Participants

Jurgen Ahlers, Guest Speaker

Jurgen Ahlers & Cathy Cánepa, Coordinators

Phyllis Culp, Service Leader

Robin Loving, Offering

Karen Kelly, Pianist

Paula Peace, Zoom Host

Diego Vargas, Lead Audio/Visual Technician

Miguel Angel Espinosa, Audio/Visual Technician

Diana Amaya, Administrator/Back-up Technician  

Joseph Plummer, Video Editor & Communications

About Today's Speaker

An ordained Presbyterian minister and busy UUFSMA member, Rev. Jurgen Ahlers will draw upon his unique perspective as the former chairperson of the White House Conference on Aging (WHCOA) during the 1970s. He fulfilled that public service under the banner “Spiritual Wellbeing Among Elders” and has continued to carry it forward ever since.

Jurgen’s career indeed appears to be one of exploring the secret of long life. In 1974, he guided adult educational strategies for the general executive board of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S., a Presbyterian denomination located primarily in the southern United States. At the time, his denomination was responding to the White House’s appeal in 1971 to the broad spectrum of US faith communities (Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and others) to develop a “working definition” of spiritual wellbeing for elders. 

Working primarily with the National Interfaith Coalition on Aging (NICA), Jurgen authored the statement that inspired the White House Conference when it assembled in 1976. “Spiritual well-being is the affirmation of life in relationship with God, self, community, and environment, and that nurtures and celebrates wholeness.” As he will affirm in his Sunday talk, this definition remains as relevant today to healthy longevity as it was nearly a half century ago.

A life-long teacher working in Germany and the United States, Jurgen taught at the University of Hamburg, Florida State University, and Auburn University. Later he worked as Corporate Director of Professional Development for the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company and then as a consultant to Kempinski Hotels International, Crystal Cruises, BMW of North America, the Coca-Cola Company, and other international firms, forging more dynamic, employee-engaged corporate cultures.

About Today's Flowers

Brought by Margo Johnson, a member of our UU women’s group, Mis Hermanas. Today’s flowers will be shared after the service with someone selected by our Care Team.

Singing Bowl

Prelude "Thanksgiving"

By George Winston

Welcome & Announcements

Opening Words / Chalice Lighting

Hymn #108 "My Life Flows On in Endless Song"

Words: Traditional

Doris Plenn, Verse 3

Robert Lowry, Music

Covenant

We respect the interdependent web of life and work for a just and peaceful world. We encourage the search for truth and meaning, strive for compassion in our relationships and seek values that will benefit our lives and the lives of others. This is our covenant.

Respetamos todos los estilos de vida dentro de su red interdependiente y trabajamos por un mundo justo y pacifico. Alentamos la búsqueda de la verdad y la comprensión total. Nos esforzamos por mantener compasión en nuestras relaciones y buscamos valores que beneficien nuestras vidas y las vidas de los demás. Este es nuestro convenio.

Joys and Concerns

Offering Introduction

Offering Music "Love Will Be Our Home"

By Steven Curtis Chapman

Introduction to Video

Poem "Still I Rise"

Maya Angelou, Writer and Performer

Sermon "Aging, Longevity, & Spirituality"

By Rev. Jurgen Ahlers

Hymn #6 "Just As Long As I Have Breath"

Alicia Carpenter, Words

Johann Ebeling, Music

Closing Words / Extinguishing the Chalice

Postlude "Simple Gifts"

Traditional Shaker Melody,

Mark Hayes, Arr.

Eastern Massachusetts is the epicenter of American Unitarianism, emerging there some two centuries after its nontrinitarian doctrine first sprouted in Poland in the mid-1500s and then migrated to Transylvania in the 1600s and England in the early 1700s. In this UUFSMA Sunday Service, the Reverend Tom Rosiello, Fellowship Minister, will outline the development in the United States of this liberalizing Christianity which became rooted in the new republic right after the American Revolution. From the pulpit of King’s Chapel, Boston, in 1784, it then radiated throughout New England and the Mid-Atlantic region, spreading rejection of the harsh doctrines of Calvinist Puritanism and inspiring congregations to build a faith based in enlightened reason.

“The new religion continued to spread and expand with new thoughts,” Reverend Rosiello says. “In the early to mid-1800s a seismic shift within this new faith tradition occurred. Its new thinkers moved beyond Christianity to incorporate ideas from eastern thought and the German and English Enlightenment.”

Unitarian faith no longer relied upon revelation through the Bible. Access to faith could be gained in one's direct experience. The Bible and other religious texts became secondary rather than primary sources. While Puritans considered the natural world to be an evil to conquer, nature became the Unitarians’ great teacher. Leaders of this new school of naturalists - Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Bronson Allcott, and many others like them who adopted Unitarianism - also called themselves "Transcendentalists” and centered their lives in and around Concord, Massachusetts.

A devotee of the region, Rev. Rosiello is also Minister-Emeritus of the First Parish of Stow and Acton in Stow, Massachusetts, close to the homeland of Transcendentalism. Spending part of his summer amid the natural beauty that inspired the Transcendentalists, he will lead this service from Concord, bring their words to life, and invite Unitarian-Universalist participants in the service to consider whether they too might be Transcendentalists.  

Tom’s Coffee Hour Discussion, Tuesdays (9:30am)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/442374895?pwd=NHljVm1LbHQydVBIUUkyWkIybVNHUT09
Meeting ID: 442 374 895
Passcode: 724450

Tuesday Discussion Group - August 9, 2022 (11:00am)

The Tuesday Zoom discussion group is led by Lou Marines.

Topic: Where you are in life

Friday Buddhist Group, Sangha of the Heart (10:00am)

Regular participation is encouraged or drop-in when you want. Please email Joan at joanwolf@umich.edu if you would like to be added to the Sangha of the Heart email list and receive the Zoom link in a weekly reminder.