April 9, 2023

Easter is here! I’d like to say that again (just for emphasis), but I think you get the idea. Easter has many levels of meaning for each of us, but for those living in northern climates it is truly a much needed rite of spring. While the snow and cold has lingered long this year, I think Easter is our turning point. There are repeated fifty degree temperatures in this upcoming week’s forecast.

We have an Easter Service planned for Sunday with special music by our ensemble, organ music and even a little flugelhorn. The title of the minister’s sermon is “The Days of our Spring.” We have our regular coffee hour following the service and at 12 noon there is an Easter brunch. Come and join us! 

Our YouTube Channel service for this week is the Palm Sunday service led by Rev. Dale Holden with special music by Rosalind Morgan. The title of Dale’s message is “Holy Week; Retelling and Reflections.” Please join us for one of the services this weekend. 

Happy Easter!!

In Ministry,

Dave

Our Spring concert is May 13th on the sanctuary stage. Make plans now to attend and tell your friends! If you would like to help pre-sell tickets we have tickets available at the church. 

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/qxGd2T-2zj0

HERE IS THE ZOOM LINK FOR SUNDAY COFFEE HOUR:

Topic: UUHoulton coffee hour & check inTime: Apr 9, 2023 11:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us06web.zoom.us/j/85971502254?pwd=N2JPTXpsM1lTckd3MUlQWENqbzhOQT09
Meeting ID: 859 7150 2254Passcode: 311948

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

For Easter weekend we have selected a few passages written by Trappist monk Thomas Merton:

To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything

He has given us – and He has given us everything.

Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. 

Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God.

For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference. 
You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.
If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for. 
Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody’s business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy. 
Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect.

As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself.

You gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything. 
Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time.

This is not just a nice story or a fable, it is true. 
To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to the violence of our times. 
There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork.

The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence.

To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence.

The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful. 

It is only the infinite mercy and love of God that has prevented us from tearing ourselves to pieces and destroying His entire creation long ago. People seem to think that it is in some way a proof that no merciful God exists, if we have so many wars.

On the contrary, consider how in spite of centuries of sin and greed and lust and cruelty and hatred and avarice and oppression and injustice, spawned and bred by the free wills of men, the human race can still recover, each time, and can still produce man and women who overcome evil with good, hatred with love, greed with charity, lust and cruelty with sanctity. How could all this be possible without the merciful love of God, pouring out His grace upon us? Can there be any doubt where wars come from and where peace comes from, when the children of this world, excluding God from their peace conferences, only manage to bring about greater and greater wars the more they talk about peace? 

When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children, when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet, Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash – at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the “newness,” the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, all these provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.

Prayer of Thomas Merton;
“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.” 
Amen.

Flashback from Easter 2021 when choir members and minister led an on-line Easter Service during covid. (Karen & Dale)

Dave watching the sap boil in the sugar shack.

Maple sap-master Ryan Hines in charge…

Prayer ListFor those recovering from COVID-19 in the state of MaineLocal emergency personnel and hospital staffFor our state and national leaders as the respond to the current coronavirus crisis

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

The war in Ukraine is now in its second year

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

Prayers for those affected by the mass shooting at the University of Michigan

Prayers for those in California experiencing extreme  weatherPrayers for those affected by the mass shooting in Nashville 

Prayers to ease the political unrest in the Middle EastPrayers for those affected by the recent violence in the West Bank, the Dome of the Rock and political protests in Israel

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.