Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Abilene

08/02/2026

J.K. Rowling is the author of the seven Harry Potter novels, her seven Cormoran Strike detective novels written under the pen name Robert Galbraith (with more planned), and her standalone novels: The Casual Vacancy (2012), The Ickabog (2020), and The Christmas Pig (2021).

On Sunday August 9, 2026, she will talk with us (via two videos) about the Value of Failure, the Gift of Imagination, and her Appreciation of Amnesty International.

She is a very engaging speaker.

One of our talented in-house musicians will bless us with a special, live, musical performance.

As usual, we’ll also electronically visit some of our interesting friends from around the globe.

07/28/2026

On Sunday, August 02, 2926, we’ll talk about personal, human vulnerability.
Brené Brown's 2010 TED talk, "The Power of Vulnerability," is one of the five most viewed TED talks, and we’ll view it, along with two other videos by Brown, including Why being vulnerable is a superpower..
Dr. John Gottman, of the Gottman Institute, will share, GUYS: This is why vulnerability makes YOU stronger.
To help us appreciate our wonderful fellow humans, we’ll also briefly touch base on

Mayalittlepianist in Perth, Australia
Caroline Adomeit in Darmstat, Germany
Lopko Daria at the academy for acrobats in Kyiv, Ukraine
Sawyer (“lil miss soy sauce”) and Anthony Damiani (her dad) in Gilbert, AZ.

07/20/2026

This next Sunday, the 26th, we are going to watch 2 videos about evolution. In the first video, historian John van Wyhe explains how 19th-century geologists and paleontologists uncovered evidence of ancient life and extinction long before Charles Darwin published his theory. This TED Talk explores how early fossil discoveries challenged traditional timelines and laid the groundwork for modern evolutionary science. In the second video, Hank Green talks about Charles Darwin’s and Alfred Wallace’s wonderful (if not seasick-inducing) trips around the world. "Survival of the Fittest" sounds like a great WWE show, but we're talking about that phrase as it relates to Darwin and Wallace. They are at the heart of understanding evolution and natural selection.

07/16/2026

July 11th, 2026, marked the 66th anniversary of the publication in 1960 of Harper Lee’s novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird” (Mockingbird).
It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961, and is the most widely read American novel in the twentieth century. In 1999, it was voted "Best Novel of the Century" in a poll by the Library Journal. In 2006, British librarians ranked the book ahead of the Bible as one "every adult should read before they die."

“Go Set a Watchman” (Watchman) another novel by Harper Lee, was published 55 years later, on July 14, 2015. Both novels are on banned-books lists. Watchman is set in the 1950s, whereas Mockingbird is set in the years 1933–1935.

Watchman was actually an early draft of what would become Mockingbird, but Tay Hohoff, an editor at J. B. Lippincott & Co, convinced Lee that her novel would be better if told from the perspective of a child—Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, who was six-years-old” at the beginning of Mockingbird and 8 or 9 at the end--than from the perspective of 26-year-old Jean Louise. Hohoff thought the strongest aspect of Lee's novel was the flashback sequences featuring a young Scout. She asked Lee to use those flashbacks as a basis for a new novel. Lee agreed, and "during the next couple of years, Hohoff led Lee from one draft to the next until the book finally achieved its finished form and was retitled To Kill a Mockingbird." Lee opted to use the name "Harper Lee" as the author rather than risk having her first name, Nelle, being mispronounced as "Nellie.”

Sunday, we can barely touch on the subject matter. We plan to listen to an interview of Lee’s only audio-recorded interview about Mockingbird.

In October 2023 during Banned Book Week, Marlin Lavanhar, spoke of “The Shadow of Atticus Finch” when reflecting on Go Set A Watchman. We plan to view that video.

As usual, we’ll intersperse very brief videos that portray fascinating people that we care about. in this world.

07/09/2026

Have you ever wondered about Buddhism? Well, this Sunday we will be watching two videos about Buddhism. The first will be a story of the life of Siddhartha Gautama and how he reached enlightenment and became the Buddha ("the awakened one"). The second video will be about the practice of Buddhism. Channel your inner peace and join us to expand your horizons and understand world cultures a little better.

07/01/2026

On Sunday, July 5, 2026, we will become better acquainted with Carrie Newcomer, the enormously talented Quaker songwriter and musician.

Carrie is a songwriter, recording artist, performer, educator and activist. She has been described as one who "asks all the right questions" by Rolling Stone Magazine. She earned an Emmy for her PBS special An Evening with Carrie Newcomer.

Carrie is known for her low and resonant voice as "rich as Godiva Chocolate" according to The Austin American-Statesman, for her musical depth and the progressive spiritual content of her songs, poetry and workshops, and for her continued work in justice, spiritual and interfaith communities, and health and hunger organizations. In a time of deep divisions, Carrie has become a national voice for finding how we still connect at the heart of the human story.

06/21/2026

Next Sunday, the 28th, we will be celebrating Pride Month in a musical way! We will watch a short video on the history of Pride Month, followed by 3 videos about 3 famous gay musicians from the 20th century. Aaron Copland (American, left), Leonard Bernstein (American, center), and Benjamin Britten (English, right) were all pianists, composers, and conductors whose lives spanned from 1900 to 1990. Being gay and out in the middle of the 20th century was not easy. Their lives were filled with struggles because of it. But they persevered and produced an incredible output of music spanning from small chamber works to large orchestral works and operas/musicals. Join us on Sunday to learn more about these 3 amazing men!

06/16/2026

Sunday, 2026 June 21, we will consider the presentation: “Council of Nicaea: The Political Scam That Rewired Christianity” and go from there. Not a simple topic.

The “Apostles‘ Creed” is a distillation of the longer Nicene Creed that by some accounts emerged from the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. So, the following reflections by F. Forrester Church about the Apostles’ Creed are just as relevant to the Nicene Creed:

“[Jesus] lived in such a way that his life proved to be worth dying for. And yet, from the Apostles’ Creed, embraced as doctrine throughout much of Christendom, one would have little way of knowing this. Here is what the Apostles’ Creed has to say concerning Jesus:

“I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried, descended to hell, on the third day rose again from the dead, ascended to heaven, sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, whence he will come to judge the living and the dead.

“What does this creed affirm about Jesus’ life and teachings? Not one thing. It states merely that he was born in an unusual way and died in an unusual way, telling us nothing about the fact that Jesus lived in an unusual way. This is what is important about Jesus. Not that he existed before he was born; was implanted in a virgin’s womb; visited hell after he died; and then returned to be resurrected and reign in heaven. These are dogmatic propositions of faith. They can be confirmed by faith alone, and a mighty leap of faith at that, for they stand in direct contradiction to nature’s laws.

“One question often asked of Unitarian Universalists is, Are you Christian? Our faith does have Christian roots, many of us gather in churches (others prefer the terms congregation, society, or fellowship), and some of our members call themselves Christians. But whatever we call ourselves (Christian, Jew, theist, agnostic, humanist, atheist), most of us would agree that the important thing about Jesus is not his supposed miraculous birth or the claim that he was resurrected from death, but rather how he lived. The power of his love, the penetrating simplicity of his teachings, and the force of his example of service on behalf of the disenfranchised and downtrodden are what is crucial. The Apostles’ Creed and other statements of dogmatic theology entirely miss this point. They seem to suggest ‘if you believe in Jesus, you can live forever,’ not, ‘if you believe as Jesus, you can live well.’”--Buehrens, John A., and Church, F. Forrester, Our Chosen Faith: An Introduction to Unitarian Universalism, Boston: Beacon Press, 1989, pp. 6-7.

06/13/2026

This Sunday, we will hear a program titled Before Bethlehem: Ancient Stories of Birth, Death, and Divine Humanity. We will explore several different mythologies spanning from Ancient Mesopotamia to the Iron Age Middle East. Join us on Sunday for some really old stories.

06/03/2026