Sermons: July 2021 - June 2022
“A Morning with the Eugene Gay Men's Chorus”
with Rev. Scott, Minister
June 26, 2022. To celebrate Pride, we welcome the Eugene Gay Men’s Chorus to hear them sing and invite a conversation with Rev. Scott Rudolph about the power of music and community. Happy Pride, everyone!
“The Untapped Blessing Within” with James Simmons-Cox, Lay Leader
June 19, 2022. Through the seasons of our lives – our faith constantly evolves. Yet, some truths remain steadfast: “All life is sacred”. James unpacks the concept of blessings and how we can encounter and nurture a more blessed existence within a chaotic world.
“Crossing Thresholds” with Rev. Scott, Minister
June 12, 2022. Life has threshold moments where we cross over into a new reality. Sometimes these occasions bring us joy and other times they mark a difficult new path. As a religious community, we bear witness to one another as we journey through life. We hold members of our community as they honor their crossing no matter what it may be: birth, death, rebirth, life transitions, or moments of profound growth.
“Seeds of Change” with Rev. Scott, Minister
June 5, 2022. Join is this morning as we celebrate our annual Flower Celebration service. At this all-ages service, we will meditate on the life of a flower (and our lives, too) while we receive a series of anthems by our choir.
“Creating Beautiful Memories” with Rev. Scott, Minister
May 29, 2022. During the summer we make memories of life. This season of warmth and play begins on Memorial Day on which we remember the fallen. The lives of the living and the memory of the dead are always intertwined.
“Today We Slay” A Youth-Led Service supported by Amy, Director of Religious Exploration
May 22, 2022. One definition of slay is, “to do something spectacularly well.” Our UUFCO youth invite you to embrace your inner slay.
“Banning Books is on the Rise” with Heather McNeil, Lay Leader
Sunday, May 15, 2022. Books can be illuminating, exalting, and beautiful. They can also be disturbing and challenging. Youth books are the target of censors like never before, so we’ll take a look at what books are being removed and why, and what you can do to promote FREADom.
“Noticing Beauty" with Rev. Scott, Minister
Sunday, May 8, 2022. Have you looked around lately? Oh my goodness! So much beauty everywhere! Seriously… take a moment and look around you right now. Wow! Beauty is always happening.
“A Thing of Beauty” with Rev. Scott, Minister
May 1, 2022. What makes something beautiful and who gets to decide? They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. They are right. Let’s behold some beauty.
“Inch by Inch” with Kristel Masterson, Lay Leader, and Amy, Director of Religious Exploration
April 24, 2022. Everything starts as a seed. What experiences have brought you growth? Join us for this hands-on multi-generational service as we welcome new members, explore seeds of ideas, and plant seedlings with the Sacred Grounds Team. Please bring a towel wear gardening clothes if you wish to participate in our closing planting practice.
“Life Again” with Rev. Scott, Minister
April 17, 2022. The practice of pysanky, Ukrainian egg dying, has rich religious and cultural history. The stories that surround this art form offer us hope and resilience. From the darkness of early morning dusk, the sun rises.
“Waking Up to What’s Inside of You”
with Rev. Scott, Minister
April 10, 2022. Sleepwalking happens in real life. It also happens in our spiritual lives. The world around us lingers, always ready to open itself to your noticing. Your internal world waits in the same way. This Sunday is a gentle alarm clock for that awakening.
The recording of “What Really Matters” from April 3, 2022 is not available. We apologize for the inconvenience.
“Is God Real?” with Rev. Scott, Minister
March 27, 2022 . God is real or God is not real, right? Well… that all depends on what we mean by God. And the idea of God has meant many things over the ages. The question of God invites us to consider our beliefs, but also then ask the question, “So what?”
“Speaking Ourselves to Life” with Mari Esabel Valverde, Guest Speaker
March 20, 2022. In anticipation of International Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31st, we will contemplate the paradox of the disappearance and the hyper-vigilance of trans bodies in public. This exploration will emphasize the importance not only of trans visibility but also trans flourishing and will spur us into action in solidarity for trans liberation.
Mari Esabel Valverde (b. 1987) is an award-winning composer and singer in steady demand across the United States and Canada. Based in North Texas, she sings in multiple professional ensembles and teaches singing and transgender voice training with Your Lessons Now. She holds degrees from St. Olaf College, the European American Musical Alliance in Paris, France, and San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
“Prayers and Actions for Ukraine”
with Rev. Scott, Minister
March 13, 2022. Our hearts break as we witness the Ukrainian countryside descend into violence. We feel helpless being so far away. And yet, we remain committed to doing what we can in the face of injustice and tyranny. This war emphasizes that we are truly a global community.
Artwork shown is a mural by the artist My Dog Sighs.
“How Things Spread (not about covid)”
with Rev. Scott, Minister
March 6, 2022. The last couple years of the pandemic have shown us that illness can pass between people. Relationship binds us together for good or ill. This means that love, peace, acceptance, and beauty can also spread! This morning we celebrate In-Gathering: Part 2 as Covid limitations begin to ease, and we kick off our Stewardship month. We plan to spread some joy on this morning!
“Expanded Possibilities Powered by Compassion”
with Jamie Bianchini, Guest Speaker
February 27, 2022. Jamie Bianchini has spent the last two decades globetrotting nearly 100 countries to explore his passions of adventure sports, intercultural connections, and social entrepreneurship. This colorful talk will take you around the world and into the heart of humanity to reconnect with our innate compassion we are all born with, and invite us to rethink what’s possible in our own lives, and in the lives of those around us, when we allow compassion to truly flourish in our lives.
Jamie lives and works here in Bend as a speaker and consultant to help organizations and businesses find innovative ways to solve our most challenging social and environmental issues.
“Coloring Outside the Lines”
with Rev. Scott, Minister
February 20, 2022. Heretics, artists, justice seekers, visionaries are all people who push through boundaries. Coloring outside the lines can create a new picture all together. Some boundaries are healthy and positive. Others need to be pushed and reshaped.
“Hell No, We Won’t Go!”
with Rev. Scott, Minister
February 13, 2022. Our Universalist ancestors proclaimed that a loving God could never damn anyone to a fire and brimstone hell. Hell like that doesn’t exist. Though, loss of connection and love here and now sure feel like a kind of hell sometimes.
“Do I Have to Care About All 7.9 Billion People?”
with Rev. Scott, Minister
February 6, 2022. On a good day, our hearts may want to care for everyone and everything. Yet, compassion fatigue is a real thing. So are unreal expectations. So, how much caring is “enough” caring?
“The Secrets/Traumas We All Have”
with Jeff Belzer, Lay Leader
January 30, 2022. Want to know a secret? We all have secrets, traumas, and experiences as humans that make us the people we are today. This week we’ll explore how we can use compassion and love to help bridge our divides; to better understand the secrets we all have.
“Sex in the Sanctuary—Power, Religion, and Choice”
with Rev. Scott, Minister
January 23, 2022. 59 years ago, Unitarian Universalists became the first religious organization to support a woman’s right to choose. 49 years ago, the Supreme Court ruled on Roe vs Wade allowing women access to abortion. Reproductive justice invites us to consider questions of power. Who has it? How and why is it used? What is the impact?
“Put on Your Darwin Glasses”
with Pat Kailey, Lay Leader
January 16, 2022. Come, put on your Darwin glasses for a while. This Sunday's lay-led service will be a brief introduction to looking at the world through an evolutionary lens. We'll see how Darwin's idea is deeply connected to our 7th UU principle and how evolutionary thinking can be a powerful tool for understanding our world, shaping the society we want, or just building a better New Years' resolution.
“No Willy-Nilly Walkie-Talkie”
with Rev. Scott, Minister
January 9, 2022. Healthy and constructive relationships rest upon the power of listening and the purpose of sharing. How we communicate is how we relate. And how we relate is who we are and what we become. It’s best to be clear about it. You copy? Loud and clear? 10-4? Over and out…
"Choose Your Own Adventure"
with Rev. Scott, Minister
January 2, 2022. Which path do I pick? Every minute of every day, we make choices that propel our lives in a certain direction. From what to have for breakfast to how you will spend the hours of your day, living with intention means making decisions.
“Opening to Joy”
with Anastacia Compton, Lay Leader
December 26, 2021. Do we open to joy, or is it something we have to strive for? Can we seek it out, or is it a matter of recognizing it where it already exists? Where does it come from – inside us or around us, within the world or transcending it? As we let go of the old year and prepare to greet the new, join us as we ponder what brings us joy and how we make space for it in our lives.
“Put on Your Own Mask First”
with Rev. Scott Rudolph, Minister
December 12, 2021. If an airplane loses oxygen on an airplane, we are encouraged to put on our own mask before helping others. Claiming joy enables us to encounter the world with an open and fortified heart. “Attention passengers. This is the captain speaking. We are experiencing some serious turbulence.
“UU History Through the Written Word”
with Rev. Scott, Minister
November 14, 2021. Our UU religious trajectory was dramatically transformed by significant writings over time. This morning we will look back at some of the seminal moments in our unique history that formed our current faith tradition. Thank goodness folks wrote this stuff down, write?
“Those Who Came Before & Those Who Will Come After”
with Rev. Scott Rudolph, Minister
November 7, 2021. “We build on foundations we did not lay. We warm ourselves by fires we did not light. We sit in the shade of trees we did not plant. We drink from wells we did not dig. We profit from persons we did not know.” – A variation on Deuteronomy 6:11 – Rev. Peter Raible
“Día de los Muertos” with Renee Sanchez, Guest Speaker
October 31, 2021. Join us as we learn about the contemporary and traditional ways of celebrating the Day of the Dead. Our speaker with be Renee Gonzalez, Youth Rising Manager at Latino Community Association.
“Appreciating Zoom and God”
The past year and a half flung us into a new way of being together. Online. Zoom. Distanced. We adapted. At the center of it all was a dedication to human connection. Some say God is found in moments of relationship.
“Cultivating Meaningful Relationships Always Starts Alone” with Rachelle Indra, Lay Leader
October 10, 2021. We worry so often about what we are getting out of a relationship—what the other person is or is not providing—that we rarely take a step back to think about who we are at this point in our journey, and what we have to share with another.
“Getting Real. (For Realsies)” with Rev. Scott, Minister
September 26, 2021. We dream big. Then life gets real. The question is how do we get real with it. Clarity of purpose, dedication to process, and flexibility will help.
“When Differences Bloom” with Dr. Carol Barrett, Guest Speaker
August 8, 2021. Join us as author Carol Barrett shares readings and insights from her book, Pansies. The book is a series of vignettes from a time when Carol was living alongside Apostolic Lutherans in Washington State, and got to know a young woman of the faith, who was her daughter's baby sitter.
Dr. Barrett is an interdisciplinary scholar and educator who has also published two volumes of poetry: Calling in the Bones and Pansies.
“Gather the Spirit— Which Spirit?” with Rev. Scott, Minister
August 29, 2021. Gather the Spirit is a beloved hymn for Unitarian Universalists. We gather as a spiritual people for whom the idea of “spirit” means many different things. Agreement is not our aim, but love is. This sometimes might mean resisting against those who gather a spirit against a wider love.
“9/11 Twenty Years Later” with Rev. Scott, Minister
September 12, 2021. We remember and hold a tragedy in our hearts. Now and then, in times of crisis, beauty and ugliness arise. As a religious people committed to love, we dedicate toward beauty.
“School of Love” with Chela, Congregational Life Facilitator
July 25, 2021. Our congregational covenant raises the ideal, “Love is the spirit of this fellowship.” In some way, all of what we do here at UUFCO is propelled by this underlying, overarching value. Our roots and wings. This week we look at a colorful moment in modern history when love broke through and captured the hearts and minds of a generation.
“The American Dream Remains” with Rev. Scott, Minister
July 4, 2021. The “American Dream” became much more a reality than a dream on July 4, 1776. That was 245 years ago. At its core, the dream is about freedom. It remains spiritually inspiring, ever-challenging, and a hopeful call to continue forward.