Moving #MLK Day Service with #Diverse #Speakers in #Maryland
Rev. Bruce Marshall, Elliot Grollman, Dr. Chris Bell, Joyce Dowling, and Louise Warner
Our Martin Luther King Day Sun. service had a variety of speakers.
We each shared our own perspective. It was very informative and moving. The podcast is online for listeners and includes a little taste of our musicians (without copyright infringement) at the beginning and a little taste of our hymn at the end.
The text is also available along with individual photos taken by members Lynne Godfrey and Jesse Alexander. The one to the left was taken by the former. The text sermon also includes notes from Dr. Chris Bell’s sermon as an academic reference and explanation. Though our sermons are often somewhat academic, especially historical, they’re also loaded with social and personal references which are very emotional to some.
Please join us for upcoming services which are listed here.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a very important time for most Unitarian Universalists due to our history in civil rights, going back to the abolition movement and up to anti-racism. One of our ministers, Rev. James Reeb, died in Selma in 1965when he attended a march with Dr. King as did Viola Liuzzo, a lay activist. Members of Davies Memorial in Camp Spring attended his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, DC, and some of them are still with us.
This Sun., we will have a service with our minister plus four lay members. The lay members are volunteers who attend ADORE, but the ones who volunteers just happen to be two men (one African American and one white), and two women (one African American and one white). They’re also diverse in their perspectives in many ways, including age, religious background, birth places, careers, and amount of time as Unitarian Universalists, besides other ways. They’ll be giving their own perspective on how far we’ve come and where we still have to go to reach the dream.
Please join us this coming Sun., Jan. 15 at 10:30 AM and spread the word.
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Holiday/Christmas Eve Service with Hanukkiyah Lighting #uu
We had a great service last night. There’s no podcast for this as it was mostly Christmas carols.
It started with the Davies Philharmonic.
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After the choir sang, we had a lighting of the hanukkiyah by the Rev. Bruce and wife, Amy.
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Connie served as both our Worship Association 
and soloist for “From a Distance” by Julie Gold.
Anna Marie has been telling stories for years and gave us a Christmas story telling us about why Bethlehem matters.
Paul Nahay was our pianist. He played Linus and Lucy during the offertory when we collected for the Caring Fund.
We ended it with out traditional candlelighting.
YAvengers YAssemble!
Just heard about an exciting young adult meetup in the new year, and I wanted to share!
YAvengers YAssemble will be our first Joseph Priestly District (JPD) young adult con. It will be held January 6-8, 2012 at the UU Church of Rockville in Maryland. This con is open to former JPD youth con goers, and young adults who are in or used to be in the JPD who may not have previously experienced cons. We also welcome friends from other districts.
We will be focused on the theme of identity in this time when we are figuring out who we are as young adults and who we are as a young adult con community. Come and join us for workshops, worship, community and showing off your superhero stuff!
If you are interested in helping plan future events, please join the YACPACC (Young Adult Conference Planning And Coordination Committee) Google group. We need your energy and ideas to keep us going! Please spread this information to other young adults as well as to churches in your area (or the area of the JPD you were in). Registration will be through ConnectUU, so please make an account on there as soon as possible. It makes registration easier for us as well as giving you information about other young adult events. Price is a sliding scale from $30-45 and registrations must come in by this Friday, December 23rd. We hope to see you at the con!
The code of conduct, agenda, and a download link for the flyer are below.
Read more…
Sermon Sprint Again (Now a Multimedia Extravaganza!)
Once again, I have fallen behind on sharing with you the sermons at our congregation, a real shame, as the past two months have had a plethora of interesting and informative presentations.
- Listen to Understanding the Buddha Rev. Greg Chute shares his understanding of Buddhism and follows with a Q&A from the congregation
- Listen to John Michael Greer speak on Nature Spirituality and the Future of Society as well as John Michael Greer’s Question and Answer session
- As part of the UU Polity Series, listen Rev. Bruce’s Association Sunday sermon focused on Ministry in the UU Tradition.
- Listen to Rev Bruce discuss The Nature of Covenant. This sermon on covenants is part of the UU Polity series.
- Listen to Rev. Bruce celebrate the life and ministry of Ric Masten. (Read the sermon Rick Masten: Our Troubador Minister
- Listen to Ron Verdonk’s sermon Are there any Agnostics in the man Caves of Camp Cupcake?,in which he shared his experiences living in Iraq over the past two years
- Continuing his UU Polity Series, Rev. Bruce speaks to Worship in the UU Tradition. Alternately, read the sermon on UU worship.
- Listen to Rev. Bruce explain Friendship as a Spiritual Discipline (audio) or read the sermon Friendship as a Spiritual Discipline.
- First multi-media sermon! Listen to the first part of Blessing of the Bread and the second part of Blessing of the Bread. Then see pictures of the bread! Read more…
Social Justice Activities to Attend in Jan. & Feb.
The Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice would like us to know about these upcoming events:
Immigration Issues: Arrest, Detention and Deportation
Saturday, January 28 9:30am – 3:30pm
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fairfax
2709 Hunter Mill Rd. Oakton , VA 22124-1614
IMMIGRATION – 1-28 simple flyer
Confused about the facts on immigration? No matter where you stand on immigration, much of what you believe may be wrong and almost certainly is incomplete. Unitarian-Universalists for Social Justice presents an all day workshop on Immigration Issues
Growing Inequality in Wealth, the Corruption of the Democratic Process and Resulting Social Injustice
Saturday, February 4 8:30am-12:30pm
Mount Vernon Unitarian Church
1909 Windmill Lane
Alexandria , VA 22307
The Occupy Movement has given a fresh voice to these long-standing and worsening problems and calls UUs to respond. Income inequality has produced wealthy beneficiaries who use that wealth to create political influence. The political influence of wealthy individuals is magnified by equally powerful (and closely related) corporate interests to so distort our political system that it routinely produces outcomes favoring these wealthy and corporate interests (the 1%) rather than the public interest. There is less and less available for the rest of us (the 99%), resulting in deprivation and growing social injustice, particularly among the most vulnerable. This process represents a vicious cycle that keeps expanding the inequality and the problems it causes.
JPD POC meets at DMUUC
Friends, on November 19th, Caryl and Jesse Alexander hosted a meeting 
of the JPD POC at DMUUC. The group is called the People of Color/Joseph Priestly District. The group is initiated by Paula Cole Jones and meets in UU churches throughout the JPD.
Caryl Alexander reports; “I had been invited to join the group on Facebook about a year ago, and have been following their meetings online. The meeting was my first time at one of their gatherings. It was a group of 8 people, four of whom are members of our congregation.”
“I really appreciated the fellowship and the opportunity to meet new UUs. The participants hail from All Souls in DC, Paint Branch, Arlington, the UUA and Davies. As we shared food and fellowship, we had a lively discussion on the subject of immigration and our General Assembly in Phoenix, Arizona: June 20-24, 2012. All voices were heard and plans for future activities were discussed.”
Youth Group Sermon on Social Media #video #uu #maryland
From smoke signals, newspapers, to the world wide web, humans have been inventing different ways to communicate for ages. So what is social media, and what exactly is this “revolution” about? The Davies Youth Group share how social media affects individuals, communities, and how it relates to Unitarian Universalist principles at Davies Memorial Unitarian Universalist Church in Camp Springs, Maryland. The video of their sermon is now available here. The podcast of their sermon is here.
Our shop is now open, not too late for #holidays #uu
Our new shop is now open. You can show support of Davies and Unitarian Universalism with these items containing unique designs by our members. There are 4 sections in the shop:
- Clothing (which includes items like caps),
- Kids (clothing with a special design for kids as designed by our member, Susan Grant – items for toddlers & infants, too),
- Cups (including mugs, water bottles, sippy cups, and more), and
- Earth Chalice jewelry and pins (these do not specify Davies, so they can be gifts for anyone, but especially UUs who enjoy our chalice symbol)
Note on the home page if there is a sale, there will be a special discount code to include when you check out. Below are the designs; click on them to go to the shop.
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JPD POC Preparing for Justice GA 2012
November 19, 2011, 2 p.m to 5 p.m., Davies Memorial Unitarian Universalist Church, 7400 Temple Hill Rd. Camp Springs, MD 20748
Topic: Making concrete connections between the experiences of migrants crossing the US/Mexican border and runaway slaves in the Underground Railroad
Please join us!
