Details of the ongoing tragedy in Israel and the Gaza strip have dominated newscasts and newspaper headlines in the 25 days since the surprise attack on southern Israel by Hamas on October 7 killed 1,400 Israelis and injured hundreds of others. Israeli military forces responded with retaliatory strikes that killed more than 8,000 Palestinians in the Gaza strip, including 3,000 children, numbers almost impossible to comprehend. I confess I have not followed the progress of the conflict closely. News coverage has often focused on the carnage and destruction with graphic images prevailing. It’s very disturbing to see images of the victims and the wailing mourning of the survivors. And such images do little to illuminate the history, culture, and ideology behind the attacks and counterattacks.
Greetings, members and friends of UU Middleboro! We’re already a month into the new church year, and the weather is getting crisper as the days shorten and nights lengthen. It’s time for pumpkins and candy corn and fall colors and (almost) time for pumpkin spice-flavored everything.
It’s September, 2023, and the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Middleboro enters its 134th church year with a mixture of hope and anticipation. From all reports, our summer services were well-attended most weeks and succeeded in advancing the cause of our mission– to provide a sanctuary where people can come together as a community to foster spiritual and personal growth through education and open discussion, offering the opportunity for meditation and worship, and serving as a liberal religious voice in Middleboro. Our “Celebration Sunday” in June recognized the many accomplishments of our church body, from providing quality pastoral care, responsible
As I write this, the month of May is coming to a close and June is just a few days away. Our June worship services promise to be celebratory as we recognize the work of our Religious Exploration program, Pride Sunday, and, of course, Celebration Sunday itself, before we move towards closing the books on the 2022-23 church year and the beginning of a well-planned series of summer services.
I write this note from Paris on the 26th day of April, the day following the memorial service for my brother John who died on the first of the month. “Peace be unto him,” as we used to say as young Catholics.
On St. Patrick’s Day, two days after our last snowfall, the yard in front of the house where I live was suddenly alive with color: purple, white, yellow, blue– the crocuses seemed to have blossomed spontaneously and indiscriminately. In between the blossoms, here and there, were snowdrops, delicate blooms with demurely nodding heads. Spring had arrived. I’m still waiting for my first glimpse of forsythia, which should occur just around the time the daffodils bounce their jaunty heads in the wind. Maybe your daffodils have arrived by the time you’re reading this. If past years are a reliable indicator, the passing of the daffodils will
I write this on the last day of February as a strangely mild winter (interrupted by double digit sub-zero temperatures early in the month) begins to wind down. According to the astronomical calendar, Spring will arrive with the vernal equinox on March 20 this year– just a few short weeks away. According to the meteorological calendar, though, Spring will be starting tomorrow, the first day of March. I’ve been following the pattern of sunrises and sunsets for the past year and felt especially cheered when the length of daylight in the day passed the eleven-hour mark this past week. Let there be light! Last night’s
Have you ever felt yourself in a kind of vortex where one piece of bad news — or one unsavory development– seems inexorably to another and another until you don’t know where the madness will end? As the comic says, “Well, I have.” In fact, I’ve felt caught up in such a vortex all month. We’ll skip the whole COVID episode (though even post-COVID has its challenges). And we’ll leave the car crash for another time. (Painful.) The vortex I’m thinking about is a financial one. A financial drain, so to speak. It all started when I couldn’t find the
As a new year begins we at the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Middleboro look forward to a year of opportunity. We can expect to discover a number of ways to grow in our dedication to the church and in our influence as a religious and spiritual institution in the community.
Hope, love, joy, and peace. The qualities celebrated during the Advent season are not always easy to embody. In the Christian story the figure of Jesus of Nazareth brings them to fulfillment. No wonder his birth is celebrated with such exuberance! The Advent season does not hold nearly as much meaning for non-Christians– and most Unitarian Universalists find themselves in that camp these days. After all, if you honor the historical figure of Jesus as a great teacher (“rabbi” in the Jewish tradition), prophet and healer, but not the Son of God on earth, why should his birth be a cause for celebration?
