… old postcard of Unitarian Church in winter

This Sunday we continue a two-week theme on love (Valentine’s Day was in-between two Sundays this year so we split the difference). Rev. Mary Blocher leads the service and her message is titled “The Power of Love.” Here is a quote from the bulletin. “Love is my ability to know oneness with all and to desire that good comes to all. Love is my ability to share, to draw together. Love heals, harmonizes, renews, prospers and unites.”  We had a special Valentine’s Day party during coffee hour last Sunday and we have a few photos from the event in today’s Support Page. Look at all the smiles!! Our YouTube service is part one of the Valentine’s tribute on the theme of

 love. We have special music from the Unitunes, Rosalind Morgan and Dale Holden on the piano and the service dialogue is “Building Community” as we discuss Dave’s 4 Points on Building Community. You will find the link listed below.  Please join us for one of the services this weekend. 

Houlton Coffeehouse is tonight at 7PM featuring “Open-Mic Night.” Come early and have supper before the show. You will find details listed below. Have a great week-end!
Keep warm everyone!!

In Ministry,

Dave

HOULTON COFFEEHOUSE
February 18,  Saturday Evening             7-9 PM

The Cup Cafe,   61 Military Street OPEN-MIC NIGHT

OPEN-MIC PERFORMERS:Circle of FifthsDamien SullivanFrank SullivanDon & ChetSimon PritchardBertrand Laurence

Since we’ve experienced a bit of “stage-jam” during our last couple of coffeehouses, we’ve decided to do an entire open-mic night to fit in more performers. On our Cup Cafe Facebook Page you may have noticed we’re trying an “advanced-signup” method for open-mic to see how that works. The first six performers to (pre) sign-up each get a 15 minute open-mic spot and then we save a couple for walk-ins the night of the coffeehouse. It’s the first time we’ve tried this method so we’ll see…

We are also launching our first Facebook livestream of the coffeehouse experience this week-end. If you can’t make it to the show you can watch it from virtually anywhere or watch it later. Of course, we hope to see you at the coffeehouse, but some times that’s just not possible. This is a new way to support and experience music and the arts in Houlton.

We have two Judy-soups this month for coffeehouse. The veggie option is a black bean tortilla soup with sweet potatoes; warming without too much spice, served with tortilla strips on top and the omnivore option is potato-sausage soup with a cheese possibility. Yum yum…and of course we have our usual coffee drinks and desserts. Frank Sullivan is behind the espresso bar as our barista for the night and we are featuring a Chocolate Lovers Mocha Latte. (You’ll notice Frank is also on stage in one of the open-mic slots.) Come early for supper and hang out before the show. Cafe doors open at 5:30PM.

See you at the Cup!

Feel the buzz…

Menu

Black Bean Tortilla Soup with Sweet Potatoes (tortilla strips on top) 

Potato-Sausage Soup (with a cheese option)

Not Your SB Chai  Chocolate Lovers Mocha Latte 
In Celebration of Music, Poetry and the Arts…(now in our 30th anniversary year!)THIS WEEK’S YOUTUBE SERVICE:

HERE IS THE SERVICE LINK FOR THIS WEEK’S YOUTUBE SERVICE

(Please note it won’t be active until 10AM on Sunday morning) 

https://youtu.be/joRVcFZewzs

HERE IS THE ZOOM LINK FOR SUNDAY COFFEE HOUR:

David Hutchinson is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: UUHoulton coffee hour & check-inTime: Feb 19, 2023 11:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us06web.zoom.us/j/89446600885?pwd=T3N5YXFVWUo4ZXV2cTMrS3pNaTFXUT09
Meeting ID: 894 4660 0885 Passcode: 623682

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

From The AtlanticFebruary 2023

THE ‘SMALL SELF’ EFFECT

Being awe-inspired is good for you—and easy, if you know where to look.

FEBRUARY 14, 2023

In 1968, three astronauts were sent to orbit the moon. On Christmas Eve, during their fourth lap, the astronaut Bill Anders was preparing to take a series of images of the lunar surface when he spotted the Earth rising above the horizon. The photo he snapped would become known as Earthrise.

Humanity had seen a few images of the planet before, but not like this. We were just sort of hanging there, enveloped in blue-and-white swirls—delicate, vulnerable, beautiful—but otherwise surrounded by darkness.  Back on Earth, the image circulated quickly, showing up on television, and in magazines and newspapers around the planet.

You’ve likely seen the photo before, so you can feel its meaning without even thinking about it: It’s too easy to get caught up in our own little world, and to forget that this planet and one another are all we’ve got. Anders famously said this after Apollo 8: “We came all this way to explore the moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth.”

With the Apollo missions came feelings of connectedness, which had an extraordinary ripple effect. That shock of wonder from Earthrise helped inspire the environmental movement and served as the opening to an era of awe. Apollo wasn’t the only program NASA sent to space at that time; at the tail of the Apollo program came small planetary missions such as Mariner 9, which sent back photos of Mars that ignited our imaginations and in many ways made the cosmos feel accessible. But perhaps to many, that wasn’t what mattered; it was the audacity of us leaving home. Suddenly, it wasn’t just an astronaut’s perspective of the Earth we were experiencing; it was also our own collective view of the universe and of one another.

Researchers have suggested an association between feelings of awe and wonder, and our well-being. A recent perspective article published in Frontiers of Psychology compared this link to meditation, indicating that experiencing awe can be considered its own mindfulness practice. This resonates for me on a deep level. For as long as I can remember, encountering images from the research missions Hubble, Cassini, and Voyager has made me feel blissfully overwhelmed and small. Only recently did I discover that wonder doesn’t just feel good; it can be good for you.

More than 50 years have passed since the first humans landed on the moon. In that time, humanity has captured many photos of the Earth from a distance, as well as of every single planet in our solar system. We’ve also turned our gaze outward as far as it can go and looked back in time—most recently with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. For years, people talked, even fantasized, about what this telescope’s images would look like. I am what you would call a space nerd. Yet even I was not prepared for what JWST would reveal. Before the official release, I called Thomas Zurbuchen, then the associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, and he told me what happened when he and his colleagues saw the first JWST image, huddled together around a computer at work. “We were silent in the room,” he said. “I was tearing up, and that doesn’t happen to me very often.”

The first JWST image NASA released was of the deep field, featuring a cluster of galaxies known as SMACS 0723, an homage to perhaps Hubble’s most famous set of images. A tiny speck of sky, just a grain of sand’s worth if held at arm’s length, revealed hundreds of galaxies, crisp and colorful. In the image, the galaxies almost appear, at first glance, to be stars, but within seconds their warped, alien bodies seem to bend over on themselves in ghostlike whites and purples and ancient red smudges. It was remarkable. I remember thinking, If this is what this telescope can do, then we are in for it. 

Images such as these, although profoundly stunning, exist to do more than move us. Those images and the data collected are chock-full of science, and that science contains a very important part of our shared story. JWST will do many things. Perhaps most notably, it will search for signs of organic life in the universe as well as look further back in time than we’ve ever seen before, staring at the oldest galaxies from when our universe was just beginning to form.

You don’t need to imagine the furthest reaches of space and time to be moved this way. “Even if we look at the Earth,” Zurbuchen said, “that sense of awe and admiration really is at the heart of who we are, certainly at the heart of who I am. When I come to work, that’s what I’m longing for.”

Awe invokes a sense of smallness, what some researchers call the “small self” effect. That sense of smallness has been linked to an increased feeling of connection to others, which leads to feelings of belonging and hope. This theory suggests that no matter the source of awe, this sudden loss of ego makes us feel less self-important.

Awe doesn’t stay contained within the person experiencing it, however, and that’s a good thing. Some researchers have suggested that wonder and awe increase altruistic behavior—feelings of generosity toward others as well as ourselves—and over time increase general feelings of positivity. Awe, in other words, may serve a vital social function. These results showed that awe can even make people feel like they have more available time, resulting in greater well-being. Ultimately, experiencing awe could fundamentally shift our concept of self, altering our perspective on what really matters to us.

Although people sometimes use awe and wonder interchangeably, there are some key differences. Generally, awe is defined as a feeling we get when faced with something sublime, whereas we feel wonder when we can’t place what we’ve witnessed into the context of our life. “On the most basic level, wonder is essential to our humanity because it’s inextricable from our relationship to death,” says Maya Popa, a poet who teaches poetry at NYU and who has spent the past few years studying wonder. “We wouldn’t experience wonder the way that we do if we weren’t mortal, if the arc didn’t so clearly bend that way. Wonder makes us humble by asking us to look again, and deeply, and to be changed by the looking, often without an end or resolution to the feeling.”

Humans are knowledge seekers and pattern finders. We look for familiar shapes in clouds; we map oceans and other planets. We are a species that craves order and the perception of security that comes with it.

It’s for this reason that perhaps prescribing ourselves opportunities to feel awe could challenge the instinct that we can control an uncontrollable world.

The transcendentalists had a similar idea. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau took to nature, seeking regular doses of wonder simply by being in the middle of something bigger and more powerful than themselves. Beauty can be found in something as small or transient as a wildflower or a splash of sunlight, or as ceaseless as the cosmos. One can only imagine the depth of wonder the Apollo 8 crew felt as they witnessed our planet rising over the lunar horizon. As Anders put it at the time, “Oh my God, look at that picture over there! There’s the Earth comin’ up. Wow, is that pretty!”

Shannon Stirone is a freelance science writer based in the Bay Area.

The happy hosts of our Valentine’s Party, Marion & Mary Blocher

Happy Anniversary!!!Jim & Dale Holden and Leigh & Fred Griffith

Cutting the cake! Fun was had by all…

Prayer List

For those recovering from COVID-19 in the state of MaineLocal emergency personnel and hospital staffFor our state and national leaders as they respond to the current coronavirus crisisFor those working for social justice and societal change 

Pray for peaceful action and democratic process in our nation

The war in Ukraine is now in its eleventh month 

Prayers for those suffering from seasonal flu and continuing covid cases

Prayers for peace and reconciliation in the new year

In observation of upcoming Black History Month, we promote the work of social justice and racial equality

Prayers for those affected by the recent mass shootings in California

Prayers to ease the political unrest in the Middle East

Prayers for the family of Tyre Nichols who lost his life during a traffic stop in Memphis, Tennessee

Prayers for those who are housing and food challenged during these cold months of winter

Prayers for those recovering from the recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria 

Prayers for those affected by the mass shooting in Michigan

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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