Image Credit: Lorraine Day (NAUA Membership Co-Chair)

Greetings, !

As we welcome a new year, with new opportunities, let us consider all the things we can accomplish together in this fledgling organization. How can we bring hope for a better, more free and tolerant, more respectful and reasonable world? 

“The Turning of the Light”

The old year folds its weary hands
and lays them in the quiet snow.
The new year lifts a lantern high
to show us where we’ve yet to go.

Between them lies a breath of time—
a pause, a promise, soft and bright—
inviting us to step with care
from shadowed paths into the light.

May every hope we thought was lost
rise up again and find its voice.
May every burden, gently held,
grow lighter as we make our choice.

And as the turning seasons spin
their ancient, ever-faithful art,
may we discover, once again,
the strength and kindness of the heart.

Happy New Year to All!

Note: Members and readers are invited to share a poem, short letter or artistic rendition of their hopes for NAUA and the wider world in the coming year. Please email your contribution to jmkrettek@gmail.com for inclusion in this newsletter or posting to our social media accounts. 

Since NAUA's inception, and most recently at our fall Summit, members have consistently requested that NAUA consider adopting a set of principles or guideposts that better outline how religious liberals can fulfill our mission and live according to our values on a daily basis. 

In response, NAUA is establishing a working group tasked with gathering ideas and aspirations from members and distilling them into a set of principles to be voted on at our next annual Summit. Member input can be gathered in any number of ways, including surveys, focus groups, listening sessions and more, as determined by the group. If you are interested in serving as a member of this group and hosting a series of conversations with members, please email your interest to info@naunitarians.org. By doing so, you will play a key role in defining who we are as religious liberals and the ideals we choose to live by.

Two Unitarian congregations are each seeking a full-time minister willing to relocate to either Flint, MI or Tampa, FL. If you are a minister who aligns with traditional liberal values (or know someone who fits this description) and are interested in these openings, please email your resume and statement of interest to info@naunitarians.org. Your information will get passed along to the designated congregation's ministerial search committee. 

Kevin McCulloch grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, where his parents were married at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta in the late 1960s. He was an active participant in Young Religious Unitarian Universalists, the former UU youth program, in the late 1980s, and the Continental Unitarian Universalist Young Adult Network in the 1990s and early 2000s. As a UU young adult, he edited newsletters, facilitated business meetings, organized conferences, and served on committees convened by the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Young Adult and Campus Ministry Office.

Kevin holds a BA in religious studies from Haverford College and a Master of Theological Studies from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University, where he focused on 18^th and 19^th century American religious history. As an amateur Unitarian historian, he helped develop an adult religious education curriculum at All Souls Church Unitarian in Washington, D.C. He returned home to Atlanta in 2020 to help his parents weather the COVID19 pandemic, and currently serves as the Adult Enrichment Chair at Unitarian Universalist Metro Atlanta North (UUMAN) in Roswell, Georgia.

Kevin has been active in the NAUA since 2023, when he joined the editorial board of The Liberal Beacon, NAUA’s academic journal. He believes that liberal religious communities should reject both dogmatic theology and dogmatic politics, and believes that sincere engagement with people you disagree with is a necessary condition for human flourishing and a healthy democracy.

In response to this month's UUnderWorld discussion question, "What is the Purpose of an Association of Congregations? NAUA member Joyce Kinnear contributed a detailed response. Below is an excerpt, which Joyce gave us permission to print. 

"To me, NAUA serves many functions. This is a group of people who, like me, are philosophically and spiritually free minded in our responsible search for meaning and truth. We have always been and will remain a minority of the population. There will rarely be a place on earth where we exist in sufficient quantities to be able to drive a short distance and meet in person.

Being able to hear from the experiences of these people and to join with them in conversation provides great meaning for me. I have been able to have conversations nearly every week with a group of people who live in cities in Canada and all over the United States but can join me in my living room in coastal Mexico. We do not share every belief, far from it, but we can and do engage in meaningful dialogue about our differences and in ways that we can influence the world for the better.

Monthly religious services on a variety of topics stimulate my mind. The services are recorded on YouTube and available on the organization’s website and Facebook pages, so that if I cannot fit in the service in my busy schedule, I can watch it another time. The services are on a variety of topics. While some are more focused on my interest than others, I always find meaning from the homily, the music and the readings.

The diverse circles allow discussions on a variety of topics with a variety of other people. The book clubs, committee meetings and Academy sessions all provide interactions in different areas.

While Zoom discussions are certainly different from an in-person conversation over coffee, they do provide meaningful social interaction. I have become friends or at least better acquainted with many people who might never have crossed my paths in the pre-Zoom era. I have found meaning and friendship from people who provide meaning and insight to me, but live thousands of miles away and move in widely diverse social and professional circles. At times of stress, our regular chat on Wednesday evenings is a time of comfort.

There are so many ways that the NAUA is currently filling the needs and interests of its members. I am certain that the services provided by the organization will only grow through time. As NAUA continues to evolve into a different type of philosophical, religious or spiritual organization, there will be ups and downs. I am certain though, that like my neighbor who pulled out a six-foot ladder, in order to climb up and look over the tall fence at other human beings, we will all continue to search for ways to interact with each other and find solace and engagement from these relationships."

Joyce Kinnear has been a Unitarian since the mid 1980's, when she left fundamentalism for open minded thought and conversations. She has belonged to multiple UU churches in Southern New Mexico, Hayward, California and now in Mexico (Lake Chapala). She has worked in a variety of committees and positions in various churches and always kept up her desire to have open minded conversations.

The Thursday Connection CIRCLE is accepting new participants. We meet the 1st and 3rd Thursday each month from 9:00 - 10:00 am Pacific Time. If you’d be interested in joining this CIRCLE, please email circles@naunitarians.org

Trustees present at the special December 17th board meeting affirmed adherence to these ideals and pledged to hold themselves and each other accountable. Members are encouraged to read these guidelines and adopt them in their own internal communications, in order to model our respect for the inherent dignity of all individuals and all peoples. These guidelines also reflect the importance we place on our values of freedom, reason and tolerance.

The board pledges to review the Code of Conduct annually and update as necessary. Future trustees will be asked to affirm the code upon joining the board.

New NAUA Mailing Address:

North American Unitarian Association
P.O. Box # 12886
Mill Creek, WA 98082

During the ceremony, the Rector and her assistant “gowned” Terry and presented him with a graduate certificate and a chain (representing the Doctor degree) to hang around his neck. Terry was then asked to give a short speech. The next day, he gave a graduate student seminar entitled “Encontro com o Professor Terry Anderson – Projecting the Futures of Research in Open, Distance and Digital Education.”

Congratulations, Terry, on your recent recognition for a long, honorable and storied career in distance education! 

Find Us Online!

If you are interested in joining or observing a board meeting, please read the board meeting participation policy on our website before emailing our board secretary for the Zoom link: secretary@naunitarians.org.

Note: Past board meeting minutes can be found on our website.

Participation by Reservation Only

To register for the Forum Circle and obtain the meeting link, email circles@naunitarians.org

From the book cover: "For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike―either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or by taming our baser instincts. In their major New York Timesbestseller, The Dawn of Everything, David Graeber and David Wengrow fundamentally challenge these assumptions and recast our understanding of human history. We will never again see the past in the same way.

Drawing on pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology, Graeber and Wengrow reveal how history becomes a far more interesting place once we learn to throw off our conceptual blinders and perceive what’s really there. If humans did not spend 95 percent of their evolutionary past in tiny bands of hunter-gatherers, what were they doing during all that time? If agriculture and cities did not mean a plunge into hierarchy and domination, then what kinds of social and economic organizations did they lead to? The answers are often unexpected, and suggest that the course of human history may be less set in stone, and more open to playful, hopeful possibilities, than we tend to assume.

Destined to be a classic, The Dawn of Everything signals a paradigm shift, profoundly transforming our understanding of the human past and making space to imagine new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. This is a monumental book of formidable intellectual and political range, animated by curiosity, moral vision, and hopefulness..."

If you are interested in attending, please email Ed Hudak at bookclub@naunitarians.org.

We will seek to understand how science confirms or contradicts religious or philosophical conceptions, think about how the disagreements might be resolved, and also identify religious or philosophical issues have been neglected by science, which might lead to fruitful growth on both sides.

Register with IARF.net and then register for the course at https://iarf.net/network/courses/30/