Last Sunday marked the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the Jewish New Year. Traditionally, the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are a time to seek forgiveness from those we have wronged. In this service we will honor this ancient tradition and ask how a discipline of seeking forgiveness might help us become our best selves.
Quaker teacher Douglas Steer invites us to reflect beyond the core question who am I
by asking whose am I?
In this service we will take these questions one step further. Who loves me? Who needs me? To whom am I accountable? And how do these questions relate to our faith?
Is it possible that we humans need connection with one another even more than we need food and shelter? It’s a provocative claim and there is some contemporary research to suggest it. For a faith tradition like Unitarian Universalism that centers on covenant rather than creed, this is an intriguing question.
The American society and our UU movement were built on a foundation of independence of personal belief, individual initiative and personal responsibility. But the dominance of individualism has inhibited the creation of a Beloved Community. How can we reclaim from a culture of self-interested individuals a sense of shared interests and move toward more compassionate and inclusive American and UU communities? Stephen Buckingham comes to us from the UU Legislative Ministry.