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Sermon Archive

”The Worst UU I Ever Met“ - Rev. Craig Moro

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Using money, power, threats and “lobbying” to get your way at church—does that sound like the UU way of doing things?  Sometimes we learn a lot about how to “do religion right” when someone does it wrong!  Sermon by Rev. Craig Moro.

 

Multi-Platform Worship Sunday at 10:30:

This service will be offered as both a virtual and an in-person service.

 

Click here to join the virtual service on Zoom

Meeting ID:  275 194 110

Phone In:  (669) 900-6833

 

Click here to RSVP for the in-person service at the Community for Positive Aging (1820 NE 40th Ave). You must RSVP to attend in person

"Unbecoming: Body, Ancestry, Land" -- Sarah-Lu Baker

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The landscape does not have a human tongue. How does the body of the human talk to the body of the earth? What does the rock have to say to us? What does the memory of the water know?  And how do we change in response?  In this profoundly transformative moment in our history, how do we unbecome all that we have known in order to live into what we are? 

Sarah-Luella Baker is a multi-disciplinary artist and healer living in Portland, Oregon. Sarah-Lu uses her body, vocalization, instrumentation, video, paper, ink, natural dyes, salt, and water to invoke textural, symbolic, and ritual works of art. 

Sarah-Lu’s work evolves as a partnership between her physical body and the subtler energies of spirit. Personal meaning-making blends with the wisdom of unseen beings in order to create supportive undercurrents of change toward collective liberation. 

Sarah-Lu has an MFA from UC Davis, and has developed and shown her art in Portland, Oregon, the Bay Area, the Salt Lake Valley, and at festivals and workshops in NYC and Vancouver, BC. In 2019 Sarah-Lu was chosen for a six-month choreographic residency at New Expressive Works in Portland. Her visual work is currently being shown at a solo show in Portland. 

From 2010-2020, Sarah-Lu founded and owned a school for young children focusing on the arts, nature and anti-bias education. She considers the work of conceiving, birthing, and mothering to be in direct relationship to the work of creating art- viewing both as embodied and creative practices of presence and direct relationship. Currently, Sarah-Lu is the founder and owner of Heart Marrow, a healing arts practice living at the confluence of astrology, art, and the body.

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"Enduring the Ridiculous" -- Rev. Craig Moro

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Jalal ud-Din Rumi, born in the year 1207 and America’s favorite poet since 2007, will be our guide this morning.  He will show us how to cope when people seem to willfully misunderstand (and misrepresent) our words.  We will also contemplate the “righteous”outrage sparked by three books that appeared in the years 610, 1989, and 2019 respectively : The Qur’an, The Satanic Verses, and The Gadfly Papers.

 

“Radical Hospitality” - Desiree Eden Ocampo, Executive Director of Rahab’s Sisters

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Examining Inequality Social Justice Focus Speaker Series:

Desiree Eden Ocampo is the Executive Director of Rahab's Sisters, a non-profit founded in 2003 that builds community through radical hospitality with women and gender diverse people marginalized by poverty, houselessness, sex work, violence and substance use. She loves sharing communal meals with friends and strangers alike, whether inviting the young people of the neighborhood over for breakfast or having lunch with guests at the local community center. Her passion for using her talent and skills to make the world a better place, has led her to work with various nonprofits such as Fulfillment Fund, Rising TIDE and Team in Training. For over twenty years, Desiree Eden has helped organizations like South Coast Botanic Garden align their work with their mission, and Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County surpass fundraising goals, move through critical transitions, and strengthen their capacities. Most recently, she served as Deputy Director at Portland Children’s Museum.

She has a Masters of Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary and a BS in Business Administration from University of Southern California. When she is not spending time with her husband and three children or catching up on the latest sci-fi show, she is either cooking, singing, reading, or writing about the intersection of faithful living and injustices. She hopes to continue to dance through life as though no one is watching and is excited for Rahab’s Sisters becoming the catalyst for radical hospitality throughout the city.

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I Think We Can - Rev. Craig Moro

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Do Unitarian Universalists pray?  If so, how and where and when do they do it? Our program today starts with a famous children’s story—The Little Engine That Could.  Then we’ll contemplate the power of aspirational thinking as this year’s stewardship train arrives back at the station, laden with the resources that you have so generously shared!

 

MULTI-PLATFORM WORSHIP SUNDAY AT 10:30: This service will be offered as both a virtual and an in-person service.

Click here to join the virtual service on Zoom

Meeting ID:  275 194 110

Phone In:  (669) 900-6833

Click here to RSVP for the in-person service at the Community for Positive Aging (1820 NE 40th Ave). You must RSVP to attend in person

 

Relational Ecology and Our Human Relationship with Water and the Natural World - Dr. John Scott

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Dr. John Scott will speak about his narrative research dissertation that explored our human relationship with water from an indigenous and people of color framework/lens.  He will also facilitate a dialogue that invites participants to think about their own relational ecology, and their past and current relationship with the natural world, including water.  Part of this collective ‘thinking’ will involve creativity and physical movement.  Some of the questions that will be explored include but are not limited to; What is your current relationship with water and the natural world?  What are your concerns about water? And where would you like your relationship to be in the future?  Please come ready to participate with curiosity and courage.  

John Scott, PhD, is an adjunct faculty member in the Transformative Studies doctoral program. He is an academic, writer, researcher, and change maker who has been providing anti-racism, equity, and inclusion leadership and support to organizations and individuals for over 20 years. John’s academic inquiry includes but is not limited to: indigenous wisdom related to our human relationship with water and environment, narrative research, theater of the oppressed (Boal), racial equity, and cultural humility. Dr. Scott is currently the DEI Director with Washington State Parks, and before that, served for  one year as the Senior VP of Equity and Inclusion with WA State Charters Schools Association.  He served three years as the director of diversity, equity, and inclusion for Washington State with Seneca Family of Agencies.. John holds a PhD in Transformative Studies that was focused on Relational Ecology and Indigenous Studies, and a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology with a concentration in Drama Therapy from California Institute of Integral Studies. John is passionate about water, long distance swimming, transformative healing, equity, and peach cobbler. 

 

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"A Horror Story; A Funny Story; A Love Story" -- Rev. Craig Moro

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If the words Horror Story appear in a sermon title, a “trigger warning” hardly seems necessary, but here it is:  This morning you will hear brief references to institutional violence and abuse bordering on torture.  But you will also hear about how people enduring such treatment can use humorous resistance to help each other, and how loving acceptance can make all the difference in the world.

Welcome back! This will be offered as a virtual and in-person service! 

Sunday at 10:30am online and at the Community for Positive Aging (1820 NE 40th Ave)

RSVP's are required to attend the in-person service.

 

 

 

 

Social Justice Focus Speaker: Alejandro Queral

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Examining Economic Inequality is our Social Justice Focus for this church year and Alejandro Queral, Executive Director of the Oregon Center for Public Policy (OCPP) will join us as our third outside speaker on this topic and will share with us about the work of the OCPP.

The Oregon Center for Public Policy (OCPP) is a nonprofit, independent think tank based in Portland, Oregon. For over 20 years, OCPP has been a leader in fighting to ensure all Oregonians have an opportunity to thrive. This requires significant investments in public structures such as education, health, and housing, paid for with an adequate, fair, and progressive tax system, which asks for more from those who have the most. We achieve these policy outcomes by developing research and analysis, building coalitions, and encouraging policymakers to make decisions that are in the best interest of their constituents. 

Alejandro leads the Center, providing strategic direction and ensuring the Center’s sustainability and adherence to its mission. He brings more than 20 years of policy advocacy and nonprofit leadership experience in public health, human rights and environmental policy, as well as a seven-year stint in the philanthropic sector. Alejandro holds advanced degrees in ecology and law.

Our monthly special collection will happen on this Sunday for the Oregon Center for Public Policy.

Join our Virtual Service Sunday at 10:30

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Building the Rainbow of Steel: The Secret History of Black History—A Multiracial Unitarian Universalist Perspective – Rev. Dr. Finley Campbell

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The Rev. Dr. Finley Campbell will share his vision of multiracial Unitarian Universalism as way to make sure that the divisive issue of race doesn’t blind us to the other important yet related issues facing us in the 2022 election: the dangers of violent civil insurgency, the threatening, non-violent movement shifting the US American political economy from the bourgeois democratic republic to the bourgeois oligarchic republic; the emergence of Cold War II with its menace of World War III. We can draw important lessons from our UU legacy where we have dealt with racism, old and new.  The main lesson for committed Unitarian Universalists in the 21st century is to look at the multiracial nature of black history as an historical theist inspiration which will empower us to deal courageously with the coming rage of storm.

 

The Rev. Dr. Finley Campbell is an ordained Baptist minister and a long-time Unitarian Universalist. He is the program coordinator of the Chicago Nucleus of the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship; co-chairs the Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice (Chicago), and is a founder and now Vice-chair, the Unitarian Universalist Multiracial Unity Action Council.

 

His educational background focused on socio-political literature as the Fifth Gospel and includes a BA from Morehouse College (1956), and MA from Atlanta University (1958) and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (1969). He has worked as an Assistant Professor of Humanities at many institutions from 1960-2009 including but not limited to Morehouse College, Wabash College, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and DeVry University-Chicago.

 

In addition, he has led an active political life serving as acting minister of education for the Indiana Chapter of the Black Panther Party and founder of its Rainbow Coalition partner, the Indiana Peace and Freedom Party (1969-1972); the InterNational Committee Against Racism (1973-1993); and the Chicago Democratic Party, 2001 to the present.

 

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