Unitarian day lilies
If you have walked by the Unitarian Church lately you may have noticed that our day lilies are in full bloom (and there are a lot of them). The cherry tree is also bearing fruit and everyone is invited to sample and pick as you like. This is one of our highlights of the year. Enjoy!! Coffeehouse is tonight in the church basement and details are listed below. Our natural air-conditioned space is a bonus this time of year. Rev. Mary Blocher leads the service on Sunday with a message titled “How Do You Sing the Blues?”
After you learn and practice the Law of Mind Action you will find that you have lost the right to sing the blues in an old way. You will be transformed and will be able to sing the blues in a brand new way.
Our field trip to the Beaverbrook Art Gallery on July 22 is only one week away. Steve has arranged a tour for our group (at a reduced rate) and we will also have a meal at one of Fredericton’s many fine restaurants. The cost of the tour is $12 per person (Canadian funds). We will meet at the church parking lot at 8AM and then carpool to Fredericton. If you are interested in joining us please register by sending an email todave@backwoodsblog.com
or speak to Dave or Steve in person. There will also be a sign up list on the information table in the coffee room. We have 24 people signed up thus far for the outing. Please join us.
YouTube Channel content for this week
is a service with Jeremy Harden speaking on the topic of “Free as in Freedom; Liberating Humankind by Alternative Operating Systems and EULA.” Rev. Dave assists in the service. You will find the link for YouTube listed below. Please join us for one of the services this weekend.
In Ministry,
Dave
HOULTON COFFEEHOUSEJuly 15, Saturday Evening 7-9 PM
The Cup Cafe, 61 Military Street
OPEN-MIC NIGHT
Summer is here and Houlton Coffeehouse is keeping the summer vibes going. It’s open-mic night this weekend and the show starts at 7PM for aspiring musicians, poets and entertainers. Come early and sign up for a slot and we’ll try to fit in as many performers as possible. Barley and vegetable soup (with a kielbasa option) and several orders of chicken curry are featured on the menu with salted caramel lattes as our drink special at the espresso bar. Our seltzer bar is also back in operation (just in time for the hot weather) and electric blue raspberry Italian sodas with a lemon twist are our fizzy speciality this month. It’s a great way to cool down…Iced coffee is also available.
Come early for supper and hang out in our naturally air-conditioned space before the show. Cafe doors open at 5:30PM.
Next month Mark Mandeville and Raeanne Richards are on the coffeehouse stage.
August 19 Saturday Night @7PM
(no admission fee, donations are encouraged)
Bio Information:
Little by little, you will get to know Mark Mandeville & Raianne Richards through their unmistakable vocal harmonies, poetic lyrics and down-to-earth personae. They are a married musical couple based out of Webster, Massachusetts. These prolific and hard working Massachusetts-based artists have contributed over seventeen albums within their first decade and toured consistently throughout the US and Canada. Their songs poetically reflect personal experiences as factory workers, teachers, community organizers, and natives of post-industrial mill towns in central Massachusetts. The memories of days gone by and toils of history can be better remembered through songs such as “That Old Machine” or “Winds of Change.” Listeners feel refreshed lyrics with references to elements in nature.
Accompanying themselves on guitar, harmonica, ukulele, penny whistle, electric bass, and most uniquely clarinet, their live performances are both musically captivating and spiritually uplifting as audiences are carefully balanced between serious songs and humorous commentary – concert goers will leave feeling a bit more human, as if they have experienced something genuine.
Mark & Raianne are famous among regional fans for their annual Massachusetts Walking Tour which defines them as true troubadours journeying with their instruments and humble voices, from stage to stage, town to town throughout the state on foot each June.
Each summer since 2010, Mandeville & Richards have organized the Massachusetts Walking Tour where they hike the roads and trails of the Commonwealth, more than 100 miles in less than two weeks, in support of the arts in local communities along the way. Each evening they stop over in yet another Massachusetts town, putting on a free concert there, along with local performers and fellow artists who accompany them on their journey. These annual two-week treks raise awareness of the trails and greenways in Massachusetts, including daily public hikes through recreational properties. The Massachusetts Walking Tour has partnered with The National Parks Service, Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC), Freedom’s Way, the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) and the Trustees, with primary funding through grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council Program.
Check out more info and photos on their website….www.markandraianne.com
See you at the Cup!
Feel the buzz…
Menu
Barley and Vegetable Soup (with a kielbasa option)served with a homemade burli rollElectric Blue Raspberry Italian Soda with a twist of Lemon
Salted Caramel Latte (hot or cold)
There’s also a music festival in Woodstock, New Brunswick July 20-22 that we’d like to help promote; The Dooryard Arts Festival.
(See information below and check out the website)
Dooryard Arts Festival 2023 is taking place July 20-22 in Woodstock.
Tickets are currently on sale ($15-$25) and so are festival passes ($60).
Tickets and schedule can be found at www.dooryardfestival.com
Here are some events:
Dooryard Presents: James Mullinger
Dooryard – Friday Night Main Stage
Dooryard – Saturday Night Main Stage
Dooryard – Saturday Street Market – FREE
Seth Anderson Live @ The Legion
The Last Lucivee Film Screening – FREE
Pallmer @ Connell House – FREE
Dooryard Presents: The Tin Pan Darlings
Hope to see you in the dooryard!
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)
HERE IS THE ZOOM LINK FOR SUNDAY COFFEE HOUR:
Topic: UUHoulton coffee hour & check -in
Time: Jul 16, 2023 11:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us06web.zoom.us/j/87255285441?pwd=NUpMeGM2ZS85VWp4b3QwbUtTT0FCZz09
Meeting ID: 872 5528 5441
Passcode: 109650
Calendar of Events @UUHoulton
July 15 Houlton Coffeehouse 7-9PM
July 16 Sunday Service: Rev Mary Blocher
July 22 Trip to Beaverbrook Art Gallery 8AMJuly 23 Sunday Service: Joshua Atkinson
July 25 Meditation Group 4PM (online)
July 30 Sunday Service: Dave Hutchinson
August 6 Sunday Service: Dan CrawfordAugust 8 Meditation Group 4PM (online)August 13 Sunday Service: Rev. Mary Blocher
August 19 Mark Mandeville & Raianne Richards Concert 7PM
Performance is on the coffeehouse stage (no admission fee, but donations are encouraged)
August 20 Sunday Service: Dave Hutchinson
August 22 Meditation Group 4PM (online)
August 27 Sunday Service: Dave Hutchinson
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 Houlton61 Military Street
HAPPY 88TH BIRTHDAY TO THE DALAI LAMA
On July 6, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama shared a video message to commemorate his 88th birthday. The spiritual leader of Tibet talked about the his hope to “bring peace to the world by spreading an understanding of the oneness of humanity.”
“I aspire to contribute to world peace through thought, word, and deed,” His Holiness said. “On the occasion of my birthday, if you, my friends, can guard your minds and lead good-natured lives you will be joyful at heart and as a result will be able, directly and indirectly, to help everyone around you.”
His Holiness also shared his daily prayer, a passage from Shantideva’s text, Engaging in the Bodhisattva Deeds:
Like the earth and other great elements,
And like space itself,
May I remain forever
To support the lives of boundless beings
By providing them a source of varied sustenance.
Words from Herman Hesse about wonder:
Wonder is where it starts, and though wonder is also where it ends, this is no futile path. Whether admiring a patch of moss, a crystal, flower, or golden beetle, a sky full of clouds, a sea with the serene, vast sigh of its swells, or a butterfly wing with its arrangement of crystalline ribs, contours, and the vibrant bezel of its edges, the diverse scripts and ornamentations of its markings, and the infinite, sweet, delightfully inspired transitions and shadings of its colors — whenever I experience part of nature, whether with my eyes or another of the five senses, whenever I feel drawn in, enchanted, opening myself momentarily to its existence and epiphanies, that very moment allows me to forget the avaricious, blind world of human need, and rather than thinking or issuing orders, rather than acquiring or exploiting, fighting or organizing, all I do in that moment is “wonder,” like Goethe, and not only does this wonderment establish my brotherhood with him, other poets, and sages, it also makes me a brother to those wondrous things I behold and experience as the living world: butterflies and moths, beetles, clouds, rivers and mountains, because while wandering down the path of wonder, I briefly escape the world of separation and enter the world of unity.
Our universities fail to guide us down the easiest paths to wisdom… Rather than teaching a sense of awe, they teach the very opposite: counting and measuring over delight, sobriety over enchantment, a rigid hold on scattered individual parts over an affinity for the unified and whole. These are not schools of wisdom, after all, but schools of knowledge, though they take for granted that which they cannot teach — the capacity for experience, the capacity for being moved, the Goethean sense of wonderment.
Happy birthdays to Dale Holden and Jeremy who happen to share the same birth date July 14.
We had two surprise drop-in visitors at last Sunday’s service. Cross country cyclist Dan and UUA staff member Jay just happened to be passing by the church when they spotted our big yellow “Standing on the Side of Love” banner which they immediately recognized as a UU marker. They joined us, hydrated and shared their amazing stories. Linda had noticed them at the Littleton Pitstop earlier that morning heading south (they stood out) and she wondered if I had spotted them in Houlton. I told her, “Yes! And they showed up for the service!” Jay Pacitti is Donor Relations Director of Stewardship and Development for the UUA in Boston and his wife, Rev. Lara Campbell, is the UU minister in Kennebunk, a colleague that I’ve known for years. We showed the boys UUHoulton hospitality before they hit the road heading south. Here are a couple of pictures.
Dan and Jay
Dan modeling his gear
high-tech hat (batteries included)
Prayer List
For 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 second year
Prayers to ease the political unrest in the Middle East
Prayers for those affected by the recent violence in the West Bank, the Dome of the Rock and political protests in Israel
Prayers for the Carmichael family with the loss of Dillon
Prayers for those affected by the recent train crash in India Prayers for those affected by the heat dome in the American south
Prayers for the five lives lost in the Titan submersible off the coast of Newfoundland
Prayers for the firefighters in Canada and the US fighting fires this summer
Prayers for those affected by the flooding in Vermont and the Northeast
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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