Join us for a brief history of the U and the U that make us MMUUF. This service looks at the ways that the long theological traditions of the two U’s are reflected in our Unitarian Universalism of today.
Dana Baron is a long time member of Mount Mansfield UU Fellowship. He lives with his wife in Essex. He is recently retired and now enjoys hiking, biking and playing with his grandchildren, not necessarily in that order.
As our fellowship continues the exploration this year of the 4th UU Principle: A free and responsible search for truth and meaning, two of our members will offer separate reflections on the intersection of this principle with the decision to serve as volunteers for various organizations including MMUUF.Kelly McCutcheon Adams has been a member of MMUUF for the past eight years and currently serves as the Vice President and as the chair of the Welcoming and Membership Committee. She is a Senior Director at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Boston and she and her family live in Essex Junction. She currently holds many different volunteer positions which have varying degrees of connection to her own search for truth and meaning.
Kristen Hayden-West joined MMUUF 2 years ago, in part because of the strong connection between the UU philosophy and volunteer engagement. As a lifelong volunteer and the as the former director of Community Friend Mentoring program at Howard Center, she has a range of professional and personal experience with community service. She is a Certified Volunteer Administrator and has taught workshops on the topic, as well as having trained and coached hundreds of volunteers. Her current community service activities include mentoring and participation on not-for-profit committees. Kristen lives in Richmond with her husband, and works for the State of Vermont.
There are but a few things we can ever really know to be true about this life. But we have, at least, unparalleled access to the truth of our own selves. Despite the age old wisdom of “know thyself,” however, this is still not something many of us learn to make a priority. And what seems to happen to the human spirit when the truth of one’s soul is not fully known, shared and appreciated, is atrophy at best. Indeed this particular brokenness of spirit is behind much of the pain that pervades our families, communities and world. What if we imagined, as many great souls have proclaimed, that there really is no greater cause for our hearts’ allegiance than giving our soul truth the chance to be known and experienced? How would that reshape our living?
My experience with the enlivening power of following soul truth, after the debilitation of giving other imperatives priority, has been shaping my life in ways I never would have imagined. I look forward to sharing a little of my journey with you and inviting us, anew, into deepening relationship with our soul truths as this New Year commences.
David Ruffin is a Unitarian Universalist minister, artist and educator who came to Vermont for a sabbatical two and a half years ago and hasn’t been able to leave. Early in his ministry he founded the alternative community, The Sanctuary Boston, a spiritual home for young adults and other seekers not finding a fit in more traditional church environments. He then served as Assistant Minister at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, OK. Prior to ministry, David worked as an actor and singer based in New York City and still takes great joy in music and the arts. Since coming to Vermont, David has dived into sustainable agriculture and outdoor education, working with the Metta Earth Institute in Lincoln, VT, Crows Path’s Field School in Burlington, and the Walden Project, an alternative outdoor school program of Vergennes Union High School.
At 4pm on December 24th, friends and family of the Mount Mansfield Unitarian Universalist Fellowship will gather for a service of story, poetry, candlelight and song centered on Hope, Love, Joy and Peace, universal themes we bring with us to our diverse celebrations of holy days and the coming of a new year. Visiting family and friends, as well as newcomers – all are welcome.
This service presents a hopeful outlook on mitigating climate change. Betsy was a founding member of Vermont Interfaith Power and Light (VTIPL) and currently serves as the organization’s coordinator. Lance is a member of MMUUF and a founding member of Elder for Climate Change, a group that recognizes the special responsibility of elders to serve as earth stewards to leave a sustainable and healthy planet for those who follow. Both Lance and Betsy have found ways to walk the talk on climate change. They’ll share some of the steps you can take as well.
Earlier this fall Erica Baron spoke about the connection between truth and meaning, the key elements of the fourth Unitarian Universalist principle. On November 10th Gaye will explore some of the untruths imbedded in the stories she’s relied on to make sense of the world, and how she is rethinking those stories in her search for truth and meaning.
Also during this service, MMUUF will host a Service of Dedication and Welcome, celebrating the Fink and Greenblott families’ presence in our fellowship. During or after the service I hope you’ll take a moment to sign the certificates of dedication for each of the four children, Isla and Tahlia Greenblott and Sutton and Greyson Fink.
If other families would like to participate in the service, please contact Gaye at gsym@together.net.
During the dedication portion of the service Gaye will ask the fellowship, “Do you agree to dedicate MMUUF to support Kevin and Tresa and Dusty and Jenn, to honor and recognize their children, entrusted to the care of both family and community, and covenant to provide their children with a community of warmth and affection, equity and compassion and dedication to the creation of a world worthy of coming generations?”
It’s probably pretty obvious, but the answer she’s looking for is, “Yes” or “We do”.
Gaye lives in Jericho with her husband, Chuck Lacy, with visits from their three children who attended MMUUF in the 1990’s. She works in Burlington at the High Meadows Fund which provides grants and mission investments to promote sustainable farm, food and forest enterprises, reduce the use of fossil fuels in buildings, and improve Vermont’s resilience to climate change.
Are you directionally challenged? (In the interest of full disclosure, I am.) Do you find it hard to ask for directions? Unitarian Universalists are all about questions. What does home mean to you? Where and when do you feel most at home?
Roddy O’Neil Cleary is a retired Emerita UU minister who is a religious hybrid, a catholic unitarian. She was a member of a religious community of sisters for almost 15 years, a campus minister at UVM for 15 years, and served at 1st UU in Burlington for 11 years. She is working at present in Hospice and prison ministry.
You don’t have to be an animal lover to appreciate that the happiness and well-being of humans and animals is deeply interconnected. Without a shift to a Gross National Happiness paradigm or something like it, many creatures – including giraffes and elephants – may be doomed to extinction. Without tending to the animal kingdom, we humans may also be doomed. Fortunately, there are some fine examples of how a GNH approach can help save the day.
Ginny Sassaman grew up in Central Pennsylvania before moving as a young adult to Washington, D.C. where she was media communications director for Common Cause, The American University, and the Women’s Legal Defense Fund before leaving the D.C. fast track to pursue a fulltime career as a watercolor painter. In 2001, she and her husband Bob moved to Vermont. In 2006, Ginny returned to school, earning a Master’s in Mediation and Applied Conflict Studies at Woodbury College in Vermont. While working as a professional mediator, Ginny stumbled upon the science of happiness, which she considers her true calling. She is a co-founder and past president of Gross National Happiness USA, & now serves on the GNHUSA advisory board. With a Certificate in Positive Psychology, Ginny’s specialty is the intersection between personal happiness and systems change to support wellbeing for all. Ginny is a member of the Unitarian Church of Montpelier, where she delivered her first sermon in 2013. Since then, Ginny has led services in local UU churches as well as churches in South Carolina, Wisconsin, and Massachusetts. Over the last three summers, Ginny led 16 services at the summers-only Barnard, VT UU Church. Those sermons are being compiled into a book, Preaching Happiness: Creating a Just, Joyful World due out in spring 2020. Ginny is always grateful to share the wisdom of happiness with UU congregations.
Truth and Meaning: The fourth UU Principle is a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. This service will explore the differences between truth and meaning, ask us to consider our responsibilities in the search, and celebrate our freedom.
Rev. Erica Baron was a member of MMUUF when she was in high school. After that, she went off to college and then seminary at Andover Newton Theological School and was ordained as a UU minister in 2008. She served congregations in Vermont and New York before becoming Congregational Life Field Staff for the UUA earlier this month.
