On Dec. 3, 2017, we heard a story about a woman who showed up anyway. Amid the inevitable struggles of life and relationships, one of the most profound things we do in religious community is to explore how to remain faithful to one another, to our highest values, and to love. When the going gets … Continue reading Dec. 3, 2017 – Show Up Anyway
In her sermon on Nov. 19, 2017, “Staying at the Table,” Rev. Molly Housh Gordon spoke of how Thanksgiving time with family is sometimes fun, sometimes hard, and always meaningful, and she explored how we can stay at the table through it all. Listen as she starts with a closer look at a hymn popular … Continue reading Nov. 19, 2017 podcast: “Staying at the Table”
Our members Kevin EarthSoul, Connie Ordway and Melissa McConnell spoke at our “Struggling Together” worship services on Nov. 12, 2017 about how they grappled with struggles of different kinds in their lives and the meaning they found in their struggles. Listen as they tell their stories. You can also read the text of Connie Ordway’s … Continue reading Nov. 12, 2017 podcast: “Struggling Together”
One way we build resilient community is by engaging struggle together. In doing so we learn that we can do hard things, engage in emotional complexities, and struggle together for justice. When we wrestle with the difficulties of life together, sometimes we just may find our way to a blessing. Listen as Rev. Molly Housh … Continue reading Nov. 5, 2017 podcast: “Wrestling to the Blessing”
Difference enriches our communities, but could it also enrich the identity of our very own souls? Listen as we consider the complexities of the self, how we contain contradiction, and how we grow over time, awaking a different self each day. In her sermon on Oct. 22, 2017, Rev. Molly Housh Gordon explored how this … Continue reading Oct. 22, 2017: “I Am Large, I Contain Multitudes”
On Oct. 15, the Rev. Molly Housh Gordon’s sermon was “Listening So Others May Speak, Speaking So Others May Listen. ” Jeff Ordway presented related readings. Rev. Molly explored how we can have useful conversations across difference in a polarized and polarizing time, how we might listen in a way that others will speak, and … Continue reading Oct. 15, 2017 – “Space to Listen”
The UUCC Honduras Team presented the worship services on Oct. 8, 2017. The Team has been supporting villages in the Cangrejal River Valley, about an hour drive south from La Ceiba, Honduras, since 2009. A group of 16 went on the fourth UUCC service trip this past June to build latrines, offer Pap smears in … Continue reading Oct. 8, 2017 – Honduras Team Worship Service
In her sermon on Oct. 1, 2017 titled “Holy Difference,” the Rev. Molly Housh Gordon said that when she describes Unitarian Universalism to folks for the first time, one of the characteristics she names is, “We believe difference is holy, rather than threatening.” She explored how this belief can be hard to live out in … Continue reading Oct. 1, 2017 – “Holy Difference”
In her moving sermon on Sept. 24, 2017 titled “Being Sanctuary, our Affiliated Community Minister, the Rev. Dottie Mathews, shared what she has learned while accompanying immigrant neighbors to ICE check-ins and doing other sanctuary work. She pondered how we can truly treat everyone as members of the human family amid inhumane systems. The sermon … Continue reading Sept. 24, 2017 – “Being Sanctuary”
At our worship service on June 11, 2016, Worship Associate Cande Iveson explored our worship theme for the month – fidelity to covenant. Listen as she unpacks this phrase with concrete examples to help understand it, adding a bit of humor.
Does Your Family Like to Hike? We are starting a new monthly event at UUCC, a hike for all ages. The purpose of the hikes is to strengthen our connection to nature while also strengthening our connection to each other and building our community. We will have two different hikes scheduled each month, to accommodate … Continue reading New Monthly RE Event – Hikes
In her sermon on Easter Sunday, April 16, 2017 titled “Of Salvation and Scars,” Rev. Molly Housh Gordon explored a Unitarian Universalist interpretation of traditional Easter themes, examining what it means to be wounded and whether a wound paradoxically makes us more human.
Our lay-led worship on March 26, 2017 was titled “Four Score: Reflections on Aging from Four Generations” and was presented by UUs across several decades. Listen to what Cande Iveson, Rachel Byerly Duke, Tracey Milarsky, Todd Iveson and David Leuthold had to say at the 11 a.m. service about what aging means to them.
Life is a series of inevitable changes – yet we cling and grasp at each fleeting piece, always being forced to let go, as we are carried along in the currents of life. Moments of change in our lives can be lessons, as well as deeply emotional experiences. Join us as Director of Religious Education … Continue reading March 12, 2017 – “The Circle of Life”
Our audio podcast this week considers impermanence – a part of the natural ebb and flow of life. Why do we resist impermanence, meeting our own end with fear and panic? Can we, instead of avoiding this part of living, turn toward it, through our spirituality? Can it be a friend, whispering that we should … Continue reading March 5, 2017 – “Memento Mori”
What does it mean to show up with courage in a time of division and even violence? Unitarian Universalists have a storied history of courageously resisting laws that violated their conscience. Listen to a podcast of Rev. Molly Housh Gordon’s sermon on Feb. 19, 2017 as she tells us of a chance and an obligation … Continue reading Feb. 19, 2017 – “The Fire of Commitment”
Our work in this time of division and fear is the same as the work always is – it is the simple calling of loving our world. How do we remain rooted in love in these times when there is so much to be done and so much coming at us all the time? Join … Continue reading Feb. 12, 2017 – “Sustaining Love”
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. admonished us to be “creatively maladjusted.” What does that mean as we face today’s challenges? Is it possible to be hopeful? As we confront today’s anti-progressive forces, what would it look like for a creatively maladjusted justice movement to forge a “Third Reconstruction”? Listen to the Rev. Molly … Continue reading Feb. 5, 2017 – “Moving for Justice” – Breathe, then Push
This semester in religious education, we are trying something new! Well, actually, two things new: First, we are going to be offering R.E. during the 9 a.m. service starting Feb. 5. This will be in addition to our usual 11 a.m. R.E. program. Second, at this 9 a.m. time, we will be experimenting with a … Continue reading Something new – 9 a.m. R.E.!
On Dec. 4, 2016, in a sermon titled “God Is Not God’s Name,” Rev. Molly Housh Gordon explored deep questions of theism, atheism and metaphor, helping us understand the danger of simple, certain and hollow stories – how such simplistic views of the world can leave us with the choices only to agree or oppose. … Continue reading Dec. 4, 2016 – “God Is Not God’s Name”
Our YUUTS R.E. Class (6th-8th grade) visited Show Me Dharma on Dec. 4, 2016. Their host was Beth Shoyer. Thanks to George Frissell for providing the photo below.
In her sermon on Sunday, Nov. 13, 2016, titled “Beloved Resistance,” the Rev. Molly Housh Gordon spoke to how we as Unitarian Universalists must double down on love and connection with all peoples to combat the forces of racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia and other prejudices unleashed and seemingly normalized during the Presidential election. The audio … Continue reading Nov. 13, 2016 – “Beloved Resistance” – Rev. Molly Housh Gordon
On Sunday, Oct. 23, 2016, we welcomed back Kenny Wiley, former UUCC member and now a UU World senior editor and Denver-based religious educator. Kenny attended UUCC from 2008 to 2011 when he was a student at MU. He delivered a sermon, “Finding Home,” that emphasized the importance of the UU First Principle – the … Continue reading Oct. 23, 2016 – Guest Preacher Kenny Wiley – “Finding Home”
Listen here to “Leadership, Followership, and Other Ships that Sail,” the sermon topic of special guest preacher Meg Riley at our two worship services on Sunday, Oct. 9, 2016. Rev. Riley is the senior minister leading our denomination’s largest congregation – The Church of the Larger Fellowship, a congregation without walls serving UUs all over … Continue reading Oct. 9, 2016 – “Leadership, Followership, and Other Ships that Sail”
In her reflections at our worship services on Sept. 25, 2016, the Rev. Molly Housh Gordon explained that when we come to practice self-awareness, we must also decide which parts of ourselves we bare to the world, and which remain hidden. We must recognize, as well, that pieces of us are hidden to ourselves, though … Continue reading Sept. 25, 2016 – “The Self That Is Hidden”
In her poem “To Be of Use,” the gifted poet Marge Piercy tells us that humans crave real purpose and meaning in life. In her sermon of the same title at the 9 and 11 a.m. worship services on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, the Rev. Dottie Mathews, our new affiliated community minister, addressed the foundational … Continue reading Sept. 18, 2016 – “To Be of Use”
On Sunday, Sept. 11, 2016, as we resumed holding two worship services and 9 and 11 a.m., we began exploring our overarching theme for the year – cultivating spiritual growth. What is spiritual growth, exactly? How do we cultivate it, and how do we know it when we see it? These are the questions the … Continue reading Sept. 11, 2016 – Cultivating Spiritual Growth
At our worship service on Sept. 4, 2016, with the aid of the new book White Trash: The Four Hundred Year Untold History of Class in America by historian Nancy Isenberg, the Rev. Molly Housh Gordon explored the profound influence of class in America and in our Unitarian Universalist tradition. She posed the question, How … Continue reading Sept. 4, 2016 – Throw-Away People
In his remarks during the worship service on July 17, 2016, lay leader Steve Scott shared a key insight from the book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein – that environmental and social justice advocates need to recognize the common causes of the ills they are fighting and work together more … Continue reading July 17, 2016 – Where Environmental and Social Justice Meet
On June 5, 2016, the Rev. Molly Housh Gordon explored the following questions in a sermon titled “Self-Compassion in the Digital Age”: How do we practice self-compassion in an age that commodifies self-help and self-improvement as products marketed to us in various digital media? How do we love our neighbors and ourselves in a world … Continue reading June 5, 2016 – Self-Compassion in the Digital Age
