UUABQ Voice

March 30, 2025: “Being Safe” The Rev. Christine Robinson, Minister Emerita

We want to be safe. We want our loved ones to be safe. We want our streets and schools and congregations to be safe. We want to think the food we buy is safe. Of course we do. Is it possible? Is it even always good? And how do we live well in a world that feels increasingly unsafe?

The Rev. Christine Robinson was the minister of this congregation from 1988-2017.

Music: Gamelan Encantada, Jenny DeBouzek, director, with Lydia Clark.

 

March 23, 2025: “The Incandescent Hope of Progressive Religion”

 Chloe Koren, Guest Preacher

Too often, when a person needs religion in their life, the place they find offers darkness couched as hope. Now, more than ever, progressive religion needs to shine where it can be seen. Chloe Koren is a rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. She is also the wife of our Senior Minister!

March 16, 2025: “A Steady Flame: How to Be Trustworthy” Beth Elliot, Guest Preacher

Let’s reflect on what makes us trustworthy and why it is a vital spiritual practice in these chaotic times.

Music: Special guest Reggie Harris, a singer-songwriter, storyteller and world-renowned song-leader who is a powerful interpreter of the global music narrative. 

March 9, 2025: “Trusting the Process” The Rev. Angela Herrera Koren

Rainer Maria Rilke said, “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves... like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.” A sermon about change, growth, and trusting the process.

Music: Lydia Clark & Susan Peck

March 2, 2025: “Trust & Social Justice” Ron Ahnen, Intern Minister

How can we maintain civic trust in a way that continues to cultivate social justice? How do we re-commit ourselves to collective action when civic trust is broken?
Music: Chalice Choir, with Susan Peck.

February 23, 2025: “The Body Is Not an Apology” The Rev. Bob LaVallee

We are besieged by toxic messages telling us what our bodies should look like. How do we perform that ultimate act of resistance: loving ourselves as we are?

Music: Leslie Bowen, Tania Hopkins, Susan Peck, Pauline LaBar-Shelton, and Celia Yapita

 

February 16, 2025: “The Good Old Days” The Rev. Christine Robinson, Minister Emerita

What are your good old days? Your carefree childhood? The Civil Rights years? Sweet 16? We all have good (if incomplete) memories that we go to in moments of nostalgia. We all know that the past is a great place to visit but not a great place to dwell in, and Christine has some thoughts about that.

Music: Lydia Clark, with Irene Fetherston, violin, and Lauren Harris, flute 

February 9, 2025: "Eulogies" The Ministers and Spare Parts

Eulogies is our annual service celebrating the people who passed in the last year who had an impact on us, but who might be lesser-known. Our house band, Spare Parts, will be sharing songs by musicians we lost in 2024.

February 2, 2025: "Our UU Theologies" The Rev. Angela Herrera Koren

Each Sunday, our Order of Service includes the words, “During worship, we may speak of God, mystery, the spirit of life, love, or the ground of being. Our membership includes atheists, agnostics, and believers in many kinds of divinity. Whoever you are, wherever you are on your spiritual journey, welcome...” How do we do it? And why do we call it “worship?”
Music: Lydia Clark

January 26, 2025: "Our Stories, Ourselves" Ron Ahnen, Intern Minister

Stories help and limit our ability to understand ourselves; how do our past stories affect how we see ourselves today
Music: Nicia Rae, piano and Chalice Choir, directed by Susan Peck