Living the Questions
By UUCC
Living the QuestionsMay 20, 2020
Let's Talk About Money, Baby
What would it take for you to talk about money without shame? No, really -- what would it take? Join us to explore our relationship to money both as individuals and as Unitarian Universalist communities!
Courageous Commitments
How can we make courageous commitments to our communities in such uncertain times? What would it take to help one another make these commitments? Join us to explore making courageous commitments now and in our shared future!
Accountability in Beloved Community
What does accountability look like in the Beloved Community? Join us to wrestle with this question, including an interview exploring prison abolition with Rev. Allison Farnum of the UU Prison Ministry of Illinois.
Community That Cares
How do we care for one another in the Beloved Community? And how can we build an ethic of caring into all that we do as a religious community? Explore this question (and more) in this week's episode!
More about defining the Beloved Community: https://thekingcenter.org/about-tkc/the-king-philosophy/
Fantasy & Reality: Stories for These Times
How can science fiction and fantasy stories help us live better in this reality? What lessons can they teach us and how can we apply them in our everyday lives? Join us for a killer episode with special guests the Reverends Elizabeth Mount, Meghann Robern, and Elizabeth Bukey where we talk about everything from Octavia Butler to Tamora Pierce and fan fiction to fascism, and everything in between!
Playing Our Way to Hope
How can play help us cultivate hope? Join us to talk about Bernie Sanders memes, games, children's play, and how all of these things can help us develop the muscles we need to dig deep and hope for a better world.
Learn more about memes from the inauguration here!
Imagining a Better World
Do you wish that you could access your inner poet? Or maybe you wonder how prophets like the Revered Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. capture our imaginations and inspire us to action. Join us as we go to the mattresses with our question this week -- What power do our imaginations have to transform the world?
Making Sense of 2020
We're back! Welcome back to our weekly podcast, where we wrestle with life's difficult questions by digging deep into current events, Unitarian Universalist history and theology, and spiritual reflections. This week, we ask the question: How do we make sense of the year we never imagined? Avalon Skinner, UU young adult and college student, joins Rev. Hannah to talk about what it's like to have your college education disrupted by COVID!
May We Be Filled with Lovingkindness
Is this holiday season leaving you out in the cold? Do you need a few minutes to just pause and reconnect? Then our special December series is here for you! Spiritual Practices for Holiday Skeptics is a way for you to center your heart, mind, and spirit on the things that matter most, without any extra tinsel stuck where you don't want it.
This week, join us for a meditation based on the lovingkindness mediation from Buddhism. It features a song by the Reverend Ian W. Riddell.
The Joy of Laughter
Is this holiday season leaving you out in the cold? Do you need a few minutes to just pause and reconnect? Then our special December series is here for you! Spiritual Practices for Holiday Skeptics is a way for you to center your heart, mind, and spirit on the things that matter most, without any extra tinsel stuck where you don't want it.
This week's spiritual practice invites us to laugh and experience the contagious power of joy!
Centered & Grounded
Is this holiday season leaving you out in the cold? Do you need a few minutes to just pause and reconnect? Then our special December series is here for you! Spiritual Practices for Holiday Skeptics is a way for you to center your heart, mind, and spirit on the things that matter most, without any extra tinsel stuck where you don't want it.
This week's spiritual practice asks us to center in on a stone, so grab one (truly, any little ol' rock will do) before we get started!
Gratitude Meditation
Is this holiday season leaving you out in the cold? Do you need a few minutes to just pause and reconnect? Then our special December series is here for you! Spiritual Practices for Holiday Skeptics is a way for you to center your heart, mind, and spirit on the things that matter most, without any extra tinsel stuck where you don't want it.
Becoming Healers
Healing Ourselves Now
How can we recommit to healing ourselves and our communities right now? What kind of commitment will it take to really make change in the long haul?
Healing in the Darkness
How can darkness bring healing? And how can we be guided by nature's rhythms as the seasons change, the nights grow longer, and the veil gets thinner?
Extra resources!
- Dark and Light, Light and Dark by Jacqui James
- For more about Spiritualism: https://uudb.org/articles/spiritualism.html
What Can One Person Do?
What can one person do to actually make a difference? Truly? What can any one of us do to impact our communities, whether during an election season or any time of the year? Join us for reflection, conversation, and an interview with the inimitable Kathleen Petersen!
Listening to Different Stories
How can we listen deeply to stories that contradict the ones we've been taught? And how can that question help non-indigenous people wrestle with the legacy of settler colonialism in the United States? We're also joined by Audrey, one of our youth from UUCC for an interview about her experience of her own indigenous identity and heritage.
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Supplemental Resources!
Here's the article by Dina Gilio-Whitaker: https://www.uuworld.org/articles/problem-wilderness
And here's a link to the NPR interview about indigenous forest management practices: https://www.npr.org/2020/10/13/923377261/fire-expert-on-how-indigenous-land-management-could-help-with-fires-in-californi
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76401.Bury_My_Heart_at_Wounded_Knee
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz: http://www.beacon.org/An-Indigenous-Peoples-History-of-the-United-States-P1164.aspx
Listening to Ourselves
How can we listen to ourselves more deeply? And how can that kind of deep listening to the movements of our own hearts, minds, and bodies help us proclaim our truth? Join us for this special episode where we reflect on this question and witness to coming out stories in honor of National Coming Out Day on October 11th.
The Practice of Deep Listening
What does deep listening truly require of us, both as individuals and as communities? And how can we build those capacities within ourselves in order to build communities where change is possible?
Atonement that Matters
How can the work of atonement refocus and realign our priorities? And what do reconciliation and repair actually require of us today? Join us as we wrestle with these questions alongside, John Murray, Jonah, Hosea Ballou, and more!
To check out the Josie Duffy Rice essay, you can find it here in Vanity Fair: https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2020/08/the-abolition-movement
Renewing Partnerships in a Pandemic
How might we renew our relationships with our community partners as part of our “new normal”? And what is required of us as Unitarian Universalists to rise to the call to accountability and solidarity?
Our guest, Antonio J. Serrano, is the chairman of Juntos. You can find out more about Juntos, including how to donate or purchase their fundraiser shirts at juntoswyoming.com
Check out these articles for more:
https://elemental.medium.com/your-surge-capacity-is-depleted-it-s-why-you-feel-awful-de285d542f4c
PS -- Before anybody writes in, I do realize that Roxbury is a neighborhood of Boston rather than a suburb. My apologies for misspeaking!
Finding Renewal in our Past
How can our shared past be a source of renewal without defining us? And how can our Unitarian Universalist faith help us wrestle with this question?
To keep wrestling with this question, visit uucheyenne.org for more information!
Renewing Our Commitment to Democracy
How are you renewing your commitment to democracy and the democratic process this fall? Join us as we wrestle with this question, including guest appearances from Britney Wallesch, Marcie Kindred, and Rep. Sara Burlingame.
As a note, Rep. Sara Burlingame serves House District 44. The audio got cut for a moment during recording, so we wanted to clarify that info here!
Learn more about how to engage with this question and more at uucheyenne.org/uucc-fall-program
"Pride Was a Riot" -- June 7, 2020
Is unrest destructive or productive? As protest and unrest erupt across our country, we’ll pause and reflect on the history of LGBTQ+ Pride Month, the Stonewall Riot, and how movements for liberation have dealt with police brutality and other state-sanctioned violence in our national history. Check out the reading from the Rev. Theresa I. Soto here and the piece by Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray here. The quote from the reading that gets cut off at the beginning is, "Being free is not a license, but a promise."
"Engaging the Spirit of Life" -- June 14, 2020
These hard times call us to action - but how do we act faithfully? How do we engage the spirit of life in our acts of compassion and justice? Join our guest preacher, Rev. Kimblerley Debus, for this sermon!
"Beyond Comprehension" -- May 31st, 2020
Have you ever felt like people are just talking past one another? Like we might even be speaking different languages? Perhaps you feel that now more than ever, as our communities struggle with the grief and outrage at the ongoing impacts of racist policy and policing on Black lives in the United States. The Christian festival of Pentecost invites us to see the possibility in these cacophonies, and we might even find some distinctly Unitarian Universalist calling of the spirit in the midst of the noise. The reading we reference is Acts 2:1-18.
"The Gifts of Ramadan" -- May 24th, 2020
Ramadan, one of the 5 pillars of Islam and an important milestone in the Muslim year, is coming to a close this weekend. Ramadan is a time of inner reflection, reconnecting with the sacred, and charity. Perhaps there may be some lessons for our current socially distanced reality? Join our guest preacher, Camellia El-Antably, and find out more!
"Heeding the Warning" -- Youth Sunday, May 17th
What might it actually take to shift outcomes around climate and other catastrophes? Listen as Rev. Hannah reflects on the topic set by our youth. The reading we reference by Thom Hartmann is here.
"Life's Thresholds" -- May 10th, 2020
Life is filled with transitions and changes — birth, adoption, adolescence, partnering, separating, retirement, aging, death, and more. How does the holy show up in these moments and changes? And how can we approach these thresholds with spiritual grounding and grace? The poem we talk about is "On Turning Ten" by Billy Collins.
"Getting In the Door" -- May 3, 2020
It takes a great deal of courage to show up in a new community for the first time. It takes even more to feel like you can share your authentic presence in that community. Listen in and reflect on how we show up in community together. And check out the story of Old Joe here.
Freedom For -- April 26, 2020
We often talk about what we're freeing ourselves from, but how can we use that freedom and that liberation? What is our responsibility to one another as we consider the capacity and gifts that we bring to our community? The story referenced is Drum Dream Girl.
An Easter Message
A Way of Going
“Being Wise When Nobody Is Watching” — March 8, 2020