Sunday, January 22, 2012 – Morning Worship 11 a.m.
“A Loose-Leaf Bible”
Rev. Bruce Southworth
What texts, readings, poems, paintings, songs, discoveries, traditions, myths, and stories of hope and courage give you sustenance? And challenge? And meaning?
As Unitarian Universalists, we seek out and choose spiritual wisdom from many religious traditions and beyond. Our scripture is, after all, the Book of Life.
This morning, I shall look again at this matter of shared and personal meaning-making that arises from our liberating freedom to choose.
See you at Community!
Sunday, January 29, 2012 – Morning Worship 11 a.m.
“Unto the Church Universal?”
Rev. Bruce Southworth
Our Unison Affirmation has been part of our congregational worship and life since 1929, with a bit of updating along the way.
Most of us embrace it each Sunday. (A few prefer not to join in.)
This morning on the Sunday of our Annual Meeting of the Congregation, I shall turn to our affirmation as part of our Mission and Vision… the big picture and some of the details of how we live these out (or don’t).
See you at Community!
After Fellowship Hour on January 29 – Annual Meeting of the
Congregation & Continuation of the January 8 Special Meeting
of the Congregation on our Bylaws
Upcoming Programs – For complete listing, www.ccny.org
Other Good Stuff at Community
Ed Fox Memorial Service, Hall of Worship Sunday, January 22, 1 pm
Altered Books, Conference Room Tuesday, January 24, 6:30 pm
Sipping & Searching, Front Lounge Wednesday, January 25, 6:30 pm
Future Visions film and discussion, Gallery Thursday, January 26, 7 pm
Social Tea, Assembly Hall Tuesday, January 31, 2 pm
Common Read, The New Jim Crow, Front Lounge Wednesday, February 1, 6:30 pm
Secular: Humanist Society of NY, Front Lounge Thursday, February 2, 6:30 pm
Antiracism Team, Gallery Friday, February 3, 6:30 pm
People’s Voice Café, Assembly Hall Saturday, February 4, 8 pm
UN Global Affairs Meeting, Conference Room Sunday, February 5, 9:45 am
Let’s Get Acquainted, Conference Room Sunday, February 5, 12:30 pm
Volunteer Choir Rehearsal, Hall of Worship Sunday, February 5, 12:45 pm
Resistance Cinema, The Vanishing City, Gallery Sunday, February 5, 1:15 pm
Minister’s Corner
On Sunday, January 29th after Fellowship Hour, we shall have our Annual Meeting as a Congregation. Please plan to attend. It is a key element of our self-governance in Unitarian Universalist tradition.
Congregational polity, as it is called, means that members rather than hierarchical officials govern our life together. (Appointed Bishops, Superintendents, Priests and other top-down leadership are alien to how we conduct our affairs.)
We collectively have affirmed our Vision – to help “build the Beloved Community” and our Mission – “to grow as a caring, justice-making, anti-racist, diverse spiritual community.”
We participate in dreaming, planning and implementing our goals to fulfill our Vision and Mission (and on these matters, we need to revisit, focus and get to work!)
We elect our leaders – lay and ministerial – and affirm their partnership (although we shall not have elections at this Annual Meeting because of unfortunate advice and process by the Bylaws revision task force.)
We collectively develop and adopt our budgets – which are surely a statement of values, commitments, priorities, Vision, and Mission, as well as spending mandates and good fiscal practice.
As a Congregation, we sometimes set policy for our elected leaders on the Board, and sometimes as a faith community we take stands on social issues (e.g., marriage equality), in addition to any positions on social issues that the Action for Justice Committee has been empowered to take in its name.
Among our Purposes in our Bylaws is the affirmation, “We, the members of Community Church, unite in seeking… To practice open and democratic procedures in our Church…” (3.7.)
Congregations, who are members of the Unitarian Universalist Association, as we are, covenant with one another to “affirm and promote the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.”
Another piece of all this is following the congregationally adopted Bylaws – which is another area that needs greater diligence as we have recently experienced. The proposed revisions on one level tidy some things up, which is good.
However, a few of the proposals seek to
• shift power radically from the Congregation to the Board, or from the Board to Officers, and
• de-emphasize congregational authority.
Fortunately, so far in our congregational discussions, those proposals have been rejected.
The new Bylaws proposals also seem to relegate Ministry to control by the Board and reject the historic, productive partnership between lay and ministerial leadership. I find it strange, as well as problematic.
As I write, it seems as if the Annual Meeting will be delayed a couple of hours in order to continue the January 8 bylaws discussions by reconvening that recessed meeting first.
From my perspective, it is preferable to have the Annual Meeting first, beginning right after Fellowship time, which is our custom. Our Annual Meeting – our town meeting – with broader discussion of Congregational Life, reports from the Board Chair and Senior Minister, and attention to other Bylaws amendments submitted by members will contribute greatly to the ongoing Bylaws work, which may well also take another meeting to complete.
Again, I hope to see you at the Annual Meeting (plus Bylaws meeting) on the 29th to exercise our democratic process.
Faithfully, Bruce
Either or Both of Me
Sometimes these hands get so clumsy
That I drop things and people laugh
Sometimes these hands seem so graceful
I can see them signin' autographs
What I want to know from you
When you hear my plea
Do you like or love
Either or both of me
Do you like or love
Either or both of me
Sometimes this face looks so funny
That I hide it behind a book
But sometimes this face has so much class
That I have to sneak a second look
What I want to know from you
When you hear my plea
Do you like or love
Either or both of me
Do you like or love
Either or both of me
Sometimes this life gets so empty
That I become afraid
Then I remember you're in it
And I think I still might have it made.
Do you like or love
Either or both of me.
Phoebe Snow
“Heart Speaking to Heart… So Great A Cloud of Witnesses”
Sermon Brief – January 8, 2012
“Facundo Cabral, 74, Singer of Conscience” was the headline for his obituary.
A wildly popular singer in Latin America, Cabral was also an activist. Beginning in the 1970s, he protested against military dictatorships across the continent. He was also known for his aphorisms, such as, “A bomb makes more noise than a caress, but for each bomb that destroys, there are millions of caresses that nourish life.”
“Millions of caresses that nourish life”….
Also, among the cloud of witnesses to Life who died in 2011, there is Derrick Bell, NYU Law Professor, legal scholar, creative theorist, activist, and friend of ours here at Community. In ETHICAL AMBITION – Living a Life of Meaning and Worth, he again speaks of “salvation in the struggle” itself, not necessarily the outcomes. He speaks about living with an awareness of death; being prepared to die at any time helps him “in our hedonistic world” to heed the ongoing opportunities to “choose the good over the feels-good… Not always, certainly not every second, but often enough to become a habit of life that nurtures rather than diminishes us.”
Derrick Bell continues, “I’ll let you in on a little secret: Choosing the good and doing good feels good.” “It … bears repeating: an ethical life is not a life of sacrifice. It is a life of riches.” Words from one who entered into the struggle for justice as a young man and throughout his life.
Thanks be to those who seek, offer and share the “caresses that nourish Life” in its infinite gifts… to those who live with fidelity to a few deep things, signing the air with their honor… so great a cloud of witnesses who continue to live in us, just as we hope to live on in others.
Rev. Bruce Southworth
