June 28, 2025
“in flight” (photo by Garrett Crawford)
The July 4th holiday is approaching, and along with it, many of the events and activities that make Houlton a great place to live (or visit). Midnight Madness is one such event, and once again, we will have the canopies set up on the church front lawn and we will be serving curry (vegan and chicken), All-American Mac & Cheese along with assorted iced drinks and slushies. The Cup Cafe will also be open if you want to get out of the heat (or rain) and our full line of espresso drinks will be available. See more details below.
The photo was taken by my nephew Garrett Crawford whose family from Tennessee were visiting Linda and I last week. He caught a monarch butterfly “in flight” crossing the field which is next to the cabin. The orange flash stands out in a color scape of green, motion stopped for a moment. In this week’s Sunday Service I will share a summer meditation titled “The Wild in Wildlife.” It includes a couple of bear stories too.
YouTube Channel content is a service lead by Kathryn Harnish titled “Common Threads; Reweaving Community in a Time of Unraveling.” A transcript of the talk is included in this week’s Support Page. Thank you Kathryn for a great service!
We hope you can join us for one of the services online or in-person.
In Ministry,
Dave
MIDNIGHT MADNESS July 3, 2025 Thursday Night 4-8 PM
UUHoulton Front Lawn & Cup Cafe
Join us for Midnight Madness on the UUHoulton front lawn and Cup Cafe. We have our famous curry available (vegan and chicken) which has become a Midnight Madness must-have. I don’t know how many years we’ve been doing this, but we’re doing it again. Get there early before we sell out! We also have All-American Mac & Cheese this year. The cafe will be open to eat in or to go and there are hot and cold beverages, iced lattes and slushies to cool your cravings. If you don’t have a total solar eclipse t-shirt from last year, we still have them available. Get one at Midnight Madness! Fireworks in downtown Market Square start at 9:30PM.
Celebrate Midnight Madness.Feel the buzz…”Elbow’s Up” RallyJuly 5th 10-11AM
Upcoming Event
Unitarian Concert Series:
Gunther BrownAugust 9 Saturday Night 7PMOn the Sanctuary Stage
$20 tickets
$15 student price
(children under 12 are free)
Tickets available at The County Co-Op & Farm Store
and online at uuhoulton.org
Gunther Brown
Pete Ryan: Guitar & Lead VocalsChris Plumstead: Lead Guitar & VocalsMark McDonough: BassDerek Mills: Drums
Gunther Brown is coming back to Houlton, Maine for a concert on the sanctuary stage on Saturday, August 9th. The band hadn’t played since Covid, but we gave them a call and talked them into a “One Night Only Reunion Tour” in Houlton. This is a night you won’t want to miss! Pete and the boys put on a great show and local celebrity Derek Mills still holds down the drums. Concessions will be available during intermission.
Tickets are now available at The County Co-Op & Farm Store in downtown Houlton
and online at uuhoulton.org (just click on the front page image or go to “concert series”)
Press Reviews:
Gunther Brown is a roots-rock Americana band from Portland, Maine.
The band’s most recent album, Heartache & Roses, was released in February, 2020, with reviews proclaiming “Gunther Brown is the Portland-based band that will make you fall back in love with Americana music. ”
After a European tour in 2017 Gunther Brown took an extended break due to a change in the lineup and, after playing just two shows in support of Heartache & Roses, was stalled once again- this time by covid.
Gunther Brown introduced themselves to the world with Good Nights for Daydreams, in 2014. The band’s full-length debut received only great reviews, both in the band’s hometown and internationally.
The Portland Phoenix said, “The guys in Gunther Brown can lay on the biting spite pretty thick, but they also embrace pure emotion. With Gunther Brown’s debut full-length, (they) have created the most sorrowful local record since Ray Lamontagne’s Till the Sun Turns Black.” AmericanaUK added, “Gunther Brown’s debut album is forty minutes of resignation and despair set to one of the most mournful soundtracks you’re likely to hear this year or any other. Leader and songwriter Pete Ryan is a master of despondency.”
In 2016, Gunther Brown released, North Wind, a new 10 song album, on vinyl, CD and digital formats. The album was released in Europe on CRS. Reviews of North Wind heaped praise on the band with statements like, “…one of your great Americana promises for 2016,” and “…North Wind is many things at once: tender, fierce, thought-provoking, powerful and even fun. Could lavish praise on every track…this band is really onto something.”
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: Jun 29, 2025 11:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada) Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us06web.zoom.us/j/86124829981?pwd=Qjcj4CwqxrDO7ecH6qVkeYoBFBLfl9.1
Meeting ID: 861 2482 9981Passcode: 760323
Calendar of Events @UUHoulton
June 29 Sunday Service: David Hutchinson
July 2 Social Action Committee Meeting in the cafe 6PM
July 3 Midnight Madness 4-8PM
On the Church Front Lawn
Chicken Curry, All American Mac & Cheese, drink specials and more!July 5 “Elbows Up” Rally 10AM (in front of the courthouse)
July 6 Sunday Service: Open-Pulpit Service
July 13 Sunday Service: David Hutchinson
July 14 UUHoulton Board Meeting 4PM in the parlor
July 19 LGBTQ+ Luncheon 12 Noon
July 19 Trivia Night and Tacos 5PM
July Jam 6-8PM Cup Cafe
July 20 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, Houlton, ME 04730
Here is the transcript of Kathryn’s service last week as it appeared on her Substack page “Crows Come Home to Roost”
Reweaving Community in a Time of Unraveling
JUN 23, 2025
by Kathryn Harnish
Yesterday, I had the privilege of delivering the service as a “Minister Among Many” at the UU Church of Houlton. I wanted to share my words here — they’re heavy and angry and yet, I hope, hopeful.
Sawubona.
We gather this morning in a world that feels increasingly fragile – frayed by conflict, the horrific treatment of those that are seen as somehow “less than”, and the slow unraveling of the systems we once trusted to hold us in times of need.
It can feel overwhelming and isolating, as if we are standing alone before forces too vast to comprehend, let alone confront.
But we are not alone…we are interconnected, and our actions have impact, even when we don’t feel like they do. In 1855, Rev. Henry Melvill put it this way: “A thousand fibers connect you with your fellow-men, and along those fibers, as along sympathetic threads, run your actions as causes, and return to you as effects.”
This week in Augusta, our legislature – although divided – took action to address critical issues in ways that reinforced the importance of the dignity, compassion, and collective responsibility in which we must hold one another.
- In a narrow vote, lawmakers passed a $300M budget amendment that included additional funding for nursing homes and childcare for families with unmet needs. They approved continuing funding for free school meals and a 1% cost‑of‑living bump for direct‑care workers.
- With a one‑vote margin, legislators passed a bill to limit local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
- And the Maine Senate, by large margins, voted against eight bills would have rolled back transgender rights, including restrictions on bathrooms, names and pronouns, and participation in sports teams based on gender identity. Advocates credited citizen engagement – “every single phone call, email, and conversation” – for preserving these protections.
In this moment, these are acts of defiance against both despotism and despair, clear statements that those thousand fibers still exist, still matter. That community still matters. That showing up for and standing beside one another is resistance, a sacred act of love, that matter more than ever.
But there is still noise, and threat, and cruelty.
- This week, the U.S. Senate voted on a budget bill that would make massive cuts in Medicaid, ACA coverage, and SNAP, which would raise costs on families and make it much harder for them to afford fundamental needs.
- In Presque Isle on Wednesday, a Coast Guard plane flew dozens of individuals detained by ICE…somewhere.
- A Supreme Court ruling upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming treatment for minors…care that saves thousands of lives each year. 54 percent of young people who identified as transgender or nonbinary reported having seriously considered suicide in the last year, and 29 percent have made an attempt to end their lives.
- And last night, amidst Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, the U.S. launched strikes on Iran, catapulting us into yet another unnecessary war without congressional approval, coherent strategy, or public debate. Our erratic foreign policy will have profound global consequences.
Cracks in community become gulfs.
Fear replaces fellowship.
And “us vs. them” becomes the only story we know how to tell.But we can’t afford to give in to that story.Because we know that everyone belongs in this circle of care.That every life has worth and dignity.That we are all interconnected, even when we forget that fact.That we are called upon to live the UU values of love, interdependence, pluralism, justice, transformation, generosity, and equity.And so, a few weeks ago, when Randi and Ira invited us to consider radical empathy as a central part of living these values, it struck a deep chord for so many of us. Empathy is a discipline, a practice, a conscious act. It means choosing love when it’s hard. Choosing compassion when it’s inconvenient. Choosing to listen when we’d rather walk away.In that service, Randi shared the words of pastor John Pavlovitz, whose writings have always inspired me to do better, to be better. Radical empathy, he said, is the way to “inoculate ourselves from the horrors that are happening right now.”And I’ll return to his words today: Pavlovitz writes in his blog that “it is not disagreement on policy that is doing the greatest damage to us as a people, it is a scarcity of gentleness and kindness in the face of pain and need and grief that is bankrupting us perhaps beyond repair.But here’s the thing – we are not beyond repair.
We are just desperately in need of repair.Because what’s unraveling in our country isn’t just policies or systems – it’s relationships. And that’s something we can actually do something about.Over the last 50 years, we’ve become half as likely to spend time with our neighbors. Half as likely to trust our fellow Americans. We’ve become isolated, suspicious, closed-off to one another. And slowly, the fabric of our society has unraveled, creating deep disaffection that is being exploited in a way that gives tyranny a place to grow. There is profound division among us – fostered by the othering of people, by an “us vs. them” way of thinking about human connections and relationships. And unraveling continues, things fall apart, when not tended to. Opportunists know this..and will continue to take advantage of it, co-opting the pain of aloneness and distrust to advance an inhumane agenda that will harm nearly all of us if enacted.So if the threads are fraying, we must be the weavers. It is the work of resistance to bring the threads we share back into a whole tapestry, to rebuild community – real, messy, generous, inclusive, complicated community that crosses political lines, faith traditions, and every identity that has been used to divide us from one another. We need to become better neighbors not just to the people who think like us, but to those who don’t. Especially those who don’t.This isn’t about being kind. It’s about being accountable.Because our shared values as Unitarian Universalists demand that…
We affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person.
We covenant to promote justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.
We commit to a free and responsible search for truth and meaning – and to the goal of a world community with peace, liberty, and justice for everyone.These values require our presence. That we show up when it matters.
That we speak up when it’s risky. That we catch people – any people – when they fall.And people are falling.Falling through the cracks of broken systems, like the 38-year-old woman who cannot work – as she would like – because her family would become ineligible for the MaineCare coverage they rely on to address a child’s serious, chronic medical condition.Falling under the weight of poverty, isolation, and illness, like the 62-year-old woman whose pipes froze and burst four years ago, leaving her without running water to this day.Like the 35-year-old disabled man who has not left his home in three years because his house is not accessible.Like the people who struggle with thrice-weekly travel arrangements to Presque Isle for dialysis and, ultimately, find themselves unable to continue treatment.And falling into despair because they believe they are being left behind.Like the 29% of our neighbors who are functionally unemployed, unable to pay for basic household expenses despite working hard every day.Like middle-income families that don’t qualify for housing subsidies, but can’t find an affordable place to call home in our current market.Like Millennials, the first generation since the Industrial Revolution to experience a lower quality of life than their parents, particularly regarding economic prospects and homeownership.And more people will fall – many, many more – if the politicians in Washington continue to stand with the million- and billionaires, choosing to cut Medicaid, LIHEAP, SNAP, and other programs that support people when times are tough, so that the wealthiest among us can amass more and more money through lower taxes.Someone will need to be in place to help catch these folks.And we are called to say: We will.
Not because it’s easy. But because it’s what love looks like.
And because our UU values call us to social action.To reweave community isn’t just a nice-sounding metaphor. It means asking, every single day: Whose needs am I paying attention to? Whose suffering am I willing to carry? Who do I choose to stand beside – even when they are not like me?This is the spiritual practice of repair. Of reweaving.I had the opportunity to listen to an amazing keynote speaker, Prentis Hemphill, at the Maine Philanthropy Center conference in May. A therapist active in the Black Lives Matter movement, they say in their book, What It Takes to Heal, that it is when we “orient toward healing and repair for ourselves and others that we recover our capacity for feeling, for relationship, and, with that, the ability to strengthen our bonds and work together.”To choose connection over comfort. Empathy over estrangement. Curiosity over certainty. Responsibility over retreat. Care through action.And to do it again and again, until what’s unraveling becomes what is mending.This is how we resist.
This is how we rebuild.
This is how we belong to one another.Because no one is free until all of us are free.
And no one is whole until all of us belong.In spirit, in love, in action – amen.
Poetry Corner
Our HeronBY WILLIAM OLSENObservation isn’t serious play. It is living serious. Same heron. It’s used to us, we are as twilight. When we walk down shore. Hand me the binoculars. I’ll hand them back. No, I can see it with my naked eye. Cup your ear. Drink what I say. Because what was that last squabble about? If we draw too near the heron it will go, meaning that for it we will have gone.
I can’t see it every day all day. Sunlight has nothing to do with our sharing the sight of it. I want twilight. A heron is a “how to” book on twilight. Open anywhere. “How to” is a lonely phrase. Lonely is a start. Try saying so. Try making up and try inconclusion. Try twilight.
Then try reading a book so good that every page is dog-eared and you know how safe the heron out there in the reeds feels just about now. Each twilight try the same heron the shade of twilight. Twilight hushes to such tones you have to look so carefully at what you see you become hushed yourself. Then a heron. Pulled forward by fish, the baiting saint of the shallows. Its elongated neck tapers to the beak that always precedes head and eye and ears, the beak being both an emissary for and a tender of the senses.
Sometimes behind slender reed it would vanish to sight, we couldn’t make it out, and trying to was like trying to interpret a flyleaf.
For twenty-odd minutes we’d watch for the heron while we brushed mosquitoes from one another’s faces. The mosquitoes would have drowned in our hearts if they could have.Copyright Credit: William Olsen, “Our Heron” from Technorage. Copyright © 2017 by William Olsen. Reprinted by permission of Northwestern University.Source: Technorage (Northwestern University, 2017)
Amid Tumultuous World Events, UUs at GA 2025 Vow to Meet the Moment
The theme of General Assembly 2025, held June 18–22 on site in Baltimore, Maryland, and online, was Meet the Moment—and as ground-shaking world events unfolded around them, Unitarian Universalists showed what meeting the moment looks like in real time.
On June 18, the first day of GA, the Unitarian Universalist Association moved swiftly to condemn the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to curtail the rights of transgender people in the case of U.S. v. Skrmetti.
“The Supreme Court’s decision today will irreparably harm transgender youth by allowing states to deny them the kind of care they need for their physical and mental well-being,” said Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt, the UUA’s president. “As a part of our faith tradition, Unitarian Universalists embrace transgender, nonbinary, intersex, and gender diverse people. This is a central expression of our faith.”
And hours after the United States announced on Saturday, June 21 that it had bombed Iran, the UUA issued a statement condemning the action, saying it “represents a moral failure and Unitarian Universalists (UUs) are compelled through our religious beliefs to speak out against it.”
The next morning, during the Sunday worship service, the Rev. Dr. Nicole Kirk said, “Friends, we gather this morning as a community of faith under the weight of deeply disturbing news” of the military strikes against Iran. Noting that the action “marks a dangerous escalation of a conflict that has already claimed too many lives,” Kirk added, “Our Unitarian Universalist tradition has called us to repudiate aggressive and preventive war and to recognize that while we cannot stop the violence, we can hold space for the grief, the anger, the fear, the conflicting emotions that we carry. Our faith calls us to be peacemakers, not warmakers . . . Let this worship service be an act of moral resistance.”
More than 3,279 Unitarian Universalists from 592 congregations in forty-eight states and four countries—Canada, France, Mexico, and the Virgin Islands—participated in GA this year. There were 2,483 attendees onsite, as well as 143 children, according to UUA Secretary John Simmonds.
The annual gathering of UUs included many other real-time expressions of responding to the urgency of the times. In response to the Supreme Court’s Skrmettidecision, a special session was added to the Thursday agenda. “Skrmetti Case: Information, Misinformation, and Implications,” was led by civil rights lawyer Sam Ames and UUA General Counsel Adrienne Walker, who explained the implications of the decision and took questions from the audience. “We cannot cede the ground of faith, religion,” Ames said. “We cannot cede the ground of the sacred.” The session was followed by the workshop “Building Trans Justice: Safety and Belonging.”
Saturday night’s Ware Lecture, with award-winning journalist and trans rights activist Imara Jones, drew numerous standing ovations. Emphasizing that Christian nationalists have “captured a major political party,” Jones said the attack on trans rights is a deeply researched and heavily funded effort to “undermine democracy” and warned UUs to “take it deadly seriously.” She added, “One of the ways to counter the role that anti-trans politics is playing in the undermining of democracy is to actually care about trans people.” She urged UUs to take action, including calling their state legislators to oppose anti-trans legislation and challenging people who make anti-trans comments.Our camera man getting ready for the Sunday Service(Christoph is also an avid biker and current Aroostook County Director of United Bikers of Maine)
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 those affected by recent governmental (and policy) changes in DC
Concern over the increasing tension between India and Pakistan
Prayers for those affected by the recent tornadoes and storms in the American Midwest and South
Prayers for those affected by the Canadian wildfires in Saskatchewan and Manitoba
Prayers for our friend Joe Hogan who is at Eastern Maine Medical Center
Prayers for those affected by the tragic airliner crash in India
Prayers for Peace in the Middle East
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.
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