The life of a congregation is a rich community tapestry of people, programs, ministries and worship. We lift up the patterns of this tapestry at Unity Church with the threads of monthly themes woven through our worship and programming. These themes deepen our understanding of our own faith and strengthen our bonds with one another in religious community. In each new church year, following a three-year cycle, the monthly themes run from September through the following June. We explore each theme in worship and in our newsletter; in covenant groups, guided writing sessions and Wednesday evening programming; and in our community outreach ministries, our literary journal and programs, and many other opportunities.

2011-2012

March: Suffering
Newsletter Reflection (pdf) -- Jim Foti, Ministerial Intern
BOOKS
Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy, by Donald Kraybill, Steven Nolt and David Weaver-Zercher, tells the story of a community in Pennsylvania that turned from suffering to forgiveness after five schoolgirls were killed in 2006.
Proverbs of Ashes, by Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Parker, questions how Christianity has viewed the suffering of Jesus and argues that traditional interpretations of the crucifixion sanction violence.
MOVIES
Triumph of the Spirit, a 1989 feature based on a true story, is about a boxer who was forced to entertain the Nazis at the Auschwitz death camp. Willem Dafoe stars.
Do the Right Thing, Spike Lee’s 1989 comedy/drama, is a story of long-simmering racial tension and violence in Brooklyn.
FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
The Juice Box Bully, by Bob Sornson and Maria Dismondy, is about kids who take a stand against bullying.
The Lemonade Club, by Patricia Polacco, tells the story of a student and teacher who both have cancer.
Number the Stars, by Lois Lowry, is about a young Jewish girl in World War II who is taken in by her best friend’s family in Denmark.
Esperanza Rising, by Pam Muñoz Ryan, looks at immigration and poverty during the Depression through the eyes of a 13-year-old girl.

February: God
Newsletter Reflection (pdf) -- Rachel Lonberg, Hallman Ministerial Intern
BOOKS
Old Turtle by Douglas Wood is a children’s book in which animals, rocks, water, and trees argue about the nature of God.
For Lovers of God Everywhere: Poems of the Christian Mystics edited by Roger Housden is a collection of poems from the Christian mystical tradition, spanning the Eastern and Western church and ancient and contemporary sources.
I and Thou by Martin Buber lays out a framework for deep and meaningful relationship between people and between people and God deeply rooted in the Talmudic tradition. The epilogue is especially recommended.
MUSIC
A Love Supreme, by John Coltrane, is an album-long, beautiful, complex hymn of praise.
MOVIES
Oh God!, a 1977 movie in which God appears to an assistant grocery store manager and asks him to spread a message. Hilarity ensues.

January: Authority
Newsletter Reflection (pdf) -- Compiled by Jim Foti, Ministerial Intern
BOOKS
Who Owns History? by Eric Foner, is a collection of essays that take a critical look at how history gets recorded.
Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, is a young adult science fiction novel in which the government holds a survival contest among teenagers.
Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler, is set in a violent and anarchic future, and the 18-year-old protagonist dreams of a better world.
MOVIES
Stranger Than Fiction, a 2006 feature in which the main character of the film discovers he’s the main character in a novel that’s still being written.
As It Is in Heaven, a 2004 Swedish film in which a man finds a new beginning in the hometown where he was bullied.
ONLINE
The Cambridge Platform, written in 1648 by the Puritan forebears of American Unitarians. http://www.americanphilosophy.net/cambridge_platform.htm
Sermon Transcripts
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December: Waiting
Newsletter Reflection (pdf) -- Karen Hering, Consulting Literary Minister
BOOKS
Reaching Out, by Henri Nouwen, a perceptive exploration of befriending emptiness as a practice of the spiritual life.
Room, by Emma Donoghue, a potent and darkly beautiful novel narrated by a five-year-old child raised captive in a single room with his mother.
Movies
Field of Dreams, the 1989 feature film about an Iowa farmer who builds a baseball diamond in his fields and waits for the Chicago Black Sox to come and play in it.
Story On-line
Thomas Potter and John Murray: http://www.murraygrove.org/pottermurray.html The historical account of 18th-century farmer Thomas Potter, who faithfully waited 10 years for a minister who would preach universalism in the chapel he built in New Jersey.
Sermon Transcripts
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November: Grace
Newsletter Reflection (pdf) - Karen Hering, Consulting Literary Minister
Books
Elizabeth and Hazel, by David Margolick, exploring the power and challenges of grace. A compelling account of the complex and still unfolding relationship between Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine, and Hazel Bryan, a white student in Little Rock's Central High, whose images in a 1957 news photo came to represent the hatred and pain of that historic integration.
The Grace of Silence, by Michelle Norris, a memoir exploring Norris' own family stories to ask the question, "What's been more corrosive to the dialogue on race in America over the last half century or so -- things said or unsaid?"
Movies
Babette's Feast, short story by Isak Dinesen and 1987 movie in which a mysterious Frenchwoman prepares a sumptuous feast for a gathering of religious ascetics, introducing them to the true essence of grace.
Amazing Grace, a musical and historical PBS documentary by Bill Moyers about the writing and longstanding influence of the song "Amazing Grace."
Glory, a 1989 feature film about the Civil War's first company of black soldiers serving in the federal army.
Sermon Transcripts
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October: Reverence
Newsletter Reflection (pdf) - Karen Hering, Consulting Literary Minister
Books
Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue, by Paul Woodruff, a humanist's thoughtful reflection on the virtue of reverence and its role in ancient Greece and China as well as our society today. 
A Timbered Choir, by Wendell Berry, a collection of deeply reverent poems from Berry's Sunday morning practice of walking meditation.
Albert Schweitzer's writings, translated and collected in numerous books and anthologies.
The Color Purple, Alice Walker
A Language of Reverence edited by Dean Grodzins - essays by Unitarian Universalists
An Altar in the World Barbara Brown Taylor
Gilead by Marilyn Robinson
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, A page-turner with an ancient Jewish text as the centerpiece of centuries of personal drama.
A House for Hope: The Promise of Progressive Religion for the Twenty-First Century by John A. Buehrens and Rebecca Parker
Red Passion and Patience in the Desert by Terry Tempest Williams
Movies
The National Parks: America's Best Idea, a Ken Burns' documentary.
Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Werner Herzog's film shot inside the Chauvet caves of Southern France, capturing the oldest known pictorial creations of humankind. 
Sermon Transcripts
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September: Hospitality
Newsletter Reflection (pdf) - Karen Hering, Consulting Literary Minister
Books
Reaching Out, by Henri Nouwen, an insightful exploration of hospitality as a spiritual practice
Radical Hospitality, by Lonni Collins Pratt and Daniel Homan, stories and wisdom culled from the discipline of hospitality at the root of Benedictine life.
The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, by David McCullough, a sweeping historical account of the many 19th century American intellectuals and artists who made their home in Paris.
Sermon Transcripts
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2010-2011
May: Peace
Newsletter Reflection (pdf)
Books
Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh, a collection of talks by the poet and Zen master delivered to American peace activists and students of meditation about the importance of being peace in order to make peace.
Bone to Pick by Ellis Cose, a thoughtful and global exploration by a Newsweek contributing editor of the broad spectrum of possible responses to personal violence and national tragedy.
Let Me Stand Alone by Rachel Corrie, the journal writings, poetry and drawings of a 23-year-old American killed in 2003 by a bulldozer while trying to block the demolition of a Palestinian family's home in the Gaza Strip.
FILM
Amazing Grace and Chuck is a family movie about a little league pitcher from Montana who takes a stand against nuclear weapons and war.
Star Wars, any in the series...
Sermon Transcripts
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April: Freedom
Newsletter Reflection (pdf)
Books
The Open Space of Democracy, by Terry Tempest Williams
Whose Freedom?, by George Lakoff
The American Creed, by Forrest Church
FilmThe Shawshank Redemption (1994) Two imprisoned men bond over a number of years, finding solace and eventual freedom through acts of common decency.
Sermon Transcripts
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March: Surrender
Newsletter Reflection (pdf)
Books
Learning to Fall: the blessings of an imperfect life, by Philip Simmons, essays by a gifted Unitarian Universalist writer, reflecting on his search for peace and wisdom while living with ALS for ten years before dying in 2002.
Reaching Out: the three movements of the spiritual life, by Henri Nouwen, a thoughtful discussion of the movement from loneliness to solitude, from hostility to hospitality and from illusion to prayer.
Peace Like a River, by Leif Enger, a story of family, faith and spirit set in Minnesota and exploring the surrender of the human heart.
Sermon Transcripts
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February: Paradise
Newsletter Reflection (pdf)
Books
Saving Paradise, by Rebecca Parker and Rita Nakashima Brock
Utopia, by Sir Thomas Moore
Island, by Aldous Huxley
Film
It’s a Wonderful Life(1946) An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would have been like if he never existed.
Enchanted April (1992) Two married women living in 1920's London share the misery of empty relationships with their spouses and decide to rent an Italian castle for the spring to get away.
Sermon Transcripts
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January: Justice
Newsletter Reflection (pdf)
Books
2048: Humanity's Agreement to Live Together, by J. Kirk Boyd, a visionary proposal for an enforceable international agreement protecting human rights.
Love, Power and Justice, by Paul Tillich, a theological analysis of the unity of love, power and justice.
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Sermon Transcripts
Listen to Sermon PodcastsDecember: Wonder
Newsletter Reflection (pdf)
Books
Deep Play, a meditation on the human capacity for physical and spiritual play -- and the sense of wonder found in our deep forms of play, by Diane Ackerman
Ecstatic Poems by Kabir, translated by Robert Bly
Small Wonder, essays by Barbara Kingsolver
Teaching a Stone to Talk, by Annie Dillard
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind -- Shunryu Suzuki
Beauty, by John O'Donohue
Each Moment You're Alive Is a Gem, by Thich Nhat Hanh
Sermon Transcripts
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November: Covenant
Newsletter Reflection (pdf)
Books
The Essential James Luther Adams, selected essays of Unitarian theologian James Luther Adams,
edited by George Kimmich Beach
A House for Hope, The Promise of Progressive Religion for the 21st Century, by John Buehrens and Rebecca Parker
Sermon Transcripts
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October: Longing
Newsletter Reflection (pdf)
Books
Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
Wanting Enlightenment Is a Big Mistake: the Teachings of Zen Master Seung San
Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier
Films
The Singing Revolution (2006) A single nation. A million voices. The fall of an empire.
The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980) A comic allegory about a traveling Bushman who encounters modern civilization and its stranger aspects.
The Secret of Roan Inish (1994) Between land and sea there is a place where myths are real.
Sermon Transcripts
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September: Faith
Newsletter Reflection (pdf)
Books
Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience, by Sharon Salzberg (Riverhead, 2002)
Faith and Belief, by Wilfred Cantwell Smith (Princeton Press, 1987)
A Chosen Faith, by John A. Buehrens and Forrest Church (Beacon, 1998)
The Sacred Depths of Nature, by Ursula Goodenough (Oxford, 1998)
The Courage to Be, by Paul Tillich (Yale, 1952; 2nd edition, 2000)
Sermon Transcripts
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