Wavelengths: A WUU Podcast

WUU Service - "The Ways of Love, as Best We Can" (06/06/2021)

Come listen to a WUU service!

With Covid 19 restrictions being lifted, we are faced with a post pandemic reality very different from the life we led before the March 20 shutdown. How will we negotiate that crossing? What will we leave behind? What will we create that's new and life affirming? Coming as we are from a year of isolation and drastic societal changes?

Most Unitarian Universalists are surprised to learn that we are the religious descendants of the Puritans and that the foundation of our living tradition comes from the Puritans’ interpretation of the Bible. Indeed, The Cambridge Platform of 1648 not only gave us freedom from kings and bishops but also placed us in mutual relationship with one another, both as individuals and as congregations.

• Rev. Andrew Clive Millard, Guest Worship Leader
• Dave Robbins, Assistant Director of Music, Piano
• Austen Petersen, Director of Religious Education

The YouTube version is here.

The Rev. Andrew Clive Millard has served the Mission of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the Peninsula in Newport News since 2010. Born in England, he came to the United States to be a physicist and then found religion by way of environmentalism. Andrew lives in Gloucester with Allison and their apparently pre-teen daughter, Olivia. He looks forward to returning to WUU for his fourth pulpit swap with Rev. Laura.

Thank you for listening. For more information about the Williamsburg Unitarian Universalists, or to join us on Sunday mornings, visit www.wuu.org.

WUU Service - "Many Rivers to Cross" (05/30/2021)

Come listen to a WUU service!

With Covid 19 restrictions being lifted, we are faced with a post pandemic reality very different from the life we led before the March 20 shutdown. How will we negotiate that crossing? What will we leave behind? What will we create that's new and life affirming? Coming as we are from a year of isolation and drastic societal changes?

The life we enter will seem strange as we take baby steps into the open air. Learning to breathe in this new atmosphere; overcoming our fear of both disease and one another? How do we pass from one shore to the other with awareness and good intention?

• Nicki Peet, Guest Worship Leader
• Nan Hart, Worship Associate
• Austen Petersen, Director of Religious Education
• Dave Robbins, Assistant Director of Music, Piano
• John Chowning, Reading

The YouTube version is here.

Thank you for listening. For more information about the Williamsburg Unitarian Universalists, or to join us on Sunday mornings, visit www.wuu.org.

WUU Service - "True Stories, Truth Stories" (05/23/2021)

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UU principles call us to "a free and responsible search for truth and meaning." In this time of "fake news" and lying for the sake of power, how can we contribute to rebuilding a culture of truth?

• Rev. Laura Horton-Ludwig, Minister
• Austen Petersen, Director of Religious Education
• Dave Robbins, Assistant Director of Music, Piano

The YouTube version is here.

Thank you for listening. For more information about the Williamsburg Unitarian Universalists, or to join us on Sunday mornings, visit www.wuu.org.

WUU Service - "Crossing Over" (05/16/2021)

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Come celebrate with our high school seniors at our annual "Bridging" service!

• Rev. Laura Horton-Ludwig, Minister
• David Hopkinson, Worship Associate
• Austen Petersen, Director of Religious Education
• Dave Robbins, Assistant Director of Music, Piano
• Emma's Revolution, "Swimming to the Other Side"

The YouTube version is here.

Thank you for listening. For more information about the Williamsburg Unitarian Universalists, or to join us on Sunday mornings, visit www.wuu.org.

WUU Service - "Two Windows, One Light" (05/09/2021)

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Each of us can tell the personal stories of our lives. But we're also held in the much larger stories of culture, religion, and the cosmos itself. On this 60th anniversary of the merger between the Unitarians and the Universalists, we'll celebrate the liberating stories of our historic faith...and tend to their shadow sides.

• Rev. Laura Horton-Ludwig, Minister
• Nicki Peet, Worship Associate
• Dave Robbins, Assistant Director of Music, Piano
• WUU Choir, directed by Dr. Jamie Bartlett, Director of Music

The YouTube version is here.

Thank you for listening. For more information about the Williamsburg Unitarian Universalists, or to join us on Sunday mornings, visit www.wuu.org.

WUU Service - "May Day Celebration: Celebrating Spring with Photos, Videos, Readings, Poetry" (05/02/2021)

Come listen to a WUU service!

Please join us virtually in our annual May Day Gathering! We will be celebrating Spring, flowers and gardens. Please share photos and short videos of your gardens, family, outdoor movement, color, joy, flora! Come let us blossom together!

• Liz Wiley, Worship Associate
• Dave Robbins, Assistant Director of Music, Piano
• Hayda Jinmaku-Brown, Offertory Music

The YouTube version is here.

Thank you for listening. For more information about the Williamsburg Unitarian Universalists, or to join us on Sunday mornings, visit www.wuu.org.

WUU Service - "Regenerating" (04/25/2021)

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Social worker JoLillian Zwerdling writes, "From Starfish I have learned that if we keep our core intact, we can regenerate. We can fall apart, lose limbs, and re-grow them as long as we don’t let anyone threaten that central disc’s integrity." How can we keep our own center strong in this time when so much change and creativity is needed?

• Rev. Laura Horton-Ludwig, Minister
• David Hopkinson, Worship Associate
• Austen Petersen, Director of Religious Education
• Paulette Amory, Piano

The YouTube version is here.

Thank you for listening. For more information about the Williamsburg Unitarian Universalists, or to join us on Sunday mornings, visit www.wuu.org.

WUU Service - "Earth Day: This Home We Share" (04/18/2021)

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It's human nature to create new things--crafts and tools, arts of all kinds...and, in the last 150 years, industrial technologies that, along with their many undeniable gifts, have also brought our planet to the brink of collapse. On this Earth Day Sunday, how can we shift our dreams of "more and better" toward being content with what is sustainable?

• Rev. Laura Horton-Ludwig, Minister
• Nan Hart, Worship Associate
• Austen Petersen, Director of Religious Education
• Dave Robbins, Assistant Director of Music, Piano

The YouTube version is here.

Thank you for listening. For more information about the Williamsburg Unitarian Universalists, or to join us on Sunday mornings, visit www.wuu.org.

WUU Service - "Let Me Listen to Who You Are: The Mystery of Friendship, Forgiveness, and New Life" (04/11/2021)

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All around us we see signs of new life emerging from the stark landscape of winter. Flowers, birdsong, the drone of bees. The world is coming to life again. In the Northern hemisphere, spring happens to align (helpfully) with the Christian celebration of Easter - the essential and foundational event of the Christian community. Easter is really a story about new life - a story against despair and about the possibilities of rebirth and change. And it can also be read as a story of human friendship. Often when we try to say something meaningful about these deep experiences we find that they are very hard to put into words. A human life is not an idea or concept. We are more than the language that we use can adequately contain.

But we can tell stories about being human, and listen to what those stories can tell us about our own lives. Stories have the capacity to hold and reveal what it means to be human without clean and simple answers. Join us this week as Steve DeLaney leads us in a meditation about resurrection, about new life, but through the lens of a story of friendship and forgiveness.

Steve DeLaney has worked in ministry with young people for over 20 years - in outdoor education, jail ministry, urban service, parish ministry, and as a high school teacher and campus minister. He has an MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in Theology. His passions include literature and writing, hiking, and gardening. He lives with his wife, Allison, and their three kids (and their dog Peach!) in Williamsburg, VA. He blogs at somedelaney.wordpress.com.

• Steve DeLaney, Guest Worship Leader
• Ben Thacker-Gwaltney, Worship Associate
• Austen Petersen, Director of Religious Education
• Dave Robbins, Assistant Director of Music, Piano

The YouTube version is here.

Thank you for listening. For more information about the Williamsburg Unitarian Universalists, or to join us on Sunday mornings, visit www.wuu.org.

WUU Service - "Back to Life" (04/04/2021)

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It has been a long, hard year...but in this season of Easter and spring, hope is rising at last. Today we celebrate the new life awakening in us and beckoning us forward.

• Rev. Laura Horton-Ludwig, Minister
• Susan Marcinkus, Worship Associate
• WUU Choir, directed by Dr. Jamie Bartlett, Director of Music
• Austen Petersen, Director of Religious Education
• Kaya O’Brien-James, From the Heart
• Dave Robbins, Assistant Director of Music, Piano

The YouTube version is here.

Thank you for listening. For more information about the Williamsburg Unitarian Universalists, or to join us on Sunday mornings, visit www.wuu.org.