Another example of our church member's generosity and selfless effort will be highlighted Thursday, May 10, 6:30-8:30 p.m., in room A303, with a small ceremony to donate two quilts to church member Phil Hardy’s two daughters.

Phil lost his wife to MS seven years ago and had set aside more than fifteen hundred yards of his wife’s beloved quilting fabric as well as her tools.

Last year, when the Quilts of Love group was just getting started and fabric donations were being solicited, Phil contacted the Holly North, to see if the group could use the quilting materials. When she first went to see the hundreds of yards of fabric, all organized by color, Phil also showed her a bag filled with strips of fabrics from quilts she had made. Nancy’s goal had been to make a quilt for each of her two daughters from the strips, but she passed away before this could happen and he wondered if any quilters from the group might want to take on this task.

Because of Phil’s generosity in donating more than 1300 yards of fabric, thirteen quilts have been created and donated to the 13 Salmon Family Shelter and Nancy’s goal has been fulfilled by the group. The “Quilts of Love” group which has a multi-generational cross section, believe that a hand-made, piece of art given to each of the families as they make the transition to a new home will be like “wrapping our families in love.” If you wish to attend, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

U. S. stocks kicked off 2012 with a roar, rising nearly 13% and topping a 6-month gain of 25%.  Nerves calmed and investor conversation shifted away from debt ceilings and Euro market bail-outs. Globally the U. S. remains a “bright spot” with domestic stocks outperforming international securities over the past quarter, year and 3- and 5-year periods.

During this opening quarter, the first Unitarian Church Foundation portfolio grew  8.0%. the account’s domestic stocks rose by 13.7% and bonds, 1.4%, each out-performing their benchmark.  International stock funds advanced  10.7%, just .3% under the benchmark.

Since inception of our relationship with Trillium Asset Management (September, 2011), The First Unitarian Church Foundation portfolio has appreciated 13.5%

Examining the Economy, the key question is whether improvements can continue. Stocks began 2010 and 2011 strongly before slipping to summer lows. The Trillium portfolio management team believes stocks remain a good value.  They see a better outcome for 2012.

A key distinction is that, unlike prior years, the current rally was not driven by the Fed’s quantitative easing stimulus. While the Fed’s prior interventions gave the economy a needed “sugar high” to muddle through difficult years, these programs alone do not spark a sustained recovery.

As always, Trillium advises us, there are a host of wild cards capable of unraveling the recovery before it picks up a full head of steam. They indicate, ‘we are monitoring and will adjust should the tide turns’. Trillium is the oldest independent investment advisor devoted exclusively to sustainable and responsible investing. The firm is a leader in shareholder advocacy and public policy work with a goal of delivering both impact and performance to foundation investors.

by Dan Cryer

Forrest Church was a leading light in Unitarian Universalism, a religion that is often said to be “about the questions” and surprisingly difficult to describe in a few sentences at a dinner party. Yet Church was able to cogently frame this intricate expression of humanism and social justice through original sermons, meditative books, good stories and self-deprecating humor, thus making it more comprehensible and accessible, and, thereby, more consequential.

"Cryer...provides a superb overview [of Church] with this very manageable..biography of consistently engaging, incisive prose that can be easily understood by any lay person."

Even better, Church wasn’t articulating a set of religious beliefs so much as having a discussion about how to live in a world filled with poverty, discrimination and violence. In fact, he was most at home where politics and religion intersected. “The Falwells, Robertsons, and their ilk failed to grasp that deist leaders like Washington and Jefferson were more akin to Forrest Church than to any fundamentalist,” writes author Dan Cryer.

So Church is a man most of us want to know more about, but his oeuvre is overwhelming as it contains hundreds of remarkable sermons, dozens of articles, and14 books. Cryer (a Pulitzer Prize finalist) provides a superb overview with this very manageable (307 pages) biography of consistently engaging, incisive prose that can be easily understood by any lay person (despite the author’s PhD in U.S. History). You get the life of an extraordinary man (complete with scandal --- alcoholism and an affair that almost derailed his ministry), a trip back to the hot-button political issues that dominated the second half of the 20th century (the subject’s father was Senator Frank Church of Idaho), and wind up with Rev. Forrest Church leading the charge against a religious right determined to make the U.S. into a Christian nation.

That said, the Reverend’s mission was never to tell us about himself so much as to help us plumb the meaning of our own existence, and while this biography is as far as one can get from a self-help book, it’s exactly that. Church challenged people to understand, to love, and to “live in such a way that our lives will prove worth dying for.” He attempted to alleviate our fears by exploring why we were fearful.  Most of all, he was an enthusiast whose shared quest through history, philosophy, and religion for understanding, compassion and action continues to inspire. And this comes through on every page, just as it did from the pulpit.

Reviewed by Laura Pedersen on November 17, 2011

by Melanie Joy

In her groundbreaking new book Joy explores the invisible system that shapes our perception of the meat we eat, so that we love some animals and eat others without knowing why. She calls this system carnism. Carnism is the belief system, or ideology, that allows us to selectively choose which animals become our meat, and it is sustained by complex psychological and social mechanisms. Like other "isms" (racism, ageism, etc.), carnism is most harmful when it is unrecognized and unacknowledged. Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows names and explains this phenomenon and offers it up for examination. Unlike the many books that explain why we shouldn't eat meat, Joy's book explains why we do eat meat -- and thus how we can make more informed choices as citizens and consumers.

Good News:  We have a few copies of No Silent Witness.  This book is always in demand and difficult to obtain.