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A sermon by the Rev. Geoff Usher given on the 20th August, 2017.

A puzzle. Within congregations that are supposed to be loving, caring, mutually supportive communities of like-minded people – especially in our liberal, tolerant Unitarian tradition – why is it that so often people remain unforgiving about some long past event, or remain unforgiving of the way that other members of the congregation reacted to that event?
Why is it that the health of the whole congregation – the health and well-being of the whole church community – can become lost in petty arguing, lost in what seems to be a stubborn unwillingness to mend the rips in the fabric of community?

The whole talk can found here.

“NOSTALGIA”

by Geoffrey R Usher
Sermon delivered to Spirit of Life Unitarian Fellowship
on 22 January 2017
Ten years ago my son Andrew and his then girlfriend Stephanie returned to England after a holiday of nearly three months in Australia, which included Christmas in Sydney with my wife Ann. As the weather in Sheffield got colder and darker, and I-thought of them enjoying the late spring and then early summer in Australia’s warmth — meals outside, long days of sunlight, swimming at the beach — I tried to persuade myself that I was not jealous. I have to confess: I was not very successful in that attempt to persuade myself that I was not jealous, and I kept finding myself remembering, remembering.. .

The sermon can be found here.

Rev. Geoff Usher asks us to think about what impression we make on on other people as we travel life’s journey.

To read this talk click here.

She was born on 28 July 1866, at 2 Bolton Gardens, South Kensington, London. Both her parents were descended from wealthy families who had made their fortunes in the Lancashire cotton industry. Her brother, born five years later , was sent off to boarding school, so her childhood was essentially solitary , dull and leisured. She never went to school, but spent most of her time in the nursery of the large, dark, stuffy house – once described by a cousin as “a dark Victorian mausoleum, complete with aspidistras”.

Can you guess about whom Rev. Geoff Usher is speaking?

The full address can viewed here.

Tragedies abound, world peace seems a lost cause, selfish aggression is rampant. What do we do?

Ginna Hastings gives us some good advice. The full address can be found here.