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You are here: Home / Archives for Minister's Blog

Minister's Blog

Thoughts, spiritual exploration, and meditations from our Reverend Jim Parrish

Chalice Stories – “Playing Fair” the 5th Principle

December 9, 2020 by Fawn Smith

Our 5th installment of Chalice Stories is a story about the 5th listed Principle: The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large or “All People Need a Vote.”

Our story is “Playing Fair” from Janeen Grohsmeyer’s book “a lamp in every corner: our unitarian universalist story book,” and it will be for Thursday’s Chalica celebration of our Principles. Light a Chalice, and enjoy!

Filed Under: Beacon, Minister's Blog, Principles and Sources Tagged With: Chalica, Chalice Stories, Principles, Unitarian Universalism

Chalice Stories – Our 4th Principle

December 9, 2020 by Fawn Smith

Our Fourth Principle, or Wednesday Chalica installment of Chalice Stories. Illustrating the UU Principles using Janeen Grohsmeyer’s book “a lamp in every corner: our unitarian universalist story book.” This Video’s story is “The Race to the Top of the Tree”

Filed Under: Beacon, Children/Youth RE, Minister's Blog, Principles and Sources Tagged With: Chalice Stories, Principles, Unitarian Universalism

Chalice Stories – 3rd Principle

December 7, 2020 by Fawn Smith

Hi Y’all!

Here is our third installment of a Chalice Story to celebrate our Principles for Chalica! Our stories are from the book “a lamp in every corner” by Janeen K. Grohsmeyer, and this one is titled “The Rooster Who Learned to Crow,” illustrating our third listed Principle – Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations… or as the story puts it, “We’re free to learn together.”

So please, light a chalice or candle, enjoy the story, and contemplate how we work to help each other grow and learn, even though they may believe differently from ourselves!

Peace, Rev. Jim

Filed Under: Beacon, Children/Youth RE, Minister's Blog, Principles and Sources Tagged With: Principles, Unitarian Universalism

Chalice Stories – 2nd Principle

December 7, 2020 by Fawn Smith

Hi Y’all!

Here is the Chalice Story for our Second listed Principle – Justice, equity and compassion in human relations… or Be Kind in all You Do.

The Story is “The Excruciatingly Scrupulous Twins” by Janeen K. Grohsmeyer, from her book “a lamp in every corner.”

Light a Chalice, relax, and enjoy the story! Then discuss the second listed Principle and its meanings as you will. Love to hear your thoughts here if you wish.

Peace,Rev. Jim

Filed Under: Beacon, Children/Youth RE, Minister's Blog, Principles and Sources Tagged With: Chalica, Chalice Stories, Principles, Unitarian Universalism

Chalice Stories: First Principle – The Weight of a Snowflake

December 7, 2020 by Fawn Smith

Celebrating our Unitarian Universalist Principles at UU Fayetteville, AR, we’re using the stories from Janeen Grohsmeyer’s book “a lamp in every corner: Our Unitarian Universalist storybook” and her series on our Principles. We’ll have seven videos, and seven stories, for seven Principles. This story is about our First listed Principle – The Inherent Worth and Dignity of Every Person, or Each Person Is Important.

Filed Under: Beacon, Children/Youth RE, Minister's Blog, Principles and Sources Tagged With: Chalica, Chalice Stories, Principles, Unitarian Universalism

Singing “Thank-you” from the Marshallese: Kommol tata!

September 16, 2020 by el

Marshallese singers in UUFF sanctuary singing thanks

As many know, we have a large population of Marshallese from their Island nation here in NWA. They came to escape the old, continuing destruction visited on them by U.S. nuclear testing, and todays continued environmental degradation of their islands. Many came to work in the NWA poultry processing industry, and they have stayed a cohesive cultural people while slowly integrating into Arkansas life. With Covid-19, and the poultry industries careless attitude towards its workers, the Marshallese were hit hard by the virus. It spread from workers to the community with heartbreaking results in sickness and deaths, and economic disaster. Albious Latior, a Marshallese community organizer who has spoken at UUFF several times about his people, reached out to NWA churches and non-profits to get help for his people, and the results have been gratifying. Pastor Clint Schnekloth of Good Shepherd Lutheran and Albious put together a highly successful fundraiser to aid Marshallese families. We as UUFF, and I assume a number of UU individuals, contributed to this effort, so we were thanked with this wonderful performance in our Sanctuary.

There is a lot more to be done to help the Marshallese and others affected by this pandemic, and we’ll step up to do our part as individuals, and community. And we appreciate that when a community like the Marshallese is grateful for help given, they will share such a wonderful thank-you in song! Kommol tata!

Filed Under: Beacon, Minister's Blog, Music Tagged With: Marshallese

Imagine being surrounded

May 28, 2020 by Fawn Smith

Thoughts on the Police Killing of George Floyd and Reactions of the People –

Imagine being surrounded by a system, a culture, where you are being watched, judged, and treated “different” from the happy faces on tv or media. Where you, yes you, cannot go into a store without attention to your presence, without suspicion of intent, and pre-judgment about ability to pay. Imagine getting seconds, and thirds in education, in jobs, in consideration. Imagine your children being in danger from neighbors and police just for being on the street playing, your spouse for jogging, or just driving to work… imagine this for your whole life.

Inside, I would be so angry, I’d want to burn this society down… I would want to tear it apart, break its windows, its police cars, its racist stores. I would burn down the second, third rate housing relegated to, and hope to take down the property of those profited off of my oppression. Yes, I’d be in the streets if it were my brother, cousin, neighbor, fellow human in oppression, killed so callously, LIKE SO MANY BEFORE!

I explained this to my father, as we watched the riots on tv in the 60’s, hoping he got a glimmer of the truth, the truth that still surrounds us today, that this is a deeply racist and hateful society to many people, and finding ways to hold onto the rage, to find “constructive ways to change,” as suggested by white people in easy chairs, is just so much bullshit. I think a broken police car, a store relieved of its goods, a cleansing fire, might not fix things, but it is an answer to the continuing placement of a police and judicial and economic and societal systems knees on the necks of brown and black (and so many other) people. Violence begets violence… what have we asked for in keeping our racist and oppressive society as it is? What indeed.

My religion, expressing “how I want to live,” is Unitarian Universalism, and we have been, and are, working so hard to figure out how to break the bonds of racism and oppression in our own systems of church polity, in our own very “white” congregations as we try to follow our Principles of Worth and Dignity of all human beings, striving for justice, equity and compassion in our relations. We fail often enough, but we also keep trying, because we are people who come to our faith not by command, creed or dogma, but by inner search – recognition of experiences in life that show us small truths that guide us… like it is so obvious we are interdependent, on each other, on our planet, to survive. So we figure out ways to make it work; it is our mission, it is our vision – World community with peace, liberty and justice for all. Something may have to be torn down to let this community be built, but isn’t that the way of the universe? Death, the tearing apart of things, makes for the building blocks of the new. It is messy, and some object that they liked it the way it was… but there are parts of the old found in the new, especially if folks get out of their easy chair and help the demolition and building. So may it be. Rev. Jim Parrish.

Filed Under: Beacon, Minister's Blog, News Media

Being Church and Holding onto the Human in a Pandemic, May 24th, 2020

May 24, 2020 by Fawn Smith

The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Fayetteville, Arkansas, is open and sharing Online Sunday Services… not at the will or whim of anyone but our own sense of the sacred, and our understanding of the worth and dignity of every person, believing as we do, or not. We will not meet in person again until we know all will be as safe as can be, by medical/scientific advice, by our own determination.

We take time today to mourn the lost, felled by Covid-19… we are saddened beyond belief by the toll on human life around the world, even amid other diseases, disasters and violent conflicts. The dead all have names, we can only hold onto a very few, I hope there is an Arkansas version of this accounting, but we must attend to the names of 100,000 lost in this country at the least. And more, if we don’t take care of each other. More, even if we do.

The UU Fellowship of Fayetteville is meeting, sharing lovely, strong online services to speak to the suffering of being human in these, or any time. We share music, a little humor and concerns, a message, and mostly practice being a religious body… figuring out “how to live,” at this time. How to live in our own skin, with others, in a community, in the world. How to Live with integrity, honesty, caring, justice, and love.

And we light a candle for the names of the lost, as part of our service today, and will remember them every Sunday.

Rev. Jim Parrish

Filed Under: Beacon, Minister's Blog, News Media

Minister’s Video Blog! Care and Contact, of a sort…

April 2, 2020 by Fawn Smith

Filed Under: Beacon, Minister's Blog Tagged With: Fayetteville ar, Unitarian Universalism, uuff

Jazz Poetry… finding the beat

March 10, 2020 by Fawn Smith

Jazz Poetry and Unitarian Universalism
(presented with a beat on Sunday March 10th, 2019 to UU Fayetteville, AR)

Jazz poetry should never use the words

Unitarian Or Universalism…

Just listen to them…
Unitarian
Universalism…

They break the Beat…
They smell like Feet!
They kill any Heat!

That just saying something as Cool as – Jazz Poetry – might complete!

How can I compete
Using a word that bleats like… Unitarian?

Try to Rhyme It!
Try to Climb it!
Lasso and Bind it!

There is no fair Climate, it just blows…

Unitarian – the original Swear Word
A dirty underwear word
By the Trinitarian majority

A put down,
A hold to the ground
Try to drown the heresy word…

Of union… Of a singularity…

Of a Jazzy God that is one with all,
A UNITY!

No need for more, a waste of time…
If time is your thing…

Divine in its singularity
A Big Bang throwing its stuff around
with all the ensuing Hilarity (12 seasons now)

Who needs more than a Unity?
Two more? Why…
Even Three?
Why Three? When Billions and Billions of Realities
Crowd the doors of the Universe…

A Jazzy, Snazzy universe, where quantum oddness holds court,

You might run into the wall, or you might run through…
Try it and see
The cat is both dead and alive!
Observationally…
We might be in two places at once…
Just try to prove it…
A Jazzy, Snazzy Universe where odd things happen…
odd things Like me… like You…

Out of the Bang of the Unity comes the beat of the Jazz
and Evolution of that beat, formation
Of Galaxies, and Stars, moons and earths…

Evolution
That Gave us Fins and Flippers
Fingers and Flyers
Fountains and Fathers….

And the letter F…

M came later,

But we know Mothers came first…

Or did they??? Who knows…

really, who knows!?!

All just Because…
Jazz Poetry hates the word Unitarian,
Tolerates the word Universalist – why not?

Why not Build a solid beat around Unity and Universe

And who knows why it would, or wouldn’t?
No one…

It’s Just Jazz

Filed Under: Minister's Blog Tagged With: blog, jazz poetry, minister, unitarian, universalism, uuff

A Bit of a Sabbatical

August 22, 2019 by Fawn Smith

Our backyard Mockingbird Babies above the birdhouse

Hi Y’all,

My Gratitude and Thanks to UUFF for a Sabbatical! As many know, I took June as a Sabbatical month from ministry to do some reflection, personal work – both physical and mental, some grieving, and to catch my breath. It was a good start, and I appreciated it so much! Besides enjoying my backyard mockingbird babies (second batch), I wrote my fathers Eulogy (the one that should have been given at his memorial), and that helps my continued work on other places of grief, love, and relations that are important to me. It takes time to process life, and we should all have this time when we need it. Part of the unfairness of our economic system is the lack of time for people to take care of themselves properly, let alone someone else, as we should… but I’ll come back to that another time.

For July I’ll be available now and again as I take Study/Leave time. I’ll be in the office part time, reading, writing, meeting with leadership, and doing some pastoral care. Check with Fawn in the office and she can get hold of me if needed, and not on a “do not disturb” part of the leave. Otherwise, we have leadership and volunteers for worship and pastoral care that are doing a wonderful job. At the end of July and beginning of August I’ll be on a silent retreat, then a week of time with family. The rest of August is work to get ready for the beginning of the church year in September! Second Sunday in September is our “Water Ingathering” where we fill our fountain and community Joys and Concerns bowl with water reflecting our Principles to begin the Fellowship’s year!

I’m looking forward to our Fall Season together! I love having New UU classes, new themes for the year to work with, and a dialogue around taking the Fellowship into the future. We shall have some fun together with a “UUFF Bake Off (and chili!) event end of September, so be thinking about recipes! I hope we will create more Music this year, open up Religious Exploration and worship, do more Social Justice work, and whatever else rocks us and the community – bringing our Principles to bear and into reality!

Peace,

Rev. Jim

Filed Under: Minister's Blog

Jazz Poetry and Unitarian Universalism

March 13, 2019 by Fawn Smith

black and white painting poetic justice

A poem presented with a beat on Sunday March 10th, 2019 to UU Fayetteville, AR. Not exact wording. 🙂

(Audio of sermon and poem is available)

JAZZ POETRY AND UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISM

Jazz poetry should never use the words

Unitarian

Or

Universalism

Just listen to them…

Say them out loud

Unitarian

Universalism…

They break the Beat…

They smell like Feet!

They kill any Heat!

That just saying something as Cool as  – Jazz Poetry – might complete!

How can I compete

Using a word that bleats like… Unitarian?

Try to Rhyme It!

Try to Climb it!

Lasso and Bind it!

There is no fair Climate,

it just blows in the wind…

Unitarian – the original Swear Word

A dirty underwear word…

By the order of Trinitarians,

A put down,

A hold to the ground,

A Try to drown the heresy word…

Word Of union…

Of a Jazzy God that is one with all,

A UNITY!

No need for more, what a waste of time…

If time is your thing…

Divine in its singularity…

A Big Bang throwing its stuff around, 

with all its ensuing Hilarity (12 seasons now)

Who needs more than a Unity?

Two more? Why…

Even Three? Get Real…

Why Three? When Billions and Billions of Realities

Sunshiny Galaxies…

Crowd the doors of the Universe…

A Jazzy, Snazzy universe, where quantum oddness holds court,

You might run into the wall, or you might run through…

Try it and see. (just let me watch)

The cat is both dead and alive!

Observationally… 

We might be in two places at once,

Just try to prove it…

A Jazzy, Snazzy Universe where odd things happen…

Things Like me… like You… 

Out of the Bang of the Unity comes the Jazz of Evolution 

Evolution of the beat, of formation, of the heat…

Of Galaxies, and Stars, moons and earths…

Mud under our feet… 

Gave us Fins and Flippers

Fingers and Flyers

Fountains and Fathers….

And the letter F…

M came later,

But… We know Mothers came first…

Or did they???

Who knows…

Because…

Jazz Poetry hates the word Unitarian,

Has evolved to Tolerate the word Universalist

Even as we speak…

Jazz Builds a solid beat around

The Unity and the Universe

And who knows why?

No one…

It’s Just Jazz.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rev. J Parrish, March 12, 2019

Filed Under: Minister's Blog Tagged With: poetry, service summaries and transcripts

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