Huntsville Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

"I've missed over 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot...and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that’s why I succeed."
--Michael Jordan, Professional Basketball Player

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.

Sun. Oct. 8: Dr. Renee James, Associate Professor of Physics at SHSU, will be our guest speaker. Her topic will be "The Big Bang."

Dr. James received her PhD in astronomy from UT at Austin and is trained in stellar spectroscopy, or figuring out the compositions, temperatures, and densities of stars from their light. She enjoys teaching and writing astronomy articles for interested laypersons.

Sun. Oct. 22: Rev. Tom Capo has chosen as his sermon topic this month "Religious Liberalism: Reflections on Paul Rasor’s Views."

Rev. Capo writes that during the Southwest Unitarian Universalist Summer Institute, he had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Paul Rasor speak about religious freedom as the cornerstone of modern democracy. In this sermon he will discuss Dr. Rasor’s beliefs about religious liberalism and show how it supports our country’s religious freedom.

Annual UU Church Picnic, September 30 at 5:00 p.m.
Please bring your favorite dish and a lawn chair if you have one. Call 438-8569 if you need directions to the Phillips’ house at Elkins Lake. There will be a short business meeting to vote on bylaws.

Huntsville UU Women
Wed. Oct. 4: The Women’s Sharing Circle will meet at the home of Gail Phillips at 10:30 a.m. to continue their study of the book Simple Steps. Guest speaker Sarah Imhoff-Jones, Director of the Huntsville Health Movement Center, will demonstrate yoga and pilates techniques for improving posture, flexibility, and balance while improving muscle strength and tone. Please bring your exercise mats and dress for some stretching.

Wed. Oct. 10: The Red Hat Society will hold a get-acquainted coffee at Annie Kelly’s house, 208 Broadmoor, at 10:00 a.m. Unitarian women are invited. Those attending should bring a small amount of finger food, and drinks will be provided.

Cultural Diversity Forum
On Monday, September 11, a special Prayer Meeting was held by the Cultural Diversity Forum at the Greater Zion Missionary Baptist Church. The program celebrated the brotherhood of all human beings. Prayers were presented by Native American, Hispanic, Caucasian, Muslim, and African-American representatives.

Refreshments were made by the Gulf Coast Trades Center Cooking Class and served by the members of Greater Zion. Although only about fifty people attended, everyone seemed to enjoy visiting with each other and expressed the opinion that continuing the work of the Diversity Forum was worthwhile.

The next meeting of the Cultural Diversity Forum will be October 9 at 7 p.m. at the Wesley Methodist Church, 700 East Hwy 30. This will be Youth Night with representatives from the high school there to tell us what they have done and plan to do to help with the diversity project.

Welcome to New Member: Dean Hubbard
Our newest member, Dean Hubbard, signed the membership book on September 10. Dean was born and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he majored in philosophy at the University of Nebraska. In 1953 he moved to Houston, where he lived for 23 years. He has three children and a number of grandchildren who range in age from two to thirty-five.

In his twenties, Dean used an accounting degree as a segue into corporate level management positions with a number of companies where he whimsically puts it, "I was somewhat of a wunderkind. I had several meteoric rises to mediocrity." In his thirties, he went into business for himself and was successful in several endeavors. In 1981 he started an advertising business which he proliferated into eight states in three years, providing him with enough income to retire in 1983.

Through a juxtaposition of events, he moved to Huntsville and lives next door to his son and his family on eleven acres surrounded by national forest. When he had the good fortune to meet Carla McAdams at Cloud 9, he learned about our Huntsville UU Fellowship and has been coming ever since.

Welcome, Dean!

Class on Gnostic Gospels Offered at Emerson UU Church
Do you remember Jill Carroll, who spoke to our fellowship about three years ago? Her credentials (listed below) are fantastic, but hearing her speak is what really convinces you she is a gifted speaker, to say the least.

Dr. Jill Carroll will present "DaVinci Code, Gnostics, Mary Magdalene - What is Everyone So Excited About?" in a three-part seminar series on Tuesday evenings, October 3, 10, and 17 from 7:00-9:00 p.m. in the Sanctuary building of the Emerson Unitarian Universalist Church, located at 1900 Bering Drive in Houston.

In this seminar, Jill will delve into the Gnostic Gospels and the Early Jesus Movement to explore diverse texts and theologies which developed in the years between Jesus’ death and the Nicene Council of 325 CE but were left out of the Bible.

Tickets may be purchased at the door on the evenings of the presentations, either individually for $10, or $25 for the series. If you would like to car pool, please call Gail Phillips, 438-8569.

Jill is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Associate Director of the Boniuk Center for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance at Rice University.

Meditation from The Essene Book of Days
As the wheel of the seasons turns, the days shorten and we celebrate Lughnasadh. This is a time of personal transition and assimilation, for, as the leaves fall and the grain is gathered in, we also assess the harvest of our own inner work.

We have just passed the autumn equinox with its equal hours of daylight and darkness. This is the point on the wheel of the year when there is a balance between the energies of outward, physical, yang manifestation and inward, psychic, yin creativity. We now enter an all-important time of inner growth. This meditation is from The Essene Book of Days:

The colors change, so slowly at first.
The mood is changing,
With subtle shifts of softness.
My Mother's garden shows to me
The procession of all life.
The life in me responds,
For I, too, am of this garden,
And subject to its call.
No fool am I that fights this journey,
Missing the inner wealth to come.

Food for Thought: Life and a Cup of Coffee
When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar......and the coffee.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and wordlessly picked up a large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook it lightly, and the pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous "Yes."

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

"Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "this jar represents your life. The golf ball are the important things--your family, your children, your health, your friends, your favorite passions--things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job and your house. The sand is everything else--the small stuff."

"If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. "Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend."

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 20, 2006, we elected officers and approved appointments to various positions listed below for the church year 2006-2007.

Officers

President: Carla McAdams

Co-Vice Pres./ Program Chairs: Anne True, Rick Norman

Treasurer: Mardi Sale

Secretary: Brenda Barr

Appointed Positions

Music Director: Dixon Lichtenauer

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

Co-Reading Leaders: Ann Stpls, Richard Lane

Membership Chair: Simone Woodall

Newsletter Editor: Gail Phillips

Order of Service Editor/Webpage Editor: Roberta Krock

Publicist: Paul Culp

Hospitality Coordinator: Anne Sigler