About a year ago, the Tahoma UU Congregation entered into a partnership with the Vashon Island Unitarian Fellowship. Our minister, Linda Hart, works with their Board and provides worship service support to the community at Vashon. Both congregations are supporting, and receiving the benefits of, Matt Aspin’s ministerial internship. In early April, the Boards of … Continue reading Partners in Transformation
Happy! Lucky me. Lucky us. I get to share the good news that the Rev. Dr. Linda A. Hart is a candidate to become the settled minister for the Tahoma Unitarian Universalist Congregation! In late January, a Task Force of five TUUC members convened conversations in which about 70 congregants: discussed their experiences during Linda’s … Continue reading Happy!
On Sunday, February 12, those attending the service had the chance to get an offering from the church. There were $20 bills in envelopes taped under the seats in the sanctuary claimed by whoever was sitting nearby. The requirements of receiving the offering were to do something kind with it and to let us know what … Continue reading Reverse Offering Results
It is a time when hyperbole is easy to fall into. Social media seems to be always exploding with the latest outrage or triumph, and it’s hard to not get carried along. But, as I said after the election, the work we are called to do in the world hasn’t changed: we still want answer … Continue reading Hart to Hearts
November 2016 seems likely to feature prominently In the story of our communities. We’ve been rocked by an election campaign and election results that that seem both shockingly unprecedented and reminiscent of some of the darkest chapters of our history. Dickens’ famous opening sentence about “the best of times … the worst of times” builds … Continue reading “… the epoch of belief … the epoch of incredulity”
I am one of those modern households that lost the draw. The kids usually go to their fathers’ houses for Thanksgiving and then we go out for Pho on the Friday night after for our ThankPho Celebration. The tradition fits us. And this gives me time to start our other family tradition: holiday cards for … Continue reading Thanksgiving Tradition
Our Change for Change collections in November will benefit the Bismarck-Mandan UU Congregation, which since April has been standing on the side of the Standing Rock Sioux in their protests against siting of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The church has hosted a community teach-in, acts as a place to ship supplies for the camps 40 miles … Continue reading November Change for Change – Bismarck-Mandan UU Congregation – Standing with Standing Rock Sioux
“And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so?” This question is the opening line of Raymond Carver’s “Late Fragment,” a poem that seems to reach out to me every few years. Earlier in 2016 I heard this line as the culminating “bonus” question in a commencement address at the Harvard … Continue reading “And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so?”
As I get older, I tend to look at healing as a journey rather than a destination. But that wasn’t always the case. After I got plantar fasciitis a few years ago, I thought that all I needed to do was to heal from that and be done with it. But it started a whole … Continue reading What Does It Mean to Be a Community of Healing?
In my first or second year in parish ministry, I was approached after the service by the wife of the emeritus minister. With a wry look on her face, she said, “I see from today’s service that you took that class in seminary, ‘How to Pick the Unsingable Hymns.’” I admitted that the hymns that … Continue reading Music, Music, Music
