 UU Fellowship of Lafayette Greetings fellow UUs and supporters! We will begin meeting IN PERSON on November 14th as well as on Zoom until further notice. Our theme for November services is Nonviolence. Universalist and Unitarian minister Adin Ballou’s and Unitarian Henry David Thoreau’s writings influenced Leo Tolstoy’s, Mahatma Gandhi’s, and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s philosophy and practice of non-violence. The commitment to non-violence is essential to oppose and subvert a culture of violence that is so damaging. Non-violence is an essential tool in the work to repair the world. Sunday, November 14th Service:  Michael Nagler, co-founded the Peace and Conflict Studies Program at UC Berkley, has proposed that nonviolence can help us emerge from the spiritual crisis we're facing now. He suggests that the struggle between good and evil centers around nonviolence and that we all are interconnected and cannot injure another without injuring ourselves. If our decision-making avoids a selfish element that will benefit one party at the expense of another, then we have used nonviolence wisely. He proposes that the epidemic of suicides among military personnel is because they are trained to be violent and abusive and to regard others as alien from themselves, as potential enemies, which hurts them deeply. He further suggests that we take the skills we have learned, use them and take them to the next level. He has produced a film 'The Third Harmony' which examines the power of love and peaceful cooperation via tools of peace. Please visit us in person (masks required) or via this Zoom link or the one at uulala.org on Sunday -- 10:30 am for fellowship and 11 am for the service. If you are unable to attend, you may wish to view the interactive service slides. If you are on Facebook and will attend, please click the GOING button on the service event here. Last Sunday's service recap: Our Creating Peace with Noviolent Communication service last Sunday highlighted some of the useful tools taught by Marshall Rosenberg recognize that much of the feelings that we experience result in suffering based upon improper responses to unmet needs..Instead, we can choose to inquire into what makes us feel hurt, find ways to communicate our feelings and the underlying unmet needs and be able to listen with empathy to the other person and not BLAME. View the interactive service slides. ---- Our online calendar is now available via this link.   --- |