For those of you who heard my New Years reflection this will be repetitive and I apologise. But I think it is worth repeating.
After my heart felt reflection on the 17th of December my entire Christmas fell apart. I finished all my school work and was ready for the festivities. but ended up in the emergency department on the Dec 23rd diagnosed with shingles. The next day I went to an Infectious disease specialist and the shingles diagnosis was thrown out for a “we have no idea what is wrong” diagnosis. The right side of my face was swollen with infection and I had painful sores all over my scalp. Was I stressed they asked? I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry..
Our special Christmas breakfast with family was cancelled and we substituted Tim Hortons on my my way back from the hospitalì. I was too sick to attend my families Christmas hootenany, but Raghul was there and tells me it was very nice. Did the world end? No. Did my world end? No. I tell you this to help you to see all the pressure we put on ourselves based on a day on the calendar. Do not pressure yourselves with New Years resolutions. Just don’t… but do reflect
New Years – some of us love it and some of us hate it. Some of us will hide away and be in bed at 10 and some of us will party like there is no tomorrow. How can we be reverent about New Years? The month’s theme is reverence and for Christmas I talked about the hope of Christmas season but the difference at New Years is itsl is all about us. Not to pressure ourselves or reinvent who we are, but to reflect on what we can take confidently into the new year and what we can get rid of that doesn’t serve us anymore. I encourage you to write down what is not serving you or holding you back from life and to symbolically burn or destroy the paper, refusing to take this with you into 2024.
New Years is just a mark on a calendar but it isn’t really different than any other dawning of a new day. Being human means that Every day we get a new chance to do better, to love someone who is difficult to love, to serve someone who needs our help. It is about choice. We can choose to make a new day rich and fulfilled for ourselves and those we care about or we can choose to take the same old approach that hasn’t worked in the past.
We should make change in small steps. If we say I am going to make a big change overnight, we will fail -slow and steady wins the prize. So, I am asking that we look at our lives, with all the good and bad, the pain and joy and what you can do to make it better. Or if you are happy where you are what can you do to make it better for your little corner of the world. The ripples you make in the waters of change will affect the world.
I encourage you to look at New Years as a time of reverence and reflection and endeavor to make small changes. Never give up hope. Every day including New Years is a new chance to make things better. There may not be an immediate reward other than knowing we are doing our very best.
Lori Turner-Otte
Speaker: Rev. Karen Fraser Gitlitz (virtual)
The advent of AI and chatbots has opened a whole new area of ethics. In what ways is artificial intelligence pushing us to strengthen our ethical and theological muscles? What do our answers to these questions say about our understanding of what it means to be human, especially the ways in which this understanding impacts our relations with other humans and with the other-than-human world.
Speaker: Suzanah Evans & Eileen Howay
A participatory service based on ideas from the book “Rhythms of Renewal- Trading Stress and Anxiety for a Life of Peace and Purpose” by Rebekah Lyons
Worship Leader: Lori Turner Otte
Now that we have voted on our relocation, let's talk about commitment and moving forward. Let's begin acting in the world.
Service Leader: Brian Keith
One of the goals we embrace at the UFL is to "nourish the spirit". Is your spirit hungry? How can you tell if it needs nourishing? Are you even in touch with your spirit? I plan to explore some ways of becoming more spiritual and ask how does one do that, how do you know if you've succeeded, and how can you tell if you've gone too far. A vital part of most religions, catering to adherents' spiritual life can happen outside the church. Some of us find it in nature, in caring work, or even in routine or mundane activities. "Spirit of life, come unto me." Come along on January 28th and learn more!
We are having a membership information session on January 14, 2024 after the regular service.
The membership meeting is a zero pressure information session about UUism and its history, how things work at UFL and the process of becoming a member.
Join other UU 18 to 35 year-olds on Zoom for sharing of joys and sorrows, deeper check-ins, prayerful reflections, and an opportunity to process the events of our lives with a spiritually grounded community. Each month we are joined by a member of the Young Adult Pastoral Care Team.
These monthly gatherings have become highly valued touchstones in the lives of many young adults. While so much in our lives is unknown and unknowable, we can find comfort in familiar rituals and faces. By sharing our joys, our concerns, our sorrows and our gratitudes, we know ourselves to be held in a loving community. Exploring themes and spiritual practices helps us each remember our own creativity and resilience. We are all in this together, a part of a larger story.
These are drop-in gatherings, so you don’t need to sign up in advance and there is no fee. See event details for zoom link.
