Archives: Services

The Web of Life: The Interconnected Happiness of Humans & Other Animals

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.

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Truth? Meaning? What’s the Difference?

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.

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Gathering the Waters

It hardly seems possible that it is September already, but it is, and it’s time for us to gather together again in friendship and exploration.  This service will be our traditional Gathering the Waters, which will allow us to share a little about important and meaningful events that we experienced this past summer.  We ask those who come to bring a small container of water to join with the water of others in a common vessel.  It could be water from a trip, from a special body of water (lake, ocean, river, stream) or it could be water from your own tap.  All water is sacred.  If you forget the water, not to worry, we will have some on hand, and you can still share memories of the summer.  We invite all our members and families from our communities to join us in beginning another year of sharing and fellowship!

Transitions

MMUUF Member and Vice President Kelly McCutcheon Adams will lead this Sunday’s service, Transitions. This is a return to a tradition of ours to use the final service to acknowledge transitions over the year past and look to the summer ahead. She will be assisted by Maura Collins, Dana Baron, and Jen Levine. Kelly lives in Essex Junction with her husband and their two children. She telecommutes to Boston as a Senior Director at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

Please join us for this special closing service for the year and then please join us for the cookout to celebrate our ten years of fellowship in the barn. The cookout is a potluck with burgers/hot dogs/veggie burgers and beverages provided.

Mutual Gifts

In this service, Kate will discuss the spiritual practice of receiving what is offered and how this practice might inspire and nurture our social justice work.

Kate Plummer is a nurse, midwife, and chaplain-in-training who is discerning a call to Unitarian Universalist ministry. She worked at the Vermont State Hospital right up until it flooded during Tropical Storm Irene, and now sees patients at Planned Parenthood health centers in northern Vermont. She is mother to an adult daughter, and daughter to elder parents, and is seeking to respond as well as she can to this year’s UU call to dismantle intersectional white supremacy.

Our Own Faith Symbols

This Sunday we will turn the service inside out for a multigenerational service. Join us for a peak into the Religious Education program while exploring the symbols of our faith. Adults and children alike will learn about the origin of the UU chalice symbol, and hands-on activities will explore the symbols of our own faith beliefs. We hope everyone will join us for this intergenerational shared adventure that will celebrate the child in us all.

Rightness, Reason & Relationship

Our third principle calls us to acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth.  How do we do this in a faith tradition that relies heavily on reason, among individuals who’ve reached incompatible conclusions about life’s big questions?  Is reason a tool that can help with this?  Theresa Krieger is a past president of Unitarian Universalist Church of Rutland and has headed its Social Justice group.

This I Believe

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Lincoln Grey will be “Looking into the Dark” and discussing how so much of what he believes is unknown and what that means.
Lincoln is a Jericho native, Father of two and currently working as a homemaker, literally: when he’s not caring for his kids as a stay at home dad, he builds a house for them to live in from the ground up. It’s currently 1/2 insulated and stays mostly warm, but by April hopefully will be much further along!

Jean’s presentation, “Places of the Heart”  will be a look at a lifetime of “church shopping.”
Jean Archibald is a long time member of MMUUF and resident of Jericho and Underhill since 1958.  Mother of five grown children, 8 grandchildren, 3 great grandchildren and recently celebrated her 90th birthday.

In our “This I Believe” services, fellowship members offer thoughts about what they believe and what they wonder about over the course of their spiritual journey.  Shared services such as these allow MMUUF members to share their thoughts and questions and gather rewards from the wisdom and gratitude of those who are present.

Adventures Large and Small

As Dana and his wife Karen headed into retirement (BIG adventure), they had two big plans: hike the Appalachian Trail and bike cross-country. A year ago they set out to accomplish the first, but fell short. Now they’re rethinking the second. In his talk, he will explore how we come to grips with failure, especially when that failure brings into focus the biggest adventure of all: aging and mortality.

Forgiveness is Beautiful

Happiness expert Sonja Lyubomirsky has written that forgiveness is the most difficult happiness practice. Ginny has found in her happiness work that many people struggle with the concept – yet it is so important for our own well-being and happiness, and, again, can and must be applied to the much broader community to move toward peace. This sermon also addresses some of the myths of forgiveness.

Ginny Sassaman created the Happiness Paradigm Store and Experience, and co-founded Gross National Happiness USA. Just this past September, Ginny stepped down from her position as president.  Ginny has a masters in mediation and conflict studies; she now works as both a mediator and a meditation teacher, and as a happiness writer and advocate.  She is a member of the Unitarian Church of Montpelier, where she led her first service in 2013. Since then, Ginny has led services in local UU churches as well as churches in South Carolina, Wisconsin, and Massachusetts. In two weeks, she will be a presenter at a GNH conference for international business leaders in Costa Rica. She is always grateful to share the wisdom of happiness with UU congregations and other receptive audiences.