“Organ Pipes”   The Frisbee Organ in the UU Sanctuary    One of the (many) remarkable features of our historic building on the corner of Military and Kelleran is the Frisbee Organ in our sanctuary. When I give tours of our building to visitors, one of the things that generates the most interest and questions is the organ. It was originally a pump organ when installed in 1903 and later electrified in 1927, moving the keyboard console from the organ house to the floor below, where it is located now. People marvel at the beauty of the design and pipes, and besides wondering if it is still operational, they would love to hear what it sounds like. I am always pleased to recount the recent restoration work and that we have a marvelous organist who loves to play it every chance she gets!
Our Annual Request and Pledge Drive begins this week and the Frisbee Organ and our “Friends of the Frisbee Organ” (FOFO) Fund usually get mentioned during the course of the drive. The Sunday Service presents this year’s goals and targets for the drive and ways that you can participate in making UUHoulton your spiritual home and community. There will be a potluck in the church fellowship hall after the service and everyone is invited to bring something yummy to share! In recent years we have included a harvest auction after the meal as a fundraiser, but this year it’s just food. Lots and lots of good food. Please join us!

Our YouTube Channel content for this week is a service which includes themes from the recent Mini-Con 

with Dale Holden playing the Imperial March on the organ (in costume), a memorial tribute to James Earl Jones, who recently passed and was the voice of Darth Vader, special music by Bertrand Lawrence and a sermon by the minister on the practice of Jediism. See photographs in today’s Support Page to capture parts of the event. Look out for the light sabers! We hope you can join us for one of the services online or in-person.Enjoy the week-end!

In Ministry,

Dave

LGBTQ+ LuncheonNovember 16, Saturday 12 Noon

Come to The Cup Cafe this Saturday for a LGBTQ+ potluck meal open to all generations and allies! 

If you would like to bring a dish, you’re more than welcome to but there is no cost to attend. The meal will take 

place on Saturday, November 16th from 12:00 – 2:00 at 61 Military Street

Houlton CoffeehouseThere is no Houlton Coffeehouse this weekend, but mark your calendarsfor next month on December 14th, when a new local band Event Horizon is our feature. 

Johnny Strings opens for the band and there will be a 30 minute 

open-mic to start the show. More details to come…

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 zoom coffee hour & check inTime: Nov 17, 2024 11:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada) Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us06web.zoom.us/j/85390620571?pwd=NowRXaQTDgG448agll58jd5HzyD8pz.1
Meeting ID: 853 9062 0571 Passcode: 534660

Calendar of Events @UUHoulton

Nov 16 LGBTQ+ Luncheon  12 noon

Nov 16 There is no Houlton Coffeehouse tonight.

Nov 17 Sunday Service: Pledge Drive Kick-Off Sunday    Group-Led Service             Potluck Meal Following the Service

Nov 18 UUHoulton Board Meeting 6PM 

Nov 19 Meditation Group  4PM  (online)

Nov 24 Sunday Service: David Hutchinson

 Nov 24 Art Class @The Cup   1-3PM

Dec 1 Sunday Service:  Bill White

Dec 3 Meditation Group  4PM  (online)Dec 4 Aroostook Climate Group meeting 6PM  

Dec 8 Sunday Service: David Hutchinson

Dec 14 LGBTQ+ Luncheon  12 noon

Dec 14 Houlton Coffeehouse  7PM Feature: Event Horizon and Johnny Strings

Dec 15 Sunday Service: Dale Holden

Dec 21 Winter Solstice Celebration  7PM

Dec 22 Sunday Service: David Hutchinson

Dec 24 Christmas Eve Candlelight Service 4PM (potluck in the church fellowship hall following)

Dec 29 Sunday Service:  Open Pulpit Service

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 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. Maine 04730

From Rebecca Solnit’s essay, Hope in the DarknessThey want you to feel powerless and to surrender and to let them trample everything and you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving.  You may need to grieve or scream or take time off, but you have a role no matter what, and right now good friends and good principles are worth gathering in. Remember what you love. Remember what loves you. Remember your why. Remember in this tide of hate what love is. The pain you may feel is because of what you love. Don’t just mourn, organize, you can do both at once and you don’t have to organize right away in this moment of furious mourning.You can be heartbroken or furious or both at once; you can scream in your car or on a cliff; you can also get up tomorrow and water the flowerpots and call someone who’s upset and check your equipment for going onward. A lot of us are going to come under direct attack, and a lot of us are going to resist by building solidarity and sanctuary. Gather up your resources, the metaphysical ones that are heart and soul and care, as well as the practical ones.People kept the faith in the dictatorships of South America in the 1970s and 1980s, in the East Bloc countries and the USSR, women are protesting right now in Iran and people there are writing poetry. The first time a diverse electorate ever voted in the United States of America was in 1968. The Democratic Republic is still a young experiment in the larger scheme of things. There is no alternative to persevering, and that does not require you to feel good. You can keep walking whether it’s sunny or raining. Take care of yourself and remember that taking care of something else is an important part of taking care of yourself, because you are interwoven with the ten thousand things in this single garment of destiny that has been stained and torn, but is still being woven and mended and washed.

Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than twenty books on feminism, western and urban history, popular power, social change and insurrection, wandering and walking, hope and catastrophe. Her books include Orwell’s Roses; Recollections of My Nonexistence; Hope in the Dark; Men Explain Things to Me; A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster; and A Field Guide to Getting Lost. A product of the California public education system from kindergarten to graduate school, she writes regularly for the Guardian, serves on the board of the climate group Oil Change International, and recently launched the climate project Not Too Late 

This poem appeared in this week’s post election section of UUWorld Magazine:Moment of Reflection: ‘All is Not Lost’

—from Rev. Dr. JJ Flag and Rev. Victoria Safford 

For just a moment, sometime today, 
let this November air mess with your hair… 

All is not lost.

Go to the window. Open the door. 
If you can’t, 
if you’re sick, or in jail, or at work with no break, 
if you’re stuck in an airport or riding a train, 
or in labor right now, 
if your body can’t move to the window or door, 
just imagine you can smell the rain, taste the wind, 
the body and breath of the beautiful world. 
Close your eyes. 
Breathe deep, drink deep, the nourishing, life-giving air 
and let it be Spirit inside you. 
Breathe in life, and breathe out again, life. Breathe more.

This is your life, 
and our life together, you and I, and 
all the beloveds at risk now as never before, 
humans and trees, rivers and land, animals, 
children and birds. 
Breathe in love for them, breathe in love for us all. 
Protection. Resolve. 
And when you’re able, when you’re ready, whenever you can, 
breathe out a prayer of hope.

This may take a while.

We may have to hold our breath a long while, 
gulping in air as if we were desperate, which today, my friend, 
we are. 
Breathe in rage and fear and fury, bone-weariness, grief, panic, disgust. 
Breathe out a whisper, a sliver, a shiver, a single frail molecule 
of hope, to be carried like milkweed 
God only knows where.

You know this and must not forget:
still and always we are held within, and we comprise a larger Love. 
We are held within, and we comprise 
the mighty, irrefutable persistence and resistance of our ancestors, 
and the urgent, laughing beauty of our children. 
We are held within, and we comprise holy and ferocious power. 
Spirit/breath moves through us still, inspiring, insisting: 
any act of love we undertake henceforth will be a revolution.

Open your window. Go to the door. 
Reach for a neighbor, even a stranger. Now I believe, as I didn’t before, that you could knock on almost any door, tremble on the threshold, and when they open, collapse in their arms. 

They’ll hold you, you’ll hold them, weeping, fists pounding, 
amazed at your brazen audacity, 
a little embarrassed but mostly emboldened. 
What on earth is left for us to lose?

Take a breath, taste the wind, drink the rain, 
this feast prepared anew each day. 
Remember who you are, and whose, 
the beloveds and Beloved who know you by your name, 
who expect great things of you, 
which is to say, that you will keep on keeping on, 
never alone, 
and with all your dignity still shining.

Breathe deep, and notice now who’s hurting, who now is in danger, 
who needs your prayers of hope (and more than that, way more) 
in order to survive. 
Hold out your brave and loving hands, stronger than you know, 
your brave and beating heart, 
and do not, under any circumstances, 
let go of beauty and truth. 
Do not let go of faith and hope and love.We are held within, and we comprise a holiness 
no tyrant can diminish or demean.

UUHoulton Photo Gallery:

Look who just arrived!!

Sylvie Francis CarmichaelMommy and Daddy and baby are all doing just fine.Congratulations Laura & Fen!!!!

A few scenes from last week’s Mini-Con…

No dragons at the food counter!!

Prayer List
For those working for social justice and societal changePray for peaceful action and democratic process in our nationThe war in Ukraine continuesPrayers for those in Palestine and Israel as the war continues Prayers for the worsening humanitarian crisis in GazaPrayers for those affected by the tragic school shooting in Georgia.Prayers for those recovering from the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Florida, North Carolina and the South EastPrayers for peace in the Middle East as the conflict widensPrayers for those recovering from hurricane Milton in FloridaPrayers for post election America

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 delusion.