Presented by Rev. Bode, Nancy Mann, and the Quimper Unitarian Universalist Animal Ministry (QUUAM) – After a break of a couple of years, we are holding a “Blessing of Animals” service. This will be an interspecies/ intergenerational service held in the sanctuary, with the probability of an outdoor parade as well. Children and adults are encouraged to bring their companion animals with them to the service. Please bring only pets that are “people friendly” and “other pet” compatible. For safety, dogs should be on leashes, cats in carriers, etc. Come one, come all to this special service!

Click here to listen to the reading and homily.

The strong majority of fairy tales – the ones we know best – deal with the issues and psychology of youth. They are designed to help young people cross the difficult and dangerous bridge leading from childhood and adolescence to adulthood and maturity.

But what happens after you’ve crossed the bridge and find yourself in the land of “happily ever after”? As it happens, there are also some fairy tales where the protagonists are in their middle years, tales very different in both form and content. This sermon, the second in a series of three sermons related to the distilled wisdom of fairy tales, will indicate what values these mid-life fairy tales bring forward for the middle years.

Click here to listen to the reading and sermon.

In past August Sunday services as I pick up again after a summer break, I have sometimes taken a second crack at sermons I’ve previously given, referring to them, following Nathaniel Hawthorne’s lead, as “twice-told tales.” This August, the “twice-told tales” to which I will be returning are literally tales, fairy tales, that is.

One of the functions of mythology and religion is what Joseph Campbell calls the “pedagogical function” – teaching and guiding the individual through the normal stages of life in a harmonious and fulfilling way. And fairy tales, the distilled wisdom of the ages – “minor scriptures,” if you will – are traditional sources of teaching what the values of the different stages of life are.

This sermon is the first in a series of three sermons – August 6, 13, 27 – indicating the values that these tales bring forward for the three main stages of life. Those three stages are: 1) the early years of youth and dependence; 2) the middle years of adulthood and independence; 3) the elder years of disengagement, letting go, and return).

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Curiously, perhaps surprisingly, it’s our connection to “primal wonder” that grounds us; or, as Albert Schweitzer puts it, mysticism is the stalk and ethics the flower. This will be a companion sermon to “The Realm and Experience of Mystery” on February 5. Click here to listen to the reading and sermon. Click here to read … Continue reading Primal Wonder

Where to start in the face of strongly opposing and intractable positions? This sermon will explore how the image of tectonic plates might be a helpful image in relation to gridlock, whether personal, political, or religious.

Guest Musicians: MaMuse (“Ma” as in “Mamma,” “Muse” as in the one who inspires) will perform a concert at QUUF on Monday evening, March 13 and will also – happily! – provide the music for our Sunday services. The roots of MaMuse’s music is in folk and gospel traditions, with their hearts in the present. MaMuse (Sarah Nutting and Karisha Longaker) have been co-creating music for nine years, producing four full-length albums.

Click here to listen to the reading and sermon.
Click here to read the reading and sermon.

“The American Creed,” as the late Dr. Forrest Church speaks of it, has a lot in common with the values and ideals of liberal religion. The sermon message on this Sunday as we kickoff our annual pledge campaign will address the overlap of our American ideals and those of liberal religion, and it will ask what we as a Fellowship are called to do in a time when both are threatened.

Click here to listen to the reading and sermon.
Click here to read the sermon.