February 4
Speaker: Rev. James A. Hobart

To Establish the Work of Our Hands

James Luther Adams,the great UU social ethicist at the University of Chicago Divinity School, Harvard Divinity School, and Andover Newton Theological School, wrote: "The 'holy' thing in life is the participation in those processes that give body and form to universal justice." What does this "participation" require from us, individuals who freely join together in the bonds of religious community?

James A. Hobart, a member of First Unitarian since 2001, was affirmed as an Affiliate Minister of First Unitarian Church by the Board of Trustees at its February 2007 meeting. Jim serves as an adjunct professor at Meadville/Lombard, teaching UU congregational polity or governance. Jim was born and grew up in the South, where his father served UU congregations in New Orleans, Charleston and Birmingham from the mid-1940s to the
late 1960s. A 1964 graduate of Meadville/Lombard, he has served in our ministry more than 40 years, primarily in urban congregations. Jim has been active in the UUA, serving on the Commission on Appraisal, the Board of Trustees and the Ministerial Fellowship Committee. Last year he served as the interim Congregational Services Director for our Central Midwest District of the UUA. In keeping with his life-long engagement in matters concerning racism and discrimination, he is a member of the newly formed Allies for Racial Equity. Last summer, Jim was among the First Unitarian group which spent a week in New Orleans (once his home town), assisting in the recovery effort following Katrina.

February 11
Speaker: Dr. Finley C. Campbell

How A Rainbow of Steel Was Built:
Multi-racial Unity and the Making of Black America.

Dr. Campbell writes, " My thesis is that what many of us call black people or black folks (as distinct from "African Americans") are the product of the unifying synergy of a variety of multi-racial experiences: personal, existential, and political."

Dr. Finley C. Campbell is senior professor emeritus, DeVry University Chicago Campus and a member of the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship and the Network of Spiritual Progressives. Finley is the former chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. He has a Ph.D. in socio-political US American literature from the Univ of Chicago. He has been a member of the First Unitarian Church of Chicago for fifteen years, and is presently a co-chair of the Racial Justice Task Force of the Social Justice Council of First U. Finley is the father/ co-father of six children and is married to Bobbi Lammers-Campbell, the co-chair of our Membership Committee.

February 18
Sermon: Rev. Nina D. Grey

Take Heart:
Deepening Relationships

This reflection will be the first in a two-part series on the courage it takes to form and sustain relationships. The focus this Sunday will be on the personal: love within families and friendships, and the ways in which taking risks fosters growth. Rev. Nina Grey will draw on the thought of Harriet Lerner's The Dance of Connection, and Reshmi M. and Mahmood I. Siddique's, How to Turn Anger into Love.

February 25,
Sermon: Rev. Nina Grey

Courage and Community

In this second of a two-part series on courage and relationships, Rev. Nina Grey will reflect on the courage of forming and strengthening community relationships with special attention given to the bonds of a faith community. She will draw on resources from The Courage to Hope: From Black Suffering to Human Redemption, edited by Quinton Hosford Dixie and Cornel West, as well from Scott Peck's The Different Drum.

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