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Superheroes Are Everywhere by Kamala Harris | #ReadAloud #InaugurationDay

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The theme of story on Memorial Day Weekend invites us to think of stories about our UU military veterans and others who have served our country. In addition, we think of stories about all who have cared for and protected others. So, what’s one of the ways our faith guides us into being a people of Story? It reminds us that “Stories of courageous people inspire us to be courageous people too!”

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The Tree of Life: We are related to every living thing!

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The theme of story invites us to think of the great story of the evolution of life on our planet. Darwin’s story of
evolution, of the origin of all of the species of animals and plants on our planet, is part of our Unitarian
Universalist living tradition. We look to science and reason to help us understand our story as living beings.
We’ve even put this into our UU principles and sources. The 5th source says we honor “Humanist teachings
which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science…” So, what’s one of the ways our
faith guides us into being a people of Story? It tells us “To honor the results of science by seeing ourselves as part
of the great evolution story and remembering that we are an interconnected part of all living and growing
beings.

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In 2019, Bellen's More Than Peach Project was born. Bellen decided that, in order for people to celebrate each other's differences, the world needed to be more inclusive.

"I wanted to make sure that everyone has a crayon that represents them and matches their skin," the 9-year-old says.

But most boxes of crayons don't include enough colors to do that. So Bellen used money that she had saved up to order crayons in diverse skin tones. She packed them with sketch pads and donated them to schools near her home in Leesburg, Virginia.

Before long, word of Bellen's project spread on social media. Many kids were excited to finally have the colors they needed to draw themselves. Suddenly, people across the country were asking for the crayons. Bellen decided to sell her kits online. She uses some of that money to fund her free donation packs.

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In 2019, Bellen's More Than Peach Project was born. Bellen decided that, in order for people to celebrate each other's differences, the world needed to be more inclusive. "I wanted to make sure that everyone has a crayon that represents them and matches their skin," the 9-year-old says.

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Black Lives Matter. These three words have been said many times in many ways. And they still need to be said. Today.

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Our faith teaches us that stories and storytelling is a very important part of fighting racism. For instance, racial justice leaders remind us that the work - and story - of anti-racism is never over; we are always in the middle of the story. Racial justice leaders also remind us that we need to reclaim and re-tell ALL the stories of our history so everyone’s experience is honored and so our country lives in a true story (even if it is a painful one to accept). And we are also reminded that there are things we can do to alter and interrupt hurtful stories by changing people’s minds, perspectives and ways of treating each other.

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Each family has stories they tell about themselves, often associated with an object. Perhaps it was a
photograph of that old island station wagon with family members sitting all over it, perhaps it was a pet that
travelled across the country when you moved and nearly got lost, perhaps it was a special hat which
grandmother used to wear. What are some of your family stories?

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Too often, one single dominant vision of family crowds out the many other forms that families take.
Stories help correct that. They help us celebrate the many diverse forms of family and affirm the beauty
of our own unique family form!

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Here’s a story about Unitarian Universalism. The story of John Murray and Thomas Potter is one of the core stories of Universalism in America. It includes elements of mystery and even the miraculous abating of the wind.
Note that this is also used as a Meditative Story in the next section and plan accordingly.

What does the story tell us about us as Unitarian Universalists?

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COLORING SHEET
"John Murray and the Winds of Change" ( PDF)
Illustration: Nancy Meshkoff

You never know what the wind will blow in or which way the wind blows. The wind can change directions and maybe change your life. It happened to John Murray. As a young man, John Murray had excellent fortune blow his way. He had a fine education, a steady job, a loving wife, and a young son. Life was good. Then, suddenly, everything changed. John Murray's wife and their son became sick and died. John lost his job, lost all his money, and was put in jail because he could not pay his bills.

John was a very religious man, a Universalist, who had even preached about a loving God. Now, he was not so sure what he believed. He felt his life was over. Friends urged him to go someplace where he could start again.

He sailed for America on a ship named the Hand In Hand. The wind blew the ship toward their destination, New York. But then, fog rolled in and the ship ran aground in New Jersey instead. John and a few others volunteered to leave the ship, go on land, and get directions and supplies.

As he was walking ashore, John saw a farmhouse with a small chapel or church beside it. It belonged to Thomas Potter. Thomas Potter greeted John, gave him food for everyone on the ship, and invited John to come back and have dinner with him that night.

When John came back, Thomas Potter showed him the chapel. Thomas Potter said that he believed in a loving God who wanted to accept all people into heaven. John said that he believed the same thing. Thomas Potter told John that he had built the chapel and was waiting for God to send him a minister. "You, John, are that minister. I have waited for you a long time".

John did not want to hear this. He was not a preacher anymore and he was determined to never preach again. Yet, Thomas Potter seemed confident that John was the Universalist preacher he waited for and he asked John to preach on Sunday. "I can't preach on Sunday," said John, "because as soon as the wind changes, my boat will set sail and I must be on it."

"If the boat has not sailed by Sunday, will you preach?" asked Thomas Potter.

"If I am still here on Sunday, I will preach," said John Murray.

Now, what do you think happened? Did the wind blow? Did the Hand In Hand sail away, taking John Murray with it?

No wind blew.

No ship sailed.

John Murray preached on Sunday morning, September 30, 1770, in the chapel Thomas Potter built for him many years before.

The Universalist message of the power of love was good news to many who heard. It was good news for John. The winds of change blew yet again for John Murray. He now wanted to preach more than anything and he did, for many years, and helped found Universalism in America. He is one of the ancestors of our faith home and we, as Unitarian Universalists, owe a special thanks to Thomas Potter. It was his hospitality that brought John Murray back to the pulpit. We also owe a special thanks to the wind that blew him in and would not blow him out.

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You never know what the wind will blow in or which way the wind blows. The wind can change directions and maybe change your life. It happened to John Murray. As a young man, John Murray had excellent fortune blow his way. He had a fine education, a steady job, a loving wife, and a young son.

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The Unitarian-Universalist Church of Canton began as The First Universalist Society in 1825. Of the several small North Country Universalist groups located all the way from Hammond to Malone, it is the only one to survive until today. These groups organized in the 1800s as the St. Lawrence Association of Universalists and met formally once a year.

The charter members of the Canton group originally held church services in the local school under the leadership of a circuit- riding missionary who traveled from New England to bring the message of universal salvation. Canton soon shared ministerial leadership with the Potsdam group and, in 1827, joined with the Baptists to build a church on the site of the current church, a brick meeting house known appropriately as the Union Church.

In 1837 the Universalists bought out the Baptists, and in 1839 were prosperous enough to "call" their first full-time minister, F.J. Briggs ("Brother Briggs"). The Universalists existed as a "society" until 1851 when they organized as a "church." There is evidence, though, that some supporters continued as members of the society, 50 being listed as such in 1861 with 70 recorded as members of the church! Although renamed the Unitarian Universalist Church of Canton by vote of the congregation following the 1961 merger, officially the church is still the First Universalist Society of Canton.

In 1852 the National Convention of Universalists, meeting in New York, appointed an Education Society to raise funds for the creation of a theological seminary. Two years later, with $20,000 pledged, they announced that "other things being equal, the place which would do the most for the new institution should receive the preference." Canton's Martin Thatcher was on the Education Society and enthusiastically wanted the school to be located in Canton. He recruited three other local men who, along with Canton minister Seth Remington (grandfather of artist Frederic Remington), secured $21,000 in pledges, earning Canton the site. In 1856, the cornerstone was laid and the institution was chartered by the state of New York as St. Lawrence University and Theological Seminary. The authorization of a college of Letters and Science to share the new building with the Theological School was actually a surprise to many but turned out to be a mutually beneficial union.

The Theological School had a tenuous existence for many years, but its relationship with the Canton church was always a close one. Professors were frequent speakers and both "theologues" and students from the College had roles in the church.

Olympia Brown, who in 1863 was the first woman ordained to ministry in the United States, graduated from the St. Lawrence Theological School. During her years as a student, she taught Sunday school for the Universalist Society in Canton. Years later, in 1920, another woman graduate of the Theological School, Harriet Druley, served actively for a year as "Minister's assistant" to aging James Payson, before moving on to a full-time ministerial position at the Universalist Church in Henderson, NY.

A third woman, Edna Bruner, the daughter of a Universalist minister, received her B.D. from the St. Lawrence Theological School in 1931. Ordained in Gunnison Memorial Chapel on the St. Lawrence campus, her first church was in Iowa. Ten years later she became General Field Worker for the Universalist Church of America and then in 1945 returned to Canton and parish ministry for five years. Despite being known for her "dynamic nature in the pulpit and unrelenting care in the parish," not all Canton Universalists were comfortable with a woman in a traditionally male role. Edna Bruner left in 1950 to again become a Field Worker, this time for the Massachusetts and Connecticut Universalist Conventions. Not until 1992 did the Canton church again call a woman to ministry.

However, the women of the congregation had always been significant in the life of the church. In 1862 the original women's organization was renamed the "Ladies Circle" and was encouraged to "accumulate and manage funds." The "ladies" raised money for the purchase of the Andrews organ in 1869 (moved from the Brick Church to the new marble church in 1897 and still in use today). In 1891 they paid $1,800 to purchase the adjacent Governor Wright House for use as a parsonage, and repaired it at an expense of $1,500. When their indebtedness for these two expenses was paid off, they subscribed $2,500 to the building of a larger, marble church. Additionally, social events and church programs were initiated by women of the church. Women served equally with men as church trustees for many years, but it was not until 1967 that Church Council elected a woman, Amorette Chrystie, as moderator.

The new church was built at a total cost of $20,000 and dedicated April 15, 1897. Newspapers referred to it as a stunning addition to the community "in quality, color, impression of elegance and solidity." Over the years, internal configurations of the church evolved with the changing needs of the congregation as well as to meet the church's commitment to provide space for community groups.

Needed renovations were made in 1960 to provide religious education space in the basement, to install acoustic tile in the sanctuary ceiling and a tile floor in the vestibule. Contributions to this effort came from Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Calder, Rev. and Mrs. Seth Brooks, and SLU trustee Richard Young, among others.

In 1982, a Restoration Fund drive was launched which raised $54,000 to stabilize the deteriorating façade of the church. Buttresses were taken down and rebuilt from the ground up. Missing and broken portions of the stone and brick masonry were reconstructed, and loose, crumbling mortar was replaced. Supporting the Fund were 187 members of the church, 67 former members, 241 unaffiliated friends, 11 organizations, 9 Canton businesses, and 33 members of the UU Church of Daytona, FL where Max Coots had been minister on loan two years earlier.

In 1983 the church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Canton Village Park Historic District. In 1985 the Memorial Garden and Memorial Plaque were dedicated and in 1989, The World featured a photo of Canton's Memorial Garden.

By the mid-1990s it was clear that more space and some updating was needed to maximize the church's potential. More than $400,000 was raised in 1997-98 for renovations and an addition which, when dedicated in September 1999, provided new social room space, a library, a religious education office, seven renovated meeting rooms for religious education on the lower level, a music room, upgrades to the original social room, a new air exchange system, and a handicapped-accessible elevator.

Twelve ministers served the marble church from its dedication in 1897 to 1958. Since 1958, though, Canton UUs have had only three settled ministries, Max Coots, 1958-1992; co-ministers Anne Marsh and Wade Wheelock, 1993-2009; and David Blanchard, 2010-2013.

Under Max Coots' leadership, the church grew in congregational size, programs, and influence in the community. Early in his career Max described his own ministry as being one "of diversity with emphasis on preaching, writing, community service, and personal counseling." During his ministry, he was given an honorary degree by Starr King and a North Country Citation by St. Lawrence University.

Following Max's retirement in 1992, interim minister George Briggs led the congregation through a year of transition while the Search Committee looked for a new settled minister. Anne Marsh and Wade Wheelock, fresh from studies and internships at Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago (which followed earlier careers as academics), were the unanimous, enthusiastic choice of the Search Committee and, after a candidating week, the congregation. In their 16 years of ministry, Anne and Wade encouraged and facilitated collaborative ministry, strengthened the religious education program and children's stories, were voices of social conscience in the community, led the congregation to fuller participation in the wider denomination, and put the church on a sound financial footing.

Today, the 220 active members and innumerable friends of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Canton eagerly look forward to the next phase in our congregational life.
History prepared b y Judy Gibson from archival scrapbooks and pamphlets written at various times in the past.

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History of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Canton, NY

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The Unitarian-Universalist Church of Canton began as The First Universalist Society in 1825. Of the several small North Country Universalist groups located all the way from Hammond to Malone, it is the only one to survive until today. These groups organized in the 1800s as the St.

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UU congregations share a lot of attributes, but at the same time, no two UU communities are the same. And often their uniqueness is rooted in a very particular event in their history: a fire, an act of justice, anew building, creating a memorial garden, an argument even or a church member who became famous.  Story is what keeps that event alive, and even more importantly, story is what enables that event to become the glue that binds the community together.