Unitarian Fellowship of Huntington, 619 6th Avenue, Huntington, WV 25701-2103

Member of the Unitarian Universalist Association �� Newsletter Number 2010:6

President: Bob Williams �� Vice President/Programs Director: Randy Miller �� Treasurer: Jim Maphet

Newsletter Editor: Jack Wilkinson III (304-521-9201)

The Free Seeker

The Voice of Liberal Religion in the Tri‐State

FEBRUARY 17, 2010

EVENTS OF SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2010

11:00 A.M. PROGRAM with the U. U. Fellowship:

"Autobiography" by Randy Miller

Our Program Chairman is about to come clean. Will this be a tell‐all? Will

reputations be ruined in an orgy of self‐exposure? Randy is the last of a long line of

confessors. If you don't want this ritual of self‐accusation to stop and you have not yet

occupied this particular hot seat, then by all means volunteer for a future program.

FUTURE PROGRAMS

There's been a shake‐up, so please pay attention. Presenters are dropping like

flies. Wild Bill Patton just bit the dust. However, by scraping the bottom of the barrel

we've managed to come up with some new postings.

February 28th Jack Wilkinson on "Ben Hecht and the Enigma of the Modern Jew"

March 7th "Open Discussion”

March 14th Christie Ruiz on "Healthy Eating"

March 21st To Be Announced

March 28th Mike Mitchell on "The AIDS Task Force"

CUUPS meets Thursdays 6:00 to 8:00 PM and the Tri‐State Meditation Group will be

meeting in April.

A RETROSPECTIVE OF LAST SUNDAY'S PROGRAM: "SECRETS OF THE SAHARA"

The Sahara is the hottest spot on the planet, around 126 degrees, but it wasn't

always that way, for imbedded in blocks of stone, including those that compose the

pyramids of Egypt, are shell imprints, some of which are called numulites or little coins.

Incidentally, one block in a pyramid weighs 5000 pounds, and there are two million of

them.

In an earlier period the Sahara was under water for forty million years. Studies

made in the Wadi Aystan (Valley of the Whales) yield evidence of a whale ancestor 21

feet long. They also discovered the fossil of a baby whale (doridon) and of some

mango trees.

The Sahara was once an ocean that stretched halfway around the world. As the

tectonic plate on which Africa rested moved northward the seabed rose spilling away

its water. 20 million years ago the Sahara was a lush tropical swamp. In other places

there were sand dunes 50 stories high. Everything moved fifty feet a year. Africa was

the biggest source of dust on the planet, huge amounts of which got blown into the

Atlantic Ocean.

A scientist named Domenicale, using tubes, dug down to the level of 3 million

years ago and found the time when it changed from swamp to sand.

Space shuttle radar is a new investigative device. With it they found a strip of

green across the sand. There was a network of ancient waterways and a giant lake the

size of West Virginia. 90,000 year old shells were discovered. Ten percent of the

Sahara was covered by mega lakes.

80,000 to 120,000 years ago there was a great migration

Hassan, one of the scientists, discovered the outline of a house's foundation and

ultimately concluded there was a village of huts containing around 50 people. He

discovered beads made from ostrich eggshells carbon dated at 7,000 years ago. Goat

droppings were also discovered.

From the study of cores (hollow poles pounded deep into the earth) they found

the tilt of the earth's axis and evidence of an eastern migration to the Valley of the

Nile, where the death of one culture led to the birth of another.

Oil was discovered in 1956 and along with oil water providing the opportunity

for further study. The deeper the hole the hotter the water.

These notes are choppy at best, but, then,. so was the screenplay. Ed.

HOMILY: "HAPPINESS" BY THE REVEREND JACK WILKINSON

"Am I happy?" I might ask myself. Yes, I am. Without qualification? Happiness

always comes with qualifications, but they cannot destroy it. Happiness can exist even

in a bad marriage. I am happy because I have reached a level of understanding, for

which I had to pay dearly. Nevertheless, whatever I had to pay was a fair price,

because it was the price that my Destiny demanded. To reach this level of

understanding I had to barter my youth, my wealth, my ambition, my delusions, my

obsessions, my addictions and my reputation. In the full course of this "valuable

learning experience" I have had my share of moral and ethical hazards, and I am deeply

grateful for those I seem to have avoided. I am racked by no paralyzing guilt, but I

must admit that this could be due to my own ignorance or to the tender mercies of my

spiritual handlers who lovingly cover me with a blanket of forgetfulness. To put it

another way, it is entirely possible that I should be doing hard time, so I might as well

purchase my freedom now with the appropriate coin: to pass the tender mercies of

my spiritual handlers on to the world at large.

Yes, part of the formula for happiness is being aware of how much worse our lot

could be. I know how trite the saying, "count your blessings," can sound, so let's put

them all in one basket, a solitary day. Each new day falls into our lap like a freshlyminted

gold coin. Its brightness becomes my brightness, its freshness also my own.

My day and I glow with the same radiant energy. My spiritual handlers have allotted

me approximately 25,920 days or between 70 and 72 years, the iconic three score and

ten, and with each new dawn another one of these gold coins drops into my lap.

Actually, I've used up all my gold coins, and I'm running on empty. Happiness is my

only fuel. This bonus day is also a day of 25,920 breaths. This golden day, these

golden breaths I dedicate to you.

LIGHT FROM JACK'S LANTERN:

There are three mindsets, three kinds of thinking, and all three are valid. One

kind of thinking is analytic; the thinking of Science. It is left‐brained. It sees and

envisions things in clarity of detail. The second kind of thinking is catalytic, the thinking

of Religion, and it is opposite that of Science. It is right‐brained.. It sees things in their

unity as an entity, a blur of cohesion, if you will. There is also a third kind of thinking,

which is synthetic. This is the thinking of Art. It stands between analysis and catalysis,

between Science and Religion, and is concentrated in the thalamic region of the brain

between the cerebral halves. It blends the other two disparate perspectives into a

third perspective of virtual reality.

The point here is that if we can learn to think in these three different ways, then

we shall be able to fill these realms with thoughts that do not conflict with one

another. If for you Science negates Religion or visa versa, that means you understand

neither of them. As soon as we get this straight, we'll be on to a new paradigm.

Let me illustrate. During the Revolutionary War at the Battle of Monmouth

events led to the legend of Molly Pitcher, which can be looked at in three ways. First

from the analytic standpoint of Science, the particular science involved in this instance

being History, there was at this battle a large camp‐following of women to feed the

soldiers, set up their camp and care for them. These women in the heat of battle

carried pitchers of cool water to the men to slake their thirst, and, sometimes, when

men fell by their cannons wounded, the women stepped up to take their place in the

reloading. That is in the historic record. What is not in the record is a single

identifiable woman named 'Molly.' That is the work of legend, which took the several

women and merged them into one, which is an example of catalytic thinking, the

thinking of Religion. Now, a third view, an artistic/synthetic view, if you will, can be

arrived at by pounding the mythic Molly into historic plausibility.

These three realms of Science, Religion and Art, or, to put it another way, of

sober fact, iconic image and virtual reality, really can coexist.