What if the search for home also creates our destination?

We'll serve iced tea and lemonade to make sure that all are awake! Plan to meet outdoors in the garden behind Hobgoblin Music Barn weather permitting.

Rev. Ted will be talking about how the stories we tell about our beginnings shape our understanding of who we are and how we interact with other beings.

And we'll serve tea to make sure that all are awake!

Belonging is an important way that we feel our deep connections with the communities we hold dear. But what does it cost? When is the price too high? Bring your questions and your answers and stories of belonging.

Reflections on our growing edges in compassion, creativity, and conscience. But what makes vulnerability "Holy"?

We meet in person at Hobgoblin.

On cold winter nights in the White House, Thomas Jefferson gathered six copies of the New Testament and a very sharp razor. 

With painstaking effort, he trimmed away the layers of myth-making to reveal a very clear and modern picture of the "historic Jesus" not a god but a man, not a savior but a sage. We'll follow Jefferson's track and also consider what his approach overlooks. 

The trouble begins at 10 am.

Every so often we face a decision for which there are no easy answers, just lots of difficult questions. How can we follow the way of free and responsible reflection to make better decisions? Four or five clues for challenging occasions.

When we dig deeper than tinsel and frenzied gift-giving, what are the deep roots of Christmas?  We will explore and honor the ancient roots of Winter Solstice, Santa as a Sami Shaman, and universal Festivals of Lights. 

Ho, ho, ho!

Rev, Ted Tollefson explores the inspiring connections between dogs, their trained humans, and the Powers that Be.

Special memorial service for dogs we have loved and lost in the last year.

It's long past the time to reclaim our major holidays to celebrate peace-making:
from Armistice Day (Nov. 11) to Christmas (December 25), to Mother's Peace Day (second Sunday in May) and World Peace Day (September 21).

All Peace-makers invited. We'll also be talking about a new Peace Pole for Red Wing.

Autumn approaches and with it WORLD PEACE DAY on September 21.

It's time to count our blessings, bathe our hopes for a peaceful world in the "Waters of Life" and practice the art of Savoring each moment entrusted to our care. We’ll also read from The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff.

Join us for Passover / Easter Sunday as Rev Ted discusses the power of hope in times of tumult.

How have our lives been damaged by the war in Ukraine?

How can we begin to repair that damage?

A talk on how to mend, fix and repair the broken places in our world beginning with War.

Resources for Peacemakers: Poems for Peace, Books, and a Commentary on Ukraine

If we look carefully at the teachings of Jesus & Thoreau and listen deeply to the songs of Peter Mayer, we find a "Heaven" that is within and around us. Here and Now.

Quiet time, music, magic words, and a few stories.

"Heaven is under our feet as well as over our head.”
- Henry David Thoreau

"The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed.”
- Jesus

What if the story of Christmas is an invitation to spiritual and ethical rebirth?

Join us for a different perspective of what Christmas means.

This Sunday, Live and In-Person! We’ll meet in the garden, weather permitting.

It's not easy to discover and live your purpose for being, but the effort can be illuminating. The Japanese call it ikigai: the lively intersection of what the world needs, what we can be paid for, what we love to do and what we do well.

Perhaps you will not be surprised that your "Call" or "Ikigai" can be understood in a natural or supernatural framework---your choice!

I'll be using “the pizza method of preaching" - that is, serving one pizza slice at a time so we can chew on it (discuss it) together. Come so we can learn from each other.

Now that Minnesota's pandemic rate has climbed to over 4,000 new cases per day, we're going to try a safe Zoom service.

Here's the plan:

10 am

1. Checking in: What helps you cope with these difficult times?

2. Joys & Concerns

3. Ted's Talk: "Life-boat Ethics: Living Well in Changing Times"

4. UU Dialogue

11 am

Closing Words

ZOOM LINK: Join our first Zoom Meeting

Meeting ID: 770 8878 0412

Passcode: dp855F

Outdoors meeting - weather permitting.

As cultural tensions increase, civility is becoming a lost art. We'll reflect on how everyday rituals like saying hello or good-bye, or sharing a cup of tea or coffee can help rebuild a shared sense of the “common good.”

We'll also harvest your suggestions. If the weather is comfortable, we'll meet inside with masks, social distancing and 30-foot ceilings with good ventilation. Please wear a mask and keep 6 feet apart.

Join us for our 4th live meeting in 4 months!

 "Living Waters" ceremony to remember the events, people, and places that touched our hearts this summer. 

We 'll meet outside in the garden and keep 6 feet apart.
Please wear a mask and be kind to your neighbors!
If you have lawn chairs, please bring them. 

Rev. Ted's Talk will celebrate the 203rd Birthday of Henry David Thoreau!

🎂

Thoreau is often remembered as an American writer, naturalist and non-violent dissenter. I will reflect on his original contributions to living a more spiritual life.

This will be our second in-person meeting since the beginning of the pandemic. and plan to meet outside in the shady garden under the walkway @ Hobgoblin Music. We'll have some cool beverages to share!

Please wear your mask and maintain appropriate social distancing. If you have lawn chairs, please bring them. If you're interested in the topic but choose not to attend for health reasons, there will be a link available for a taped version of this talk on You Tube coming shortly. Be sure to check back!

If you're interested in the topic but choose not to attend for health reasons here's a link so you can watch a taped version of this talk.

We plan to meet outside at the garden in the shade under the walkway @ Hobgoblin Music.

Rev. Ted's Talk will draw upon a historic document Journal of a Plague Year by Defoe (1722) and Albert Camus' novel The Plague (1947). How do plagues and pandemics challenge us to create a new and better way of life?

Please wear your mask and maintain appropriate social distancing. If you have lawn chairs, please bring them.

If you're interested in the topic but choose not to attend for health reasons here's a link so you can watch a taped version of this talk

A reflection on which flower represents our UU community and how. My selection may surprise you, but allow me to explain the virtues of the humble dandelion and how it applies to living.

Shared reflections on how to remember, record, understand and befriend our dreams: night-dreams, day-dreams, twilight dreams and Big Dreams.

Rev. Ted wrote his master's thesis on dreamwork, trained with Jeremy Taylor and Stephon Williams. He has taught dreamwork in Minnesota since 1980.

"Human beings are the only animals that dream 24 hours per day"
Carl Jung

Check out the “10 Basic Questions” worksheet and the “Remembering Your Dreams” how-to.

There are a special class of events that are extraordinary and life-changing that dance along the edge of "natural" and "supernatural.”

Is there a hidden logic to creating "win/win solutions" in a “win/lose world?'“
What really happened when Moses saw the Burning Bush and Jesus fed the multitude with a few loaves and fishes?

Community Lunch will be served!

Chili with bread, Irish butter, cornbread and honey

A transcript of this sermon is available to read!

with Rev. Ted Tollefson

In the beginnings of our UU faith in New England, many identified as Unitarian or Universalist Christians.

One description of our roots says that Unitarian Christians believed in the “Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood of Jesus and the Neighborhood of Boston.” A more contemporary summary might be “A human Jesus meets a reasonable God.”

Come learn about our roots and take a self-score inventory.

Community Lunch will be served!

Chili with bread, Irish butter, cornbread and honey

One of the lively cross-currents in the UU tradition is "Transcendentalism".

It began with Emerson, Thoreau, Elizabeth Peabody and continues in the work of Annie Dillard, Mary Oliver and Gary Snyder. There will be time for questions and discussion and a self-score quiz.

Could you be a Transcendentalist without knowing it?

LIVE MUSIC with Andrea & Penelope Swanson, 2 young talented musicians who visited us in July - grand-daughters of Donn & Dorothy Leaf.

Rev. Ted will be sharing 3 ways to enter the "House of Joy" - that is a way of living that makes you unreasonably happy and creative.

Special Music by Calvin Dame of Vermont who will lead us in singing.

Soup & bread following the service: homemade soup by Peter, with a couple kinds of bread and Irish butter!

Rev. Ted Tollefson preaching

I'll be reflecting on the powers of water to nourish life, calm our souls, teach us about interdependence and inspire creative reflection.

We'll also do a "Water Ceremony" to celebrate the beginning of a new year in our community!

"What we do to the Waters of Life, we do to our selves".

Chief Seattle

What the Dutch call "Niksen" and Chinese Taoists call "Wu Wei" might be a key to a more healthy, creative life.

Many spiritual and religious traditions speak of a "peace that passes understanding.” In Yoga and Hinduism it is called "Shantih.” In Biblical religions, it is called "shalom" or "salaam.”

What is the peace beyond understanding? How can we experience it ourselves?

As part of the service we'll practice several ways to experience "deep peace".