November 2, 2019

The unifying themes of this program are justice, love, learning and hope.  The messages come from sermons and readings from Unitarian-Universalist sources.  The program title comes from a beloved Unitarian-Universalist hymn, “Spirit of Life,” which includes the words, “Sing in my heart all the stirrings of compassion” and “Move in the hand, giving life the shape of justice.”

I’m featuring a new song by the talented and rising Mykal Kilgore during the Music Hour.  It’s called “God in Me.”  British poet Kate Tempest provides the inspiration for a message about staying unified in our struggles for justice.  And we’ll learn about religious pluralism.  All that plus a new month of holidays and remembrances in the interfaith calendar.

Commentary

Written by Orlando Montoya

Disappointment is one those terribly unsatisfying words that stammer out of my mouth like a cold hard stone.  Its original meaning – literally, to fail to keep or to fail to receive an appointment – doesn’t begin to describe the weight that it has on my heart.  It’s a French-derived word and so it’s always possible there’s something more direct from the Anglo-Saxon side of our language.  Miriam-Webster suggests “letdown.”  But what if our letdown slash disappointment isn’t tied to events.  Rather, it’s tied to life.  Existential disappointment.  Now there’s something perhaps to borrow from German.  Firefall expressed it in song: “When there’s so much trouble that you wanna cry / The world has crumbled and you don’t know why / When your hopes are fading and they can’t be found / Dreams have left you waiting, friends have let you down.”  Disappointment can’t be a letdown if it happens over and over again.  At some point, it becomes just a let, meaning we allow disappointment into our lives by returning to it or failing to accept it.  Those are simply the only two options, leave or accept, if we don’t want the disappointing feelings.  An Internet meme posited that choice in an acronym for FEAR.  Forget Everything and Run or Face Everything and Fight.  A picture tells a thousand words and I’m grateful for having to find an image for these commentaries to put on Facebook because I found the perfect word for disappointment in an image.  I don’t know what word combination led me to find “sad teddy bear.”  But that’s disappointment to me.  Make it a Japanese kanji-like symbol.  Stylize it into a few swirls to type into your new phone that now demands swirls instead of words.  Sad teddy bear, supine on a stone wall.  It means disappointment.

Sermon

“Keeping It Together” (10/6/19)

Rev. Stephen Kendrick

First Church Boston, Unitarian-Universalist

Sermon

“Out of Many, Many” (10/6/19)

Rev. David Schwartz

First Unitarian Church of Chicago

Sermon

TBD

Sermon

TBD

Braver Wiser

Used by permission of Braver Wiser, a publication of the Unitarian-Universalist Association

Quest Monthly

Used by permission of Quest Monthly, a publication of the Church of the Larger Fellowship

UUA Statements

Messages from the Unitarian Universalist Association

Natural Silence

Used by permission of ListeningEarth.com

UUA Principles and Sources

Our liberal faith as defined by the Unitarian Universalist Association

World Religions

Written by Orlando Montoya

Interfaith Calendar

Written by Orlando Montoya

UU FAQ

Written by and used by permission of John Sias from interviews with Rev. Steve Edington

Published by the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Nashua, NH