January 18, 2025

“UUHoulton Chalice”   It’s already the middle of January, and thus far, we have escaped the most severe effects of winter (but there is sub-zero cold on the way). It’s also MLK weekend and you will find supplemental material in today’s Support Page and information about a special MLK event at the church on Monday to celebrate the holiday. See details below. Randi Bradbury and Ira Dyer lead the service on Sunday titled “Try a Little Kindness” about how we can extend our kindness and the importance of living an intentionally kinder life during uncertain times. We ran into technical difficulties recording last week’s service, so there will not be a new content available on the YouTube Channel this week. Sorry about that!
You may have heard the news that our good friend Jeremy Smith resigned as Houlton’s town manager on Tuesday. 

We want to have a little party for Jeremy on Sunday during coffee hour and then a potluck afterwards at Randi and Ira’s house at 5 Elm Street. Please bring something to share if you can.

Enjoy the week-end!

In Ministry,

Dave

There is no LGBTQ+ Luncheon in January (taking a winter break), but it will return next month on February 15. 

Houlton Coffeehouse

There is no coffeehouse this weekend due to limited staffing, illness (and besides), it’s the middle of January.We’ll see you next month!!
Stay warm and drink plenty of hot beverages.
Staff at The Cup CafeMLK Observation January 20    Monday at Noon -3PM     Cup Cafe at the UU Church of Houlton

Dear Friends,

We’d like to invite you to a small event we are holding to honor Dr. Martin Luther King and reflect on his legacy of justice and peace and what that might be asking of us.

This will take place on Monday January 20 from noon to 3 at the Cup Café at the Unitarian Church.  There will be readings, reflections, music, prayers, crafts, and food. The attached invitation contains all the (important) details.

If you know someone who would find this gathering meaningful, please feel free to share this invitation with them.

If you know you are coming, please rsvp to this email to help us plan how to set up the space. If you can’t be sure until closer to the event, just come.  It will be fine.

If you have questions, please contact Mary Beth DiMarco, Christy Fitzpatrick or David Hutchinson. 

We hope you can join us!

Food (chili) will be available at the cafe for purchase.

Please bring a dessert or side dish to share.  

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)Due to technical difficulties, there is no YouTube service available this week. Please check our archive to view one of our previous services and we’ll be back with a new service next week. 

HERE IS THE ZOOM LINK FOR SUNDAY COFFEE HOUR:

Topic: UUHoulton zoom coffee hour & check-inTime: Jan 19, 2025 11:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)      Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us06web.zoom.us/j/87221608739?pwd=V1HcigYLRIuRiNQd433DGJyYUm1QMg.1
Meeting ID: 872 2160 8739 Passcode: 516402

Calendar of Events @UUHoulton

Jan 18 There is no LGBTQ+ luncheon this month

Jan 18 There is no Houlton Coffeehouse this month

Jan 19 Sunday Service:  Randi Bradbury & Ira Dyer  “Try a Little Kindness”

Jan 20  MLK Observation in The Cup Cafe   (Noon until 3PM) 

Jan 21 Meditation Group  4PM  (online)

Jan 26 Sunday Service:  David Hutchinson   “Science of Religion”  (part six)

Feb 2 Sunday Service:  TBA

Feb 4 Meditation Group  4PM  (online)

Feb 5 Aroostook Climate Group Meeting in the cafe    6-7PM

Feb 9 Sunday Service:  David Hutchinson

Feb 10 UUHoulton Board Meeting    4PM

Feb 15 LGBTQ+ Luncheon     Noon

Feb 15 Houlton Coffeehouse    7-9PM

Feb 16 Sunday Service:  TBA

Feb 23 Sunday Service:  David 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 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

MLK SPECIAL CONTENT

For MLK weekend I’m including two previous posts from the writer’s blog I started several years ago, Backwoods Blog. 

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Backwoods Blog

January 19, 2023     Episode #116

It has been years since I first read MLK’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” one of the great political documents in American history. Martin Luther King, Jr. was only thirty four years old when he wrote the letter, composed in a poorly-lit jail cell without benefit of notes or resource material, only the thoughts of his soul. As the story goes, he began writing first on the margins of a newspaper, then on toilet paper, and finally on a legal pad supplied by his lawyers. (I complain when the battery starts to die on my computer or the data speed is too slow.) For this week’s MLK Day, I pledged to re-read the document in its entirety. How much progress have we really made? I’ve included a short excerpt from “the letter” in today’s post and encourage you to revisit the content as well. The journey and the work continues. “Letter From Birmingham Jail” (excerpt)                                                        April 16, 1963 In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive, negotiation, self-purification, and direct action. You may well ask, “Why direct action, why sit-ins, marches, and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are exactly right in your call for negotiation. Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. I just referred to the creation of tension as a part of the work of the nonviolent resister. This may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, but there is a type of constructive nonviolent tension that is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must see the need of having nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help people to rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. So, the purpose of direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. We therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in the tragic attempt to live in monologue rather than dialogue. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals…We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men and women willing to be coworkers with God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation.Never before have I written a letter this long — or should I say a book? I’m afraid that it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else is there to do when you are alone for days in the dull monotony of a narrow jail cell other than write long letters, think strange thoughts, and pray long prayers? If I have said anything in this letter that is an understatement of the truth and is indicative of an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything in this letter that is an overstatement of the truth and is indicative of my having a patience that makes me patient with anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.  Backwoods BlogJune 4, 2020    Episode #12

There are literally two Americas. One America is beautiful for situation. This America is the habitat of millions of people who have food and material necessities for their bodies; and culture and education for their minds; and freedom and human dignity for their spirits. In this America, millions of people experience every day the opportunity of having life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in all of their dimensions. And in this America millions of young people grow up in the sunlight of opportunity. But tragically and unfortunately, there is another America. This other America has a daily ugliness about it that constantly transforms the ebulliency of hope into the fatigue of despair. In this America millions of work-starved men walk the streets daily in search for jobs that do not exist. In this America people are poor by the millions. They find themselves perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. 

These conditions of widespread poverty have brought about a great deal of despair, disappointment and even bitterness in the Negro communities. Today our cities confront huge problems. All of our cities are potentially powder kegs as a result of the continued existence of these conditions. Many in moments of anger, many in moments of deep bitterness engage in riots. Let me say as I’ve always said, and I will always continue to say, that riots are socially destructive and self-defeating. I’m still convinced that nonviolence is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and justice. I feel that violence will only create more social problems than they will solve. But at the same time, it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention…We must realize that the time is always right to do right.

I still have faith in the future and I still believe that these problems can be solved. And so I will not join anyone who will say that we still can’t develop a coalition of conscience…And so I refuse to despair. I think we are going to achieve our freedom because however much America strays away from the ideals of justice, the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up in the destiny of America.

 With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discourse of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

– excerpt from MLK’s speech “The Other America” delivered at Stanford University on April 14, 1967.

*

The events of the last twelve days have left us reeling as a nation. As if the coronavirus pandemic wasn’t enough, the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota revealed another pandemic the country has been unsuccessfully dealing with for decades (or longer). Systemic racism in all its pernicious variants has tainted our American society since its founding.  With all of the social and economic conditions set up by COVID-19 the timing of a national reaction to the tragic killing of Floyd is not coincidental. 

 In times of national crisis when clarity and calm discretion is sometimes difficult to locate, I find myself returning to the great American writers, poets and leaders of years past. This week I reread several of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s speeches from the 1960s. One in particular stood out, “The Other America,” a speech delivered at Stanford University in 1967. It’s amazing how relevant it remains as the events of the past week highlight the same issues and arguments I’m hearing on CNN.  I only included a short excerpt from the speech in today’s blog, but I encourage you to read it in its entirety. The analysis and points in his argument hold true to this day; it only needs to be applied. In his speech he laments the undermining of the “Great Society” and addresses “The Other America” of Negroes, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Native Americans and poor Whites. Racism, poverty, inadequate health care and income inequality are not just Black issues, they are universal issues of “The Other America.”  The only way to stabilize a democratic society is to provide systematic justice and social equality for one and all. 

One comment I’ve heard numerous times this week regarding the repetitive cycle of a violent incident followed by inaction is “Enough is enough.”  The outrage and media attention last for a news cycle or two and then we move on. Perhaps I’m being optimistically pragmatic again, but it seems to me that this is different.  Recent movements like Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Colin Kaepernick & The NFL Protest and The Poor People’s Campaign all made their contributions to the forward motion of social justice but for the most part struggled to sustain long term momentum in the national conversation. This feels different.  I think people are ready for a change. We are talking about significant changes and that’s never easy, but we’ve been putting this off for fifty years now. I think the time is right. I think this is different. How can we go back when we have seen what we have seen and felt what we have felt?  I too say, “Enough is enough.”

In the woods,

Dave

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 continues

Prayers for the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza

Prayers for peace in the Middle East as the conflict widens

Prayers for post election America

Prayers for those in need or homeless during this winter season

Prayers for those affected by the terrorist event in New Orleans

Prayers for those affected by the recent fires in Los Angeles

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.