Unitarian Church of Montreal

Finding Time for the Holy

A Sermon/Reflection by The Reverend Carole Martignacco
15 January 2012

And I have felt a presence that disturbs me
with the joy of elevated thoughts;
A sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.
– William Wordsworth

Finding time for the holy is related to three timely words I'd like to explore with you this morning
related to my ministry here: Sabbath … Shabbat … sabbatical.

Coming Full Circle

Coming Full Circle
A Sermon/Reflection by Reverend Carole Martignacco
8 January 2012

Everything the power of the world does is done in a circle.
The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth
is round like a ball, and so are the stars.
The wind, in its greatest power, whirls.
Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.
The sun comes forth and goes down in a circle.
Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing,
and always come back again to where they were.
The life of man is a circle from childhood to childhood.
And so it is in everything where power moves.
- Black Elk, of the Oglala Sioux

Coming full circle, my friends, isn’t the same as dizzily “going around in circles.” Though it feels as if I’ve done a bit of that in the past week, getting settled in my new digs here in Montreal, learning the UCM routine, finding where to park and trying to get my car restarted.

We are not Gadgets

Rev. Diane Rollert, December 4, 2011

Here’s the picture. I’m sitting with my laptop on my lap. I’ve got at least ten windows open – windows on my computer, that is. Within each window is another resource for today’s sermon: An article sent to me by my son: Is Google Making Us Stupid? by Nicholas Carr. Carr’s article has linked me to another article: The Pancake People or “The Gods Are Pounding My Head” by Richard Foreman. In another window, I can hear the sounds of radio host Krista Tippet interviewing Sherry Turkle, founder and director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self. Another window displays the transcript of the interview. In yet another window, there’s the website that has delivered Gilles Vigneault’s lyrics Avec nos yeux for today’s reading (I actually found the song in a printed book, but the web saved me from having to retype the words). There is a host of documents open in Word to write notes, and to prepare openings and offerings. To my left is my iPhone, my indispensable
always-on-call-always-connected-to-my-contacts-e-mail-calendar-music-photos-solitaire-angry birds-complete-library-of-classic-novels-to-read-in-the-dark-at-night-and-on-the- metro favourite tool and toy. To my right is David’s iPad open to an electronic version of Jaron Lanier’s book You Are Not a Gadget.

Spiritual Legacies

Sermon by Nicoline Guerrier, 27 November 29, 2011

There’s a famous line by Mark Twain that goes, “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant, I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much he had learned in 7 years.”

This year, for the first time in all my years with this community, I’m spending most Sundays downstairs in the Religious Education program, and so I’m spending a lot of time thinking about what it is the children are looking for from us as teachers.

Should Unitarian Universalists Help Save Jesus?

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 20 November 2011

A couple of years ago we began this tradition of raffling off a sermon topic for BidNite, our annual service auction.  Everyone pays $5 for a ticket that gets thrown into a hat.  The person with the winning ticket gets to tell me what to say in a Sunday sermon…  Well, not exactly.  The winner gets to challenge me, stump me, or simply have the joy of hearing me speak about something that really matters to them.  A year ago on this Sunday, our minister emeritus, Charles Eddis, drew the lucky ticket– leaving many of us to wonder if the fix was in…    So what did Charles ask me to address?  Jesus! This was his request:  “Tell us whether you think Unitarian Universalists should help save Jesus.”

Unitarianism: A Faith to Change the World

Sermon by Bruce Knotts, Executive Director of the UU-UNO, 13 November 2011

First of all, let me thank you for inviting my husband, Isaac, and me to our first ever visit to Montreal (the Paris of North America).  As my mother was Canadian, from Calgary and as Isaac and I were married in Vancouver, I consider Canada to be my second home.  I've often wished my mother had never moved to the U.S., and that I'd been born Canadian.

Before I begin, I want to warn you that I'll be quoting from the Bible.  Please don't run for the doors.  I guarantee that I am a UU and all will end well if you listen patiently to what I have to say.

This morning, I want to talk about our faith and how it motivates our work at the United Nations. 

Find the Cost of Freedom: A Reflection for Remembrance Day

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 6 November 2011

Find the cost of freedom, buried in the ground
Mother earth will swallow you, lay your body down…

                                                          Stephen Stills, “Find the Cost of Freedom”
                                                          Four Way Street, 1970

I recently asked my father what was the happiest time in his life.  I suppose I was hoping he’d say it was becoming a father, or marrying my mother, or something like that.  Instead, he immediately thought of his days in the army.  Just after his 18^th birthday, he’d been sent overseas as a radio operator to serve with the combat forces at the end of the Battle of the Bulge, one of the longest and bloodiest final battles of the Second World War.   When the war ended, my father was assigned to a small theatrical battalion that performed for the troops.  He played the piano during nightly performances of the musical, “On the Town.” 

Wanting Memories

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 30 October 2011

All Souls: Another milestone in the rhythm of the year we share together, a day when we light candles of memory for all the souls that have touched our lives and are now gone.  The flames that burn here stay long in my memory, long after they have extinguished themselves, long after we have left this sanctuary today, long after the weeks and months go by and we celebrate other holidays and holy days together.  I hear your voices, I hear the names you speak and I am reminded of what it is that really binds us together.

Abundance and Light: In Celebration of Diwali

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 23 October 2011 

I never really knew much about the Hindu holiday Diwali until I became a religious educator in the 1990s.  I knew that Diwali was a harvest holiday and a festival of lights celebrated in India. That was it.  On the Sunday closest to Diwali, we would sometimes invite guests from the local Hindu community to share their music, dance or thoughts with our congregation. It was a colourful celebration I enjoyed but didn’t really understand, until I met my neighbour Animesh.

The Substance of Substantiation

Sermon by Rodrigo Emilio Solano-Quesnel, 9 October 2011

Mark has a short, concise account of The Last Supper.  Yet the meal it describes is a complicated affair in the different Christian traditions.  It is a celebration of fellowship and community, as Jesus spends his last evening with his dearest friends.  It is a celebration of gratitude, as he blesses the bread and the wine that he is able to share with those he loves and is thankful for those gifts and that opportunity.  It is a time for mourning and lamentation, knowing that he has but a day left before bitter betrayal, overwhelming suffering, and humiliating death.

The Value of One Life Revisted: A Sermon for the High Holy Days

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 2 October 2011

They say that preachers preach what they most need to hear, and I’d say that’s often true. All summer long, as I heard the news of the crisis in Somalia, of the daily increase in the number of people dying from starvation, I kept remembering a sermon I had written four years ago. Sometimes what I say evaporates into thin air the moment it has been said, as much for me as it may for you. In this case, I had a dim but persistent memory of words about the value of one life. I went back to that old sermon and what I found were words that I needed to hear once again.

The Devil Made Me Do It

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert

There’s this great translator’s tool on the Web called Word Reference that I really like. It contains dictionaries and verb conjugators for dozens of languages.  It also includes a multi-language forum that enables translators to ask each other questions about puzzling words and expressions.  A while ago, a translator from Japan wrote to the forum asking for an explanation of the expression “The devil made me do it.”

Whose Are We?

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 18 September 2011

Act I.  The scene I’m about to describe takes place in a land far, far away, at a workshop being held in a conference centre somewhere in the Netherlands.   The participants have been split into pairs. On the surface, the assigned exercise appears to be simple enough.  Ask your partner one question repeatedly:  Whose are you?  Follow each response with the refrain “God be merciful.”

Healing Water

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 11 September, 2011

This year, the final words of blessing for our water ceremony hit me with their full force:  

We cannot know what will come to us this year.

We know that within the sacred circle of this community of faith

we will experience the full range and depth of what it is to be human—

A New World Facing Us - the End of Western Predominance?

On August 7, 2011, UCM member Hari Thakur spoke to the congregation about the shift in geopolitical power. By popular demand, here is a transcript of that talk.

This morning, I hope to present to you a process of change  that is taking place for quite some time now, but gathering pace with each passing year.  The change relates to a shift  in geopolitical power from the Western nations (Europe, U.S. and Japan) to the emerging countries (China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Indonesia, and South Africa).  The presentation will be inspired by two recently published  books, “Losing Control” by Stephen King, Chief Economist, HSBC Banking Group, and “The World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman, Columnist, New York Times.  I have also consulted numerous other sources such as research reports newspapers and magazines.

 Allow me to site some evidence of this shift without burdening you with too many numbers:

 -     According to recent forecasts by I.M.F. and Standard Chartered Bank, by the year 2020, the GDP of China will exceed that of the U.S., and India will attain the third highest GDP behind China and the U.S.;

-       China has displaced the U.S. as the biggest trading partner for Brazil;

-      Nearly two-thirds of world’s economic growth is coming  from the emerging nations;

-      China has displaced the World Bank and the Western nations as provider of capital to Africa;

-      China has established 316 Confucius Institutes in 94 countries, with plans to set up 1,000 worldwide by 2020 to promote Chinese language and culture;

-      In November 2006, China invited all African heads of state to promote economic relations.  48 of 53 heads of states attended.  There is no such parallel in history;

-      China is the principal provider of funds to finance U.S. deficits and holds nearly $1 trillion of U.S. debts;

-      China has the highest foreign exchange reserve in the world, estimated at $3.2 trillion;

-      In 2008, for the first time, the number of patent applications from China, India, Japan and South Korea exceeded those from the West.

Trust the Dawning Future

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 19 June 2011

In preparing for today’s service, I asked everyone who had attended the Canadian Unitarian Council’s Annual Conference and Meeting (that is, the CUC ACM – ‘though I detest alphabet soup!) to send me reflections on their experiences by this past Wednesday.  Of course, there’s always someone who waits until the very last minute…  So, Saturday morning, I received this short but lovely reflection by e-mail from my own husband.  Although he’s the talker and the extrovert in the family (I’m really the shy and quiet one), he doesn’t get much chance to speak around here.  So, I’ve invited David to share his thoughts this morning.

Transitions

Reflections by Rev. Diane Rollert and Lay Chaplains Shoshanna Green, Ann Beer and Nicoline Guerrier, 5 June 2011

Transitions… Rev. Diane Rollert

All of life is a transition.  We move from one moment to the next, letting go of one thing and moving on to another.  Everything we do is in a state of beginning, being in the middle or ending.  Our transitions can feels as though we are continuously spinning and spinning, until we stop to mark the significant moments, the births, the deaths, the unions, and the coming of age. These are the milestones hewn out of granite that stand forever in our memories along the paths of our lives. 

God’s Problem

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 12 June 2011

Episode one of Mr. Deity on YouTube is all about God’s problem.*  The universe has just been created.  Mr. Deity and his assistant Larry are standing in an empty room.   Mr. Deity has short grey hair and a stylish beard.  He’s wearing a buttoned-down black shirt.  He’s got that California or Vancouver business casual thing going.  Larry is in a buttoned-up tan shirt and tie, holding a clipboard.

Out-takes from the Confluence

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 15 May 2011

Somewhere in Montreal, in a fancy hotel ballroom – I won’t name the exact location – clergy, politicians, and other dignitaries have been invited to gather for an evening of celebration in the name of peace and interfaith dialogue.  The hosts are most gracious.  There is lovely food.  There are speeches and prizes lauding the efforts of many key figures who have done much in our fair city to promote peace and diversity. 

Making It Through: A Reflection for Easter

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 24 April 2011

You may have figured it out already.  I like tradition.  Odd, some might say, for a Unitarian.  But I don’t agree at all.  Even within our freedom of belief, there is room for repetition.  I call it ritual -- that re-enacting of something each year that helps to delineate the passing of time and lets us know that we have grown and changed.  It is like being a child who looks forward to being measured against the family wall each year.  Each mark on the wall affirms that what has happened moment by moment, through the course of the year, is real.  You don’t see it or feel it while it’s happening, but then there’s the proof that you’ve changed, right there on the wall.

The View from the Bus: Nicoline Guerrier

The View from the Bus
By Nicoline Guerrier,

delivered on April 17, 2011

I haven’t always been a driver.  None of us starts out that way, of course, but in the part of the world where I happen to live, you pretty much need to be a driver if you want to get from Point A to Point B -- assuming that’s one of the things you spend time doing.  Many of you will already have figured out that a lifetime of going from Point A to Point B is not all it’s chalked up to be.  And, some of you have probably known all along that living far from where you work is not only bad for the environment, it’s bad for the soul. In my case, it took a detour of 500,000 or so kilometres, a flood of decidedly non-Biblical proportions, and staring out the window of a climate-controlled express bus, to detach from my pair of driver’s eyes and see church, the world, and my place in it differently.

A Community of Voices

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 3 April 2011

What a weekend it has been.  Our guest, Dr. Ysaye Barnwell, has led nearly one hundred of us through the heart and history of African American congregational singing. If you have only just arrived this morning, you are not mistaken: there is a lot of heat and energy coming from the centre of the sanctuary.  Ysaye told the workshop participants on Friday night that I would be “preaching to the choir” this morning.  And it is true.  Here’s the choir holding the centre with the congregation stretching out far beyond. 

Caring for Each Other

Sermon by Rev. Diane  Rollert, 27 March 2011  

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change
Courage to change the things I can
and wisdom to know the difference. 

If you have ever been involved with Alcoholics Anonymous or Al-anon, then you surely know the power of these words.  I suppose it wasn’t really a surprise for me to encounter Reinhold Neibuhr’s serenity prayer as essential advice for caregivers from literary journalist Gail Sheehy. Sheehy’s latest book, Passages in Caregiving: Turning Chaos into Confidence, came highly recommended to me by members of our Caring Network.  What she had to say resonated with us all, so we bought a copy to have on hand to share as a resource.

In the Fifth Year

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 13 March 2011

We are in our fifth year together as minister and congregation, but I promise that this is not going to be a “state of the congregation” address.   Instead, I offer you a simple reflection on what it has meant to me to be called as minister here.

The Principle of Community

A Conversation with John Inder and Rev. Diane Rollert, 27 February 2011

 On this particular Sunday, there was no written sermon.  Instead, Rev. Diane Rollert and John Inder, congregational president from 1999 to 2001, shared a conversation about the Unitarian Universalist Purposes and Principles.  As John wrote to Diane, “On my side, I feel the need to make a case for why I say the principles are individualistic and apply to people who are not part of any flesh and blood community. Those that have not read much philosophy might not see that. And without it, the need to say the rest is not clear.”

Love Saves

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 20 February 2011

Love Saves, Part I.

Last week, I spoke to you about the science of love.   It is intriguing to explore how our capacity to love may have evolved over time to enable us to survive as a species. Is love simply biology?  Well, yes, there is love in that sexual and romantic sense – all that brain chemistry that I spoke about last week.  That’s one facet of who we are and how we continue to exist as a species.  But then there’s the broader concept of love, the kind of love that creates beloved community, the kind of love that may have the power to ensure the survival of everything – not just us.

Love and Science: Happy Birthday Darwin

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 13 February 2011

In the second volume of The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, Charles Darwin muses on the development of human moral qualities.  That which makes us moral, which brings us together as a functioning society, lies within our social instincts and especially our family ties.  Darwin writes, “These instincts are of a highly complex nature, and in the case of the lower animals give special tendencies towards certain definite actions; but the more important elements for us are love, and the distinct emotion of sympathy.”

Protected By the Winking Green Fire

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 30 January 2011

There’s this big sign in my neighbourhood attached to the traffic light at the intersection of two busy streets that says “Priorité de virage au clignotement de feu vert.” In English we’d probably translate it as “Left turn on flashing green.” But when I first moved here and was just starting to learn French, those words were a mystery to me. A word-for-word look-up in my French-English dictionary revealed “Priority of turning to the winking of the green fire.” Somehow that got spun in my head as, “Protected by the Winking Green Fire.” “Now that’s a great title in search of a sermon,” I’ve said to myself ever since.

Superheroes

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 23 January 2011 

I want you to know that I have done some very serious research in preparing for today’s sermon.  I’ve been watching multiple episodes of Rocky and Bullwinkle, the cherished superheroes of my childhood.  When I told Sandra this, she curled her lip in disdain.  None of this American TV drivel from the early 1960s for her!  What about Howie the Turtle from Razzle Dazzle or The Friendly Giant?  Now, those, Sandra tells me, are real Canadian superheroes.  They were kind and good. 

Seeking the Sacred

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 16 January 2011

The poet William Stafford once wrote, “Successful people cannot find poems, for you must kneel down and explore for them.”  That’s how I feel about the sacred.  Sometimes, you have to get down on your hands and your knees, not in prostration, not in deference to some higher power, but in order to do the hard work.  The greatest challenge, I find, is to seek the sacred not in the heavens, not in the beautiful, but in the gritty earthiness of our lives:  Down on the ground, scrubbing the floors, picking up the crumbs, painstakingly searching through the cracks and crevices of what it means to be human. 

Epiphanies and Mayan Prophecies

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 9 January 2011

 A while ago, one of our young-at-heart elders asked me if I would please talk about the Mayan prophecies for 2012.  “Hmmm,” I thought.  “This could be interesting,” as images from the movie advertisements for 2012: Doomsday came to mind.  It’s amazing how Hollywood can colour our understanding of things. I knew nothing about the topic, I hadn’t even seen the film, and I already assumed we were talking about predictions of an apocalypse. I could see tsunamis rolling across New York City, with the remains of the Statue of Liberty left standing alone on a deserted beach – just like the scene in Planet of the Apes that shocked me as a child.

Unresolved

Reflection by Kirstin McKeown, Lay Leader and Chair of the Worship Committee, 2 January 2011

Happy New Year everyone! Or, as I’ve been saying, Happy Gregorian Calendar New Year.

For me it’s one of many I mark. Despite having graduated from University more than five years ago, Back-to-school is one of the most meaningful for me (though it’s now more “back to regular season services at the UCM”. A new beginning, new plans, catching up with absent friends, talking about what we did over the summer. Samhain is the New Year for the Celts, “the day of the Dead, when the year, too, dies” to quote Susan Cooper. January first. Chinese New Year, which I started celebrating with my martial arts club, and sometimes forget these days. Some New Years I picked up from friends: Rosh Hashanah, from my Jewish friends, and Yule from friends who celebrate Norse pagan holidays. One friend also adopted her birthday as personal New Year, resolutions and all. That makes it seven New Years in one calendar year for me.

Dare to Be Wholehearted

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 12 December 2010

Last week my family and I hosted our traditional Chanukah party.  This is always a small affair, with family and a few friends gathered around the table for a meal of unending potato pancakes (what we call latkes), slathered in sour cream and applesauce.  Now that we don’t have small children, there are no dreidels or Chanukah gelt – those gold foil-wrapped chocolates that look like coins.   What hasn’t changed, though, is the backbreaking work that comes with making latkes.   Latkes are an exercise in what some might call devotion while others might call deprivation.

Beauty in the Light

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 5 December  2010 

It was in the early morning, the day before the sky became thick with a white, impenetrable cloud cover and the snow began.  I was walking along the Lachine Canal.  This is my landscape, the place where I often walk   This particular morning, the days being so short, the sun had only just begun to rise.  Everything was hazy with a soft suffusion of pale mauve.  The bricks of the buildings lining the canal were dark, the trees blackened, the city itself still sleeping – a foggy mirage of Montreal rising above the bridges. 

Christmas is Coming: what's on from Dec. 5-12

So much going on this week as we head to Christmas! Everyone is welcome to our special Child Dedication service this Sunday, Dec. 5 when we commit as a community to nuture children of our congregation. Please bring a non-perishable food item for the NDG Food Depot and a warm piece of clothing - mittens, gloves, scarf or socks to hang on our tradition Mitten Tree. Join us after the service for lunch, including delicious shortbread and brownies. We don't believe in calories.

Restoring Justice: A BidNite Sermon

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, November 21, 2010 (Topic Chosen by Phyllis Greggain)

A dozen people arrive at a community centre.  They are nervous as they help themselves to coffee and cups of tea.  A young woman who has been the victim of assault has arrived.  She is visibly nervous.  Her mother and sister are standing attentively close to her.  The young woman’s attacker enters and helps himself to a cup of coffee.  He is a young man she has known all her life.  He casts his eyes down at the floor as he takes anxious sips from his cup.  Flanking him are his wife and his mother. Shame wells up inside of them, and they look away.
Two trained facilitators, a man and a woman from the community, usher the group into the centre’s main meeting room.  Everyone is invited to sit on the floor in a large circle.  The room is tense.  Shoulders are held high and tight.  Faces are grim.

In the Silence of Our Hearts

Sermon by Nicoline Guerrier, 14 November 2010

In communities across Canada, this past week, Remembrance Day has been honoured.  We wear red poppies, attend formal ceremonies, or observe the statutory moment of silence in our own homes.  Interviews with the courageous men and women who served the allied war effort during the Second World War fill newspapers and the airwaves.  And today, here at the Unitarian Church of Montreal, we stop to observe our own annual ceremony of remembrance with a shorter version of a service almost identical to the one I attended every year in my small high school in Toronto. 

Embracing Change

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 7 November 2010

A man is house sitting for his brother.  The brother calls to check in.  “I’m sorry,” says the man, “but your cat died.” 

“What do you mean the cat died?  How could you do this to me?  You should have prepared me for the shock,” says the man’s brother.

A Celebration of All Souls and Samhaim

Reflection by Rev. Diane Rollert, 31 October 2010

Aujourd'hui nous avons partagé une expérience pour arrimer la vie et pour honorer la mort.

Today has been less about words and more about actions.  We have shared in a bread communion, celebrating that which gives us life and brings us unity.  We have remembered those whose lives have been connected to this community and have died this past year.  We have shared in the lighting of candles to mark the many lives, the many souls that have touched us in life, and touch us still in death.  We have sung together and we have sat in silence together.  We have heard glorious music.  All these acts are about building connections.

World Witness

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 24 October 2010

Some imagine an omnipotent God who is aware of every movement, every act of each human on earth.  But I think of earth, of Gaia: One giant, living, breathing organism feeling us, humanity, stretched across the width and breath and depth of her skin.  She senses our every movement, our building up and our breaking down.  She hears our every cry of peace, of war, of incomprehension and frustration, of joy.  She is quiet witness through the ages.

Summer Reflections Now Available

Several of the sermons and reflections shared this summer are now available online.

JANUS FOR UNITARIANS: A PERSPECTIVE OF 65 YEARS

Sermon by Rev. Charles Eddis, Minister Emeritus, originally preached at The Unitarian Fellowship of Fredericton, on September 12, 2010. Charles shared some of this sermon in Montreal on October 17, 2010.

Two sermons are the major milestones of American Unitarians in the 19^th century, William Ellery Channing's Unitarian Christianity in 1819 and Theodore Parker's The Transient and the Permanent in Christinity in 1841. Both ministers began their sermons by quoting a text from the Bible.  Channing quoted First Thessalonians, chapter five verse 21: "Prove all things; hold fast to that which is good."  We can recognize that as a suitable proof text for Unitarians. Parker's choice requires explication.

With Dignity

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 3 October 2010

If you’ve been following the press coverage, you know that the Quebec Commission on Dying with Dignity (La Commission spéciale sur la question de mourir dans la dignité) will continue its hearings through the middle of this month.  Since the hearings began in early September, I’ve been asking myself where I stand on the question of legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia.  Can I be honest with myself?  Can I make a decision?

Behind Every Good Man

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 26 September 2010

The Chateau Peyrepertuse is highlighted in red, underlined, starred three times, and accentuated with three exclamation points in the Michelin Guide for France.  “How could we possibly skip it?”  I insisted.  It was getting late, and we’d already missed the turnoff once to this remote site bordering on the Eastern Pyrenees. We’d been driving through the ancient and mysterious mountains of the Corbières for hours, up one winding road and down another, with scarcely any living creature to be seen. Then, finally, there it was.  Chateau Peyrepertuse.

The Love People

 

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 19 September 2010 

 

Inside this summer’s Canadian Unitarian newsletter, a long running debate is once again brewing.  Are we Unitarians or are we Unitarian Universalists?  Phillip Hewett, minister emeritus of the Unitarian Church of Vancouver and Charles Eddis, minister emeritus of this congregation, have made a strong historical case for why we are Unitarians here in Canada and not Unitarian Universalists. No, no, no.  Not Unitarian Universalists.   As Charles writes, not that “double-barreled word, which is like a loose anchor: holding back the ship…” 

Returning to the Source

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 12 September 2010

A few weeks ago, as a final summer getaway, my daughter and I travelled alone together along the Saint Lawrence River from Montreal to the very beginning of the Gaspé peninsula.  I love following this great river from the narrow rapids close to home until it widens and virtually becomes the sea.  Farmlands roll gracefully down to the banks of the river on the south shore, while wilderness and mountains rise on the north shore.

In Praise of Tenderness

 

A Father's Day Service prepared by Rev. Diane Rollert and the Congregation, June 20, 2010 

Fathers Day, Mothers Day, these are great days to celebrate when you have a father or mother around whom you love and who has loved you.  But these aren’t happy days for everyone.  Recently, a fellow minister shared with me a story.  There was a young man in her congregation who was about to become a father.  He was very worried about the responsibility that was looming over his head.  His own father had been anything but kind.  How would he handle fatherhood, he wondered.  “Mothers have lots of role models for how to tend to children. But who teaches fathers how to be tender?” he asked.

Bring, O Past, Your Honour

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert. 13 June 2010

Birthdays. A time to celebrate, for sure.  But as we grow older, there comes a time when a birthday is more than just an excuse for a party.  There comes a time, for some of us at least, when a birthday becomes a reminder of who we have been and what we are becoming.  What have we accomplished in these years?  Can we be honest about who we are and how we are aging?  So, how do you celebrate when you have reached the age of 168-years young?

Facing Our Fears

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 6 June 2010

 Imagine this.  You’re in a classroom.  It’s the end of the school year and you must take a final exam, but you haven’t studied at all.  In fact, you’ve never attended class.  You haven’t read a single book or done any of the assignments, and you haven’t a clue what to do.  Your heart starts to pound.  You wake up in a panic, and then there’s the sweet relief that it was only a dream.  I’m sure you’ve known your own version of this classic anxiety dream. 

The Life of a Forest Dweller

Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 30 May, 2010 

Years ago, I came across a reproduction of a beautiful painting in a book about Hinduism.  It was entitled “Transmigration of the Self.” A bare-chested man is standing solidly in the centre of the canvas, staring boldly out at the viewer.  Perhaps he is thirty years old?  It’s hard to tell.  Standing on each side of him are former and future versions of himself.  To his immediate left is a young man who is clearly the same person as the man in the centre, but younger and slightly baby-faced.  Next, continuing on the left, are all his childhood selves, getting smaller and smaller and smaller, as they curve down toward the ground, from the teenage boy hefting a ball he’s about to throw, to the helpless infant lying in a bed of flowers.