This is the third week of Lent and we are continuing our series “Stories of Lent” which leads up to Easter Sunday in the middle of April. In this week’s service we are looking at a one hundred year old sermon that was delivered at the Houlton Unitarian Church in 1900 by our minister at the time, Rev. George E. MacIlwaine titled, “The Worst Atheism.” And our lenten story this week comes from the Academy-Award winning film “The Piano” about a life affirming moment during the waning years of WWII in Warsaw, Poland. The service will be available at 10AM on our YouTube Channel followed by Zoom check-in and coffee hour at 11AM. You’ll find the links listed below.
Have a good week-end everyone.
In Ministry,
Dave
HERE IS THE SERVICE LINK FOR THIS WEEK’S SERVICE(Please note it won’t be active until 10AM on Sunday morning)
HERE IS THE ZOOM LINK FOR SUNDAY:
David Hutchinson is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: UUcoffee hour and check-inTime: Mar 20, 2022 11:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us06web.zoom.us/j/89696774681?pwd=ZEZ5MTFZRkxUTS9BOHpDdFo4b01Cdz09
Meeting ID: 896 9677 4681Passcode: 579750
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. You can also send your donation electronically with our new payment system on the church website. Simply go to uuhoulton.org and click “Donate” on the menu and it will explain how the system works. You can set up a regular monthly payment plan or donate in single transactions. Thank you for your generous support!
UU Church of Houlton,61 Military Street. Houlton, ME 04730
Our UU ministers group met recently (on line) and Rev. Charles Stevens, retired minister who lives in Blue Hill led our devotional. I asked if I could share his words with our group on the Support Page and he said, “Sure.” Charles served the Ellsworth and Castine Churches back in the 1970s.
“The Want Of Peace”by Wendell Berry
All goes back to the earth,
and so I do not desire
pride of excess or power,
but the contentments made
by men who have had little:
the fisherman’s silence
receiving the river’s grace,
the gardener’s musing on rows.
I lack the peace of simple things.
I am never wholly in place.
I find no peace or grace
We sell the world to buy fire,
Our way lighted by burning men,
and that has bent by mind
and made me think of darkness
and wish for the dumb life of roots.
A major reason why we moved back to Maine
Was, we sought the peace of simple things.
Things, however, happen which get in the way.
World concerns have gotten in the way.
I recently woke up at 2:30 am, thinking about Putin’s War.
Putin, who does desire personal pride.
The pride of Russia as an empire
The dominance of Ukraine, peaceful Ukraine.
Where men & women have little power or $.
It wasn’t & isn’t just Putin’s war that wakes me early
It is also the many Climate disasters
& the results of the pandemic
& yes racism
& police violence in our country.
&, I am ashamed to say:
It is also getting my taxes finished
& my commitments & my responsibilities
Within & around, me.
I woke up t 2:30 and couldn’t get all these things
Off my mind morning
& I felt:
“The want of peace”
Society seems teetering on the edge,
The edge of a great &
Tumultuous Transition
There has been talk about returning to some normal, The fabled normal.
But, I am not sure there even will be OR ever was
A normal.
Wendell Berry not only writes poems,
But also some novels, (I like his poems better,)
I was fascinated with his novel,
“A Place in Time.
It is about an imaginary town on the banks of the
Kentucky River – a community of characters
Thrust against the brutal forces of change
From our Civil War, to Modernity.
As an aside, It is good to understand that W.B. writes in pencil
He refuses to use a computer
He strives for the contentment of simple things.
And yet, he writes that he lacks the peace of simple things.
WE, all of us have been thrust against
Some tremendous & powerful & brutal forces today.
World powers: Political & Economic
National, State, Local & Personal
Powerful forces of change.
But change to what?
When such thoughts of Putin, Climate Destruction
Enter my mind, & more mundane thoughts,
I experience “The want of Peace
The peace of the dumb life of roots.
Not stupid life of roots,
But the speechless life of roots.
When the world is lighted by bombed & burning
Cities & yes, men, women, children & animals
I a preacher who has spoken, all my professional life
Of Peace & Love & Grace, Wholeness
& especially Spiritual Peace,
I who retired – or at least tried to retire from a busy life
Seeking the peace of simple things,
Seeking in the shadowy depths where
The tangle of dumb roots seem at peace
Seeking & wanting peace, Lao tzu wrote:
“And, The tao that can be told (which) is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name,
The unnameable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.
Free from desire, you realize the mystery,
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.
Yet mystery and manifestationsarise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.”
Translated by Stephen Mitchell
So it is within the darkness, amongst the
Dark & dumb life of tangled roots
That we find the pulsating power
Of nature,
Not dumb at all – but springing into life
The life of nature & change in the ground,
Even here in the frozen ground.
Stirrings of life in the dumb roots
Send up a sweet flow of life
To waiting stems & branches.
I need, we need to tap into this natural,
Non-dualistic wholeness to maintain
Not only our individual sanity
But the sanity of society.
Here I am, talking to you, my colleagues
Who preach & teach about faith, hope, love,
Peace & contentment all the time
What does this old man who can’t even
Seem to retire, know of contentment & peace?
I know that you and I, like Wendell Berry, have been bent by the weight of the world
A world teetering on the edge of darkness.
May we take refuge in the fruitful darkness
Deep in the body of the earth
Where we can feel the season’s changing
The planting and harvesting of our food
& yes, even the births & deaths of others.
Only thus, can we enter the darkness
Of self, psyche & society
& savor the fruits of
Compassion.
Conquer Anxiety with Kindness
Sylvia Boorstein on the loving-kindness meditation she uses to care for herself, calm down, and carry on.
Everyone is anxious these days, with good cause. The world is imperiled. Workers are quitting jobs at a higher than usual rate and wondering, “Is this what I am supposed to be doing with my life?” Colleagues are reporting that they feel “Zoomed out” by the end of the day, and all the psychotherapists I know are reporting waitlists for people wanting to talk to them. Even before the pandemic, when last I was teaching in-person retreats, I was noticing that many people had listed SSRIs (anxiety and depression drugs) on their registration sheets.
And, of course, people already prone to anxiety are worrying more. I’m one of those people. Worrying—“fretting” as it is called in classical Buddhist texts—is my principal reaction to stress. When that happens, I note to myself, “Worrying is arising,” and, “This is excess energy in the mind, and it will pass,” and that’s helpful. Or I try to ease the mind’s tension by reminding myself,
“This is my mind’s particular habit of catastrophizing. Let’s wait and see what happens.”
Another technique is thinking, “This is just a story. If I take a break and breathe deeply for a few minutes, I’ll remember I’ve done this dance a million times and it is always exhausting.” Lately, I’ve been saying to myself, “Sweetheart, you’re hurting yourself again with these stories.” This last is the closest response to compassion, and so I think it is progress, because more and more my approach to the dharma is evolving toward kindness.
An instruction about anxiety I often see these days, on T-shirts and coffee cups, recalls a British response to World War II:
“Keep Calm and Carry On.” That would be the Buddhist response, indeed the best human response, to these times. I would just add: “Keep Calm and Carry On, and Be Kind.”
A LOVING-KINDNESS MEDITATION FOR TIMES OF ANXIETY
Take time during the day to stop for a few minutes. Breathe. (My smartwatch tells me, “Stop and breathe” several times a day.) While you are stopping and breathing, take that time to think of the people you love and wish that they are well, wherever they are. Look around at all the people in your view. Each one of them has a mind full of people they know and love and the hopes they hold for them, just like you. So much of our anxiety is about ourselves, and when your mind refocuses itself from “me and my troubles” to “everyone else and their troubles,” it feels better. It feels connected, alive, and supported by that connection.
Joys & Concerns
When one of us is blessed we are all blessed.
When one of us experiences sorrow we all feel the pain.
I was at the cabin on Friday and (dare I say it?) it was starting to feel like Spring. The sun was shining, temps were in the 40s and you could smell the warm soil exposed in the sunshine.
posted by Dave
“spring thaw” 2022
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 those in Ukraine as the war continues
Pray for peace
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.
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