January 7
Speaker: Ian Muhlhauser

Beginnings:
A New Year Reflection

We are in a time of beginnings. The time of beginnings is one of possibility and expectation, of hope and even anxiety in the face of the unknown. The topic of beginnings is also appropriate to the event of a first sermon. Come for a refreshment of the spirit, to recover our ideals. Come join in a reflection upon beginnings and plant the seeds of renewal for the New Year.

The service will also include our annual Ceremony of Letting Go, a ritual to make way for the new.

Ian Muhlhauser is the Ministerial Intern at the First Unitarian Society of Chicago. In his field education he is working under the guidance of Rev. Nina Grey. Ian is a native of Los Angeles and grew up in California. He has a B. A. degree in Social Science and a Master's degree in Philosophy and has worked as an elementary and middle school teacher. Ian is a Master's of Divinity student and is also working towards a dual-degree at the Harris School in public policy at the University of Chicago. At the university he has served as the Graduate Council Representative for the Divinity School, and Campus Ministry Representative to Student Government. This year is serving as the President of the Student Government.

Rev. Nina Grey will be in the midst of her two week study-leave at that time, but will join us for the worship service that morning.

January 14
Speaker: Dr. Melissa Harris-Lacewell

Martin Luther King, Jr. Sunday:
Resisting the Seduction of Power through the Humility of Service

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us that all can be great because all can serve. This Sunday we will think about both greatness and service and possibly come away with revised definitions of each!

Melissa Harris-Lacewell is Associate Professor of Politics and African American Studies at Princeton University. Prior to coming to Princeton in her present position, Melissa Harris Lacewell was an assistant professor of political science at the University of Chicago. .

While in Chicago Melissa joined First Unitarian Church and her daughter Parker attended our church school. Melissa is the daughter of First Church member, Diana Gray.

Rev. Nina Grey will be nearing the end of her two-week study leave but will be with us at that service.

January 21
Worship Leaders: Danielle Gerrior &
Rev. Nina D. Grey

Since What We Choose:
Reproductive Choice after 34 Years

The U. S. Supreme Court affirmed a woman's right to privacy between herself and her doctor in the Roe v. Wade decision of January 22, 1973. Almost immediately anti-choice forces began to attack women's right to make choices about their own bodies. Today that attack continues.. This Sunday's sermon, first in a series about choosing and choice, relates our history as a choosing people to our historic and ongoing support for women's right to choose.

Rev. Nina Grey returns to the pulpit after her two-week study leave, which focused on her Doctor of Ministry thesis. Drawing on the liberal Catholic writer Garry Wills' powerful and succinct little book Bush's Fringe Government, Nina revisits the topic of choice as a significant liberal religious value, in the first of a sermon series.

January 28,
Sermon: Rev. Nina Grey

Choose Life:
A Sermon on the Unity of All Being

In this second of the series on choosing and choice, Rev. Grey will focus on the seventh principle of Unitarian Universalism, the affirmation and promotion of the interdependent web of all existence, of which we are a part. Extending the concept of human unity to the unity of all being, she will ask if and how we may choose to sustain the web.

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