Click on the service title to listen to the podcast for that service (If you use Firefox to listen to the podcasts, you may experience problems).

Baja 4 services since March 27, 2020 are available here on YouTube.

Recent Sky Island UU services are available here on YouTube.

Since May 2021, we have been streaming our in-house services.  Join us each week in-person or on Zoom.

Sunday: @ 10:30am Church Service

In addition, Sky Island UU has a social hour (Sunday at 11:30) and meditation (Wednesday at 8:00) on Zoom each week.  The Zoom links are listed on the home page.

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March 15 – Wise Generosity – Rev. Tina Squire

Do “extreme givers” build stronger community, as Adam Grant writes, or are they “odd narcisists”…. bribing others into attachment,” in the words of Steven Berglas, PhD?  How do we “give until it hurts” and still “do it with love” as Mother Teresa implores?  Is that even always healthy?  We will explore the myriad advice we find from respected researchers, activists, and world beliefs to make sense of our own benevolence.

 

On this day, in which we lift up the gifts and potential of women, let us remember the advice of Margaret Wheately to listen to many voices, instead of just a few, senior experts. In a time when institutions are changing rapidly “multiple observers elicit multiple and varying responses giving a genuine richness to the observations. An organization rich with many interpretations develops a wiser sense of what is going on and what needs to be done. Such organizations become more intelligent.” How can we become better informed by listening to women, and other groups that have not historically had our ear?

 
March 1 – Power and Authority – Wallace Hoggatt
 
The words “power” and “authority” aren’t synonyms. True,
many people use the words interchangeably, and sometimes it’s
hard to see if there is a bright line that separates the two concepts.  But let’s find out what distinguishes one from the other – with a little help from William Shakespeare and a collective of three argumentative characters who called themselves Publius.

 

February 23 – Surviving Strong – Rev. Tina Squire

Black history month ends officially with the close of February, yet I propose we learn from the wisdom of African Americans throughout the year.  Professor Ibram X. Kendi sees racism as a relatively young, not-even-six hundred-year-old ill in our world but it has become a pernicious, metastatic cancer.  He finds few signs that we are making progress eradicating it but asserts, “Once we lose hope, we are guaranteed to lose. But if we ignore the odds and fight to create an anti-racist world, then we give humanity a chance to one day survive, a chance to live in communion, a chance to be forever free.”  What steps do he and others suggest to make this powerful reality possible?

 
February 16 – Living Justice Into the World – Janine Gelsinger

 

 

 Our UU values call us to act in the name of justice. But how do we bring our unique skills, talents, and schedules to justice work? How do we ensure our justice work is accessible, intersectional, centers frontline communities, and lives into the kind of world we are fighting to create? Discover UUJAZ’s programs for 2020, that support Immigration + Criminal Justice, LGBTQ+ Justice, Climate Justice, and Political Advocacy, and discern how you can take action.
Janine Gelsinger is Executive Director of UUJAZ, Unitarian Universalist Justice AZ Network.  Janine is thrilled to be back in our community today, from her home in Phoenix, to connect with us around justice work. The mission of UUJAZ is to nurture congregational social justice ministries; connect UU activists and congregations across the state; partner with like-minded justice organizations; and empower UUs to work for socially just public policy. Janine will share with us today the programs UUJAZ has for 2020, and would love to connect after service with anyone and everyone.
 
February 9 – Let Us Have Faith – Wallace Hoggatt
It’s customary in February of each year for Americans to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, our greatest president.  But this month we also commemorate the 160th anniversary of Lincoln’s delivery of his 1860 address given at New York’s Cooper Union – a speech that introduced this Illinois trial lawyer (and failed candidate for the U. S. Senate) to the New York public and launched his campaign for the American presidency.   Abraham Lincoln was a complex figure, one whose life and legacy reflect many apparent contradictions.  Can his Cooper Union address help us resolve some of those inconsistencies – and can the legacy of Abraham Lincoln help guide us in the present historical moment?
 
February 2 – Survival Skills – Rev. Tina Squire
In the second installment of a 3 part series on thriving through challenges, we will look more closely at ways we can strengthen our personal endurance and give and take from the sustenance of community. We will take insight from Sheryl Sandburg who endured the sudden loss of her husband and speaks of a “platinum rule” when helping others; from Elizabeth Edwards who encountered a “new normal” after her husband and her own body betrayed her; and Linda Graham who believes we can exercise our brains to have more stamina.  How have you grown after adversity?  What has helped you survive? Come prepared to think and even speak up if you are so moved.
 
January 26 – Survival Day – Rev. Tina Squire
January 26 is Australia Day, noting when the first ships arrived bearing convicts and settlers from England to New South Wales in 1788.  Since 1938, Indigenous Australians have observed “Invasion Day,” a “Day of Mourning” or “Survival Day,” marking the fact that they have withstood loss of land, being forced into boarding schools and other disruption of their culture. Given the fires that have ravaged the country in recent months, “Survival Day” takes on additional meaning in 2020.  We are only just learning how wildlife, individuals and whole communities have emerged from this destruction.  How do we survive climate change?  How do we encourage ourselves and others to exist and even thrive, reclaiming what matters most to our sense of wholeness in the face of disaster? 
 
January 19 – Obiter Dicta – Wallace Hoggatt
Back in my parents’ generation, when you were hired as a newspaper reporter, your first assignment was to write your own obituary.  I don’t know if that is still true.  But it would be an interesting assignment for all of us, not just for those in the working press.  How would you like to be remembered?  And how much about yourself would you leave on the cutting room floor?

 

January 12 – Food Paves the Way – Ann Aust & Rev. Tina Squire

In recent years social scientists have recognized that dysfunction in community leads to many different types of problems, impacting the health and wellbeing of residents.  You can spend your time trying to get government to solve all of the problems or you can roll up your sleeves and develop effective, directed interventions from within communities.  Working together with community members to address problems creates trust, communication and surprising solutions to a myriad of problems from all sources.  Once trust is developed empathy grows and even more is possible.  Ann Aust and Tina Squire will explore how to bring wellness to different types of communities, how we already do that within this church, how we can expand on these ideas to address other problems.

 

January 5 – Epiphany – Rev. Amy Belaine

Epiphany, which traditionally falls on January 6, is a Christian feast day that celebrates the revelation of God as a human being in Jesus. In many cultures the arrival of the wise Magi, bearing gifts for the newborn babe, is celebrated. The original Greek word meant the arrival of dawn, sunrise. Later it indicated the encounter of a human being with God. In January we are blessed by the gifts of a few more moments of sunlight each morning. These days the word epiphany means ‘a bright flash of insight’. What gifts might wisdom brings to us this day, in this time, and how might we celebrate our own encounters with sacred wisdom within us and around us?

BIO- Reverend Amy Beltaine provides a UU ministry of spiritual mentoring through individual and group appointments, Sunday services, rites, and rituals. She helps broken-hearted allies and friends of the marginalized and oppressed struggling to feel their spiritual direction. We need all the support we can get! When (spouse) Hawthorne and Amy are not pulling their little home behind them they live in Portland, Oregon with a beagle named Zim. A graduate of Meadville Lombard School for the Ministry, Amy is on the coordinating committee of the UU Spiritual Directors’ Network. Amy is an accredited Spiritual Director, certified Transitions Specialist, nearly life-long earth-honoring Process-Panentheist, and faculty member at Cherry Hill Seminary. Amy aspires to become a Love-Ninja. Connect with Amy at http://amybeltaine.info.

 

December 29 – Reveling in Hymns – Rev. Tina Squire & Jean MacKeen

If you haven’t had enough Christmas music and want to sing carols, or have had too much and want to sing something completely different, now is your chance to come to church and pick your favorite music out of the hymnal to share together.  We will learn a bit about some of the ones we choose to sing this week as well.

 

December 22 – The Peace-Love Connection – Rev. Sandra Jean

Rev. Sandra Jean says, “Every time I see a holiday scene, especially one with snow, I think about peace and love.”  She will explore the link between them during worship this Sunday.

 Rev. Sandra Jean was born and raised in Colorado.   Rev. Sandra resides in Palominas, AZ in a straw bale house that is 100% solar powered. (And one that she had built).  Rev. Sandra has been an ordained minister of the United Centers for Spiritual Living since October 1989, and has been a Licensed Professional Practitioner since 1972.  She earned her Masters in Consciousness Degree through Holmes Institute in 2008.  She has served Religious Science churches in Battle Creek, Michigan: St. Louis, Missouri; and Rapid City, South Dakota.  She served 14 years as minister of the Bisbee Center for Spiritual Living in Bisbee, Arizona.

 
December 15 – Wonder:  Where Faith and Science Meet – Rev. Bethany Russell-Lowe

As Unitarian Universalists, we use the miracles unmasked through scientific discovery and research to help us make sense of our own lives.  Wonder is the origin of both scientific discovery and faith.  What hope can science offer us? What can wonder teach us?

Rev. Bethany Russell-Lowe, a life-long Unitarian Universalist, was installed as the settled minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson this past January.   She is speaking this day as part of the Baja 4 pulpit exchange; the ministers of the UU churches of southern Arizona like to swap pulpits during months that have five Sundays.  Rev. Tina will be at Borderlands in Amado, AZ this month.  Stay tuned to future “Pulpitpalooza!” trades.

 
December 8 –  Self Inflicted – Wallace Hoggatt
In 1928, Charles Evans Hughes – who was at the time a former
Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, later to become its Chief Justice – wrote about three instances in which the Court “suffered severely from self-inflicted wounds.” The bad news is that the Court didn’t stop at just three: there were more disastrous decisions before 1928 than Hughes acknowledged, and there have been more since. The good news is that one of those judicial disasters, inflicted back in 1944, has finally been formally disavowed. But why was that decision addressed by the Court 74 years after it was first handed down? And what significance does it have for any of us now?
 
December 1 –  Celebrating the Light Without Cursing the Dark – Rev. Tina Squire

 

This time of year we use candles to symbolize so much that is good – “the victory of knowledge over ignorance” in the Hindu festival of Diwali, the preservation of the identity of an entire people during Hanukkah, the return of longer days and spring as we acknowledge the winter solstice, and the possibility of the sacred becoming tangible at Christmas.  If we over use images of light and dark, however, we can reinforce negative beliefs about people with browner skin, leave out people with low vision, and ignore forms of spirituality that do not have all the answers.  This week we will explore the beauty of different forms of “dark” and try out some new metaphors to bring richer meaning to this season.

 
November 24 – Attention Must Be Finally Paid – Wallace Hoggatt
Sherlock Holmes knew the difference between seeing and
observing. In one of the best-known conversations between Holmes and his friend Dr. Watson, Holmes chided Watson for not knowing how many steps led from the hall up to their rooms at 221B Baker Street. “You have not observed,” the detective told the doctor. “And yet you have seen.” Maybe it isn’t all that important to know how many steps are in a staircase – and so we can forgive Dr. Watson for his ignorance.  But what happens when the thing that is seen but not observed isn’t an inanimate object like a flight of stairs, but a human being? Ask Linda Loman. She knew.
 
November 17 – Celebrating True Stories of Indigenous Peoples – Rev. Tina Squire
Ojibwe author David Treuer writes “adamantly, unashamedly, about Indian life rather than Indian death….because the usual story told about us—or rather, about “the Indian”—is one of diminution and death.”    Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Dina Gilio-Whitaker assert that ‘On the whole, it can be said that the average US citizen’s knowledge about American Indians is confined to a collection of well-worn myths and half-truths that have Native people either not existing at all or existing in a way that fails to live up to their expectations about who ‘real’ Indians are.” Today we will hear the priorities of Native Americans themselves.
 
November 10 – A Spiritual View of Military Service – James Howe  
“America without her soldiers would be like God without his angels” – Clàudîà Pèmbèrton  Military service may involve separation from home, multiple deployments, exposure to different cultures, different morals, or religions and may require acts of violence that have specifically been prohibited in one’s religion.

November 3 – Are You Hungry Tonight? – Ann Aust & Terry Zapotocky

Poverty, food deserts, affordable housingpublic transportation, living wages, diabetes, stress, obesity, falling life expectancy are all interrelated causes and outcomes of not having enough healthy food choices.  Even though there are no simple solutions to the problem, let’s not give up.  There are steps all of us can take to reduce or even eliminate the problem of hunger in the U.S. Join us for our 12th annual Empty Bowls celebration to bring awareness to the problem of hunger.
 
We tend to think of these problems in the abstract and at some distant location, but in fact it is happening in our own backyard. Huachuca City is in a food desert and 36% of the population lives below the poverty level.  Experience in other communities has proved that one of the most effective ways to combat this is with Community Gardens, providing Healthy food and teaching others how to provide for themselves.

October 27 – Attention that Increases Belonging – Rev. Tina Squire

Rev. Sofia Betancourt has heard from UU seminarians of color that “worship works best for them when they believe worship leaders have considered their presence in the room.”  Consideration of even small details can make them feel welcome.  Rev. Nancy Palmer Jones has found that to become more multicultural, a church needs to “explore the congregation’s history and its wider context to see what strengths and what mistakes form part of its inheritance for this work.”
We will consider these UU ministers’ suggestion that paying greater attention to our worship and to our history may help us welcome more diverse groups into our community.

 
October 20 – We’ll Build a Place Where Everyone Is Truly at Home? – Rev. Tina Squire

“Diversity is going to a party; Inclusion is being a member of the party-planning committee.”  Diversity trainer Daniel Juday came up with this fresh take on the popular saying “Diversity is being invited to the party; Inclusion is being asked to dance,” because he feels that people who have not had the power to participate in past activities need to actually shape present and future events.   “It seems to me that espousing this idea that inclusion means being asked to dance is not only overly simplistic, it’s dangerous. It allows that there is, and will be, a specific group that controls the ‘pace’ and ‘space’ of the dance floor.”  This week we will consider the complexity of how to foster a sense of belonging among diverse racial and ethnic groups, for as UUA President Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray avers in this Fall’s UU Magazine “It is easy to hold up a light and declare that everyone is welcome. It is harder to build a place where everyone is truly at home”.

October 13 – Justice as a Spiritual Practice – Janine Gelsinger (UUJAZ)

As Unitarian Universalists, we see our justice work as living out our values into the world. We covenant that “service is our prayer.” What might it look like to create a Spiritual Practice of justice work?
Meet Janine Gelsinger, our new Executive Director of UUJAZ (Unitarian Universalist Justice Arizona Network). As she shares about her life and the path that led her to this role, and builds relationships in our congregation, she’ll invite us to consider our relationship with social activism, as well as spiritual practice, and suggest a way to have the two meet in a daily ritual.
 
October 6 – The Return of Archy and Mehitabel – Wallace Hoggatt

They’ve been silent for far too long: Archy, the free verse poet who died and was reincarnated as a cockroach, and Mehitabel, the alley cat who claims she was once Cleopatra.  But now they’re back.  With your guest speaker’s apologies to the memory of the great Don Marquis (1878-1937), who created Archy and Mehitabel more than a century ago, we will hear three new pieces: archy tells the boss not to retirearchy sends his condolences, and archy and mehitabel have a conversation but only one of them can hear much of it.

 
Merger Live Up to Expectations? – Rev. Tina Squire
September 30 is celebrated as John Murray Day, because on that Sunday in 1770, this former minister was stranded on a New Jersey Shore and is credited with giving the first Universalist sermon in the U.S.   What did early Unitarians and Universalists dream for their future?  What were their hopes in uniting in 1961?  What are our expectations for ourselves as UUs and how can we fit this 21st Century?
 
September 22 – Have Enough? – Tricia Gerrodette
Or had enough? For our annual Water Communion, we will hear about the importance of water. Or have you already heard enough about that?  Do we have enough water for all of us, however we choose to define all of us?

 

 

Bio:  Tricia Gerrodette has been an active member of the Sky Island congregation since the late 1990s and active in water issues in Arizona about the same length of time. She is very proud of her 2018 Sierra Club award as “Conservationist of the Decade”.
 
Second Collection is for our Emergency Assistance Fund.  Please make checks out to SIUUC with an EAF notation.
 
September 15 – Greater Expectations – Rev. Tina Squire
Rev. Mark W. Harris surveys the history of Unitarian Universalism and sees that while it espouses democratic values and inclusivity, not every church has made everyone feel welcome, especially along class lines.  He writes, “The problem is with our expectations, not with the faith itself. Change means we must broaden our expectations, and then make the dream a reality.”  Is this true?  Can examining and widening our assumptions welcome more diversity in economic background into our congregation?
 
September 8 – The Perils and Promise of Expectations – Rev. Tina Squire
Teacher Heather Marshall believes we should “unzip our minds, and let our expectations fall out, because they are holding us back.”  Educator Jake Klipsch asks ‘What if our expectations didn’t just predict reality, but created it?” and touts the well-researched power of teachers’ initial assessments of students and students’ expectations for themselves to shape their success.  When are expectations helpful, when are they not?  How do we make these hidden guests in our brains more visible, more accountable?
 
September 1 – Won Games and Lost Causes – Wallace Hoggatt

We all have expectations, good and bad, about where our society is heading.  Depending on whether they are positive or negative, our expectations may lead us either to complacency or to despair.  Are such responses justified?

 

August 25 – The Power and the Value of Storytelling – Bruce Carlstrom

Can you remember a story that was told to you by someone or perhaps that you read which has remained in your memory to this day?  What was it about that particular story that stood out to you the most?  Why do you still remember the story?  Was it a funny story?  Was it a sad story?  Was it a story with a happy ending or a moral lesson?  For many of us, stories from our past have helped to shape our lives.  They’ve instilled in us the values we live by and the view we have of the world.

August 18 – Celebrating the Stories of Different Traditions – Rev. Tina Squire

Human communities keep their traditions alive and give meaning to their traditions through particular story forms.  We will savor the koan of Buddhism, the parable of Christianity, the middrash of Judaism, the enduring oral tradition of Native American groups, among other provocative ways story keeps culture alive and challenges it to grow.

August 11 – Villains and Heroes – Wallace Hoggatt
 
Many stories include heroes and villains – and I’m not just
talking about fiction. Often history is presented as if the participants had been born to play the roles that we, in hindsight, have assigned to them. Do the actors in the stories of our lives always deserve the labels imposed on them?
August 4 – Embracing the Power of the Story of Sky Island – Rev. Tina Squire

Last week we gathered the accounts of when Sky Islander’s felt most alive in this congregation and what they hope to see the church become.  Today we will share some of those narratives and lift up the most widely shared themes about what we value in this community and what we dream for its future.

July 28 – Exploring the Stories of Sky Islanders – Rev. Tina Squire
In May we learned about Appreciative inquiry , a way to find vision for the future that focuses on the positive.  Since what we pay attention to often becomes reality, we will consider what we hope to become as a community.  Please come prepared to answer these two questions:  1).  Tell a story of a time when you felt especially connected to the church, a time when you and the church seemed to come alive.  What did it feel like and what was it that made you feel so alive?  What was the situation— who, what, where, when, how were you involved?  How did your experience reflect your sense of the purpose of the church?  2).  Imagine that you fell into a deep sleep during a particularly boring message and you wake up to discover that you’ve been asleep in that chair for five years!  As you look around you you are amazed at all the positive changes in so many areas of church life— what do you see?  In what ways has this church become the best church it can be?  What activities have expanded or flourished?
July 21 – Embracing the Power of Story – Rev. Tina Squire

 The narratives we share shape us in both positive and negative ways so it makes sense to be conscious about how we tell them.  Liturgical scholars Herbert Anderson and Edward Foley assert that churches have a significant opportunity to use ritual to make sense of the stories of life and to use living stories to renew ritual.  What stories do we tell as Unitarian Universalists?  Do we want to tell additional ones?  Do they have the power to renew our worship and life together?

July 14 – Just A Few Things That Aren’t Funny – Wally Hoggatt

Admit that I can’t tell you, with any degree of precision, what makes some jokes funny.  Attempts to explain what makes some things funny are usually doomed to failure. I’m better at explaining what makes some things unfunny. And it turns out that for many supposed jokes, lack of humor is the whole point.

 

July 7 – The Physical & Spiritual Pain of 9-11 – Loring Miller
 
I do not want the memory of the fallen and losses of the 9-11 to disappear. I want to share the story of the physical and spiritual pain in connection with my Ground Zero experiences and how I finally ended up here in Sierra Vista. It is a  story of love, compassion, and caring of people in the immediate aftermath of this unspeakable event.
 
Loring has been involved with law enforcement since 1981 in both Nassau and Suffolk Counties in Long Island, NY. He has served in five different law enforcement and support agencies; of which many were involved with the activities on 9-11 at Ground Zero of the World Trade Center. Loring volunteered to serve in the rescue efforts. As the Chief Executive Officer of the Nassau and Suffolk Counties Police Reserves he was very involved and he has a powerful story to share.

June 30 – Sunday Service from General Assembly – Dave Weigel

We will be showing the June 23 Sunday Service from General Assembly in Spokane.  After exploring the power of we, what are we
ready to do? Let’s not be servants of the past in new cups. Let’s all get free by planting faithful seeds of change and together turn to free the faith we love.  The speakers will be Dr. Emily Jaworski,  Marty Swisher, Rev. Lindasusan V. Ulrich, and Rev. Marta I. Valentín.

June 23 – Walking in Beauty With the World’s Dispossessed – Rev. Tina Squire

In 2010 the United Nations designated June 20 each year as World Refugee Day in order to call attention to the situation of the more than 65 million of the world’s people now displaced from their homes.  In the early 20th Century, Black Elk’s wording of the Oglala Sioux blessing “May You Always Walk in Beauty” was written down and shared with the world.  This year the UN has chosen the theme “#StepWithRefugees — Take A Step on World Refugee Day” (and yes, you can connect your fitness trackers to a global effort).  Walking in beauty has come to mean, walking well, in connection with all living beings and the world; so we will consider some of what is happening to the world’s displaced people and some of the ways we can walk, stand, or sit along side them on their journey to recreate home.

 

June 16 – Feeling Temporary About Myself: A Fathers’ Day Story in Three Objects – Wallace Hoggatt

Willy Loman, the Salesman of Arthur Miller’s play Death
of a Salesman, was the flawed son of a father who abandoned
him. His father’s absence made him feel, as he put it, “kind of
temporary about myself,” throughout the remainder of his life.
This won’t be a lecture about Willy Loman, however: Willy is
just one in a long line of sons abandoned by their fathers, a line
going back at least as far as Ishmael, Abraham’s oldest son.
I’m in line, too. A couple of years ago I talked about my own
experience with an absent father: how I last saw him when I
was twelve and a half, and how I learned of his death more
than 30 years later. On this Fathers’ Day, 2019, I’ll revisit the
same subject, this time with the help of three exhibits marked
for identification and submitted for your consideration.

June 9 – We Are Never Broken – Janet Howe-Johnson

People will build each other up when times are good or bad.  We will build each other up even if we hurt one another.
Bio:  Janet Howe-Johnson obtained her BA from Junita College and her MA from the U of Hawaii then obtained her Doctor of Jurisprudence from the U of AZ.  She spent a year serving in the AZ Supreme Court and is presently serving in a court in Phoenix.

June 2 – Claiming Beauty – Rev. Tina Squire

Is beauty in the eye of the beholder and in the mind of the definer? Is it just skin deep and, if so, who gets to define it?  Is it something deeper, that wells up from our inner experience. If so how do we find it and use it to grow and heal?  What is the interplay between our private definition and embracing and strengthening beauty in a wider community?

May 26 – Making our Answers Provocative Proposals – Rev. Tina Squire

If creative questions move us to a way to act in the world, how can we frame those answers in a manner that keep us open to growth and change?  How do we combine curiosity and commitment, open-mindedness and action?

May 19 – Loving the Questions Themselves – Rev. Tina Squire

Children annoy with all the “Why?” and “How?” they ask, yet often those who have their queries honored grow into productive, creative adults.  Scientist Suzie Sheehy chronicles how much of today’s technology was once the unproductive-seeming by-product of curiosity driven research.  Movie producer Brian Grazer attributes all his success, including a thirty year partnership with director Ron Howard, to being curious.  How can we celebrate and hone our questions to open our minds to the world around us?


May 12 – The Call to Nurture – Rev. Sandra Jean

Mother’s Day is usually a time to romanticize all mothers as if all mother/child relationships match the “happily ever after myth.”  I want to explore the idea of the nature to nurture that lies within us all and is called forth in various circumstances. 

May 5 – THE CONFLICT BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION (and the possibility of some harmony) – Lorraine Groberg

Throughout human history, human curiosity has been a driving force for both science and religion as we strive to find ultimate reality and truth.  They are the parallel searches for understanding the reality within (our psychical) and the reality without (the physical).  However, their world views have come into deep conflict with one another and have created conflict between us.
During this service we will explore the important areas in which science and religion impinge on each other, what impact they have had on each other and if there is a slim chance of compatibility. Do you already know where you stand in this conflict?  We all have different orientations, different temperaments, and different cultural backgrounds, but if we remain curious, perhaps we may find a glimmer of wider understanding.

Bio:  Lorraine Groberg continues to maintained a deep interest in religion, psychology, and philosophy after achieving a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a master’s degree in mental health counseling.  She worked as a mental health counselor for many years and enjoyed teaching yoga and studying Eastern and Western religions. Recognizing that people are often perplexed about the conflict between science and religion, she decided to explore the topic in her message.

April 28 – Choices, Consequences and Changes – Green Sanctuary Team

Every day we make choices: what time to get up, what to wear, what and when to eat, what activities to do. Our choices have consequences – some minor, some far reaching. Now we are faced with dangerous and erratic weather patterns, record highs and record lows, melting ice caps, rising sea levels, drought, flooding, raging forest fires, etc. Our choices can have serious consequences for us and future generations. Are we willing to make the changes needed to prevent the worst effects of climate change or will those who come after us malign us for doing too little too late?

April 21 – Easter:  Experiencing resurrections – Rev. Tina Squire  

Whether or not you believe Jesus came back from the dead, the mystery of new life happens to all of us.  Since community is a powerful place to acknowledge experiences of rebirth, you are invited to share any such renewals that have happened to you and celebrate them in others.

April 14 – Would You Give Water to a Person Dying of Thirst? – Cameron Jones

Mr. Jones will talk about the work and mission of No More Deaths.  

Cameron Jones is a farmer born and raised in Arizona who has been volunteering with No More Deaths/No Más Muertes since 2013.  Cameron worked for the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic for four years after college. During that time he lived and worked in a Haitian/Dominican community near the border dividing that island.  That experience helped him see the Arizona/Mexico border through a new lens and led him to volunteer with No More Deaths when he returned to Tucson.

April 7 –  At Onement:  The Many Ways Humans Seek to Be Whole – Rev. Tina Squire

Throughout human history we have sought to be at home with ourselves, but often the power to make things ‘right’ has been in someone else’s hands.  I will explore how recent trends, such as womanist theology and the growth of mysticism, give individuals the authority to claim their own wholeness.

March 31 – Living in the Valley of the Shadow – Rabbi Helen Cohn   

How the journey of our lives can be a blessing even as we live in the valley of the shadow of death. 

Rabbi Helen Cohn is the spiritual leader of Congregation M’kor Hayim in Tucson, AZ, a liberal congregation associated with Judaism’s Reform movement.  Rabbi Cohn is also a Spiritual Director and is active in Tucson’s interfaith community.


March 24 – Continuing The Journey – Packing Light – Rev. Jeanne Festa

As hard as we try to plan ahead, our journey through life can be totally unpredictable.  We can make it so much more difficult unless we learn to “pack light”, recognizing and leaving behind all those things that might be holding us back.  My message will include the wisdom of Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Wherever You Go There You Are, and other modern and classic spiritual writers.

March 17 – Traveling with a Purpose: Ethical Journeys – Rev. Tina Squire