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The Power of We

Poetry Sunday

Our scheduled speaker for this morning, Oklahoma cowboy poet Ron Wallace requested we reschedule him for a later date. Today’s Poetry Sunday will feature the video from last summer’s General Assembly when Richard Blano delivered the prestigious Ware Lecture. We are grateful that he accepted the invitation to speak last June and hope you will enjoy this reading of his poetry today.

Richard Blanco is an American poet, public speaker, author and civil engineer. He is the first immigrant, the first Latino, the first openly gay person and the youngest person to be the U.S. inaugural poet. His mother, seven months pregnant, and the rest of the family arrived as exiles from Cuba to Madrid where he was born on February 15th, 1968. Forty-five days later, the family immigrated once more to New York City. Only a few weeks old, Blanco already belonged to three countries, a foreshadowing of the concerns of place and belonging that would shape his life and work. Eventually, the family settled in Miami, where he was raised and educated. Growing up among close-knit Cuban exiles instilled in him a strong sense of community, dignity, and identity that he’d carry into his adult life as a writer. He and his husband live in Bethel, Maine.

Managing Disturbing Emotions

What are emotions? How do they arise? How are they sustained? The Ven. Tashi Nyima will share a practical approach to managing emotions.

We welcome again to our pulpit today, the Venerable Tashi Nyima. Tashi is an ordained monk in the Jonang lineage of Vajrayana(Tibetan) Buddhism, and leads the Universal Compassion Buddhist Congregation, with Sanghas in Texas, Mexico, and Argentina. For more than three decades, Lama Tashi has shared the Dharma in North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Known for his directness, clarity of expression, and sense of humor, Lama Tashi shares the Dharma in fluent English and Spanish.

Our Universalist Roots and Branches

About this Sunday’s morning assembly:

A sermon focusing on roots and branches of Universalism starting with John Murray, who came to believe in Universalism in England. He came to America in 1770 and preached the first sermon on universal salvation in a chapel built by local farmer Thomas Potter, and subsequent spread of Universalism up until the present time.

We welcome to our pulpit this morning the Rev. Kalen Fristad. He has been a United Methodist minister for more than 39 years, is a member of the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship, and is President of the Christian Universalist Association. He and his wife, Darlene have traveled extensively, speaking at churches, proclaiming the hopeful message of Universalism and countering the teaching that many people will suffer for eternity in hell. Kalen has written a book on Universalism, entitled Destined for Salvation: God’s Promise to Save Everyone, and a Study Book with the same title. His books, CDs and DVDs are available for purchase after the morning assembly.

The Hartshorne/Brightman Correspondence: A Unitarian Universalist Philosopher and Methodist Philosopher in Dialogue

This talk will explore one of the most significant philosophical correspondences of the 20th Century comprised of a sustained 23 year dialogue (1922-1945) between UU philosopher Charles Hartshorne and Methodist philosopher Edgar S. Brightman. Hartshorne was one of the leading proponents of process philosophy, and Brightman was the most prominent Boston personalist philosopher of his time and had significant influence on the thought and worldview of Martin Luther King Jr. Topics of the correspondence include their views on knowledge, the nature of reality, social responsibility, justice, and peace.

The Rev. Dr. Mark Davies is the Oklahoma State Humanities Scholar for the Smithsonian Institute Museum on Main Street Water/Ways exhibit. He is also the Wimberly Professor of Social and Ecological Ethics; Director of the World House Institute for Social and Ecological Responsibility; and Executive Director of the Leadership. Education, and Development Hub North America for the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry at Oklahoma City University where he has worked in both teaching and administration for 22 years. He is a United Methodist minister and holds a Ph.D. in Social Ethics, from Boston University.

Mark is a regular contributor to various online publications, including “The Oklahoma Observer”, “The United Methodist Insight“, and “One World House” and he engages in advocacy and activism in the areas of peace, social justice, and ecological sustainability. Locally this is expressed through his work with the Human Community Network, which works to create non-violent systemic change for a just and flourishing human and ecological community through collaboration, education, innovation, and action. See www.humancommunitynetwork.org.

He and his wife Kristin live in Edmond, OK in the United States, and they have two teenage daughters.

Living Our Faith Out Loud

Living Our Faith Out Loud

The Rev. Dr. Susan Frederick-Gray, preaching (video message)

In the midst of these defining and tumultuous times, when so much is on the line, we must ask “How can we live the values of compassion, justice, democracy and interdependence in bold, courageous ways that have the power to make a measurable difference today and for the future?”

On Martin Luther King Sunday, Dr. Frederick-Gray, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association preached in Dallas. We will view her remarks on Sunday.

Susan is a life-long Unitarian Universalist with roots at Eliot Chapel in St. Louis, Missouri. Prior to being elected UUA president, she was the lead minister at the UU church in Phoenix. She previously served our congregation in Youngstown, OH. Prior to ministry, Susan worked briefly in the field of genetic sequencing following her Bachelor of Science in Molecular Biology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Our Building: A Site of Memory

Memory is an essential part of consciousness and places embody our memories. Old buildings are like memories you can touch. However, in order to experience this connection, we must first know of its history. On this last Sunday of Black History Month, we welcome Funeral Director James E. Smith who will speak of his 40 years at James Smith Funeral Home For Blacks, the only funeral home open to African Americans, along with giving us a glimpse of what it was like to live in this old, stately home.

James is a native Denisonian and began working with funeral homes in Denison/Sherman at the age of 13. He is a graduate of Terrell High School in Denison and Commonwealth College of Mortuary Science in Houston, Texas. James is a licensed Funeral Director and Embalmer in Texas since 1970 and in Oklahoma since 1996. James has 46 years of experience as a funeral professional. He has been married to his wife Barbara Kinney Smith for 52 years. They have three children and six grandchildren.

Neil Postman, Prophet? Technology, Gods, and The End of Education.

Author, educator, media theorist and social critic Neil Postman (1931-2003) argued that television was playing on our appetite for distraction as we amused ourselves to death. Writing on the cusp of the internet, Postman warned of the dangers posed by the false god of technology for culture, politics, and education. We’ll consider what he had to say.

William Lloyd Fridley, Ph.D. is a professor of Education at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. He is a faculty activist, working on academic policy and shared governance with the SOSU Faculty Senate and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). He was recently chosen as the president-elect for the Society of Philosophy and History of Education, and has master of divinity and master of theology degrees from Grace Theological Seminary.

A New Plan for a New Year

On Sunday a look at a new, exciting focus. The Pathway to Membership becomes clearer, easier to follow. At least the Membership Team hopes so! Marion Hill will speak about a new approach to church membership that the congregation has voted to begin using. This Path to Membership, based on a workshop Hill heard at the 2019 General Assembly of UUA, is not radically different from the procedure the church has been following. But the focus is different, and the workshop presenters (from the UU Congregation of Phoenix) say that the approach has brought them members who have a clearer understanding of what their church is about, and who are more committed to the congregation’s values, than before they began it.

Marion Hill, a charter member of our congregation and chair of the membership committee, is a mystery author who writes two series of novels (the Scrappy Librarian Mysteries and the Deadly Past Mysteries–see www.marionmoorehill.net for details. She formerly taught English at Southeastern Oklahoma State University and both English and journalism at Carson-Newman College (now University) in Tennessee, and has been a legal secretary.

Communitarian Personalism

A closer look at what it means to be persons-in-community and how awareness of this reality changes our self-understanding and sense of responsibility for the world around us.

Dr. Davies has, for the last 23 years, been the Wimberly Professor of Social and Ecological Ethics at Oklahoma City University and Founding Director of the World House Institute for Social and Ecological Responsibility, looks at the systemic barriers to peace within the economic, political and culture process.

The Still Point of the Turning World

Why meditate? In our driven, achievement-focused world, what are the benefits of learning to create stillness inside yourself? Elena Westbrook will introduce a few different approaches, including breathing techniques and Tonglen meditation, that can be a powerful part of your spiritual practice.

Elena Westbrook returns to our pulpit this morning. Elena is an active member (the past president) of Community Unitarian Universalist Church in Plano where she chairs their worship team, often participates in the morning worship as an accomplished pianist, and speaker. She has contributed invocations, chalice lighting. Elena is deeply concerned about climate change. In 1996 she and her husband Paul built a a passive solar home in Fairview. It has been a model of energy and resource efficiency. The house design was awarded the 1996 NAHB Energy Value Housing Award for Innovative