May 17, 2026
UU history
“The Living Tradition of Change”
November 26, 2023
- Cindy Heiland
- Kris Ersland
- Lori Locascio
- Peter Ersland
- 8th Principle
- Time for All Ages
- Unitarian Universalism
- UU history
FCU lay leaders (and last year’s General Assembly delegates) Kris Ersland, Cindy Heiland, and Lori Locascio lead a service discussing UU values, change, and the proposed amendment to Article II of the UUA bylaws.
“Thank You, Lydia Maria Child” with Cornbread Communion
November 19, 2023
- Anna Fadden
- Bob Williams
- Cindy Malley
- Rev. Lara Hoke
- Sara Cope
- Thea Shapiro
- Cornbread Communion
- gratitude
- Lydia Maria Child
- thanksgiving
- UU history
Our annual Cornbread & Cider Communion Service, the Sunday before Thanksgiving, co-led by DRE Thea Shapiro, the Deacons, and me. I talked about one of our great UU forebears, Lydia Maria Child.
“Walden Pond and the Ganges: Transcendental Indebtedness to Vedanta”
February 19, 2023
- Cindy Malley
- Kris Ersland
- Rev. Lara Hoke
- Emerson's Essays
- Walden
- Hinduism
- Neighborhood Supper
- Time for All Ages
- Transcendentalism
- UU history
We consider how Unitarian Transcendentalist forebears were inspired by Vedanta, the wisdom tradition of Hinduism.
“All We Kindred Pilgrim Souls?”
May 16, 2021
- Bill Duston
- Karen Tucker-Barisano
- Rev. Lara Hoke
- coronavirus
- covid-19
- history
- online worship
- Pilgrims
- Puritans
- Time for All Ages
- UU history
As we have talked about over the years, our congregation is (strange as it may seem) descended from the Puritans. You might recall that the Pilgrims (or “Separatists”) who landed in Plymouth in 1620 are a particular subset of the Puritans. For our Auction Sermon, our own church historian, Joyce Williams, has asked me some interesting questions. Namely, How did the Separatists (or Pilgrims) of Plymouth Colony and the Puritans of Boston get along? Did they merge? I found some interesting information to share, and some thoughts about what we might learn from it all.
“From Puritan to UU”
November 11, 2018
When I have given a brief overview of UU history to newcomers, there is sometimes still a bit of mystery in the air. Namely — hold on — did modern Unitarian Universalism come from Puritanism? My sermon attempts to explain this phenomenon. Learn about your puritanical spiritual ancestors, and how this history is relevant today. This sermon was preached on November 11, 2018 (Note: The Unitarians and Universalists merged into the Unitarian Universalist Association in 1961. It sure sounds like I say 1969 in the sermon; if so, I misspoke! It was 1961. In any case, most of what I learned about this era of Unitarian history I learned from Prof. David Hall at Harvard Divinity School in the fall of 1994. I will be forever grateful. Any mistakes are my own.)
Michael and John: The Movie
November 26, 2017
When one looks at the many and varied stories on how the many and varied religions of the world came into existence, more often than not there’s a martyr in there somewhere. And yes, we Unitarians do have our own martyr in the person of a one Michael Servetus.