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July News Letter |
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from page 1: ETHICS Eight Commitments of Ethical Culture Ethics is central. The most central human issue in our lives involves creating a more humane environment. Ethics begins with choice. Creating a more humane environment begins by affirming the need to make significant choices in our lives. We choose to treat each other as ends, not merely means. To enable us to be whole in a fragmented world, we choose to treat each other as unique individuals having intrinsic worth. We seek to act with integrity. Treating one another as ends requires that we learn to act with integrity. This includes keeping commitments and being more open, honest, caring, and responsive.
We are committed to educate ourselves. Personal progress is possible, both in wisdom and social life. Learning how to build ethical relationships and cultivate a humane community is a lifelong endeavor. Self-reflection and our social nature require us to shape a more humane world. Growth of the human spirit is rooted in self-reflection, but can only come to full flower in community. This is because people are social beings, needing both primary relationships and larger supportive groups to become fully human. Our social nature requires that we reach beyond ourselves to decrease suffering and increase creativity in the world. Democratic process is essential to our task. The democratic process is essential to a humane social order because respect for the worth of persons requires a process which elicits and allows a greater expression of human capacities. Life itself inspires "religious" response. Although awareness of impending death intensifies the human quest for meaning, the mystery of life itself, and the need to belong, are the primary factors motivating human "religious" response. These ideas come from the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture
Betty Golding (arrives to much fanfare) 07/04 Durren Anderson 07/06 Paul Blakely (always willing to share) 07/19 Donna McCann 07/19
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Interested in how we stand financially? State of the Budget as of 6-3-04 per Jay Noble and Helen Ausman: With one month to go in the fiscal year our income to date is $14,037 and the expenses to date have been $12,325. Last year the proposed budget amounted to $13,500. The budget proposed for the coming fiscal year is $15,500. Do the math!
President’s Response To Nomination Frank Herbert I did not hesitate when asked by the Nominating Committee to accept the position of Board President and, as the members attending the annual Congregational meeting voted to approve the recommendations, my year-long service was set. To members and friends, I thank you for your trust and support. I feel that my time has come to serve the needs of our small bureaucracy and I promise to do my best. I offer sincere thanks to those who were willing and able to do this work before me, especially Sherry Kirkus who has now completed two consecutive terms during a time when our fellowship embraced the challenge and achieved the goal of becoming an official UUA Welcoming Congregation. I can remember an anxious evening of late 1999 engaged in an extended conversation with my friend Durren Anderson about oppressive and damaging religious influences within our community. As we shook hands in the yellow porch light, he suggested that I read some of the writers of the "Religious Left". He specifically mentioned Bishop Shelby Spong and Robert Funk of the Jesus Seminar. I didn’t get his meaning at first. Liberal and Christian were words that I had not connected since my Catholic high school days, where we impressionable novices were warned about the radical activist, Father Daniel Berrigan, risking excommunication with challenges to policies of the Church and government. Durren offhandedly suggested that I might try the Unitarian church in Longview to meet people who had views different from the gospel of talk radio. I was vaguely aware of this place. Friends at work had told me about it |
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