Join Us for a Picnic on Sunday August 25!

After worship on August 25, please join us for an all ages picnic at Shale Hollow Park! We'll be in the (only) shleter house at Shale Hollow, which is only 1.7 miles from the church at 6320 Artisian Run, Lewis Center. The picnic will last from 11:45 AM-1PM. Plates, cups, napkins, will all be provided, but bring a dish and/or a beverage to share if you can. The picnic committee is also providing vegetarian chickpea salad sandwiches and a side of beef and beans. There are several outlets in the shelter house in case folks want to bring dishes that could use them. 

Our next picnic will be September 22.

Please Help with Sunday morning Greeting and Refreshments!

To sign up to be a greeter on Sunday morning, or to provide refreshments for Fellowship time, please click here. Explanations of the responsibilities role will be available once you click. THANKS!

Another Journey to Unitarian Universalism

by The Honorable Thomas A. McKean

It was good to hear some of the members speak of their journey to UU on 7/14. I'd like to see more services like that. Something I learned long ago is everyone has a story to tell. Here's mine, much abbreviated. I was raised in Overbrook, that big red Presbyterian church on High Street in Clintonville, not far from First UU. I was always made to wear my Sunday best. I helped my father build what remains of the playground that's still around back of the church. My parents told us four kids we were free to choose our own religious and political paths when we were older. Diagnosed with autism in '79, I was placed in an institution in '80, I left in '83. (What it was like and how I managed to leave is a story for another day.) They couldn't do much for me, awareness hadn't happened yet. But during that time, I learned a little guitar and harmonica and I read the Bible through, every word, cover to cover. Then I had a lot of questions. Later I became involved in the advocacy and politics, that lasted over ten years or more until chronic illness forced me to slow that down. It would occasionally require an appearance a church or mosque or synagogue or whatever. Looking for a change, I moved to the beautiful small mountain town of Bedford, VA (located between Lynchburg and Roanoke, I did a talk once at the Vine Center there at Liberty University), where I was involved in a small church. Small when it started, anyway. It grew over time. Taken over later on by evangelical extremists, it died a horrible and political death soon after - all within the course of a single hour or less one Sunday morning when one by one, the elders of the church walked up to the podium and resigned. No one saw it coming. Around 150 people walked out the door feeling sadness over a community lost, one they had no idea they were going to lose when they had walked in an hour earlier. Everyone thought it would be another normal Sunday service. Instead, they bore witness to man renting asunder what God had joined together. My questions increased and they got a lot more complex. There was never any transparency about what exactly happened or why the elders resigned that day, most of the 150 still don't know what caused it. That lack of closure has driven more than one of them to therapy. What caused it was a kiss on the cheek. But I wouldn't know that until a few weeks later. As I watched the resignations with everyone else, feeling their pain as much as my own, it made me understand that just because others followed Jesus, it didn't mean that was something Thomas needed to do. I finally understood that maybe it was okay to not obsess on the Almighty. Somehow, life immediately became a lot less stressful. When the church dissolved that Sunday, some of the members swore they'd never step foot in a church again. A few of them have kept that promise. Aside from advocacy, it would be well over a decade before I voluntarily attended a church service. Even then, it was to hear my sister preach. Once I moved back to Ohio, I tried other things - Meetup and whatever else, none of it worked for me. I didn't fit in or maybe it was just a feeling or perception that I didn't fit in. I started looking at various faiths, specifically seeking something as opposite evangelicalism as I could find. That's how I came across the Unitarian Universalists. Soon deciding the closer First UU Church was too big for me, I ended up traveling further to North. No regrets. As I was being brought out of the autism (also a story for another day), I was also being taught compassion. I was taught kindness. I was taught to look and perceive beyond my own experiences. I was taught to understand that just because something is different, that doesn't always mean it's wrong. I was taught morals, ethics, values, character, integrity. (Some of which I will be the first to admit I sometimes still get wrong. Those things aren't easy, but I was taught they're to be important to me and they are.) I was taught to respect the inherent worth and dignity of every person. When we are young, we are taught love comes from God, that we cannot love without Jesus. I would argue that we can, that the human heart, with or without Jesus, is as capable of love as it is capable of hate. It took me a while to figure this all out in a way that would work for me, and really I'm still not sure I have. But I know I am at least on my way, and some people can't be bothered to figure it out at all. My grandfather was a man of the cloth. He wore a collar and he wore it well. His Bible tells me Jesus is a man of compassion and wisdom. If He truly does exist, I feel He will understand why I am more interested in loving my neighbor than I am in forever focusing on Him. (I feel he'd prefer it if everyone was that way.) That other church showed me it's okay to change your ways, to learn and to grow into who you are and who you are becoming. I can't tell you I will be UU forever, but I can tell you I recently signed the book and I'm not planning on going anywhere for a while.