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| Wednesday "Faith Lift" Meditation: 7:00 PM Table Talk Thursday (Zoom) 12:00 PM
Sunday Service: 10:45 AM Sunday Social (Zoom): 12:00 PM
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| | This Sunday's Lesson Title: - Calm in the Chaos
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| | Lyrics to “A Roaring of Noiseless Calm” by David Roth and Jan Garrett
“There’s a thundering sound inside my heart I feel with an open palm. It’s a yearning that gives it, every part, a roaring of noiseless calm. There is something inside that I can trust, above all commotion and din. It is when I am willing to slow down and quietly go within.
It is cool and it’s constant and steady. It is life without all the distraction. It’s a pond without ripples, a sky without clouds. It is conscious and silent action.
There’s a thundering sound inside my heart I feel with an open hand. It’s a yearning that fills it, every part, right down to a grain of sand. Even where doubt has found me, I am stronger than suffering and fears. I am more than the imprint that bound me that I used to survive all these years.
There’s a thundering sound inside my heart I feel with an open palm. It’s a yearning that gives it, every part, a roaring of noiseless calm.” |
| | This Sunday: Special Music Guest David Roth
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| | David
Roth strikes many chords, hearts, and minds with his unique songs,
offbeat observations, moving stories, sense of the hilarious, and
powerful singing and subject matter. As singer, songwriter, recording
artist, keynote speaker, workshop leader, and instructor, David has
earned top honors at premier songwriter competitions – Kerrville (TX)
and Falcon Ridge (NY) – and taken his music, experience, and expertise
to a wide variety of venues in this and other countries full-time for
three decades.
David’s
songs (“Rising in Love”, “Earth”, “Manuel Garcia”, “May the Light of
Love”, “Nine Gold Medals”, “Spacesuits”, “Rocket Science”, “I Stand for
Love”, “That Kind of Grace”, and many more) have found their way to
Carnegie Hall, the United Nations, several Chicken Soup for the Soul
books, the Kennedy Center, Peter, Paul, & Mary’s “Discovered”
(Warner Brothers), the Kingston Trio’s “Born at the Right Time”, NASA’s
Goddard Space Center (“Rocket Science” went up on the Space Shuttle
Atlantis’s May 2009 mission to repair the Hubble Telescope), the classic
folk song books “Rise Up Singing” and “Rise Again” (sequel), and 15 CDs
on the Wind River and Stockfisch (Germany) labels. Winner of 5 Positive
Music Awards and the 2015 Grace Note (Unity Worldwide) for Outstanding
Contribution to New Thought Music, David has also been featured on many
of Christine Lavin’s seminal Rounder Records compilations. The former
artist-in-residence at New York’s Omega Institute has also been a
songwriting judge at Kerrville, Napa Valley (CA), Tumbleweed (WA),
Eventide Arts (MA), the Avalon Festival (WV), the South Florida Folk
Festival, and for the Rhode Island Songwriters Association (RISA).
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| | Two Ways To Watch on Sundays
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| | | Coming Soon: Lessons in Truth Class
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| Begins Tuesday, Aug 18 7:00 PM Zoom
Want to learn more about Unity? This is the class for that!
Join Associate Minister, Judy Tafelski, for a new class series, Lessons in Truth, based on the same title of the book by Dr. H. Emilie Cady. Lessons in Truth and the Bible are Unity’s two primary textbooks.
Unity Co-founders Charles and Myrtle Fillmore published the original series of Lessons in Truth by Dr. H. Emilie Cady in Modern Thought, the origin of Unity magazine.
Renowned poet Maya Angelou, who received the first honorary doctorate presented by Unity Institute, said Lessons in Truth changed her life. Dr. Angelou was introduced to Unity while studying with a voice teacher. They met weekly to read from Lessons in Truth.
She said: “I read from a book called Lessons in Truth…’God
loves me’.” Her teacher asked her to read that same line three times;
on the fourth read, she read “with ferocity-forceful: God. Loves. Me.”
Dr. Angelou goes on: “And, at that moment, I knew it. I knew it! I
thought, ‘God? That which made bees and mountains and water? That? Loves
me? Maya Angelou? Well then, there’s nothing I can’t do. I can do
anything good…fifty years later, I could weep with joy at the knowledge
that I am loved by Love itself.”
All Are Welcome! All UCC classes are offered on a free will love offering basis. |
| | Cultivating Equanimity A Message from Bhante Upasantha at Dhamma Wheel Med Society
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| Days are passing one-by-one, and we experience reality every day. We pass through happy moments and unhappy moments. We need to learn Dhamma every day, in order to see and understand the real 'I'. I know that all are practicing Dhamma and meditation on your own to develop your inner peacefulness. "EQUANIMITY" is a great practice to show you the haven of happiness in this life and after.
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| | As
human beings we are subject to continual changes in life. Equanimity is
the liberating quality that allows us to keep our hearts open and
balanced, quiet and steady, in the midst of all these changes.
We
develop equanimity through being mindful of our reactions to what the
Buddha described as the eight worldly dhammas [phenomena]. The worldly
dhammas are four sets of contrasting conditions that all of us are
subject to at one point or another in our lives. The cultivation of
equanimity involves looking deeply at our relationship to these eight
conditions in life.
The first set of worldly dhammas is praise
and blame. In the moment of being praised, can we be aware of our
reactions? Of course we will probably feel badly when blamed. The
question is: Can we be mindful of feeling badly rather than allowing
ourselves to get lost in it? Can we be aware of the reaction instead of
caught in the story about it? If it is useful information, can we learn
from it? If it is not useful, can we let it go? Can we see that praise
and blame are often out of our control?
The second of the worldly
dhammas is the arena of gain and loss. What is our relationship to
gain? Is gain always positive? What is our relationship to loss? Is loss
always negative? In any culture there are fixed ideas of what it means
to be successful and what it means to fail, of what it means to gain and
what it means to lose. When we cling to models of success, we set
ourselves up for disappointment.
In cultivating equanimity we
need to become aware of our relationship to pleasure and pain, the third
set of worldly dhammas. What is the result of running after pleasure
and pushing away pain? In the moment of experiencing something painful
can we open to the pain without trying to get rid of it?
The last
set of worldly dhammas is fame and disrepute. Do we need to be seen by
others when we do something we think worthy? What is our reaction to
being misjudged? What is our relationship to status?
If we can
remember more and more to bring mindfulness to these worldly dhammas as
they arise in our daily life, we can begin to see the suffering of
attachment. We can begin to see the essential emptiness and impermanence
of conditions. In meditation practice we may not like what arises, and
yet it is the willingness to stay with what is happening that brings
liberation. The less attached we are to comfort, the more at ease we are
within ourselves and within this world.
Cultivating equanimity
doesn’t mean that we have to be passive participants in life. If it’s
hot we can open the windows. But in the many times when we cannot change
or control our experiences, can we find an inner refuge? This inner
refuge is the capacity to be equanimous.
This is an excerpt from the following article. Please read the full article here:
https://www.buddhistinquiry.org/article/cultivating-equanimity-2
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| | THURSDAYS & SUNDAYS! Join Us on Zoom! It's Easy!!
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| | Thursdays 12:00 PM
Bring your lunch and let's get together and chat!
Board Member & President of Hospitality, Deb Larkin is hosting a weekly Zoom "Table Talk Thursday" call so we can see each others faces and hear each others voices.
Why Table Talk? Well, because that's one thing we miss during this time. Sitting around a table in the café and talking together.
The table talk will last about an hour. Feel free to drop in for a few minutes or spend the whole hour with us.
Each week Deb will have a new topic and you will have the opportunity to learn something new about each other and to share your thoughts. You can choose to participate or just listen in, whatever is comfortable for you. It will be a fun time for all as we enjoy our Unity community and navigate a new normal of virtual social distancing.
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| THURSDAY Meeting Login Info:
Call in By Phone if Preferred: 646-558-8656 or 301-715-8592 (You'll Need the ID and Password Below)
Meeting ID: 899 2533 1726
Password: 345849
Topic: What is the one thing you'd really like to have?
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Join Leddy on Zoom and share your thoughts after the service. Bring your coffee and enjoy some casual face time with us.
We miss seeing you and are looking forward to spending an hour or so with you.
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| SUNDAY Meeting Login Info:
Invite Link:
Call in By Phone if Preferred: 646-558-8656 or 301-715-8592 (You'll Need the ID and Password Below)
Meeting ID: 884 0094 7378
Password: 670771 |
| | Below Are Links To Help You Get Set Up with Zoom
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| | | | Check Out this Zoom Tutorial Page
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| | | | We still are getting frequent questions has been: "what's the best way to send an offering to the church?"
We're checking mail every day, so checks sent through the mail are fine as are checks sent from your bank's online bill pay.
If you feel led you might consider setting up an automatic recurring donation. This can be done through your banks bill pay or on the church's donation form.
We've also been asked about the processing fees the church has to pay when the online form is used. The fees are a small percentage (3&-4%) of the total donation, however there is an option to cover fees that you may select if you feel so inclined. Every little bit helps and we're grateful if you decide to turn that option on.
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| | Now Available: Text Giving
Text "Give" (without quotes) to 833-679-1105 and follow the prompts.
Giving
by text is quick & easy! Our processor has come up with a couple of
videos to explain the process. Click below to watch one. |
| | | | | | | “The mind may be compared to the sea, which is calm or stormy according to the wind that moves it . . . . A restful state of mind is greatly to be desired . . . . Prayers and treatments for health are . . . more successful [when] . . . the mind has not been put in a receptive state by affirmations of peace. The Mind of Spirit is harmonious and peaceful . . . . When a body of water is choppy . . . it cannot reflect objects clearly. Neither can [hu]man]kind] reflect the steady strong glow of Omnipotence when [the] mind is disturbed by anxious thoughts, fearful thoughts, or angry thoughts. Be at peace and your unity with God-Mind will bring you health and happiness” (Charles Fillmore, Jesus Christ Heals, pp. 176-7). |
| Your Weekly Affirmation:
I TURN WITHIN AND FIND CALM IN THE MIDST OF CHAOS. I AM CENTERED AND POISED IN THE MIND OF SPIRIT AND NOTHING CAN DISTURB THE CALM PEACE OF MY SOUL.
THANK YOU, GOD! |
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