I was recently asked at coffee hour why a discussion of Article Two of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) bylaws was relevant to members of First Parish. What is the relevance to us meeting in Canton? Why should we care? First, I should confess something about myself. I have either gone to Sunday school, belonged
Read More →Saturday night, April 22, First Parish hosted its 16th annual coffee house, albeit the first coffee house after a three-year hiatus. It was successful, both from the point of view of the artists and from the point of view of the audience. It was excellent! I won’t attempt to review the artistic content. I will
Read More →The Parish Committee, Elizabeth Foster, and I have been discussing the covenant that informs the congregation we call First Parish Unitarian Universalist. In our March discussions, we projected that the church year 2023-2024 will be a time of renewal of the covenant and that renewal should also include revisiting our congregation’s mission and vision. In
Read More →Those with power and privilege would like us to believe the world is the way it is, our national politics is as good as it gets, and there is no use trying to change it. Those who try to end oppressive practices or seriously work for a world of peace and justice are considered “idealists”
Read More →I’ve been writing about covenant lately. My last two columns in this newsletter were about covenant. We had a “coffee hour discussion” about the redrafting process that the whole Unitarian Universalist Association has embarked upon involving the words of the covenant that forms our Association. Talking about covenant is important because it is how Unitarian
Read More →The Rev. Erika A. Hewitt writes about courage: The word courage comes from the Latin cor, which means heart. According to poet Mark Nepo, the original use of the word courage meant to stand by one’s core: a “striking concept that reinforces the belief found in almost all traditions that living from the Center is
Read More →There are over a thousand Unitarian Universalist congregations, community and advocacy ministries, and youth and student groups. In addition, there are support networks for identity-based groups, such as UU Scholars Network and the Diverse Revolutionary Unitarian Universalist Multicultural Ministries. There are thousands of individuals who consider themselves to be Unitarian Universalists but are not affiliated
Read More →There is an old story that you may have heard. It goes like this: a driver from New York City is driving in northern New England and gets lost. He stops by a farm and asks a man driving a tractor “how do you get to Bangor?” The tractor driver looks puzzled and then replies
Read More →On opening Sunday of this church year I was asked by a congregant, “what are you going to do to grow First Parish?” I suggested that I could do very little, but together we could do quite a lot. So the question might be rephrased. What are we going to do to prepare for growth?
Read More →I am new to the congregation so I am still learning your ways. But I observe that the First Parish in Canton is in transition. For near three years the congregation was in pandemic mode, most operations and most activities were done online, or in small groups, and the staff worked from home. Now we
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