2020
19 January, Rev. Geoff Usher: “Changing Your Self-Talks”
What can we do to reduce the amount of stree and tension in our lives? One of the best coping methods we can learn is to change our minds about how we relate to people and situations.
26 January, Australia day, No Meeting
2 February, Martin Horlacher: “For the Love of Mammon”
As is so often the case with Western onomastics, “Mammon” is a name that comes from the canon of Judeo-Christian mythology – in this case, a pejorative term that refers to wealth, money, and the greed-filled pursuit of gain. And yet, despite the admonitions within the canonical and non-canonical Biblical texts, this very mentality is what seems to rule the roost in so much of both religious and secular society today.
9 February, No Meeting
16 February, Carolyn Donnelly: “A sense of community, is it still relevant today? Loss”
23 February, Morandir Armson: “Teaching God to Love – A Pagan Theology from a Left-Hand Perspective”
Many religious systems teach that God is the source of all that is moral, right, and good. But what if God was not so morally high? This talk will examine a system of morality, based on Left-Hand Pagan principles.
1 March, Martin Horlacher: “A Void That Needs Filling: Hatred, Fear, Love and Understanding”
It can be all too easy to just shut ourselves off from those with whom we disagree – but how will that actually accomplish anything? Instead of severing our ties with each other and calling those with different opinions bigots (amongst a host of other ignorant and derogatory epithets), why not keep our dialogue open and honest? This is what the world needs – more willingness to listen to those who don’t agree with us.
8 March. No service.
There will be a meeting on Sunday 15 March for who ever is able to attend so that, after an abbreviated service, administrative loose ends can be addressed and tied up for a suspension of meetings in the next weeks.
15 March, Helen Whatmough: “The Summer we never had”
Spirit of Life Unitarian Fellowship resumed services in August, meeting on three Sundays each month. ( There is no meeting on the second Sunday of each month) We are at present limited to no more than 11 persons but this has not proved troublesome so far and we have still been able to accommodate the occasional visitors.
20th September, Rev Geoffrey Usher, “Laughter and Religion “ Pt 1
Humour helps honesty. It is not a substitute for religion, but it can help to save us from false religion. It can help us to see through the claims of magic. It can help us to see beyond the nationalistic and cultural accretions that so often distort the essence of religion.
27th September, Rev Geoffrey Usher, “Laughter and Religion ” Pt 2
Humour helps honesty. It is not a substitute for religion, but it can help to save us from false religion. It can help us to see through the claims of magic. It can help us to see beyond the nationalistic and cultural accretions that so often distort the essence of religion.
18th October, Martin Horlacher, “The Phantom Enemy: The nationalist Right and the Communist Enemy”
Across the world, today’s reactionaries are hallucinating a communist threat. Anti-communism-without-communism has found fertile ground almost everywhere.
25th October, Rev Geoff Usher, “Our Challenge to Maturity”
We can all be grateful that Unitarianism today is no longer pre-occupied with the niceties of anti-Trinitarian theology. One cannot base one’s religious outlook on negations and dead theological issues. It would be a sad state of affairs if we were identifiable solely on the basis of rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity.
So we face the challenge of presenting our Unitarian faith in positive, affirmative ways. We can do so not by negations, but by drawing on our own inner resources. our own experiences of life and people, our own ingenuity.
15th November, Rev. Rex Hunt, “Nature, Naturalism… Wonder and Wilderness”
All religious traditions, including Unitarian Universalism, need to appreciate that the primary sacred community is the universe itself. Every other community becomes sacred by participation in this primary community.
It invites a larger sense of life.
It requires the language of reverence.
In moments of wonder we delight in what is.
When we lose our sense of awe, wonder, and beauty, we objectivise the Earth as a commodity that can be used and abused at our consumeristic whim.
22nd November, Martin Horlacher, TBA
29th November, Rev Geoff Usher, “Life’s Great Gifts”
We need to be constantly grateful for this wonderful gift of life. However long we live, we shall never be old enough to earn the gift; but all of us can hope that we may be wise enough to appreciate its value and to cherish it.