This year’s Interfaith Thanksgiving Service will be held at 11 a.m. at First Unitarian Church, 220 Winton Road South, Rochester, NY. Rabbi Matthew Fields of Temple Beth-El will be preaching.

Join us for our Intergenerational Thanksgiving service, and share your thoughts on giving and gratitude. Feast on one another’s thoughts, words and offerings! Pick up your own Guest At Our Table box today.

Please bring a fruit or vegetable to place in the cornucopia arrangement on the harvest table in the front of our sanctuary.

-with Reverend Sally Hamlin, Worship Associates Janus Mary Jones, Nancy Gaede, DRE Peg Meeker, and others participating.

We hope you’ll join us in these newly-listed activities and check previous This Week, This Month announcements for additional upcoming events. Some are educational, some are purely social and some are both. Inter-generational activities include children of all ages, while other activities are for adults only. Check the details to see if childcare is provided.

• Saturday, Dec. 6, 2008 — Court Street Crafters. The second meeting of the Court Street Crafters will be held on Dec. 6, from 11:00-1:00 in the Clara Barton Lounge. You don’t need to sign up….just bring your craft and come! We look forward to seeing you there! If you have any questions, email Nancy Gaede.
• Saturday, Dec. 6, 2008 — Bring A Friend Potluck and Karaoke Night hosted by Jen Yates at her home starting at 4:30 p.m. with dinner at 5 p.m. Join us for fun, friends, singing, and fabulous food! Bring a non-UU friend and a dish to pass. Want to come, but don’t know a member of our congregation? Contact Jen, who will find a congregant-friend for you. Please respond to Jen by email before Wednesday, December 3rd.
• Sunday, Dec. 7, 2008 — Social Justice Mitten Tree messages during coffee hour. Stop by the Social Justice/R.E. table and write a peace message on a piece of construction paper that will become a colorful part of a paper chain to hang on the Mitten Tree! The chain will be placed on the tree by the children during the Dec 14th service.
• Sunday, Dec. 7, 2008 – 12:15 p.m. — U.N. video: “For Everyone Everywhere” in the sanctuary. The United Nations has produced a short film about the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which was formulated 60 years ago this month. It is about 30 minutes long. Michael Scott will lead a discussion afterward. All are welcome.
• Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2008 – New Year’s Eve celebration. Are you looking to ring in the new year with church family and friends? Would you like to feed your soul spiritually and have a great time doing it? How about some games/activities followed by the fireworks? This will be a fun and food-filled family-friendly event. Since the fireworks display starts at midnight, our party will begin around 9pm. Stay tuned for details as they develop. Please contact Lindsay Morrell if you’d like to help with setup or cleanup.
• starting Saturday, Jan. 3, 2009 – 10 to 11 a.m. — Laughter Yoga at 1st Universalist. Please join us every other Saturday morning for “Laughter for No Reason” led by Linda Lorenzo.

  What is Laughter Yoga?

  You may say, “Well, I’ve heard of Laughter and I’ve heard of Yoga…but what do the two have to do with one another?”

  Laughter Yoga is a revolutionary idea – simple and profound. An exercise routine, it is fast sweeping the world and is a complete wellbeing workout. It is the brainchild of Dr. Madan Kataria, an Indian physician from Mumbai who started the first laughter club in a park on 13th March 1995, with just 5 people. Today, it has become a worldwide phenomenon with more than 6000 social laughter clubs in 60 countries.

  Laughter Yoga combines unconditional laughter with yogic breathing (Pranayama). Anyone can laugh for no reason, without relying on humor, jokes or comedy. Laughter is simulated as a body exercise in a group but with eye contact and childlike playfulness, it soon turns into real and contagious laughter. The concept of Laughter Yoga is based on a scientific fact that the body cannot differentiate between fake and real laughter.One gets the same physiological and psychological benefits.

  If you want to learn more and try out this fun and highly beneficial activity, please consider joining us for the initial session on January 3rd. At this time we will be viewing a short documentary on the origins and practice of Laughter Yoga and will hold our first Laughter Yoga session.

  To sign up, or for more information, please contact Linda Lorenzo or call Kris at the church office at (585)546-2826.

Other announcements: If you want to order a copy of Mark Morrison-Reed’s book In Between: Memoir of an Integration Baby (or other titles), please sign up during coffee hour in the Clara Barton library.

Drop-in discussions are held each Sunday at 9:15 a.m. in the adult lounge on the second floor of our church. Sometimes our discussions are based on certain books or articles, but you don’t have to read anything or do any advance preparation to participate. Just drop in. People of all viewpoints are welcome to make presentations or join in the discussions.

Sunday, May 6: The Hunger Games.  Our discussion will be based on the book, The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins.  The Hunger Games is a tale of a cruel and controlling government that forces citizens of 12 provinces to send one boy and one girl age 12 to 18 to go to the Capitol to fight a duel to the death with one survivor.  This could be a lesson from the past (the fall of the Roman Empire) or a speculative glance into our future.  Beverly Lynn will facilitate.

Sunday, May 13: Consensus Morality.  With all the religious traditions that teach morality, why do we so often observe immoral behavior?  Could we agree on a subset of moral teachings and actually follow them?  Hank Stone will facilitate.

Sunday, May 20:  Bringing Down the Mountains.  The relentless drive for cheap coal has led to the emergence of “mountaintop removal” in central Appalachia, a surface mining process that has demolished hundreds of Appalachian peaks and related eco-systems.  Residents call it cultural genocide.  Scientists observe that the forests in those mountains are the second most ecologically diverse in the world.  Paul Ciavarri will facilitate.

Sunday, May 27: Open forum discussion or to be announced.

Topics are subject to change.  For updates, check the bulletin board in First Universalist Church’s Clara Barton lounge or the Schedule of Drop-In Discussions on <http://philebersole.wordpress.com>. If you have a topic you’d like discussed or, better still, would like to lead a discussion, speak to David Damico.

the Rev. Mark D. Morrison-Reed speaking

The Apostle Paul experienced his conversion on the road to Damascus, mine came after arriving late in Buffalo, N.Y.

Conversion: a definitive, sometimes overpowering, moment that brings you to embrace a religious faith. What does ‘conversion’ bring to your mind? Does it seem as out of place in a UU environment as an altar call? Have you ever heard a Unitarian Universalist speak of having had a conversion experience? Have you had such an experience? A moment which divides one’s life into before and after; a moment in which there is a spiritual transformation; a shift in one’s inner reality that changes the way one views the world. Such a moment once seized me and I was transformed from a Unitarian into a Universalist.

I was in Buffalo N.Y. at the New York State Convention of Universalists. Donna and I arrived late, slid into a pew and turned our attention to the Rev. Gordon McKeeman who had already begun to deliver the keynote address: “The Persistence of Universalism.”

It was the beginning of our second year of ministry. Donna and I were your co-ministers here in Rochester, but we didn’t know very much about Universalism except what we were learning via osmosis from the members of the congregation. Of course, I’d studied the basics in theological school – how the early church father Origen argued for universal salvation; how in 1780 John Murray helped to organize the first meetinghouse in America, and why some, the Ultra-Universalist were called the “death and glory” school. However, since I had been raised Unitarian in Chicago, the Unitarian ethos rather than Universalism is what had been bred into me. Or so I thought.

The sanctuary in Buffalo with its stained-glass, carved beams, and large choir loft evokes a sense of being sacred space. I sat half-looking, half-listening until McKeeman said “… Universalism came to be called ‘The Gospel of God’s Success,’ the gospel of the larger hope. Picturesquely spoken, the image was that of the last, unrepentant sinner being dragged screaming and kicking into heaven, unable… to resist the power and love of the Almighty.” ¹ What a graphic, prosaic picture – the last sinner being dragged, by his collar I imagined, into heaven. What kind of a God was this?

Suddenly what I had learned in seminary and was imbibing from this congregation came together and I got it: This was a religion of radical and overpowering love. Universal Salvation insists that no matter what we do, God so loves us that she will not and cannot consign even a single human individual to eternal damnation. Universal salvation is the consequence of Universal love: the recognition that love is the grounding, the basis of all. Why use the language of love to describe this? How else to describe that which created, under girds and sustains us? How else are we to speak of the idealized parent behind every parent – the archetypal Mother and Father of us all?

Many contemporary Unitarians Universalists dismiss this sentiment.. After all, most of us don’t believe in a personal God much less in God’s love. At most we will cede that the Divine, being synonymous with the natural order, works in and through us. But ours is not a God who talks to you when you are in doubt, rejoices with you when times are good, or carries you through life’s trials. Our God is more abstract and less personal, more a symbol and less a felt presence, more in our heads and less in our hearts, an idea we argue about rather than an intuition we rely upon. In our understanding, caring is not something that flows from God.

A smug elitism bolsters an attitude among too many UU’s who look down on those who believe in God. These “sophisticated cynics” ² portray God as an all powerful, all-knowing, bearded, white man enthroned in Heaven and then, of course, dismiss him as make-believe. But I grow weary of those who scorn God.

What is God really? God is the unknowable, unfathomable and ineffable that is as close as the next heart beat, as ordinary as a mote of dust and as precious as a newborn. God is the transcendent mystery at the core of all things. God is the mask we place upon the infinite and the garb we drape over the sacred so that we might enter into relationship with it. For we, of all the manifestations of the eternally unfolding creation, are blest to awaken to and knowingly witness and savor this miracle we call life. Then in transmitting and building upon the creation with our own lives, we seek to address the divine mystery that is both parent and partner. We say: “Our Father, Hail Mary, Gaia, Jesus, Abba, Siva, Allah, Brahma.”

One of Elie Wiesels’ stories ends: “God created man because He loves stories.” This is to say God is relational. We say it this way because we find it more believable when we invert reality. God did not make us in Her image. We made Her in ours. Why? So that we can identify with and relate to Her, we can address and be spoken to, can love and be loved by. That is the way we are built. God, which is how we speak of experiencing the mystery behind all things, must be relational because we are relational. The connection we feel to another human being, which is what we learn in our mother’s arms, is the prototype for all our relationships. To the degree that we let the intellectual tyrannize our faith we fail to address this human need for an intimate connection.

I pray. I pray to the God who dwells within, among and beyond us. I pray to God for the same reason I write in my diary, talk to a friend or spend a quiet moment in reflection because what I know of God I find in communion with myself, with those I love and with the world in which I move and breathe and have my being. I talk with God because I need to relate to the world that is within and beyond me. I want to experience its realness and dearness; and UU abstractions of God simply don’t meet my emotional needs or take me to that sacred place.

Even being as analytic as I am at this very moment is to step back and away from the immediate experience of that divine mystery rather than into it. But a God who drags the last unrepentant sinner kicking and screaming – no, actually profanely cursing and resisting – into heaven we can admire, we can have confidence in, we can envision, we can have feelings about, we can even laugh at. It is a personification of the Most Holy rooted in a powerful, sometimes overwhelming, feeling, an experience that transcends description, a yearning that defies analysis. What a relief to feel that ultimately there is nothing I can do to alienate myself from God’s loving embrace – the almighty but tender arms of the creative force that upholds and sustains all life.

The great insight of Universalism is that you do not have to coerce people into loving one another. The commandments are not threats. If they are not fulfilled God will not withdraw His love. No one has ever or will ever draw true love out of another with punishment. God’s love is given to all. Love is a more a positive force for good than fear ever will be. Behind this is a simple truth: in being loved we learn to love. Those who are loved will in turn love others. Those who feel God’s infinite love within themselves will in turn feel so good about themselves, so connected to life and so full of compassion that they will not be able to help themselves but spread that love for they will overflow with it.

This was the feeling that captured me some twenty-eight years ago; this is the belief the world needs today more than ever. The image of the sinner being dragged into heaven transformed how I saw the world because it took my unconscious early experience of being raised and being loved by a family belonging to and embedded in a Unitarian community – and made it paramount. Henceforth I could say: I will make mistakes and fail; I will do thoughtless, hurtful things, and I may be scorned by the world, may be no-good and rotten to the core, may even reject the love that is offered me and still I am beloved by the creation that made us all.

This is the “Gospel of the Larger Hope” the proclamation of God’s enduring and undaunted love. What has always puzzled me is why it didn’t sweep the world? Why after the boom in the first half of the 19th century did it collapse? Why is it the afterthought in Unitarian Universalism? Why is Universalism and its proclamation of unconditional and uncompromising, all-embracing and over-powering Divine Love more difficult to believe in than the Resurrection and the Virgin Birth? Why is it easier to believe the unbelievable than to believe we are one human family beloved by God?

What we yearn for is unconditional love but it is contradicted by our experience. Instead, the principle message each of us received over and over again was this: behave and be loved, behave and be loved. The implication is: those who are good and compliant are loved, all others not. Universalism calls this “partialism.” In other words, people have taken their own experience of conditional, judgmental, imperfect human love and ascribed it to God.

Today when the repercussion of September 11, despite last week’s election, still influences America’s political life. Today given the ongoing strife in Afghanistan and Iraq, the decades old conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, and the genocide in Dafur Universalism is more important than ever. The world needs to know that God’s Love is boundless, but we have retreated from this ancient proclamation. Theism offers religious liberals a language to carry into the world. It is a useful language because it is the vernacular of ordinary people – 85% of the American people. Say, “God is Love” and people will at least have an inkling of what we mean. The world needs to hear about this faith that soothes wounded hearts and shapes attitudes that embody the Spirit of Love rather than that of wrath. In the face of neo-tribalism we need a message that challenges the “axis of evil” rhetoric, contradicts the ‘us’ versus ‘them’ mentality and proclaims the oneness of the human family. There is only ‘us’ beloved by a God who, dismissing free will and embracing the saintly and despicable alike, created both Mother Teresa and Saddam Hussein, supported both Obama and McCain, loves both Bush and Ben Laden, and drags Hitler into heaven, as well. This is a truth almost too shocking for us to assimilate, but “… beneath all our diversity and behind all our differences there is a unity which makes us one and binds us forever together in spite of time and death and the space between the stars. ” ³ It was to the unrelenting tug of this reality, which I know as God, that I gladly submitted that long ago day.

Closing words:

“Let us dedicate ourselves to the proposition that beneath all our diversity and behind all our differences there is a unity which makes us one and binds us forever together in spite of time and death and the space between the stars. Let us pause in silent witness to that Unity…..”“Out beyond ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing there is a luminous field. I’ll meet you there.” ⁴

©This sermon was written by the Reverend Mark D. Morrison-Reed for the congregation of the First Universalist Church of Rochester, New York and was delivered on November 16, 2008. No part of this sermon may be copied without permission of the author.

We hope you’ll join us in these newly-listed activities and check previous This Week, This Month announcements for additional upcoming events. Some are educational, some are purely social and some are both. Inter-generational activities include children of all ages, while other activities are for adults only. Check the details to see if childcare is provided.

• Sunday, November 23, 2008 — A Feast of Gratitude. Join us for our Intergenerational Thanksgiving service, and share your thoughts on giving and gratitude. Please bring a fresh fruit or vegetable to fill our cornucopia. Feast on one another’s thoughts, words and offerings! (Intergenerational means all ages; Peggy Meeker, our Director of Religious Education (DRE), will be involving our children and youth in the service. Nursery care will be available.)
• Thursday, November 27, 2008 at 11 AM — 134th Union Interfaith Thanksgiving Service at 1st Unitarian Church with Rabbi Matt Field, Temple Beth El, preaching. Come one, come all to the 134th Annual Thanksgiving Day Interfaith Thanksgiving service, proudly the oldest continuing interfaith service offered in the United States. This service was started by the congregations of First Unitarian Church of Rochester, First Universalist Church of Rochester and Temple B’rith Kodesh more than a century ago, to share together in the universal religious impulse to give thanks! Participating congregations now also include Temple Beth El, Temple Sinai, Islamic Center of Rochester, Baptist Temple Church, First Baptist Church of Rochester, Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester, and Third Presbyterian Church. A reception will follow the service at 1st Unitarian Church, 220 Winton Road South. Please join us for this beautiful celebration!
• Thursday, November 27, 2008 — Thanksgiving Dinner at 1st Universalist. Dinner is around 4:00, but we’ll need help with preparation and set up. Please sign up if you plan to come, and let us know what you’ll be bringing. We’ll also need donations of turkeys or money towards the purchase of turkeys. Contact Karl. We hope to see you there!
• February 2009 – Service Auction at 1st Universalist. Get out your knitting needles, polish your silver and social skills, inspect that white elephant in the basement or at your office. It’s not too early to start thinking about the church’s annual Auction and what treasure you’ll be contributing for sale. If you have questions, contact Jane Chronis. Volunteers are welcome.

Here are some events and activities you might like to put on your calendar. See our previous Outside 1st Universalist announcements for other upcoming events.

• Thursday November 21, 2008 — Discussion Course at the UU of Canandaigua Church: Healthy Children – Healthy Planet

  The Unitarian Universalist Church of Canandaigua will be offering a new discussion course from the Northwest Earth Institute this fall, starting November 21. Healthy Children – Healthy Planet is a seven-session course addressing how the pervasive effects of advertising, media, and our consumer culture can influence a child’s view of the world. Each session consists of two parts: an opening and a facilitated discussion. Topics covered are: (1) Cultural Pressures; (2) Family Rituals and Celebrations; (3) Advertising; (4) Food and Health; (5) Time and Creativity; (6) Technology and the Media; (7) Exploring Nature. Optional 8th Session: Celebration.

  The discussion course format encourages: trust, respect, and a sense of community among group members; personal clarity over group consensus; the creation of a supportive environment for personal change; and evaluation of personal lifestyle choices and subsequent effects on the natural world. Goals are to understand how the pervasive effects of advertising, media and our consumer culture can influence a child’s view of the world; to discover ways to create meaningful family times and healthful environments for children; and to explore ways to develop a child’s connection to nature, and to foster creativity.

  We would like to start this discussion group Thursday November 21st. The cost per/person is $20, which pays for the study guide books. The study guide, about 100 pages, contains a diverse collection of short essays, articles, and book excerpts organized around weekly themes to create lively discussion. The course is limited to 12 participants/group. If we have more persons interested we will run two groups. Questions: contact Scarlett Miles, DRE via email or phone 315 235-1545.

Well, the election’s over. What can we say? Well, as we go to press, we can’t really say much, because we don’t know yet what to expect? Come to worship together on this Sunday when being with one another means so much.

-with Reverend Sally Hamlin and Worship Associate David Messner

Greetings from the Ministry of Mirth and Merriment. The surveys are in and tallied. Our thanks to the 41 of you who gave us information. Here are the activities which had the most interest:

• Pot lucks of all kinds dessert/dialog sessions
• movies small group dinners
• going to baseball games game nights
• card parties GEVA
• a New Year’s Eve get-together gourmet dinners
• Thanksgiving dinner at church year-end picnic
• Mardi Gras party open mic coffee house

Most responses indicated that Friday afternoon/evening, Saturday morning/afternoon/evening, and Sunday afternoon/early evening were the best time for events, with some interest expressed in having weekday evening events.

You also gave us an incredible list of other possibilities, from Talent Night to adult (yes, adult) sleep-overs and Laughter Yoga. This list will be posted on the bulletin board in the Clara Barton Lounge in the near future.

So what now? What do we do with all this wonderful information? This list will only be a list, unless people step forward to organize these events. It’s not complicated! Pick an idea ( or bring one of your own.) Pick a date/time. Get your information to Kris at the office…check for room availability and other possible conflicts. Get it on the calendar and write a blurb for the Outlooks and the order of service. Put up a sign up sheet if you need one and… VOILA! Mirth and Merriment!

Please be sure to put these upcoming events on your calendar:

• The Great Cookbook Cookoff (rsvp to the office) on November 14, 2008.
• a soup and salad lunch after church on November 16, 2008 sponsored by the Membership Committee
• Thanksgiving Dinner at First U…the signup sheet is posted in the Clara Barton Lounge. Look for more information about this very soon. Thanks to Karl Abbott for organizing this event.

Our surveys show that there is a real desire for more “community” in our community. Won’t you be the next person to step up and get something started?

the Rev. Sally Hamlin speaking

On Friday night, which was Halloween, I made the right turn onto my street after returning from a wedding rehearsal here, hoping to find some trick or treaters still out in my neighborhood. Greeting the little ones, seeing their costumes and handing out candy is something I look forward to all year, and I couldn’t wait to get home. The rehearsal had taken longer than I thought it would- there were over twenty in the bridal party – and it was late, about 7:45. I imagined I had likely missed the revelry. So you can imagine my surprise when I was greeted instead with houses ablaze from every bright porch light and costumed children still running about, from house to house, collecting their sweet treasures.

“Yes!” I said, as I made my way cautiously down the packed street.

I hurried inside and turned on my porch light and awaited the inevitable chant, and dispensed tooth decaying treats until I ran out half an hour later.

This was the kind of Halloween I recalled from my childhood, when hundreds of us would run freely through out neighborhoods until the sacks we carried could no longer be held by our fatigued little arms, and we had to return regretfully home.

In the fifties and early sixties, despite the occasional razor blade in the apple scare, we felt safe within our community and knew almost every inhabitant of each house and without even discussing it, which house to avoid. It was a type of freedom and care-freeness that is rare these days, when you know without a shadow of a doubt, that you are safe and loved by your community. I was reminded of this on Friday evening, and I am reminded of it when I meet with the Caring Committee of this congregation as well.

The Caring Committee of First Universalist is a group of very dedicated individuals who meet over lunch once a month to talk about and plan for how best to care for each of you, their beloved fellow congregants. The Caring Committee are the folks who send cards, deliver holiday flowers, visit you at home or in the hospital, provide you with a ride to church, or prepare food for a congregant’s memorial service. They are a small but mighty committee, and one which needs your help.

I know what you are saying to yourself right now. I can read minds you know! You are saying you are all too busy to join another committee. I hear you loud and clear!

But have I got a deal for you! But you will have to wait to hear about it!

First, back to Halloween for a minute. In planning meetings for worship services for the fall, I had hoped that Halloween would fall on a Sunday. I have an idea for a Halloween service I have been wanting to try for a long time now. I won’t reveal all the details I have planned, but when Halloween does fall on Sunday, we will come to church dressed as our favorite ancestor.

Halloween, however, gives us an opportunity to discuss the Wiccan Sabbat of samhain (sow-en), and its significance for those of us who claim earth-centered traditions as our core spiritual belief. Sunset on Samhain is the beginning of the Celtic New Year. The old year has passed, the harvest has been gathered, cattle and sheep have been brought in from the fields, and the leaves have fallen from the trees. The earth slowly falls towards winter slumber. Samhain is time to honor our ancestors, and if you’ve had a loved one die in the past year, this is the perfect night to celebrate their memory.

But today we are reminded of a holiday – or a holy day in the Christian calendar – that is almost as cool as Halloween: the Feast of All Souls. Let me provide a bit of the history of All Souls, for every holy day has a story that goes along with it.

Around the eighth century or so, the Catholic Church decided to use November 1st as All Saints Day. This was actually a pretty smart move on their part – the local pagans were already celebrating Samhain, so it made sense to claim it an official church holiday. All Saints’ became the festival to honor any saint who didn’t already have a day of his or her own. The mass which was said on All Saints’ was called All Hallowmas. The night before naturally became known as All Hallows Eve, and eventually morphed into what we call Halloween.¹

But since the Sabbat of Halloween, the night of the year when it is said that the veil between the living and dead is most permeable, allowing us to visit and celebrate with our ancestors, took place on Friday instead of Sunday, I took another look at the calendar.

And there it was! The feast of All Souls, also called Dia de los Muertos in Mexico….exactly what I was looking for.

All Souls is the day that the Church commemorates and prays for the holy souls in Purgatory who are undergoing purification of their sins before they can enter heaven. The theological beliefs underlying this holy day are that the faithful departed, defined by “those who die in God’s faith and friendship”, are not immediately ready for the reality and goodness of God and heaven, so they must be purged of their sins. The Catholic Church calls this purification of the elect purgatory.

Coincidently, not too long ago, on a UU minister’s chat, I happened upon a conversation about the names of our UU congregations. One minister posted some research she had done, which reviewed the names of over one thousand Unitarian Universalist congregations around the world.²

There are a few UU congregations with names that refer to historical or theological beliefs, such as King’s Chapel, the Church of the Restoration, Church of the Mediator, First Church of Christ, and our oldest Canadian Church, still legally named The Church of the Messiah in Montreal, known more commonly as the Unitarian Church of Montreal.

But here comes the most fascinating part. All Souls is the most common name of our oldest Universalist churches. I counted over twenty of our Unitarian Universalist congregations ‘All Souls’ in their name.

But the relevance of UU congregations named ‘All Souls’ differs greatly from that of our Roman Catholic friends.

For Universalists, the name ‘All Souls’ was chosen to indicate the fervent belief that ALL people would go to heaven, all were welcome there, not just the “saints”, not just the ‘elect’.

This was radical theology for our Universalist ancestors to claim; it was risky, it was bold. It represented the theology of a few individuals who had such great faith and hope that their lives still inspire us today. Their beliefs led them to leave behind their homes and homelands to search for a place where they could worship according to their beliefs, free from persecution or death. Their belief in a loving God who damned no one to hell was the motivation for such risk.

Let me tell you a story about two of our theological ancestors, John Murray and Thomas Potter.

John Murray, an Englishman and minister, was Universalist in his theology, meaning that there was no eternal damnation for any person, that all would go to heaven upon death. However, Murray’s early understanding about damnation still adhered to a Calvinist and Christocentric view of salvation, rather than the Arminian view of universal salvation. (Arminians are our theological ancestors also, but they are part another sermon). Many of Murray’s detractors, including other Universalists, saw Murray as “part of a chaotic and threatening group of rabble-rousers who simply preached an odd version of the emotional religion they opposed. On the other side, many evangelical and Calvinist groups saw the abandonment of doctrines of eternal punishment as invitations to moral degeneracy and possibly damnation.” ³

John Murray is often named as the ‘founder’ of American Universalism, and is named the link between English and American Universalism. According to David Robinson, the American Universalist church, distinctive in its institutional, although not its theological, origins, began when Universalist ideas, merged with a mood of local discontent over orthodox views of eternal damnation.”⁴

But Murray also believed in the doctrine of the elect, which says that only those who are appointed by God to be saved will be saved, that is until he encountered the teaching of James Relly, who in his paper Union, published in 1759, argued that the death of Christ atoned for all human sin, and, therefore, made “universal salvation not only possible, but a foregone fact”, according to Robinson.

While still in England, a series of tragedies beset poor John Murray, including the deaths of his wife and son. Then he was arrested for debt and served time in debtor’s prison. Upon his release, Murray decided to venture to America, but his cross ocean voyage was miserable. Tossed by a violent Atlantic storm, the ship he was on ran aground, and he was forced to land unplanned at Good-Luck Point, on the coast of New Jersey, at Cranberry Inlet.

There, right in that inlet, unbeknownst to Murray, was a farmer named Thomas Potter, who lived in that coastal town. Potter, a man of great hope and faith, held Universalist beliefs similar to Baptist sects in Rhode Island and New Jersey. But there was no minister to lead this small group of believers in a loving God. Potter, ever faithful, built a small church building and prayed to God to send him a preacher with a distinctive message.⁵

As fate would have it, Murray’s ship ran aground right in Potter’s inlet. Potter’s prayers were answered.

Potter and Murray struck upon an arrangement that had Murray promise to stay as long as there might be people to preach to. Of course, that is exactly what happened and Murray went on to preach extensively in the colonies, eventually heading to Gloucester Massachusetts where, after some years of struggle against the prevailing orthodox religious opinion and legal struggles to achieve the right to form a dissenting church, his message grew. He eventually moved to Boston, where he remarried and stayed until his death in 1815.⁶

All Souls in the Christian or Roman Catholic tradition is the day to remember, pray for, and offer requiem masses up for the faithful departed in the state of purification, in the hope that they may be delivered into heaven.

On the Wiccan Sabbat of Samhain, it is the day to honor those who came before us, and to begin the new year.

In the Unitarian Universalist tradition, it is a day to be reminded of our own theological ancestors, such as Thomas Potter, who prayed for someone who would preach a message other than the one of eternal damnation so prominent in early colonial America, the message of a God too loving to damn anyone to hell.

And it is the day to recall the story of John Murray who endured loss and suffering and was willing to travel to unknown shores to escape persecution for his religious beliefs, eventually answering the call of a farmer who had great faith.

The struggles Murray endured and the hope and faith demonstrated by Potter are models for us to emulate on this day called All Souls. It is an appropriate day to recall who it is we are to one another, in all the ways we strive to create the beloved community, in all the ways we strive to live our faith, in faith for what is possible to create in the world if we live as if we believe that all are worthy of Love.

As we remember others who have gone before us in this season when the veil between our worlds is thin, it behooves us to recall that it was our theological ancestors who professed the radical belief that all would be received into heaven upon death. And let us remember today that the belief in a loving God, so central to our early Universalist ancestors’ faith, is revealed in the name of many Unitarian Universalist congregations today who have chosen to retain ‘All Souls’ as part of their congregational identity.

For it is never too late to proclaim the message that all are loved.

And that brings me back to the deal I mentioned earlier. Guess what? You can participate in the holy work of our Caring Committee without coming to any meetings! Yes, it’s true! I am telling the truth! Let me say from this pulpit, that it is possible to be a member of a committee without having to attend any meetings! I have discussed this with the Caring Committee, and they concur, and on their behalf, today, I happily name you each an honorary member of the Caring Committee. Inside your order of service you find a small form upon which you can tell the committee how you can help support the work of caring for one another. If you can provide occasional support of the type mentioned on the insert, they want to know about it.

Now I ask you, where else can you make such a difference in this congregation without having to attend even one meeting! Such a deal! How can you pass this up?

As you leave the sanctuary today, after we have held hands and connected with one another at the end of our service, and after our lovely postlude, you can hand your filled out form to an actual member of the committee, who may call upon your help.

This is the work we are called to on the modern feast of All Souls, UU style. This is what it means to create and live out the 2008 version of salvation for all. This is what it means to have a community where we can wander about, safe and secure, among fellow congregants, distributing and receiving the sweet treasures of the gifts of our hearts ablaze, ones that will not require a visit to the dentist later on!

May it be so. Blessed Be. Amen.

©This sermon was written by Reverend Sally Hamlin for the congregation of the First Universalist Church of Rochester, New York and was delivered on October 19, 2008. No part of this sermon may be copied without permission of the author.