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

Member of the Unitarian Universalist Association �� Newsletter Number 2010:7

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 24TH, 2010

EVENTS OF SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28TH, 2010

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

Bill Patton “the Recent History of Afghanistan.”

FUTURE PROGRAMS

March 7th "Open Discussion”

March 14th Christie Ruiz on "Healthy Eating"

March 21st Jack Wilkinson on "Ben Hecht and the Enigma of the Modern Jew"

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: "OPEN DISCUSSION”

Featured presenter Randy Miller slipped on the ice of his back steps and hurt his

back, so an Open Discussion took place in his stead. As of this writing he is managing

to get about. We wish him a complete recovery. Christie Ruiz was the star of the hour,

up‐staging the Open Discussion with her presentation of a full meal: a chicken dish, a

lamb dish and rice with curry sauce. Words cannot do it justice.

As for the Open Discussion, we talked first about the Winter Olympics, and the

conversation focused on sports for a while. Claire Horton talked about sports as

religion. Bo Necco continued with sports as a financial engine for higher education. It

certainly raises money for higher education that would not otherwise be available. He

also spoke wistfully of Title XIX, which had the effect of spreading athletic funds both

to girls' teams and to minor sports, such as fencing. From there the talk lurched into

politics. Bo said that people usually fail to vote their true interests, because they get

de‐railed by Republicans selling them on some moral imperative.

Then we got into medicine. Wayne Horton made the point that doctors are busy

all the time.. In spite of this the distribution of health care is uneven and not

sufficiently far‐reaching. That suggests that in the final analysis more doctors will be

needed. Jim Maphet stressed the PA (Physician's Assistant) which I hadn't even heard

of. It seems they are able to do just about everything a doctor can and for a lot less

money. Tort reform was touched on. Bob Williams said that a wrong pill leads to an

automatic five million dollar law suit. These large sums have entered the medical field

through the legal profession and create an atmosphere in which cover‐ups are too

tempting to resist.

Bo Necco said we shouldn't be feeling sorry for the doctors, most of whom are

not personally vulnerable to litigation. He said it's the institution on whose staff the

doctors work that bear the brunt of legal assaults. So we wondered if there should be

a cap on these awards to victims. And who should decide? We have a lot to think

through, if we want to reform health care. Bo said that it cost $100,000 to prepare for

such a case.

We discussed MRSA (Methycillin Resistant Staph Aureus), which is typically

caught during hospitalization. Somebody suggested accessing hospital data on line for

statistics on MRSA cases when deciding which one to go to.

HOMILY: "SOUL AND SPIRIT" BY THE REVEREND JACK WILKINSON

It helps to know the difference between Soul and Spirit. Both are abstract terms

which need to be grasped aright. A graphic representation would show Spirit as a

circle and Soul as a dot in the center of the circle. Soul is centrifugal drawing us into

our center and down into Nature. Spirit is centripetal and takes us in the other

direction. We need to keep a balance between the two. We also need to make the

right connection.

Spirit represents the feminine side of Divinity, and as we reach out to it we can

either set ourselves free or tie ourselves up, depending on how we view our objective.

Many years ago the Christian Church did a bad thing. At the Council of Constantinople

of 869 CE it declared that the human being had a body and a soul but no longer a spirit.

They changed us from tripartite to bipartite beings. They gave us a spiritual lobotomy.

Why? Because a person with a spirit has no need of the Church. They took the divine

feminine from God the Holy Spirit and transferred it to the Church and made the

Church the Bride of Christ. They made the Church our mother and told us never to

leave home.

The Holy Spirit, the Divine Feminine, the Great Mother, the Goddess, is Spirit as

Macrocosm that contains and resonates with our own emergent spirits as microcosm,

while we struggle to expand and incorporate more and more into our Being.

Ultimately we must recognize that the true consort of Christ is not the Church but the

Universe. JW3

DENOMINATIONAL NEWS

The General Assembly of the Ohio Meadville District will meet March 26‐27 of

the year 2010 at the Ohio University Eastern Campus in St. Clairsville, Ohio. The theme

is "Growing Branches; Strong Roots; Transformational Living." The keynote speaker

will be the Reverend Meg Riley with the topic "Standing on the Side of Love." There

will be workshops on Interfaith Youth/Adult Training, Green Sanctuary, Creating a

Culture of Peace, etc. Registration is $65 by Feb. 26, $75 by Mar. 13th. Those

interested may write: Ohio‐Meadville District, P.O. Box 157, St. Clairsville, OH 43950,

or telephone (740) 252‐5980, fax 866‐460‐7969 or e‐mail at office @ohiomeadville.org.