UUHoulton Support  PageSeptember 11, 2021

“We Remember…”

This week-end national news organizations, media outlets and remembrance events commemorate the 20th anniversary of 911.

The attack on the World Trade Center was one of those events where you remember where you were and what you were doing when it happened. Even twenty years later the memories and trauma of such an event lingers and will accompany us for the years to come. It’s important to pause and reflect on such events at times like this for our own mental/spiritual health and our own deeper understanding. So this week I dug out some old files and located the Sunday Service at UUHoulton that followed the events of 911. I’ve included a few excerpts from that service in today’s support page. So much has changed in twenty years, so much hasn’t.

We recorded a new Sunday Service this week with the assistance of our new cameraman Christoph and it is currently in production. We had (optimistically) hoped it would be ready for September 12, but with the ongoing power outage in New Orleans Bored Barista Productions is temporarily sidelined. It looks we will be running a one week delay from when the service is recorded to when it is posted online. Stay tuned. 
This week we invite you to for join us for our Zoom check-in and coffee hour at 10AM. The link is included below. 

Practice patience and kindness.

In Ministry,

Dave

Opening Prayer

Our hearts are so human.

So predictable you may say,

but I do not know.

So many variants of feeling and thinking

at times such as these.
I do not know;   

the confusion   

or dismay   

the calamity of spirit   

severs us from our reference points of normalcy.

And our hearts are so human.

A gray dust clings to our spirit

like the images we viewed of survivors on the New York streets;

alive and walking,

but unable to escape the ashen mark of human tragedy.

The all-pervading gray dust shadows our country

and blows upon the lonely winds across this great world.

There’s no escape this weekand our hearts are so human.

Bless, O God, our struggle to understand.   

Bless those who are gone,   

and bless those of us who remain

 who continue on in this world,  

in spite of the horror,   

in spite of the madness,  

we continue on –  

the walking gray   

in the bright day’s sunlight.

Comments:

A National Tragedy

This in not how I intended my first week on the job to go.

This has not been an easy week for any of us. I have been as transfixed as you following the news this week – it’s hard to walk by a TV set without stopping for just a minute and then you can’t pull yourself away. 

This is a BIG STORY; the biggest national story of my lifetime, a national tragedy. 

I am trying to keep my comments short this morning (we’ll see how that goes).  What I can’t get away from, what keeps coming back to me every time I replay the dramatic images now imprinted upon my memory is the suffering – human suffering and loss.

I am not as concerned about the political intricacies of our foreign policy that may have played a role in this, or the likely economic fall-out from Wall Street or the US airline industry, or even the retaliatory military action our government will most certainly take. What disturbs me most deeply and has brought me to tears this week is the suffering.

Yet, this suffering is our common humanity.

It is what makes us most human.
When Tuesday’s tragedy struck

– all I wanted to did was to find Linda and hold her. The precariousness of life is all too real and we suddenly see what really matters. 

   Life is precious.   I am alive.   

You are alive.      

And even in the midst of a national tragedy   we try to sort that out and try to ease the suffering.

This may sound too simplistic, considering the complexity of our world today and the strong emotion and rhetoric of this incident, and yet,

   in spite of the deplorable violence and inhumanity    I am still convinced that compassion is the response,
   in spite of the torrent of anger and hatred from all sides   I am convinced that compassion IS the response.

And during a week such as the one we have just experienced I have to remind myself of this repeatedly.  It’s the only thing that makes any sense right now. And we continue on…

In closing, a quote from Mahatma Ghandi just after the conclusion of WW II.

“The moral to be legitimately drawn from the supreme tragedy of the atom-bomb is that it will not be destroyed by counter-bombs even as violence cannot be by counter-violence. Humankind has to get out of violence only through non-violence. Hatred can only be overcome by love. Counter-hatred only increases the surface as well as the depth of hatred. I am aware that I am repeating what I have said many times stated before and practiced to the best of my ability and capacity. What I first stated was itself nothing new. It was as old as the hills. I only recited no copybook maxim but definitely announced what I believed in every fibre of my being…It is the central truth by which one can stand alone without flinching. I believe in what Max Muller said years ago, that truth needed to be repeated as long as there were people who disbelieved it.”

image that appeared in our order of service for 911 in 2001  

HERE IS THE ZOOM LINK FOR SUNDAY:
David Hutchinson is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: UU zoom check-in and coffee hourTime: Sep 12, 2021 10:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82184095671?pwd=OCtrY3FnZjNJN3I5Zk1PWFZwb2NNdz09
Meeting ID: 821 8409 5671

Passcode: 500253

One tap mobile+13017158592,,82184095671#,,,,*500253# US (Washington DC)+13126266799,,82184095671#,,,,*500253# US (Chicago)
Dial by your location        +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)        +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)        +1 646 558 8656 US (New York)        +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)        +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)        +1 720 707 2699 US (Denver)Meeting ID: 821 8409 5671Passcode: 500253Find your local number: https://us06web.zoom.us/u/kbbVE1D4X

Virtual Offering Plate

If you would like to send in your pledge or donation 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

Prayer List

For those recovering from COVID-19 in the state of Maine

Local emergency personnel and hospital staff

For our state and national leaders as they respond to the current coronavirus crisis

For those working for social justice and societal change Pray for peaceful action and democratic process in our nation

Prayers for the heat wave in the American West and wide spread drought conditions

Prayers for those affected by the drought and fires in Greece, Italy, Turkey and Siberia

Prayers for the people of Haiti

Prayers for the people of Afghanistan 

Prayers for those affected by the recent hurricane and flooding from the Gulf coast to the Northeast

Prayers for firefighters in the American West and those who have evacuated their homes

We remember 911 

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.