Archives: Services

Barriers to Acceptance

This service is a chance to reflect on what keeps us closed off from connecting with others who are different from us. What are the “mechanics” of acceptance, and how is spiritual growth inherent in acceptance.

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.

Finding Buddhist Humanism Within

Long-time MMUUF member, social worker and author, Sarah Ward will share her experience of discovering Buddhism through her extended Italian Family and the cross-cultural sharing that led her to examine the Buddhist path of faith, practice and study to promote positive change within and in her external environment.

Tragedy and Revenge

How is it that we can dismantle the impulse for revenge? Why is that important to do?  Rabbi Jan will share insights from the Hebrew Bible and Rabbinic commentary as to the Jewish perspective on revenge.

In 2016, Rabbi Jan Salzman began Ruach haMaqom, a non-affiliated synagogue located in the heart of the Old North End in Burlington.  She was ordained in 2010 by ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, where  she was blessed to have been a student of Reb Zalman. Rabbi Jan serves  on the Board of OHALAH, an international professional  Association of Renewal Rabbis, Cantors and Rabbinic Pastors. She is on the board of Living Tree Alliance located in Moretown Vt, which is an ecologically oriented community that offers co-housing, farming, and educational opportunities. Rabbi Jan has lived in Vermont for over 35 years, is married to her “Rebbitzmon”,  Loredo Sola, and has two grown children and a two grandchildren.

Dying in Character

How does the UU principle of acceptance relate to the challenges faced at the end of life? Both for an individual and that person’s family? What happens when acceptance means something different for members of a family? Charley MacMartin will speak this Sunday on acceptance at the end of life and the theme of “dying in character.”

Charley is the Volunteer Services Manager for UVM Health Network Home Health & Hospice (formerly VNA Hospice). Charley is a presenter for UVM’s End of Life Doula certificate program and a trainer for the No One Dies Alone project at the UVM Medical Center.

Christmas Eve Service

The theme this year is Wonder & Joy in Many Voices; a celebration of birth, families, possibilities, and the quiet of Christmas. Songs, stories, readings, and candlelight will fill the barn and our hearts. Visiting family and friends, as well as newcomers – all are welcome.

The Waiting Game

Inspired by Advent and other December sacred observances, our service this Sunday will explore the role of waiting and anticipation in our spiritual journeys. In our daily lives, we often find ourselves waiting for things big and little. And yet, more and more, our technology and culture shape us to expect instant results and rapid change. How do we live in this tension? How can we get better at waiting, and what unexpected possibilities might it offer for spiritual growth?

Art & Spirituality

Our third principle states: “Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.” Being a teacher, and now an art teacher, Dusty will explore how the third principle enfolds in his classroom and in our congregation.  Art is a powerful way to be spiritual, it’s inherent mindfulness and its creative spirit.

Dustin Kemp was raised in the Midwest outside of Chicago.  He grew up Christian, became a Buddhist, and most recently has fallen in love with Taoist thoughts and ideas (surely this qualifies him as a Unitarian Universalist!)  He has worked as an engineer, taught high school math for the last 15 years, and is now teaching high school art.

Accepting & Embracing Humanism

The third principle calls us to accept one another and encourage spiritual growth. This is the first UU principle that brings a “spirit” into discussion and we will dive into what that can look like if we don’t have faith in an other being. We will discuss other motivations to do good other than fear and the promise of an afterlife, and other questions that arise when one charts their own course.

Maura Collins has been a member of MMUUF for the past six years. She works on affordable housing issues in the state and speaks publicly on that topic regularly, but is otherwise wholly unqualified to give a sermon at a church. That said, she is working towards accepting her Humanist beliefs and trying to understand how she can covenant to encourage spiritual growth when she struggles with the “spirit.”

Attitude of Gratitude

Probably everyone has had immeasurable numbers of deeply satisfying gratitude experiences – though likely, with little knowledge of how much good they were doing for their own well-being, much less the broader community, too. Yet, according to guest preacher Ginny Sassaman, an “Attitude of Gratitude” is so beneficial, it’s almost a requirement for anyone who wants to be happy and/or wants to make the world a happier place. Sassaman, an experienced lay preacher throughout central Vermont, and a national expert on happiness, will share the science and beauty of gratitude on October 28th.

Piggybacking on the Lives of Others

Let’s ask ourselves whether we can “get up” on the backs of others’ lives without a sense of our own unique calling. Do others’ lives help to clarify or appreciate our own calling? Whose life are you presently drawing energy and inspiration from? Does it relate in any way to your own vocation?

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.