Solstice 2025 Celebration Saturday Worship
This moving video of the 2025 Holiday Reflections of the Season features greetings, best wishes, poems and readings from NAUA leaders across the continent.
Not be missed!!
October 18, NAUA Worship Service, “Welcoming the Stranger”
Rev. Alex Holt, a longtime Unitarian minister, led the October 18th NAUA Service. His theme was “Welcoming the Stranger.”
It is said we are a hopelessly divided country and perhaps we should secede to make us more unified. Really? Can we as liberal religious communities continue to welcome the stranger rather than push them away? How can that be done with faith and openness?
NAUA Elects New Board Trustees and Thanks Outgoing Trustees for Dedicated Service
The Board of Trustees of the North American Unitarian Association is pleased to announce the addition of four new Trustees who will each serve three year terms:
- Bobbe Gaines Baggio
- Lincoln Baxter
- Roy Dickerson
- Mark Reimers
More information on each of these individuals can be found here. The newly elected board trustees bring a wealth of experience and diverse perspectives that will help guide NAUA’s strategic vision and new 3-year Strategic Plan.
NAUA also extends its deepest gratitude to the departing board trustees for their commitment and invaluable contributions to our growth and success:
- Terry Anderson
- Judi Durham
- Lynn Jinishian
- Mike Long
- Ron Strange
All NAUA members are invited to attend the monthly meeting of the Board of Trustees, with the next one taking place at 10 AM Pacific Time on Wednesday, October 15. Please email secretary@naunitarians.org for the Zoom meeting link.
2025 NAUA Annual Meeting Resources
Please attend the 2025 Annual Meeting even if you are unable to attend other Summit sessions. There is no cost to join the Annual Meeting. However, your presence is important for establishing a quorum and also for voicing your preferences by sharing your comments and/or casting your vote.
You must register in order to attend the Annual Meeting: https://tinyurl.com/NAUASummit2025
Here are some useful resources that will help you prepare for and follow along during the Annual Meeting.
2025 NAUA Annual Summit Resources
We are pleased to announce that over 100 individuals and families have signed up to attend this year’s Summit, scheduled for Tuesday, September 30th through Sunday, October 5th.
Here are some useful resources that will help you navigate the Summit Zoom Events platform, network with other participants, and receive maximum benefit from the sessions you choose to attend.
JD Stillwater: One Song – the Science of Oneness
For millennia mystics and poets have told us that “All is one” and yet we feel ourselves surrounded by separation, antagonism, and isolation! With help from some intrepid dung beetles, science ambassador JD Stillwater takes us on a tour of findings from mainstream science that reveal an underlying wholism in everything, from human bodies to ecosystems to the very fabric of space-time. In short, science agrees: “All is one.”
The Bee Way to Navigate the NAUA Summit
I hope you are looking forward to participating in 2025 NAUA Summit- this year hosted on the new Zoom Events portal. This post is meant to help you navigate through this environment – using a Bee analogy.
I used to keep a few colonies of bees and have just finished a delightful book “Bees” by Laline Paull. Thus, in Bee mode, I hope to help you navigate the Summit Events platform.
Clicking on the “register and access sessions button” directs you to the landing pad. Here you can scrutinize the sessions, schedule, speakers and get a sense of what awaits you in the hive. Like all hives, this hive is protected and only allows entrance to those who have been invited. Unlike Bees, it is not a familiar smell that is the key to entry – humans use a credit card for entry the first time and thereafter their zoom login and password.
Past the Landing Pad you enter the Lobby. Here forager bees dance a map to successful food sources. Here, they catch up on the latest hive smells, while worker bees unload their supplies of pollen and nectar. Like bees, humans in the lobby can meet and chat with friends. They can also see upcoming sessions, and even watch sessions they have missed.
Bees use pheromones to identify each other and the roles they perform. For humans, the Events platform provides a profile in which you can list your location, favourite activities, super powers and other data that helps you find and connect with like souls. You can also toggle on or off your interest in being social and chatting with others in the lobby.
Beyond the Lobby in a bee colony are the food stores, nurseries and sleeping quarters. Beyond the Summit Lobby are the session rooms where humans gather to listen and participate, vote on resolutions and otherwise work and learn together.
Terry Anderson, Edmonton, Alberta Canada
Three-Year NAUA Strategic Plan Unveiled
One of the key priorities of the NAUA Board of Trustees this year has been the creation of a Three-Year Strategic Plan for our fledgling organization. The now completed plan outlines goals and objectives, along with tentative deadlines, for ensuring long-term growth, meaningful community outreach and mission fulfillment:
Mission: NAUA is a member service organization dedicated to supporting and promoting the practice of liberal religion by embracing freedom, reason, and tolerance—rooted in our commitment to the inherent worth and dignity of every person and all peoples.
The Strategic Plan will be reviewed and discussed during a special session of the upcoming NAUA 2nd Annual Summit. All NAUA members and friends are encouraged to register and attend the Summit. The Strategic Plan will also be shared with all NAUA committees, who will be charged with designing and carrying out action plans to achieve relevant goals and objectives. This will ensure that by the Summit 2028 we will have increased our membership, resources and outreach in ways that position us to better fulfill our ambitious mission of advancing liberal religion.
If you have comments or suggestions related to the strategic plan or would like to play a key role in achieving any of the outlined objectives, please email secretary@naunitarians.org.
Climate Consciousness – Aug. 2025 Monthly Service
August’s worship service will explore our relationship with the environment and climate change as a moral and spiritual imperative.
Gail Sandlin will lead the August NAUA Service. She will explore our relationship with the environment and climate change as a moral and spiritual imperative. We, in the NAUA, rely on pillars of science, justice, and faith to guide us in our lives. Gail will explore how concern for a healthy environment is both fundamental for our future and inherent in our religion, building her talk around the theme of “Climate Consciousness.”
Climate Consciousness is a way of being, perceiving and responding that is shaped by spiritual insight and ethical commitment. This service will provide a brief overview of the key elements and spiritual practices of Climate Consciousness revealed by spiritual teachers such as Richard Rohr, Matthew Fox, Thomas Berry, Thich Nhat Hanh, Dali Lama, Aldo Leopold and Rumi.
July 19, 2025 Service -Yin and Yang
“As the Yin and Yang symbol illustrates, there is a piece of each in the other, teaching us the importance of empathy and understanding.” The July Service will be conducted by NAUA’s worship team. The theme will be “Yin and Yang: How is it possible to have opposites come together, and if they are together, are they that much different?”