Community has become even more important in these challenging times. We offer multiple ways to connect.
We invite you to enjoy our Sunday morning services! JOIN US!
For those who cannot make it in person to services, we offer livestreaming via YouTube. See this week’s service announcement directly below with the link. (Click on the picture.)
Sunday morning service videos can be accessed at your convenience on our Worship page or YouTube channel.
Our next Sunday Morning Dialog is October 19th. CLICK HERE for more information.
October 19th, 10:30am
In person and livestreamed
Imagination: the Root of Compassion
Rev. Dr. Sarah Lenzie, Guest Minister
This service will explore the connections between imagination, empathy and compassion, and how we might use these tools to course correct as a culture.
Music: Michael Rosin, Music Director
The Rev. Dr. Sarah Lenzi is in her ninth year serving as the Minister of the Unitarian Society of Ridgewood. Rev. Sarah is committed to fostering compassion, resilience, and depth in intentional communities of mutual care. A born and raised UU, she lives in NYC with her husband, four children, and a very large Siberian cat. Among her passions are baking, coaching Little League, and time spent with family.
October 19th, 9:00am
UUCMC Community Room
Primo Levi
Tim Geiselman
Primo Levi was an Italian/Jewish chemist, writer, and Holocaust survivor. Gifted with a writer’s keen eye to detail and memory, his story is illuminating. His most famous book, “If this is a Man”, chronicles 11 months as a prisoner in Auschwitz along with the questions he raises and answers he proposes. We will spend the dialog discussing his journey and the Holocaust in general.
Tim Geiselman has been a congregant at UUCMC since 2016. He lives in Middletown with his wife Rosane and has a lifelong interest in music, books and history.
The weekly service link is sent out via email each week. In addition, our weekly eblast that comes out on Thursday mornings has loads of information about UUCMC happenings. If you are not already on our email list, click the button in the footer to sign up. Our Facebook page (click here) is also updated as information unfolds.
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October Theme: CULTIVATING COMPASSION
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it understands that an edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring.
There is a hierarchy of responses when we encounter suffering. Pity says, “I see your pain.” Sympathy says “I understand your pain.” Empathy says, “I feel your pain.” Compassion says “I am with you in your pain and I will help.”
Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.
We are being conditioned to shut down. The barrage of cruelty, confusion, spectacle, and spin… wears on our capacity to feel… That is the danger of this moment—not just political collapse or climate unraveling or the erosion of public trust—but the numbing of our souls…
Those who do the most growing in this life are those who offer the most compassion to the parts of themselves that have not yet grown.
If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.
Having compassion for yourself means that you honor and accept your humanness.
Self-compassion isn’t about escaping your darkness but learning to love yourself there.
