Capital Unitarian Universalist Congregation

New Year’s Eve is traditionally the time of making resolutions that we just can not end up keeping.  Come and join us as we think about new ways to begin the year.

This homily explores the ‘new’ spirituality of the 21st century in the context of the threads of our lineage, exploring through both personal story and reflective analysis, what we don’t ever let go of in the face of the demands and distractions of our contemporary lives, where we turn to for support and inspiration, and who we choose to be for these times.

** Tickets for the play “What does reconciliation mean to YOU? – šxʷʔam̓ət (home)“, showing on the evenings of Jan. 19 and 20, will be available for sale this Sunday for $15. For more details, or to purchase tickets online for $17, visit theatreforliving.com/present_work/sxwPamet/itinerary.html. This Victoria production is sponsored in part by First Unitarian Church of Victoria.

Curran Dobbs, an autistic comedian, discusses working in stand-up with a developmental disability.

Night dreams, daydreams and future dreams. These are the stuff of the imagination, the subconscious, the collective unconscious and, many would argue, the unknown mystical realms. Whatever they are, dreams connect us with the right side of our brain, the intuitive illogical side that plays in amorphous shapes and fantastical non-realities. What you notice in your sleeping and waking dreams can impact your decisions, your relationships and your spirituality. Come on a journey into the Dreamtime, engage with dream symbology, and learn how you can use your dream life to wake up your sense of wonder, connection and meaning.

Penelope Hagan is an intuitive healer, writer, artist and musician living in Victoria. She enjoys nature, dancing, dreaming, singing, yoga, motherhood, and good cooking.

While some look at nature in and around BC as simply beautiful, others routinely describe this place in deeply spiritual terms. It turns out that there are some distinctive features associated with the “bio-region” we inhabit. Join us today for a partly poetic and partly sociological reflection on space, place, and the sacred.

Paul Bramadat is Professor and Director of the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria, and specializes in religion and public discourse, public policy, and public health.

In March of 2015, 500 UU’s attended the Marching in the Arc of Justice Conference in Birmingham, AL as a part of the 50th anniversary commemoration of the Selma Voting Rights action – the crossing of the Edmund Pettus Bridge and subsequent march to Montgomery. Two UU’s, James Reeb and Viola Liuzzo, lost their lives there in 1965, defining our commitment to social justice then and challenging UU’s today to carry our principles beyond the walls of our churches. In addition to discussing his experience in Birmingham, Greg will perform some of his music. Many of his songs include race and love as common themes.

Greg Greenway is an accomplished singer-songwriter from the U.S. whose passion for social justice frequently brings his words and music to UU congregations. He has been part of the musical trio Brother Sun with another friend of Capital UU, Joe Jencks.

Learn more about the upcoming fall 2018 referendum on proportional representation from Fair Voting BC, a non-partisan society which works for fair voting systems for all elections held in BC. They support improvements in operating practices of elected bodies aimed at making government more representative, inclusive, transparent and accountable.

Peter Scales was near his mother before, during and after her medically-assisted death (MAiD). MAiD presents families with blessings and burdens, some of which may surprise you.

Staying deeply connected is in under threat! Technology is both a blessing and a curse; both linking us to the world while simultaneously reprogramming our brains. How do we navigate our digital lives and deepen our spirituality?

Wonder is the very first of our six UU sources, and where the other five are about knowledge in the head or tradition passed down by hand, that first source tells us to listen to our hearts, to the transcending experience of wonder. What happens when we fill our lives so full of doing, that we forget about the very wonder of our being? How does our tradition, our community, serve to create, or simply recognize, moments of transcendence in the world around us?

We need to build relationships with those people who are other to us or we become narrow. Privileges are merely rights taken from others. Let’s look beyond the social stigma that causes us to push others away.

Kym A Hines is a member of First Unitarian Church of Victoria. He is involved with various activist and social justice groups in Victoria including THAW Victoria, Rise and Resist, The Existence Project, newly forming Men With a Pulse support, education and action group. He is a co-parent, transgender, radical anarcho-feminist and a person disability who lives with complex post traumatic stress disorder.

Look around your community and notice who and what our monuments, parks and streets are named after. Mount Doug was re-named Pkols, its original indigenous name, in 2013 yet provincial maps still list it’s settler name. How do names tell the story of a place, what do we lose and what do we gain by re-naming our world?