Gallimaufry 201109 - UU Church of Brevard

The Gallimaufry
September 2011
The Newsletter of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Brevard
2185 Meadowlane Avenue, West Melbourne, Florida 32904 (321) 220-3472
Visit us on the web at http://www.UUBrevard.org
In This Issue
1.
2.
3.
Editorial: Rev. Dr. Gregory Wilson
Rev. Wilson Continued,
Rev. Wilson Continued, Rev. Ann’s Sermons,
Book Recommendation and Tenth Anniversary
Memorial Announcement
4.
Notes from Music Director, Helen Wilson John
Taylor Memorial Announcement, Second
Thursday “Telling Your Story” and Third
Sunday’s Social Action Collection Direction
5.
Trustee Tidbits and UUCB Forum
6.
UUCB Book Club, Compassion Communication
Practice Group notice, Dan’s Editorial, First
Friday Lunch and September Birthdays
7.
UUCB and BethEl Calendar of events
8.
Credits, Hospitality Schedule, Forum,
Activities and Sermons/speakers
From the Minister
You Have no Legal Standing
As Unitarian Universalist we have for the most part
identified cutting edges of social and economic justice
and began to address not only the issues of the time
but also identified the social structures that produced
the injustices in our society. From Free speech,
freedom of conscious, and freedom of assembly in the
mid 1500's to the freeing of the slaves to civil rights
in the 1960's to anti homosexual and anti women
energies of our day. And today confronting the power
of transnational Corporations. To say the least we are
progressive.
in other words the progressive movement is a reaction
to events already in motion. And the economic
system and legal structure that produced the actions
that progressives are responding to are already in
place, solidified and functioning. Those who hold the
wealth structured government to meet their needs,
regardless of what that meant to people or the
environment.
The law was structured and we
progressives had to contend with the law as we
fought/fight for economic and social justice as well as
for a democracy. We have been a voice of and for
local groups, villages, towns, cities and national
efforts joined by many groups. However we fight a
rigged system.
“ Chris Mills, Nottingham resident: At every planning
board meeting, I was fully assured that the
government would be there to protect us, that it would
take notice of the will of the people of the town who
did not want a water bottling plant. Yet at these same
meetings, every permit asked for was granted and the
c o m m u n i t y ’s w i l l w a s i g n o r e d . ” ( h t t p : / /
www.celdf.org/article.php?id=613)
The local
government reported there was nothing they could do,
and local groups realized that under the present legal
system, after 7 years of defending the local
community from poisons being released in their water
and food supply, they “had no legal standing”.
Having no legal standing to protect one's community
and family against incoming agents is to be subject to
tyranny. We can learn from and be helped by Alvaro
Vargas Llosa. In his work, Liberty for Latin America
Llosa has demonstrated that the system of political,
social, and economic organization in Latin America
for 500 years was dominated by 5 economic trends;
“corporatism, state mercantilism, privilege, wealth
transfer, and political law”. As long as these five
principles structured social, economic, and political
organization, a small minority forming a ruling class
Being progressive has always included supporting an
economic balance of wealth in our nation, bringing
government to bear upon social and economic
inequality. Progressives have always played on the
ball field of the industrialist and corrupt governments;
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Gallimaufry September, 2011
would subjugate the rest of society. It does not matter
whether the type of government is socialist,
communist, capitalistic, Republican, or Feudal; if
these five principles structure social, economic, and
political life of a society, a minority ruling class will
always emerge. What Llosa identifies is that each
society is structured and contained by laws created by
an established order and those laws will favor that
established order. Whether his diagnosis is on the
mark, partially correct or not, his point is taken: the
legal container is the issue of all true reforms. You
can change the content, that which is inside the
container; however the essentials, the rudimentary
structure of the container will always come to the fore
given enough time.
The workers of the over 40,000 factories that have
closed and moved over the last 10 years had “ no
legal standing ” to challenge the restructuring of their
community.
And their government, rather than
protect the population they exist to represent actually
facilitated the ending of their way of life. The law,
established through the political system, privileged
a small group of citizens through a form and method
of commerce; corporations to transfer wealth from
a local community to those privileged few who live
far away where the water is clean. Sounds like
Llosa's description of Latin America for the past 500
years.
What was lost as these 1,000,000+ citizens (this
includes the workers, their partners, their children,
and the owner of the ice cream shop they use to visit
as a family) had their lives altered against their will,
with the blessing of their government because
they had no legal standing? We can hear the sound
of jobs, jobs, jobs being spoken by politicians, the
noise of words on the radio and T.V. .... 2.5 million
manufacturing jobs lost, 18% more children in
poverty in the last 10 years, 43 million people living
in poverty, 50 million people living without adequate
health care, and I ask, "What was/is being lost as
community after community discovers they have no
legal standing to defend the environment or work life
in which they live?"
I can remember playing little league baseball, and as
the game went on fathers in their work clothes would
join the mothers already there to watch their sons play
ball while smaller children played behind the
bleachers. And the sons would watch their fathers. I
can remember evenings of walking around the ball
field and see a father working with his son to improve
his game. This experience is lost 1,000's of times.
What does this do to a society, this absence of a way
of life? When a family goes fishing in the fresh lakes
of the northeast, or Florida, and the parents know all
the fish they catch contain mercury? I can remember
my father asking me, “ did I ever teach you how to
clean a fish?”-- a rite of passage. Now as I fish with
my son this rite of passage is toxic. And I am told I
can do nothing because I have no legal standing, to
demand that the coal burning plants use the
technology available to burn cleaner. I am told I have
no legal standing to stop Georgia-Pacific paper mill
in Palatka FL from building a discharge pipe into the
St. Johns River to pump 25,000,000 gallons of deadly
dioxin-containing waste per day directly into the
river.
Having a place to stand seems to me to be an
important feature in a life. If you have no place to
stand in a world designed to gave you no place to
stand, then life is full of anxiety, depression, and
desperation, because you are struggling to stand
where there is no place for you to stand. That part is
really quite simple. I am reminded of a line from T.S.
Eliot's, The Waste Land,
“If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand not lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain.”
And to introduce another character, it also appears
that as corporations function (not live) with civil
liberties, there are more places for them to stand.
Depending how the upcoming City Council meeting
goes on Monday the 22nd, 2011 at 7:30PM, at the
Aurora Municipal Center located at 15151 East
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Gallimaufry September, 2011
Alameda Parkway, Aurora, CO 80012, a corporation
will be able to stand in the voting booth. Increasing
places for corporations to stand (including the most
powerful transnational corporations, U.S. based, yet
hiring people in foreign lands and laying-off people in
the U.S.) means fewer places for humans. What does
it mean that intensifying the dynamic of “no place to
stand increasing the human experience in which life is
full of anxiety, depression, and desperation?” What
might this intensifying process of more people joining
the ranks of the “no place to stand” class mean for a
society?
An option for the progressives of this day is to work
to decentralize the legal system. Changing the nature
of the container as described by Llosa, is the only way
to change. Removing the status of person from
corporations needs to be done, pronto. However the
removal of person status with civil rights may not
change the container.
I do not believe it will.
Therefore we need to get more ammunition. I suggest
we look in the direction of the movement “Rights of
Nature”. The Rights of Nature movement is sound
and alive. RON as a law decentralizes and and shifts
us toward a less human centered way of being in this
world. If corporations can be grated rights
why not nature, from which life emerges.
- Rev. Dr. Gregory Wilson
About the Author: Douglas Peary
was born into a loving Christian farm
family in Maine in 1942.
He
discovered philosopher Bertrand
Russell, the Unitarian Universalist
Association (UU) and met his late
wife Joyce in 1972.
He studied
philosophy, psychology and Ministry
and developed a humanistic view of
the world based on reason and nature rather than faith
in teachings of primitive men. Douglas was ordained
in 1980. Douglas and Joyce had two children, Brett
and Brita, whom they raised as UU Humanists at the
Manchester, Connecticut UU
Society.
Each of the 17 chapters of this book is an introduction
to the life and beliefs of a great scientist, philosopher,
poet or thinker. They run from Voltaire, Thomas
Paine and Robert Ingersoll, to Walt Whitman, Isaac
Asimov and Carl Sagan. These thinkers expound on
their views of the natural world and on what we can
hope and believe based on the scientific method and
discoveries. They fill us with overwhelming sense of
wonder and awe by what they teach about how to
view our wonderful world. They teach us to thrill to
evolving life and to be at peace with ourselves despite
the limits of our lives.
- Rev. Ann Fuller
Rev. Fuller's Sermons:
Second Sunday, September 11, 2011
Title: “Reclaiming our Foundations”
If anyone would like to schedule some private time to
speak with Rev. Fuller after our monthly birthday
celebration and hospitality time, please contact her at
either 321-255-9086 or [email protected].
Rev. Fuller’s Book Recommendation
“Humanist Heroes”
Other Events Elsewhere Second Sunday:
Tenth Anniversary Memorial Service
AT:
4:00 p.m. on Sunday, September 11
LOCATION:
Friendship Fellowship
3115 Friendship Place
Rockledge, FL
by Rev. Douglas Kenneth Peary
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Gallimaufry September, 2011
A few Notes from
the Music Director
NOTICE
Music for Labor Day and Beyond
The first Sunday in September falls on Labor Day
weekend, and we will be singing 2 songs in honor of
the Labor movement, without which we would not
have holidays of any kind. The first is "Joe Hill,"
which the choir will sing, with a solo by John Seebe.
Joe Hill was a Wobbly (member of the Industrial
Workers of the World), and wrote many popular labor
songs that are still sung at rallies today. Some of the
best known are "The Preacher and the Slave" ("You
will eat bye and bye...You'll get pie in the sky when
you die"), "The Tramp," and "Rebel Girl." In 1914, at
the age of 34, Hill was convicted of a murder for
which he had almost certainly been framed. People
around the world, including President Woodrow
Wilson, Hellen Keller, pleaded for clemency, but Hill
was executed by firing squad in 1915. The song we
will sing pays tribute to the staying power of his
principles and his music. Famous versions have been
sung by Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, and Paul Robeson.
We will close the service by singing together
"Solidarity Forever," one of the best known union
songs. Ralph Chaplin, also a Wobbly, wrote it in 1915
during a coal miners' strike in West Virginia, and a
hunger strike in Chicago. Over the years verses have
been dropped and others added, and we'll be singing
some old and new ones. I hope you enjoy our musical
tributes to the history and meaning of Labor Day.
A Celebration
of the life of
J o h n Ta y l o r
will be held on
Sunday, September 18th at UUCB at 1:00
p.m. This will be followed by a bountiful
buffet that John would have enjoyed.
Light refreshments will be provided following
the service, rather than the shared lunch that
would normally be present on the third
Sunday.
If you have any questions about what you can
contribute to the buffet, please contact Betty
Robbins at 727-1055.
Second Thursday - September 8, 2011
Meeting from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.
We often meet and greet each other after Sunday
services and want a more intimate setting to get to
know our fellow U-Us better. There is a group
meeting once a month, that gives participants the
opportunity to tell their stories. This free-flowing
interchange of ideas allows us to expand beyond our
own horizons. It gives us each a chance to honor our
own stories and resolve issues or challenges in our
current life.
Join us on the 2nd Thursday. I hope to see you there.
The songs mentioned here can all be heard on
YouTube. If you search for "Rebel Girl by Joe Hill"
the first video listed includes pictures and quotes of
many women active in the labor movement over the
past 100+ years.
Yours for Making a Joyful Noise,
Helen Wilson
Director of Music
Sally Ferguson
Third Sunday’s Social Action Collection.
Every month, we have a Social Action collection on
the third Sunday of the month. September 18th
collection will go to Take Stock in Children
Joy to the good people of the Unitarian Universalists!
-- Kathy Lees
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Gallimaufry September, 2011
throughout history, Armstrong believes in many ways
compassion is alien to our modern way of life.
UUA TRUSTEE TIDBITS
Last month I committed to writing Trustee columns
through next spring about topics related to Justice
GA, September 2012 in Phoenix. Unfortunately I
don’t have any additional specific information about
this historic GA yet, but am compelled to write about
the connection between our UUA Second Principle
(Justice, equity and compassion in human relations)
and our UUA faith community’s commitment to help
bring to the world tolerance and social justice. Our
work next year at GA will be all about justice and
much about compassion.
Karen Armstrong’s, the Ware Lecturer at this year’s
GA and author of many books on religion including
Twelve Steps To a Compassionate Life, message
centered upon the Golden Rule, which requires we
use empathy to put ourselves in the shoes of others
and act toward other humans as we would want them
to act toward us. In 2008 Armstrong was awarded the
Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) prize.
TED is a nonprofit organization best known for
excellent conferences on “ideas worth spreading”.
With the prize money she established the Charter for
Compassion which is inspiring compassionate
actions, by building partnership networks with
organizations around the world.
In her words, “The principle of compassion lies at the
heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions,
calling us always to treat others as we wish to be
treated”. Compassion can be defined as an attitude of
principled, consistent altruism. She believes
compassion is intrinsic in all human beings and we
need to work to cultivate and expand our capacity for
compassion. According to Armstrong compassion
impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering
of our fellow creatures, take ourselves out of being
the center of our world, and put another there, and to
honor every human being with equity, justice and
respect. She believes each one of us must look into
our own hearts, discover what gives us pain, and then
refuse to inflict that pain on anybody else.
Although compassion may be recognized and
admired by all of us and has resonated with humans
It is important that as many UUs as possible attend
GA 2012 where there will be many events, activities,
and ways to bear witness to social justice both in
Arizona and in our home community congregations.
If ever you determined you want to go to a General
Assembly, this is the one. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if
there are more Florida UUs percentage-wise at GA
than any other district? We can do it! Call or write
with your thoughts, ideas, and concerns. I look
forward to hearing from you.
- Joan Lund [email protected]
or 813-931-9727
UUCB FORUM 2011 – 2012
Please join us on September 4th with an introductory
forum for 2011-2012 as we begin our new UUCB
forum year. We will start the Forum promptly at 10
AM and end at 10:45 AM in the large room behind
the kitchen.
We are planning to have a speaker or a subject for
group discussion on all but the last Sunday of each
month. As in the past, we will continue the “Bring
Your Own Topic” series on the last Sunday each
month.
In August, we asked that you share your interests
with us. Based on your response, we will do basic
research on your subject, share it with our group, and
start a conversation which should lead to more lively
discussion.
We again encourage you to email us, call us, talk to
us on Sunday mornings as we want and need your
input.
Jane Arens and Rena Olyphant
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Gallimaufry September, 2011
The UUCB Book Club
many ways improvement of our country over the past
5 years since Sheila and I traveled out west to wed.
If you are curious about the book selected for our next
group meeting on Thursday, September 15th, please
contact Max Salinas. Hopefully you'll have a chance
to read it before our meeting at 6:30 p.m.
Max - Maximo H Salinas, PhD
[email protected]
The Compassionate Communication
Practice Group
If improved relationships with family, friends and coworkers sounds great to you, the Compassionate
Communication Practice Group is for you. The group
will meet on Thursday evenings starting September
6th from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. The meetings will be
held in the RE/Forum multi-purpose room of the
church. The group is facilitated by David Warren,
Ph.D. and is based on the work of Marshall
Rosenberg, Ph.D.- the founder of Nonviolent
Communication. No prior experience is necessary.
Come and join us for fun and learning. Cost: Love
Offering
For further information, please call David Warren at
321-215-1646 or email: [email protected].
As we drove by a canyon ridge at the edge of wheat
fields in Washington and Wyoming, wind generators
or windmills were spinning out renewable energy to
drive our country and sustain our resources. To give
you an idea of the vast size of these generators, I
recount the following observation. Several semitrucks with long trailers were each transporting only
one of the three massive blades or vanes for the
generators measuring from the cab out beyond the
back of the trailer by 20 feet or more. The size of the
propeller of these generators is very overwhelming! It
is humbling to stand at the base of a tower and look
up into the sky above to see these towering pillars of
power in action. I was very surprised at the size of
these monoliths! I understand why we don’t see them
in Florida. Can you imagine the damages if one of
those props coming off during a bad hurricane!
Yikes!
I really appreciate the great job on the summer
Gallimaufry by Rev. Ann Fuller. You may have
noticed a slight format change as she produced the
Gallimaufry while we were on vacation! I hope Ann
will be available again next year to fill in on the
summer Gallimaufry! We plan to return to the Great
North-West next summer too!
Dan Stone [email protected]
First Friday Lunch!
Editorial by Dan Stone: Our Summer Vacation
We had a very enjoyable trip overland and across
country very nearly from coast to coast. It isn’t so
much the number of states we visited or the people we
love in those states, as the extremely powerful feeling
of awe and beauty one gets while experiencing first
hand this vastly wonder-filled country. There were
many times while driving I found my eyes tearing up
from the splendor of seeing the beauty, change and in
Our next lunch on Friday, September 2nd at 1:00 p.m.
will Squid Lips Overwater Grill 1477 Pineapple Ave.
Do come and join us. We welcome new people.
- Betty Robbins (321) 727-1055
Local recognized UUCB Birthdays ⇓
Norma Taylor
Jim Dempsey
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9/1
9/5
Ed Warren
9/18
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25
10:00 AM Forum
11:00 AM Sermon: "Kind!
ness the Pathway to Spiri!
tual maturity" - Rev. Gre!
gory Wilson
10:00 AM Forum
11:00 AM Sermon: "Pas!
toral care: band aids or
transformation" - Rev.
1:00 PM John Taylor
Memorial Service
1:45 PM Shared Light
Snack following Memorial
26
19
18
Ed Warren’s Birthday
12
11
10:00 AM Forum
11:00 AM Sermon: "Re!
claiming our
Foundations" - Rev. Ann
Fuller
12:00 PM Social: Month's
Birthday Cake
5
4
10:00 AM Forum
11:00 AM Sermon: "Labor
Day: No body showed up
for the picknic, they were
all working." - Rev. Gre!
gory Wilson
Jim Dempsey’s Birthday
Labor Day
29
Monday
28
Sunday
UU Events
Beth El Events
US Holidays
Birthdays
September 2011
7:00 PM Beth El Board
Meeting
Tuesday
27
20
13
6
30
6:00 PM UUCB Board
Meeting
Wednesday
28
21
14
7
31
6
2
3
4
5
6
7
F
S
8
1
1
22
29
7:15 AM Rosh Hashanah
Starts: Day 1
11:30 AM Men's Group
Meeting:
4:45 PM Choir Wood!
winds - Helen Wilson
5:30 PM Choir everyone 7:30 PM Compassionate
Communication Practice
5:30 PM Choir everyone Helen Wilson
7:30 PM Compassionate
Communication Practice
11:30 AM Men's Group
Meeting:
4:45 PM Choir Wood!
winds - Helen Wilson
15
11:30 AM Men's Group
Meeting:
4:45 PM Choir Wood!
winds - Helen Wilson
5:30 PM Choir everyone Helen Wilson
6:30 PM UUCB Book Club:
7:30 PM Compassionate
Communication Practice
8
11:30 AM Men's Group
Meeting:
4:45 PM Choir Wood!
winds - Helen Wilson
5:30 PM Choir everyone Helen Wilson
6:30 PM Learning to tell
7:30 PM Compassionate
Communication Practice
11:30 AM Men's Group
Meeting:
4:45 PM Choir Wood!
winds - Helen Wilson
5:30 PM Choir everyone Helen Wilson
7:30 PM Compassionate
Communication Practice
Norma Taylor’s Birthday
Thursday
23
16
9
2
30
7:15 AM Rosh Hashanah:
Day 2
8:00 PM Beth El service
1:00 PM First Friday
Lunch: Betty Robbins:
321-727-1055
8:00 PM Beth El service
Friday
1
24
17
10
3
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9:30 AM Beth El service
9:30 AM Beth El service
Saturday
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October 2011
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September 2011
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Gallimaufry September, 2011
Gallimaufry September, 2011
 September Activities 
Editor: Dan Stone
(407) 267-8780
[email protected]
Friday,
The Gallimaufry is the newsletter of the Unitarian
Universalist Church of Brevard, published monthly
in hardcopy. You may receive your copy at no
charge by e-mail. We are located at:
Thursdays 11:30 a.m. UUCB Men’s Group
4:45 p.m. UUCB Woodwinds practice
5:30 p.m. Choir practice Anyone.
7:30 p.m. To 9:30 p.m. Compassionate
Communication Practice Group.
2185 Meadowlane Ave.
West Melbourne, Florida 32904
(321) 220-3472
Wednesday 14th 6:00 p.m. UUCB Board Meeting
Thursday 8th - 6:30 p.m. Learning to tell your story.
 Hospitality Schedule 
September 4th
September 11th
September 18th
September 25th
2st First Friday Lunch at 1:00 pm on
September 3rd will be at Squid Lips
overwater grill 1477 Pineapple Ave.
Thursday 15th 6:30 p.m. UUCB Book Club
Dan Stone Coffee/beverages
Kathy Lees (Birthday Cake)
Dan Stone (Mr Taylor’s Memorial)
John Seebe Coffee/beverages
If you enjoy coffee and would like to help serve the
church, plan to share your skills and join the
hospitality team! Dan Stone and the staff help you
enjoy social time with refreshments adding a valued
element to the Sunday service. Training will be
arranged to help you know where things are found
enabling you to share in the sense of service and
fellowship.
Sunday 18th 1:00 p.m. Memorial Service Light
Lunch - Potluck (Please bring a prepared dish
for 10 or more to follow)
Beth El Services:
Friday
2nd and 16th at 8:00 p.m.
Tuesday 6th at 7:00 p.m. Beth El Board Meeting
Saturdays 10th and 24th at 9:30 a.m.
 Sermons 
Services at 11:00 a.m. Sunday
September 4th “Labor Day: No body Showed Up
for the Picknic, they were all
working." Rev. Dr. Gregory Wilson
September 11th "Reclaiming our Foundations"
Rev. Ann Fuller
September 18th Sermon: "Pastoral care: band aids or
transformation"
Rev. Dr. Gregory Wilson
September
25th
"Kindness the Pathway to Spiritual
maturity" Rev. Dr. Gregory Wilson
 Forums 
10:00 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. Sunday
Forum presentations resume on Sunday September
4th. Come and experience enlightenment and the
quest for knowledge.
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