This will be my last Outlook article serving as your settled minister as I will retire at the end of June. And I hope this will not be the last time I’ll be writing for Windows.  It likely will be for a while until a new minister is settled and established in this congregation.  The Unitarian Universalist Association has strong recommendations for ministers and congregations when they separate from each other, even if it is a friendly parting, such as my retirement.  Any newly settled minister will need to be the one offering support and guidance for our congregation, not me.&nb ..read more

The CROP Hunger Walk is scheduled for Sunday, May 7 and is a great way to experience community spirit and camaraderie while raising funds for this important cause. But you can walk at any time in May, by yourself or with your family or small group. Or you can just contribute virtually to Team UU. You can join Team UU at www.crophungerwalk.org/albanyny and donate to the team or set up your own page and use the easy tools on the site to invite friends and family to donate. Team Captain Dawn Dana will be on-hand on May 7th in Channing Halll. Anyone registered for Team UU can sign up for a Walk D ..read more

As of April 30th masks are no longer required at service or in groups for children and youth on Sunday mornings. People who prefer to continue to wear a mask are encouraged to do so, and seating for people who wish to sit in a section with other masked attendees is available in the balcony and in Community Hall. Look near the eastern sides of those locations for signs indicating seating reserved for masked attendees. You are of course welcome to sit anywhere with your mask on; these spaces are simply intended to provide an option for mask-wearing folks who feel more comfortable ..read more

Authorize the Board of Trustees to Engage an Interim Minister We hope you will make it a priority to attend this meeting and vote so we can move forward with the process of engaging an Interim Minister to serve the congregation for the next two years. Updates on the Interim Minister Search process will be provided on a regular basis to the Congregation by the Interim Search Committee.  The Board of Trustees has voted to call an emergency congregational meeting for a vote to authorize the Board of Trustees to engage an Interim Minister. This is not an authorization to hire an Int ..read more

Minister’s Outlook 3/2/23 When I was a child, I had a sense of invulnerability. I remember seeing how fast I could ride my bike down a hill without worrying about what would happen if I hit a rock and was thrown over the handle bars. I set fires in our milk box. I didn’t wear suntan lotion to protect me from getting skin cancer someday. I ate lots of sweets not worrying about what that might do to my digestive system or my teeth. I imagined I had a cast iron stomach. I did eventually grow up and discover that my digestive system was quite sensitive to a lot of foods. It took years of intestina ..read more

“Most of us have two lives: the life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands resistance.” – Steven Pressfield To resist is human nature. I have an exercise routine I’ve developed over the last 25 years. It started with a set of them I found in the book The Life We are Given by George Leonard and Michael Murphy. I was looking for a basic set of exercises that would keep me limber and my muscles toned for daily living. I wanted a routine I could do for the rest of my life. Over time, I’ve added a lot of repetitions to some of them and added a few more exercises for m ..read more

Back in 2001, sociologist Paul H. Ray and psychologist Sherry Ruth Anderson wrote a book titled The Cultural Creatives: how 50 Million People are Changing the World.  They described a new class of people working in emerging creative fields who were also socially evolving along with their creative expression.  That trend continues to grow across the world as more and more people find themselves freed from mind numbing repetitive work and are driven by the desire and opportunity to become content creators. The digital media world pervades our lives.  It has created many channels a ..read more

Access to Wonder It happened to every single one of us alive today.  We were born into this world and survived.  In a way, the universal nature of that experience makes it ordinary.  Yet the experience of giving birth is anything but ordinary.  For many of us it is full of wonder. I remember our... Read more » The post Sam’s Outlook appeared first on Albany Unitarian Universalist ..read more

Anicca Anicca is a foundational principle of all forms of Buddhism.  It asserts, claims and teaches that everything changes, and nothing stays the same.  Another expression used for anicca is “the truth of impermanence.” On one level, this may seem intuitively obvious.  Everyone knows about impermanence.  We encounter it every day when the sun comes... Read more » The post Sam’s Outlook appeared first on Albany Unitarian Universalist ..read more

Sam’s Outlook Sisu The term, sisu, the second wind of mental toughness, comes from Finland: To the Finnish people, sisu has a mystical, almost magical meaning. Sisu is a unique Finnish concept. It is a Finnish term that can be roughly translated into English as strength of will, determination, perseverance, and acting rationally in the... Read more » The post Sam’s Outlook appeared first on Albany Unitarian Universalist ..read more