UU Church of Annapolis Podcast
Sermons by the ministers and guests at UUCA -Living boldly and compassionately in Annapolis, MD for over 60 years!
 

Saying goodbye is often necessary, and almost always hard. In the words of Dr. Seuss, "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." This sermon is Eleanor's last time in the pulpit as our intern and summer minister.

Direct download: 01_Love.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 1:59pm EDT

 

 UUCA PODCAST

Ralph Waldo Emerson's disciple, Henry Thoreau wrote from Walden Pond: "We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn." Thoreau's expectations were and remain robust in our nation, and in Unitarian Universalism. Join me as I continue looking at how our way of faith has been a harbinger of America's path.

Direct download: 02_AWAKE_Thoreau.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 8:04pm EDT

In this message, Rev. John looks at why fanatics are the "squeaky wheels that get the oil" in society and why we need to understand fanaticism and become an equal and opposite force of love over and against their traditionalists/fundamentalists message of exclusion.  Before the sermon, there was a reading (below).  Enjoy...

Reading before the sermon:

Excerpt from David Foster Wallace's Commencement address at Kenyon College in 2008

Here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship, be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some unbreakable set of ethical principles is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. And the so-called real world will NOT discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self.

Direct download: 01_Fanatics_Part_1__Be_a_Zealot.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 6:48pm EDT

In this message, Rev. Fred Muir shows how Ralph Waldo Emerson had his finger on the pulse of our nation.  Ahead of his time, his "Harvard Divinity School Address" - called by one Unitarian colleague "the latest form of infidelity" - was simply carrying forward the spirit as witnessed in the birth of the nation.  Listen to how UUism has been a harbinger of America's path.

 

Direct download: heartknoweth.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 10:04am EDT