Unitarian Fellowship of Huntington, 619 6th Avenue, Huntington, WV 25701-2103
Member of the Unitarian Universalist Association �� Newsletter Number 2009:29
President: Bob Williams �� Vice President/Programs Director: Randy Miller �� Treasurer: Jim Maphet
Newsletter Editor: Jack Wilkinson III (304-521-9201)
The Free Thinker
Newsletter of the Unitarian Fellowship of Huntington, WV
NOVEMBER 18 , 2009
EVENTS FOR SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2009
10:00 A.M. WORSHIP with the Reverend Jack Wilkinson.
HOMILY: "The Desire for What Is Hidden"
Settling for what you can merely see or touch can lead to bad health and
despair. Desiring what is hidden revives your good health and keeps you young. We
shall look into this great wonder.
10:30 A.M. Coffee Break
11:00 A.M. PROGRAM with the U. U. Fellowship
The Reverend Joan Van Becelaere, Director of the Ohio/Meadville District, will
discuss how the District can help our Fellowship. This is an especially important time
for members and friends of the Fellowship to arrive in droves. We at Huntington tend
to be insular for one reason or another. Let's try this Sunday to cast off the rags of our
laissez‐faire attitudes and don the tailored garb of liberal religious commitment. Let
Joan Van Becelaere open up some windows for us and let in the light.
FUTURE PROGRAMS (PROGRAMS ARE HELD AT 11:00 AM)
Note: Worship Services with The Rev. Jack Wilkinson will be held every Sunday at 10:00 A.M.
November 29th: Potluck Sunday Dinner
December 6th: Open Discussion
December 13th: Ed Necco on "Secular Humanism"
December 20th: "Autobiography" with Randy Miller
December 27th: The Rev. Jack Wilkinson on "Unitarian Universalism"
January 3rd: Open Discussion
January 10th: Jaqueline Muth reviewing War Is A Racket.
January 17th: Autobiography with Jim Maphet
RETROSPECTIVE OF LAST SUNDAY: MIKE MOORE'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Some lives can be examined in terms of their epiphanies. Albert Schweitzer had
eight of them, the most memorable being his contemplation of some hippopotami in a
Unitarian Fellowship of Huntington, 619 6th Avenue, Huntington, WV 25701-2103
Member of the Unitarian Universalist Association �� Newsletter Number 2009:29
President: Bob Williams �� Vice President/Programs Director: Randy Miller �� Treasurer: Jim Maphet
Newsletter Editor: Jack Wilkinson III (304-521-9201)
river in Africa and the phrase 'reverence for life' wafting into his mind. Mike Moore
had at least three epiphanies: one concerning his career, another concerning a hobby,
and a third concerning a relationship.
Mike was conflicted about joining the priesthood. A committed Catholic, who as
a young boy went to church twice on Sunday, for morning worship and for afternoon
benediction, he somehow got the idea that God had called him and that to reject the
calling would be a sin. He said farewell to the girlfriend he had been with throughout
grade school and at age 14 entered training. He gave up all his friends and became
introverted and socially inept. He went through two and a half years of misery, but, on
the bright side, he got a first‐rate education. However, there was a fly in the ointment.
Mike had a bed‐wetting problem that followed him throughout adolescence, which
caused his mentor in ministry ultimately to suggest that he take a leave of absence
until he had mastered his problem. By this circumstance he was able to quit the
priesthood without guilt. Ultimately a psychiatrist was able to offer a cure. "What do
you think of before falling asleep?" he asked.
"I mustn't wet my bed," Mike replied.
Then the psychiatrist said, "Try saying, 'I want to wake up in a bed that's dry.'" It
worked. Now he was free of his affliction and free also (in the words of Joseph
Campbell) to follow his own bliss. With the encouragement of his Catholic advisor at
St. Joseph's College in Missouri he discovered that his heartfelt interest lay in biology.
This led to many other insights in the field, and for the past few decades he has been
at Marshall University doing cancer research, in which he has given papers cataloguing
the effects of certain hormones, such as progestin, upon the stimulation or inhibition
of cancer cells.
The second epiphany involved his hobby, coon hunting. This hobby, it can be
said, was part of a larger interest, love of the outdoors, which led him into the Boy
Scouts in his youth and wilderness re‐enactment groups in his maturity. So he
accumulated coon dogs, some of which ran after a deer and never returned. Finally he
got hold of Spot, a walker hound, who would chase neither deer nor fox, only coon. He
followed this passion for some twenty‐five years, and it helped put him through school
because of the high price he could demand for coon hides, sometimes around fifty
dollars a piece. However, he was eventually done in both by PETA and by his own
evolving sensibilities. At the same time that political correctness drove down the price
of coon hides Mike came to his own organic awareness that he felt sorry for the coons,
and he quit.
His third epiphany began in Germany, where he was stationed with the U.S.
Army. He met a German girl named Gaby, whom he married and brought home. He
Unitarian Fellowship of Huntington, 619 6th Avenue, Huntington, WV 25701-2103
Member of the Unitarian Universalist Association �� Newsletter Number 2009:29
President: Bob Williams �� Vice President/Programs Director: Randy Miller �� Treasurer: Jim Maphet
Newsletter Editor: Jack Wilkinson III (304-521-9201)
had three sons with her, and, to make a long story short, some 17 years later he had to
face up to the fact of their fundamental differences. As he put it, for her the glass was
always half empty and for him it was always half full. She was an atheist, whereas he
was at this point a renegade Catholic but with a firm belief in the regenerative power
of life and community. They parted amicably. Today he has put his Catholicism on
hold without animosity as he exults in his association with people in the Unitarian
Fellowship where, as he puts it, anyone can say anything he pleases without
repercussion.
These three epiphanies involving his career, hobby and marriage have put him in
a good place.
LIGHT FROM JACK'S LANTERN: "GETTING WHAT YOU WANT"
What's it all about, Alfie? Whatever the answer, chances are it isn't about
getting what you want. I suspect it's more likely to be about getting what you need,
supposing at the same time that the universe is a friendly place and not a place that is
out to get you. Suppose you think you want sugar, and in the course of events you
develop diabetes. No doubt you wanted the sugar, but you didn't want the diabetes.
We mustn't allow our wants to overwhelm our needs. Needs should ultimately always
get the upper hand.
Getting what you want can also mean getting the person you think you want but
who may not be the person you need. We seldom take time to adequately interview a
potential associate or mate. We rush into relationships assuming that we have shared
presuppositions. Our urgency to fill some void within us may, when acted upon, have
us once more longing for the void itself. Perhaps emptiness is better, after all, than a
precipitous fullness ill‐considered.
There is one very broad and general human need in particular, and that is the
need to negotiate relationship, and that particular skill may be tested in any situation,
whether or not we may be in a misalliance. The skill to not abrade along with the skill
to get someone's attention or, better, to rouse his interest, are skills that serve us for a
lifetime, perhaps many lifetimes. Such skills do not require you to get what you want;
they don't require you to want at all. They serve your need, and they may, over time,
enable you to want them as well. If you can want what you already have, that can be a
very pleasant resolution.