Archives: Services

Living with Dementia

Rev. Jane Dwinell and Sky Yardley have been Living with Dementia since the summer of 2016 when Sky was diagnosed with early stage Alzheimer’s disease at age 66. Jane is a retired UU minister who specialized in assisting small congregations, and is the author of Big Ideas for Small Congregations. Sky is a retired family mediator, and assisted the Mt. Mansfield Fellowship in the early 2000s when we were considering purchasing a building. They live in Burlington with their son, Sayer, and his partner, Emma, where they garden, enjoy the lake, and play a round of disc golf whenever possible.

Gather the Waters – return from summer break

This Service will be our annual Gather the Waters. We share meaningful moments from the summer. You may bring a small container of water to pour into a common vessel.

UU Water Communion

The Water Communion, also sometimes called Water Ceremony, was first used at a Unitarian Universalist (UU) worship service in the 1980s. Like MMUUF, many UU congregations hold a Water Communion once a year, often at the beginning of the new church year (September).

Each person or family may bring a small amount of water from a place that is special to them. As the water is added, the person who brought it tells why this water is special to them. The water represents our shared faith coming from many different sources. The congregation may bless the communal water to use later, during child dedication ceremonies and similar events.

Final Service and Flower Ceremony

Join us for our annual Flower Ceremony and the Final Service of the current fellowship year until we meet again in September. This will be a time to share and reflect upon the year we’ve spent together.

“Mama, why are the flags down again?” Reflections on Activism and Motherhood

Please join us on Mother’s Day as Kelly McCutcheon Adams shares reflections and questions that have come up for her over the past 18 months as her peak in activism has coincided with her children’s increasing awareness of the news of the world. She has been grappling with how to engage them without crossing a line. Kelly is a member of MMUUF and serves as the Vice President and chair of the Welcoming & Membership Committee. She is a clinical social worker and telecommutes to Boston as a Senior Director for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

Loving Someone with a Disability

The first principle of Unitarian Universalism affirms the inherent worth and dignity of every person.  Loving a person with a disability and experiencing the daily joys and challenges that comes along with that is an opportunity to put that principle into action. She urges us to rejoice in the spectrum of differences surrounding us.  Not just the diversity of race, color or creed, but of thought, mental health and ability as well.  As a Unitarian Universalist, long time MMUUF member and parent of 4 very unique children, Amy enjoys celebrating the diversity of the entire human spirit.

Who Am I, Where Am I, What Do I Want To Do?

This service is about our individual responsibility to form intention and carry out action to move UU Principles forward in the world.  Each of us needs to understand who we are, where we are, and what we want to do to.  In Steve’s case, the Mission Statement of the Montpelier Unitarian Church elegantly defines those principles and forms the basis, along with his intellectual commitment to scientific materialism, for his intentions and actions.

Steve is retired and lives in Montpelier with his wife, has two grown children, and has been a member of the Montpelier Unitarian Church for more than 30 years.

A Service of Poetry

We are building the service around several of Scudder’s poems, with Scudder reading his poems and inviting discussion after each one. He will introduce each poem with a few thoughts about the spiritual questions or challenges reflected in the poem.

Scudder Parker grew up on a family farm in North Danville Vt.  He has been a Protestant minister (20 years), a state senator, a utility regulator, a candidate for Governor, a consultant on energy efficiency and renewable energy. At 74 Scudder is settling into his new and ongoing work as a poet. He is a passionate gardener and a proud grandfather of four.  He and his wife, Susan Sussman, live in Middlesex Vermont..

Honoring the Generosity of Spirit of Those Who Came Before

A sense of community is one of the compelling reasons people love living in the Jericho-Underhill area, or just in small town Vermont.  This service will be a time for us to verbally remember some of those recent (or not so recent) ancestors that had an impact on our communities.  People can speak for three or four minutes about someone they remember. You may prepare a little something before hand or be moved by the moment in the service.  This is a time to celebrate the lives of those that came before us.  What is remembered, lives!

Restorative Responses to Harm

In this service, we will discuss how we deal with wrongdoing or harm in our society, and how our traditional system affects people. We will then describe an alternative approach called Restorative Justice. This alternative deals with wrongdoing from a perspective that focuses on people and relationships, and works on repair rather than punishment.

Susanna was born and raised in New Jersey, but hopes you don’t hold that against her because she got here as soon as she could.  She has always had a strong interest in Social Justice, and is drawn to work and conversations that aim to address oppression and disparities.  She has a Master of Public Health, and the first 2 decades of her career was in this field.  In 2016 she made a change and now works in Restorative Justice, which she loves.  Susanna Weller is employed at the Essex Community Justice Center, which serves Jericho, Underhill, Essex, Colchester, Milton and Westford.  She works with people who commit crimes and people who are affected by crime, in order to help facilitate the repair of harm.  Susanna lives in Starksboro with her wife, Ellen, and their cat, Idgie.