Reflection Archives: 2020
December 2020
December 13, 2020: “I Love the Dark Hours of My Being—A Meditation on Modified Joy”
Reflection by Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
Find the joy in the darkness. Find risk and candlelight. Find happiness and sorrow. Find mystery’s delight. This is the time of Advent, the time of anticipation and the time of waiting. We wait for the light in a time of shadow. Yet, in the darkness, it is possible to find peace and safety amid great danger. It is possible to let the good light in. Let’s give it a try. It’s almost Christmas. I can feel the magic growing.
Click here to view the service.
December 6, 2020: “The Best of My Heart”
Reflection by Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
Forgiveness can be the hardest thing. It can be the best thing too. It’s just so complicated sometimes. For all of its difficulties, forgiveness still offers the possibility of highest joy. Joy is hard to reach when sorrows are weighing us down. But how can we let them go in a healthy way?
November 2020
November 29, 2020: “Fall In Love”
Reflection by Rev. Gwen Goff
Fr. Pedro Arrupe says that what you are in love with will affect everything. It will decide “what will get you out of bed in the morning,…
what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.”
Mary Oliver says she’s fallen in love many times, sometimes with men, sometimes women, and sometimes with trees, or a piece of music, or clouds, or the sun. We all fall in love, repeatedly. My son has his “celebrity crush” and my spiritual director has her “heartthrob” and I am “a little bit in love.”
I’ve been thinking about who and what we fall in love with and why. What do we want from these fallings?
And why is falling in love really all about me? (in a good way!).
Click here to view the service.
Nov. 22, 2020: “Prelude to a Kiss”
Reflection by Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
Let’s go deeper now. Let’s go softer and more beautifully. Let us go more gently into these more darkening days…with lamplight enough to guide us and fire within to keep us warm. Let us reinvent this world in ways that are sustainable, in ways that are survivable, in ways that are lovingly courageous. The artists have done it. They’ve shown us the way. The children have done it. They’ve shown us at play…and now it is our turn. It is our turn to save the world. Thank God. Let’s go. We got this! All we have to do is figure out how.
Click here to view the service.
Nov. 15, 2020: “Practicing Gratitude”
Reflection by Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
This week in American life, things could not be more polarized. In some cases, they could not be more ridiculous. Before the election, there were those who were predicting a presidential landslide for the Right. At the same time, there were those who were predicting a presidential landslide for the Left. If little else right now, at least, we have that in common. But you know what, there’s so much more.
Click here to view the service.
Nov. 8, 2020: “Life in the Shoulder Season”
Reflection by Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
Different things are happening at once. It is warm this weekend but I shoveled snow a few days ago. I wrote a letter to an old friend of mine but I haven’t heard back from him yet. Election Day has come and gone but the outcome is in question. We are in the shoulder season…in more ways than one.
Russell Banks writes, “I was situated at that moment in the turning of the northern year, when the end of winter and the start of spring overlap like shingles on a roof and the natural world seems doubled in thickness and density.”
Life is like that sometimes. What are we going to do about it?
Click here to view the service.
Nov. 1, 2020: Cast Your Vote, Your Vow…
Reflection by Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
In this challenging time, with the presidency in the balance and so much turmoil everywhere we look, casting your vote is so important. It is a fundamental right in American society. To flourish, though, we can do much more. We can cast our vow. We can make a promise to ourselves and to one another as Americans, we can cast our vow for a better world and we can make it so. What do we need to do that? Who do we have to be?
September 13, 2020: “Good and True, Small and Mighty”
Reflection by Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
I felt such relief when Mary Oliver said that I didn’t have to be good. Her poem, “Wild Geese”, begins with these words:
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
I wanted to read more. She invited me. I wanted to read more about what I didn’t have to do and didn’t have to be and didn’t have to carry on my shoulders. I do too much of that sometimes. It is important for me to learn how to put some of that down. It’s different for different people. We all have our own experiences in life. Whoever we are, it’s just so good to share our experience in life with others, to learn just a little bit more about the promise that lies within.
September 6, 2020: “Willing to Try”
Reflection by Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
This Sunday’s reflection is about the minor course corrections and major breaking points that can shape our lives profoundly, no matter their size. Will we choose to make the relatively small changes that can make us somewhat uncomfortable or will we avoid them until we are forced to make big changes when we find ourselves at greater risk?
August 2020
August 30: “Reimagining Community” with Rev. Paul Sawyer, Rev. Leon Dunkley, and Rev. Jan Hutslar
Click HERE for the YouTube video of the Zoom Service of the All-Upper-Valley UU Worship on August 30, 2020
“Reimagining Community,” the annual joint service between UU Upper Valley churches and societies will be virtual this year. The Zoom service will be live at 10:00. It will also be recorded. The recording will be available soon after the service ends.
Join us on Zoom for a collaborative Sunday Service of the 5 Upper Valley UU Congregations (Hartland, Woodstock, Strafford, Barnard, Norwich). We traditionally gather in person this last Sunday before Labor Day together at the Barnard Church. We will instead be together via Zoom, reimagining what it means to be community in these times.
August 23, 2020: “What Made America Famous”
Reflection by Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
As we head into the presidential election season (perhaps, the most important election of our lives), it’s a good time to reflect on our cultural and our political assumptions. It’s a good time to inquire about our state of individualism. It’s a good time to invest in new, American possibilities. What made America famous throughout history has been a long tradition of democratic practice, moral courage and personal humility—from Susan B. Anthony to Harry Chapin, from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Kamala Harris and beyond. Yet, at present, the United States of America is not “famous” for these things. How might we recover these values again?
August 16, 2020: “Beauty”
Reflection by Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
This week Mary Jeanne Taylor will open the Service with a Welcome. And, Laura Foley will again offer a special Joys and Concerns message. Kate Braestrup, who was scheduled to offer the Reflection was called away on an emergency, and Leon stepped in to give the reflection on his Sunday off. He reflects on the question, “What measure of beauty do we find within ourselves?”
August 9, 2020: “Resilience”
Led by: Karen Ganey
Karen is the founder of Permaculture Solutions, LLC, an ecological landscape design company where she works to develop ecologically diverse and nutrient dense landscapes for humans and habitat. She has designed and installed gardens for families, schools, hospitals and communities alike. Karen has worked as an educator and community organizer, working on food security, climate change resiliency, regenerative design and permaculture and recently became the new Facilitator for Change the World Kids, a teen run non-profit focused on community service and environmental and social justice.
She also studied consciousness studies at Goddard College and at the Alef Trust University, where her focus was integrating spiritual consciousness and social change theory and praxis. She will share her reflections on Resilience.
Click here to view the service.
August 2, 2020: “Bells for Old John Lewis”
Led by: Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
On October 15 of 2017, North Chapel offered a Sunday service entitled Bells for Old John Brown. It honored the one hundred and fifty-eighth anniversary of John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry. On October 16th of 1859, a band of radical abolitionists raided a military arsenal in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. He was unsuccessful. It was one of the most important failures in the history of the United States and it led—almost inexorably—to the American Civil War. Today, on August 2nd of 2020, we ring the North Chapel’s Revere Bell to honor John Lewis—the non-violent and revolutionary, Civil Rights icon, the leading edge of American consciousness and the seventeen-term Congressman from Georgia. Join us as we honor a man who stood for the best in us.
July 2020
July 26, 2020: A Conversation with Sherri Mitchell
Led by: Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
Click here to view the service.
Lawyer, author, teacher, activists, wise soul, dear friend of spirit… This Sunday, we are joined by Sherri Mitchell, author of Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change.
July 19, 2020: “Bridge-stones Appear Beneath Our Feet”
Led by: Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
Transcript of the ReflectionDownload
Click here to view the service.
If we walk faithfully enough across the open water, will bridge-stones appear beneath our feet? No, probably not. If they do, that’s really awesome but if they don’t, we should walk out across the water anyway. It will be heavenly and we’ll all have a great swim. Then, we can towel off and we can dream about what it would mean for bridge-stones to appear beneath our feet.
July 12, 2020: “Grief, Fierceness, Solitude and Grace”
Led by: Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
Transcript of the ReflectionDownload
Click here to view the service.
In a time of political divisiveness, how can we learn to live abundantly? How do we let go of the grief and find fierceness again? How do we make use of the solitude and find grace?
July 5, 2020: “The Theology of Friendship”
Led by: Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
Transcript of the ReflectionDownload
Click here to view the service.
Old friends can be honest about life in a way that few others can. What is it about old friends that makes the best in life possible?
June 2020
June 28, 2020: “Fast Car”
Led by: Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
Transcript of the ReflectionDownload
Click here to view the service.
I went to college with Tracy Chapman. I didn’t know her well—she was older than me—but, one time, we performed together. She’s a lovely artist. She’s a brilliant poet. She asked penetrating questions. She sang, “You got a fast car but is it fast enough so we can fly away?” Can we escape wherever it is that we feel imprisoned? Or, more deeply, can we yet name the reasons that make us want to “fly away”? Join us.
June 21, 2020: “Sheltering in Love?”
Led by: Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
Transcript of the ReflectionDownload
Click here to view the service.
At the end of March, when we panicked about toilet paper, when we were figuring out the implications of sheltering in place, Tara Brach asked us to consider the implications of sheltering in love. She said, “During this time of pandemic, we need, more than ever, to feel our connectedness—true belonging with our own being, each other and all life.” Sage advice. During this time of global protest in response to the George Floyd killing, has the idea of love outlived its usefulness?
June 14, 2020: “Let My People Go!”
Led by: Dov Taylor
Transcript of the ReflectionDownload
Click here to view the service.
Various pathogens have afflicted humanity since the dawn of time; most have been overcome through research and ingenuity. But how do we cure the plagues of homophobia and Jew-hatred and white supremacy and racism and police brutality—for which there can be no vaccine?
June 7, 2020: Knee
Led by: Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
Transcript of the ReflectionDownload
Click here to view the service.
Crossing a difficult threshold with respect to the impact of COVID-19, we ran headlong into another crisis. George Floyd was killed on the streets of Minneapolis. We are seeing astounding things taking place in our world. Some of these things are uplifting. Many more of them are not. How do we restore what has been broken? How do we find hope in challenging times?
May 2020
May 31: “Soul Friend”
Led by: Pastor Gwen Groff
Transcript of the ReflectionDownload
Click here to view the service.
Join us this Sunday to hear from a beloved friend of spirit, Gwen Groff. She will be exploring what it means to be a “Soul Friend,” a concept developed by John O’Donohue. Gwen has worked with North Chapel for years. She currently serves as pastor to Bethany Mennonite Church in Bridgewater Corners, VT. This Sunday, we will also be joined by the Moving Spirit Dancers..
May 24: Repair the Wooden Bridge (Stage One)
Led by: Rev. Leon Dunkley
Transcript of the ReflectionDownload
Click here to view the service.
Bridges connect us. They span waters and canyons and chasms. No matter how high bridge, its work remains the same. Bridges are made of different things—stone, steel, wood, rope…hope, poetry. Spirit guides build bridges out of anything available but sometimes they collapse. When they do, it can be dangerous. How do we repair if such a bridge is broken? How do we rebuild if it’s been burned?
May 17: “I Will Give Up Music”
Led by: Rev. Leon Dunkley
Transcript of the ReflectionDownload
Click here to view the Service
From the porch of the Barnard General Store, you can learn almost everything there is to know about the world. You can learn about how the town spends its money and why we’re taxed the way that we are taxed. You can learn about love and relationships. You can learn about loneliness too. This is especially useful in the days of lockdown. You can learn about Sufism. I know because ‘me and my guitar’ spend mornings there in the summer. From that porch, you can learn about anything…if you bring the inner resources and if you know how to give them up. What are those inner resources? How do we access them when we need them the most?
May 10: Mothers Day
Led by: Rev. Leon Dunkley
Text: Click Here
Click here for this weeks Sunday Service
Birth. We’ve all gone through it. We are all recipients of the gift of life. Some of us not only receive birth but give it as well. Others of us become mothers by adoption. There are those mothers as well who give life in a different. There are many different kinds of mothers. This year, we lose the apostrophe and explore a new meaning of Mothers Day.
May 3: Freedom and the Flipside
Led by: Rev. Leon Dunkley
Text: Click Here
Click here for this weeks Sunday Service
Fifty years ago, four men—David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young—asked us to find the cost of freedom. Today, it’s easy to wonder whether or not we have. Fifty years ago, freedom meant marching against Richard Nixon’s secret bombing campaign in Cambodia. Today, freedom means marching against stay-at-home orders that have been issued in response to COVID-19. So much has changed. What does it mean in our time when we say that we are “free”?
April 2020
April 19: The Essential Wrestling
Led by: Rev. Leon Dunkley
Text: The Essential WrestlingDownload
Click here for YouTube Video of the Sunday Service
Much of the news is crazy these days. Unsurprisingly and reassuringly, the sun still rises and sets each day. Surprisingly, I recently learned that Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida is doing his best “to classify professional wrestling events as essential services during the lockdown.” Whether or not one agrees with such a choice, this situation prompts a vital question: Why does a high-ranking leader think that professional wrestling is an “essential service” in a time of crisis? If the decision were yours, what kinds of things would you deem to be “absolutely necessary”?
April 12: Easter Sunday Service
Reflection: The Return of Paradise
Led by: Rev. Leon Dunkley
Text: The Return of ParadiseDownload
Click Here for YouTube Video of the Service
In Christianity, Easter is a time of youthful vitality and renewal. It is a celebration of life that honors love beyond belief. Its symbol is the Son who overcame darkness and lived again. What do you think that was like, that second chance to walk in paradise? What would you do if you were given such a gift?
April 5: Online Service
Reflection: Hope in the Fallow Field
Led by: Rev. Leon Dunkley
Suddenly, entire cities are harrowed over and left unsown. For a period of time, we don’t know how long, nearly the whole of the outside world has become like a fallow field—untended for now, in order to restore its underlying vitality. We enter into the unknown. We may not where we are going. We may not know what will take place. But we prepare for the new growth to come. A powerful potential is slowly getting stronger underground.
Audio: Hope in the Fallow FieldDownload
March 29: Online ServiceReflection: March Goes Out Like a LambLed by: Rev. Leon Dunkley
The anxiety of this morning news was broken up by the singing of birds outside. I thought to myself, “How can the birds be singing? They are listening to the same news reports that I am? What do they know that I do not?” As we leave the ‘lion’ of March and head into the ‘lamb’ of April, what surprises rise to greet us along the way? As the whole world heads into a truly challenging time, what tools do we need to adapt to the changes that are all around us?
Audio: March Goes Out Like a LambDownload
March 22: Online Service
Reflection: Fire on the Hill
Led by: Rev. Leon Dunkley
A sage friend of mine once said, “Firewood warms you three times—when you cut it, when you stack it and when you burn it.” In these early days of self-seclusion, what is the “wood” that warms us? What is the “fire” that brings us light?
Audio: Fire on the HillDownload
March 16: Online Service – How We ‘Gather Together’ Today
Audio: How We ‘Gather Together’ TodayDownload
Unfortunately the audio was cut short by a few minutes. Full text version available below.
March 8: The Breath of Fresh Air—Honoring International Women’s Day
Reflection: Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
Music: Diane Mellinger and the North Chapel Choir
Service Coordinator: Stephanie Kyriazis
The Breath of Fresh Air—Honoring International Women’s DayDownload
Bella Abzug once said, “In the 21st century, women will change the nature of power, rather than power changing the nature of women.” What does it mean to change the nature of power? Women have been doing this for years.
March 1: Just Breathe
Reflection: Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
Music: Diane Mellinger and the North Chapel Choir
Service Coordinator: Rowley Hazard
In the Book of Genesis, it is written: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” The Hebrew phrase for “Spirit of God” is “ruach elohim,” meaning “great wind”. It is this meaning that informs the modern English word, “inspiration.” What inspires us these days? What spirit hovers over waters and waits beneath the surface of the deep? How do we take that all in?
February 2020
February 23: The Greater Happiness
Reflection: Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
Music: Diane Mellinger and the North Chapel Choir
Service Coordinator: Mike Backman
In Buddhism, it is said that greater happiness comes from simplicity than from complexity. The weird thing is that those words appear at the end of a very complex book. That’s a paradox. Enjoying paradox is simple. All you have to do is smile.
February 16: Valentine’s Day Remembered
Reflection: Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
Music: Diane Mellinger and the North Chapel Choir
Service Coordinator: Mary Hawkins
Valentine’s Day RememberedDownload
Valentine’s Day is a time when we have an opportunity to share our love. We share it cards. We often give flowers. We share how we ache for love, how we break for love, what we take from love and what we give. Some say that giving is the most important part of Valentine’s Day. Has that been your experience? Is that want you remember?
February 9: Simple Song
Reflection: Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
Music: Diane Mellinger and the North Chapel Choir
Service Coordinator: Jenny Gelfan
Some songs are easy to remember. Others are much harder. If Jesus were a songwriter now, would the songs be simple or complex? Would we sing them in bars? Would we sing them in churches? Why or why not?
February 2:
Reflection: Jarvis Green
Music: Diane Mellinger and the North Chapel Choir
Service Coordinator: Mary Blanton
Jarvis Green’s ReflectionDownload
Jarvis Antonio Green moved from New York City to the Upper Valley in 2011 and founded BarnArts Center for the Arts in Barnard, VT. He then became the Director of Theatre Arts for Woodstock’s ArtisTree Community Arts Center. In 2015, Jarvis became the founding Producing Artistic Director of JAG Productions with the mission to produce classic, contemporary and new theatre through the lens of the African-American experience. Jarvis received his training at the prestigious Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City, Anderson University and South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts.
January 26: Learning to Live Together—An Experiment in Radical Hospitality
Reflection: Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
Music: Diane Mellinger and the North Chapel Choir
Service Coordinator: Veronica Delay
Learning to Live Together—An Experiment in Radical HospitalityDownload
In November of 2019, a Muslim woman defended a Jewish family on the London Underground. The March before, not long after a terrible crisis in New Zealand, members of synagogue in Manhattan gathered in support of Muslims at NYU. And just last month, a young student named Ladeeda Farzana defended a male classmate from police batons in New Delhi, India. All around the world we are radically hospitable to the idea that we can live together in peace.
January 19: Loyal to the Beloved (Community)
Reflection: Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
Music: Pierre Fournier
Service Coordinator: Moira Notargiacomo
Loyal to the Beloved (Community)Download
Martin Luther King said that the Beloved Community was “a global vision in which all people can share in the wealth of the earth.” Dr. King was developing an idea that he adopted from a man named Josiah Royce. Josiah was driven by loyalty. Martin was driven by love. What is our inheritance today?
January 12: Welcome to the Angels of the Radio
Reflection: Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
Music: Diane Mellinger and the North Chapel Choir
Service Coordinator: Richard Schramm
Welcome to the Angels of the RadioDownload
I want to be Rush Limbaugh. He is a radio personality. Have you heard of him? I realize that this might seem like a strange desire but here’s the thing. In 2017, Mr. Limbaugh’s annual salary was $84 million. Dollar for dollar, Rush makes more money than I do. So, I want to do it…just for a year. Just think about what North Chapel could do with all of that money!!! To what degree is North Chapel open to the idea? Can we truly entertain the thought? Hospitality is “the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.” To what degree are we open to those who are different from us? How can we offer welcome to someone like Rush?
January 5: A Window into the World of Corrections
Reflection: Heather Simons
Music: Diane Mellinger and the North Chapel Choir
Service Coordinator: Kathy Astemborski
A Window into the World of CorrectionsDownload
I’d like to invite you into my work home, the Vermont Department of Corrections, and meet my Corrections Family. Like any home, and any family, we are all different, we see and reflect our experiences from our own lens. Our department has several identified missions for guiding our work. We work with community members, the inmates and offenders we supervise, and the victims impacted by crime. What is our place in making positive social change in our communities and who is our customer?
Heathers Bio: Heather Simons is the Director of the Training Academy for the Vermont Department of Corrections. She has been working for the VT DOC for nearly 30 years in various capacities. She has also been a consultant with the National Institute of Corrections for seven years, providing training on a number of topics to correctional staff from departments around the country. Heather is the first female chairperson for the Vermont Criminal Justice Training Council at the Vermont Police Academy. She is a member of the Association of Executive Women in Corrections, New England Council on Crime and Delinquency, and the American Corrections Association.
Heather grew up in Woodstock and considers Woodstock home. She attended the York University in Toronto, Ontario. She began her correctional career in Ontario as the Bail Supervisor for the Ontario Ministry of Corrections. Outside of her busy work life, Heather enjoys serving on the board of Catamount Arts in St. Johnsbury, VT.