185 Excerpt: Covenant and Spiritual Practices
Podcast: Download (Duration: 22:34 — 20.7MB)
Subscribe: More
What does covenant really mean in a culture of supremacy, whether we’re engaged in justice work, congregational life, or being active online? And why are spiritual practices and self care critical? This is an excerpt from episode #185 with our guests, the Rev. Ashley Horan, executive director of MUUSJA, and Nora Rasman, campaign manager at Standing on the Side of Love. .
Excerpt notes:
- MUUSJA is the Minnesota Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Alliance. On May 19 & 20, 2017, they held a conference called Resistance & Resilience: Sustaining Faithful Action for Justice & Solidarity in a Hurting World, which featured local and national organizers, religious leaders, artists, musicians, and activists.
- “It isn’t call-out culture that is toxic” by Ashley Fairbanks
The VUU is hosted by Meg Riley, Michael Tino, Joanna Fontaine Crawford, Aisha Hauser, Hank Peirce, and Alicia Forde, with production support provided by Terri Burnor. The VUU streams live on Thursdays at 11 am ET.
Note: This audio has been edited for a better listening experience. View the full original recording of the entire episode on YouTube.
185 Excerpt: Radical or Liberal
Podcast: Download (Duration: 8:06 — 7.4MB)
Subscribe: More
What is the difference between being radical or liberal in justice work? This is an excerpt from episode #185 with our guests, the Rev. Ashley Horan and Nora Rasman.
The VUU is hosted by Meg Riley, Michael Tino, Joanna Fontaine Crawford, Aisha Hauser, Hank Peirce, and Alicia Forde, with production support provided by Terri Burnor. The VUU streams live on Thursdays at 11 am ET.
Note: This audio has been edited for a better listening experience. View the full original recording of the entire episode on YouTube.
Gardeners of the Spirit
Podcast: Download (Duration: 0:41 — 651.8KB)
Subscribe: More
Help us be the always hopeful gardeners of the spirit who know that without darkness nothing comes to birth as without light nothing flowers. —May Sarton
The CLF welcomes all who want to nourish their souls. We are here to provide a place of comfort, spiritual growth and belonging.
Please help us continue to be here to support those seeking spiritual growth by making a donation of $50, or whatever you can, today. You can give by going online or by calling 1-800-231-3027.
Within Us
Podcast: Download (Duration: 0:53 — 833.5KB)
Subscribe: More
We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within [us] is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal ONE. Read more →
Spirit/Soul
June 2017
Stop acting so small. You are the Universe in ecstatic motion. —Rumi
Articles
The Soul of the Whole
It seems to me we speak all the time and all at once of two kinds of spiritual integrity, two ways of being deeply, liberally, religious—one looking inward, one looking outward. Read more »
Soul
Not that transparent self tucked under my skin… one day to be set free by my death that it might fly. Read more »
The Movement of the Spirit
Have you ever had a spiritual experience, a sense of movement of the spirit? A flash in time when your appreciation for the world was so complete, so perfect, that you were transfixed and transformed? Read more »
REsources for Living
There are a whole lot of words from poets and preachers and wise folks of various types that have changed how I understand the world, but there’s one quote that has maybe shaped what I’ve done with my life more than any other. Read more »
From Your Minister
“I love seeing that you’re entertaining earth spirits in the yard,” the man said to me, bending his head so that his tall frame could fit through my front door. Read more »
Gardeners of the Spirit
Help us be the always hopeful gardeners of the spirit who know that without darkness nothing comes to birth as without light nothing flowers. Read more »
Did You Know?
…that you can listen to podcasts not only of Quest Monthly, but also of our talk show The VUU? Read more »
Within Us
We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal ONE. Read more »
184: A Handmaid’s Protest with Erin Walter
Podcast: Download (Duration: 52:10 — 47.8MB)
Subscribe: More
The VUU welcomes Erin Walter, a UU minister and one of the Texas Handmaids. They have been protesting unconscionable restrictions on reproductive freedoms at the Texas State Capitol during the 2017 legislative session. This use of the arts in public witness and activism has spread nationwide.
Show notes:
- NARAL Pro-Choice Texas
- Follow Heather Busby’s writings and interviews
- Margaret Atwood’s, The Handmaid’s Tale (Goodreads)
- SisterSong
- Facebook videos shown in episode: overview from Ladies 1st (via George Takei) and Texas handmaids chanting shame
- Our Whole Lives (OWL): a lifespan sexuality education curricula
- Rev. Joanna Fontaine Crawford on Twitter (@TheMissionalist)
Additional links:
- “For Black Women, The Handmaid’s Tale’s Dystopia is Real—and telling” – Maclean’s
- “Women Wore ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Robes to the Texas Senate to Protest Anti-Abortion Legislation” – Teen Vogue
- “Activists Nod to ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ to Protest Anti-Abortion Bills” – The Austin Chronicle
- “Women Wear ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Costumes During Protest Against Texas Anti-abortion Bills” – The Hill
The VUU is hosted by Meg Riley (currently on sabbatical), Michael Tino, Joanna Fontaine Crawford, Aisha Hauser, Hank Peirce, and Alicia Forde, with production support provided by Terri Burnor. The VUU streams live on Thursdays at 11 am ET.
Note: This audio has been slightly edited for a better listening experience. View the live original recording on YouTube.
Invitation to CLF Congregational Meeting
The CLF will hold our annual meeting to elect Board and Nominating Committee members on Monday, June 12, 2017, at 8:00 pm (Eastern) via Zoom. Below is information on how to access the meeting and the Nominating Committee Report: Read more →
183: Black Lives of UU
Podcast: Download (Duration: 53:58 — 49.4MB)
Subscribe: More
Lena K. Gardner and Leslie Mac join The VUU to talk about the 2017 UUA General Assembly and the needs for Unitarian Universalists of color around safety/security, worship, and community.
Show notes:
- Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism (BLUU) organizing collective
- 2017 UUA General Assembly, June 21-25 in New Orleans
- BLUU’s programs at General Assembly:
- “Black Power Challenges Liberal Religion: Fifty Years Later” on Thurs., June 22 from 5:00-6:15 pm — A retrospective conversation led by Dr. Mtangulizi Sanyika (aka Hayward Henry Jr.), founding chair of the Black Unitarian Universalist Caucus (BUUC) and Black Affairs Council (BAC), 1967-1973, highlighting the challenges and outcomes of the Black empowerment movement of the 1960s and its relevance to the movement for Black Lives today.
- “BLUU Organizing Collective: An Introduction to Anti-Blackness” on Fri., June 23 from 3:15-4:30 pm — Anti-blackness is a global phenomenon that affects people in every cultural and ethnic group. Within larger systems of structural oppression, it translates to higher rates of social ills, including poverty, unemployment, poor health outcomes, and substandard housing. We will also discuss the impact of anti-blackness in our congregations and beyond.
- The Wilderness Journey: first-hand accounts of the historical struggle for black empowerment and racial justice within the UUA in the late 1960s
- Bystander intervention training by Jess Banks
The VUU is hosted by Meg Riley (currently on sabbatical), Michael Tino, Joanna Fontaine Crawford, Aisha Hauser, Hank Peirce, and Alicia Forde, with production support provided by Terri Burnor. The VUU streams live on Thursdays at 11 am ET.
Note: This audio has been slightly edited for a better listening experience. View the live original recording on YouTube.
Hull House
Jane Addams was raised in a comfortably well-off family in a farming community. So when, as a child, she first saw that some people in the 
city lived in horrible conditions she was shocked. But instead of wanting to run away, she decided that she wanted to live among those poor people.
She grew up to do more than that. In 1889 Jane Addams and her partner Ellen Starr found a big house in an area of Chicago where many recent immigrants lived, often in dirty, crowded conditions of extreme poverty. That house became Hull House, which not only provided a place for 25 women (including Addams and Starr) to live, it also served as a location for people to join clubs, discussions, and activities, as well as take English and citizenship classes, and theater, music, and art classes.
Hull House provided a kindergarten and day care for the children of working mothers, an employment bureau, an art gallery, a museum, and 
libraries. Those lectures and discussions and classes were places for poor immigrants and wealthier Chicago residents to come together and learn from one another, because Addams strongly believed that people of different social classes had a great deal to teach one another, and that we all are better off when people come together.
Learn more by visiting The Jane Addams Hull-House Museum online.
