Huntsville Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen: even so does inaction sap the rigors of the mind.
-- Leonardo da Vinci,1452-1519
Inventor, Architect, Painter, Scientist and Sculptor

Huntsville UU Services
Services are held on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of each month at 10:30 a.m. in the Laura Chapel of Huntsville Memorial Hospital. Visitors are always welcome. For more information, call 295-3170.

The January 8th service will be at 10:00 a.m. this Sunday only in order to allow time for travel to Houston to attend the funeral of Dr. Frank Schulman at 2:00 at Emerson UU Church. Dr. Schulman died at his home Wednesday evening, January 4th. He had been our minister since June of 1997, speaking regularly on the 2nd Sunday of each month through September 2005.

Sun. Jan. 8: Dr. Don Post will speak on "The ABCs of Demonizing Others." He says: It is estimated that we humans have killed approximately 1.3 billion of our fellow humans over the centuries. How do we dehumanize others to the extent that we can justify their killing? Why do we do this? Is there any way to stop this pattern?

Sun. Jan. 22: Our guest speaker will be Richard Watkins, the local president of the NAACP. He will give us an update on the present and future tasks for the organization in this community

Huntsville UU Women
Wed. Jan. 4: The Women’s Sharing Circle will meet at Anne True's house at 10:30 a.m. to begin a four-part study of the film What the Bleep Do We Know. The study guide has been prepared by the Institute of Noetic Sciences, a nonprofit research and educational organization that seeks to relate the inner cosmos of the mind--consciousness, soul, spirit--to the outer cosmos of the physical world.

The free study guide can be downloaded on the internet from http://www.whatthebleep.com/guide/

Roberta Krock will lead the discussion, which will explore the history of our worldview, how our worldview changes, and how our worldview may affect or limit our ability to interpret the world around us.

UU Book Club
Sun. Jan. 25: The UU book club will meet at 3:30 at the home of Anne True and Rick Norman, 1879 Greenbriar in Elkins lake.

Anne will lead a discussion of The Double Helix by James D. Watson.

She states that it's a really quick read so everyone will probably be able to get through it even on short notice, but you do not have to read the book in order to come and enjoy the fellowship.

A Note from Dr. Schulman
On behalf of our congregation, President Carla McAdams and husband Thomas took Christmas poinsettias to Dr. Schulman and Alice over the holidays.

Dr. Schulman sends his thanks to the fellowship, stating that, although he doesn't feel like preaching at this time, he hopes to visit us soon:

"When the season is over, I hope we can get back to normal, as nearly as possible. Maybe we can visit the Fellowship then more than just talking about visiting."

We continue to send our love to the Schulmans and to remember them in our prayers as they battle with cancer. We remain grateful for the ways in which they have touched our lives during the last few years.

Collection for the Community Child Care Center
On December 11, following a report by Viki Post on the need for support for the Community Child Care Center, our Fellowship took up a special offering totaling $441 to donate to this organization which provides a great service to the children of Huntsville.

Donations for award scholarships, which make it possible for many parents to pay their childrenąs tuition on a sliding scale fee according to their income, are always welcome, and at the present time, a new room needs to be added to their building.

Additional donations may be sent to the Community Child Care Center, 6219 9th Street, P. O. Box 673, Huntsville, TX 77340.

Annual Southwest Unitarian Universalist Women's Conference
The annual Southwest Unitarian Universalist Women's Conference is in Fort Worth this year. The theme is "Discovering What We Know: Celebrating 20 years of U. U. Womenąs Wisdom." Treat yourself to something special. It's inexpensive (we car pool and share hotel rooms), it's fun, and it's wonderful fellowship.

See Gail Phillips or Beth Williamson for registration forms.

Poem: "Here's to the Kids Who Are Different" by Digby Wolfe

Here's to the kids who are different,
the kids who donąt always get Aąs,
the kids who have ears twice the size of their peers,
or noses that go on for days.

Here's to te kids who are just out of step,
the kids they all tease,
who have cuts on their knees,
and whose sneakers are constantly wet.

Here's to the kids who are different,
the kids with a mischievous streak,
for when they have grown,
as history has shown,
it's their difference that makes them unique.

Food For Thought for the New Year--"Crazy Times"
(The following is a previously unpublished letter, dated Nov. 12, 1959, from the psychologist C. G. Jung to a friend.)

When you study the mental history of the world, you see that people since times immemorial had a general teaching or doctrine about the wholeness of the world. Originally and down to our days, they were considered to be holy traditions taught to the young people as a preparation for their future life. This has been the case in primitive tribes as well as in highly differentiated civilizations. The teaching had always a "philosophical" and "ethical" aspect.

In our civilization this spiritual background has gone astray. Our Christian doctrine has lost its grip to an appalling extent, chiefly because people donąt understand it any more. As these views deal with the world as a whole, they create also a wholeness of the individual, so much so, that for instance a primitive tribe loses its vitality when it is deprived of its specific religious outlook. People are no more rooted in their world and lose their orientation. They just drift. This is very much our condition, too.

The need for a meaning in their lives remains unanswered because the rational, biological goals are unable to express the irrational wholeness of human life. Thus life loses its meaning. That is the problem of the "religious outlook" in a nutshell. The problem itself cannot be settled by a few slogans. It demands concentrated attention, much mental work and, above all, patience, the rarest thing in our restless and crazy time.

Huntsville UU Newsletter Deadline: To submit news to the UU newsletter, e-mail Gail Phillips. Please have any news or announcements that you would like to have in this newsletter to the editor by the 20th of each month.

Annual Meeting
On May 1, 2005, we elected officers and approved appointments to various positions listed below for the church year 2005-2006.

Officers

President: Carla McAdams

Co-Vice Pres./ Program Chairs: Scott and Anita Plummer

Treasurer: Lee Stringer

Secretary/Membership Chair: Joan Stringer

Immediate Past President: Karl Mahaffey

Appointed Positions

Organist: Dixon Lichtenauer

Keyboardist: Sylvia DeVoss

Co-Song Leaders: Melissa Templeton-Mahaffey, Beth Williamson, Dixon Lichtenauer

Co-Reading Leaders: Ann Staples, Richard Lane

Newsletter Editor: Gail Phillips

Order of Service Editor: Roberta Krock

Publicist: Stuart Williamson

Hospitality Coordinator: Pam Johnson