The People's Climate March... amazing day.

My view of the interfaith group, People's Climate March.

On Sunday, September 21, I had the amazing experience of participating in the People's Climate March in New York City. What a huge crowd! What an incredible day!

I marched with the faith-based contingent, which was huge in and of itself. It was amazingly diverse. Unitarian Universalists were well represented (I went on the UU Mass Action bus to and from), but all traditions were represented. There were Protestant Christians, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Pagans... on and on. It was beautiful to behold. UU lay leader Peter Bowden made a great video of the faith-based contingent, which you can see at this link.

There were different counts of the number of marchers, as always. On the day, the number 310,000 was thrown around, but after the fact the estimate seems to be something like 400,000. Incredible.

Revs. Lara Hoke & Wendy Bell, ready to make noise.

Before the march, the organizers made the request for us to "make some noise". I hadn't played my trumpet in quite a while, but I dusted it off just for the day. My friend (Rev.) Wendy Bell of the Harvard UU Church brought her bagpipes, which she just recently started to learn (she sounded great!). So the 400,000 of us made sure that we were heard, as well as seen. (And now I can attest that, while trumpets are loud, bagpipes are much louder!)

It was heartening for so many people, from so many different backgrounds and perspectives, to come together to let the world leaders know that it is time -- past time -- to take real actions to alleviate global climate change. It was an honor to be a (small) part of that.

For a very quick video summary of the event, click here.

Year starts off with Bread & Roses Festival in Lawrence

UUCiA table at the 2014 Bread & Roses Festival

The 2014-2015 "congregational year" for the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Andover (UUCiA) started off with us having a table at the 30th Annual Bread and Roses Festival in Lawrence yesterday.

We had a wonderful time meeting lots of great folks.

In addition to offering info about the UUCiA and Unitarian Universalism, we created a wish tree. We folded origami versions of Japanese Shinto Ema and offered people a chance to write their wishes for the new year (school year, congregational year, etc.) on the Ema. Then we put them on a copper "tree". We will display this at the UUCiA.

Our first regular worship service of the congregational year is this Sunday, September 7. Read about it here. Please join us! We'd love to see you.