moment of King’s life and death we should be highly suspicious of those who sing his praises yet refuse to pay the cost of embodying King’s strong indictment of the US empire, capitalism and racism in their own lives.We now expect the depressing spectacle every January of King’s “fans” giving us the sanitized versions of his life. We now come to the 50th anniversary of his assassination, and we once again are met with sterilized versions of his legacy. A radical man deeply hated and held in contempt is recast as if he was a universally loved moderate.These neoliberal revisionists thrive on the spectacle of their smartness and the visibility of their mainstream status – yet rarely, if ever, have they said a mumbling word about what would have concerned King, such as US drone strikes, house raids, and torture sites, or raised their voices about escalating inequality, poverty or Wall Street domination under neoliberal administrations – be the president white or black.The police killing of Stephon Clark in Sacramento may stir them but the imperial massacres in Yemen, Libya or Gaza leave them cold. Why? Because so many of King’s “fans” are afraid. Yet one of King’s favorite sayings was “I would rather be dead than afraid.” Why are they afraid? Because they fear for their careers in and acceptance by the neoliberal establishment. Yet King said angrily: “What you’re saying may get you a foundation grant, but it won’t get you into the Kingdom of Truth.”The neoliberal soul craft of our day shuns integrity, honesty and courage, and rewards venality, hypocrisy and cowardice. To be successful is to forge a non-threatening image, sustain one’s brand, expand one’s pecuniary network – and maintain a distance from critiques of Wall Street, neoliberal leaders and especially the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and peoples.
King said angrily, ‘What you’re saying may get you a foundation grant, but it won’t get you into the Kingdom of Truth’
Martin Luther King Jr turned away from popularity in his quest for spiritual and moral greatness – a greatness measured by what he was willing to give up and sacrifice due to his deep love of everyday people, especially vulnerable and precious black people. Neoliberal soul craft avoids risk and evades the cost of prophetic witness, even as it poses as “progressive”.The killing of Martin Luther King Jr was the ultimate result of the fusion of ugly white supremacist elites in the US government and citizenry and cowardly liberal careerists who feared King’s radical moves against empire, capitalism and white supremacy. If King were alive today, his words and witness against drone strikes, invasions, occupations, police murders, caste in Asia, Roma oppression in Europe, as well as capitalist wealth inequality and poverty, would threaten most of those who now sing his praises. As he rightly predicted: “I am nevertheless greatly saddened … that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling.”If we really want to know King in all of his fallible prophetic witness, we must shed any neoliberal soul craft and take seriously – in our words and deeds – his critiques and resistances to US empire, capitalism and xenophobia. Needless to say, his relentless condemnation of Trump’s escalating neo-fascist rule would be unequivocal – but not to be viewed as an excuse to downplay some of the repressive continuities of the two Bush, Clinton and Obama administrations.In fact, in a low moment, when the American nightmare crushed his dream, King noted: “I don’t have any faith in the whites in power responding in the right way … they’ll treat us like they did our Japanese brothers and sisters in World War II. They’ll throw us into concentration camps. The Wallaces and the Birchites will take over. The sick people and the fascists will be strengthened. They’ll cordon off the ghetto and issue passes for us to get in and out.”These words may sound like those of Malcolm X, but they are those of Martin Luther King Jr – with undeniable relevance to the neo-fascist stirrings in our day.King’s last sermon was entitled Why America May Go to Hell. His personal loneliness and political isolation loomed large. J Edgar Hoover said he was “the most dangerous man in America”. President Johnson called him “a nigger preacher”. Fellow Christian ministers, white and black, closed their pulpits to him. Young revolutionaries dismissed and tried to humiliate him with walkouts, booing and heckling. Life magazine – echoing Time magazine, the New York Times, and the Washington Post (all bastions of the liberal establishment) – trashed King’s anti-war stance as “demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi”.And the leading black journalist of the day, Carl Rowan, wrote in the Reader’s Digest that King’s “exaggerated appraisal of his own self-importance” and the communist influence on his thinking made King “persona non-grata to Lyndon Johnson” and “has alienated many of the Negro’s friends and armed the Negro’s foes”.One of the last and true friends of King, the great Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel prophetically said: “The whole future of America will depend upon the impact and influence of Dr King.” When King was murdered something died in many of us. The bullets sucked some of the free and democratic spirit out of the US experiment. The next day over 100 American cities and towns were in flames – the fire this time had arrived again!Today, 50 years later the US imperial meltdown deepens. And King’s radical legacy remains primarily among the awakening youth and militant citizens who choose to be extremists of love, justice, courage and freedom, even if our chances to win are that of a snowball in hell! This kind of unstoppable King-like extremism is a threat to every status quo!

Dr. Cornel WestBaptist minister, former Harvard professor and current Unitarian Universalist collaborator and social philosopher

Joys & Concerns
When one of us is blessed we are all blessed.When one of us experiences sorrow we all feel the pain.

Fen Carmichael celebrated a birthday last week.  #39!!
If you haven’t already checked out MaryAlice Mowry’s writer’s blog it’s a delight.https://maryalice-musings.blogspot.com

The UUHoulton annual pledge drive is currently under way. Your pledge card or donation for 2021 can be mailed to 61 Military Street. Your support is greatly appreciated!

The UUChurch of Houlton is currently looking for a new treasurer in the new year. If you are interested in finding out more about the position please contact our good moderator, Leigh Griffith at griffith@mfx.net  We’d like to express our thanks and appreciation to our outgoing co-treasurers Mary Blocher and Barbara Erickson for their excellent years of service to the organization.
THANK YOU!

The USA is now averaging over 4,000 coronavirus deaths per day.The vaccines are becoming more readily available but there are millions and millions to inoculate.   Covid cases are increasing in the Houlton area. Please remain vigilant as we help to keep the curve flat in our town.

Please continue to send in joys and concerns during the week to revdav@mfx.net and I will post them on the Support Page.

sauna and open water in January…posted by Dave

The joy or the sorrow of one is shared by all. May our hearts be as one on this day.  Let us carry each thought or concern expressed in our heart and may the light of our love and compassion transform suffering into non suffering and ease the difficulties of life.  We radiate love and the light that we are.  Blessed are we all.

Prayer List distributed via personal emails.

The Four Limitless Ones Prayer
May all sentient beings enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.May we be free from suffering and the root of suffering.May we not be separated from the great happiness devoid of suffering.May we dwell in the great equanimity free from anger, aggression and exclusion.