February 3
Rev. Dr. Nina D. Grey

Broken Hearts, Holes in Walls

Rev. Nina Grey has just returned from her first substantial trip to the border between San Diego, California, and Tijuana, Mexico, where she participated in a conference, invited to do so by the Rev. Ann Marie Coleman, co- pastor of University Church. Nina, Don and Ann Marie Coleman, and about 150 others attended the conference, held at La Casa de Migrantes, a shelter for men who had just been deported from the U.S. Participants heard presentations and reflected together on injustice and a vision of justice, from theological, ethical, economic, political and personal perspectives. Rev. Grey says "Crossing from San Diego into Tijuana is crossing into a different world. The conference included excursions to the border fence, and we met people who sometimes in sacrifice and at risk to themselves are standing in solidarity with the men, women and children of Mexico. We ate dinners with migrants who had been deported and talked with them and heard some of their stories."

Nina will offer some reflections on border realities, as she is coming to see them: on deep sorrows, profound commitments and joys in the midst of hardship. She will ask us to continue on the journey of learning about the lives and decisions of undocumented immigrants in our country.

Nina will hold a sermon discussion in Chris Moore Parlor after the service.

February 10
Rev. Don Coleman

A Persistent Call

Rev. Don Coleman, co-pastor of University Church, our next door neighbor, crossed a different kind of border when, in September 2006, he committed civil disobedience and crossed into the military base at Ft. Benning, GA as part of a protest against the School of the Americas, now the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. Don was convicted and in mid-March 2007 sent to a federal medium security prison for 60 days.

Don's lawyer asked the judge for leniency because Rev. Coleman had never been convicted before. The judge begged to differ saying that he believed Don was deeply convicted. Don had to agree, for he believes that his civil disobedience was "holy obedience" and Don received the full 60 day sentence. Today he will talk with us about his experiences answering "A Persistent Call."

The Rev. Don Coleman received his Masters of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School. He was pastor of two Presbyterian congregations, in Springville and Payson, Utah and a campus minister at Texas Tech in Lubbock, TX. Don's wife Ann Marie joined him in that ministry and was soon ordained. They shared a co-ministry at Guild House on the campus of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor for 18 years. The First UU Congregation of Ann Arbor also participated in the Guild House campus ministry, and Don and Ann Marie served as ministers-in-residence at the UU church during a sabbatical of the UU minister. In 1991 Don and Ann Marie came to serve University Church in Hyde Park.

Don has been a continuing member of the Executive Committee of the Hyde Park and Kenwood Interfaith Council, active in the work of the New Sanctuary movement and the School of the Americas Watch, and a member of the Illinois Mayan Ministries of the United Church of Christ. He has traveled in Guatamala, and with Witnesses for Peace in Nicaragua and Mexico

February 17
Rev. Dr. Nina D. Grey

Wanted:
Befriending: The Roots and Possibilities of Valentine's Day

The first St. Valentine was a prisoner. A young girl visited him and through her visits gave him hope. Through the centuries many have intentionally risked prison for the sake of a principle. Ghandi learned from Henry David Thoreau. When Thoreau was in prison for civil disobedience, a friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson, came to visit him and it is said that Emerson asked Thoreau, "Henry, what are you doing in there?" Thoreau is said to have replied, "Waldo, what are you doing out there?"

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. learned from Ghandi and Thoreau. King led a movement of non-violent protest that led to arrests and imprisonments. On this third Sunday of Black History Month, reflecting on a root of Valentine's Day's emphasis on love, we ask what might be calling us not only to feed the hungry, but also to visit and even to free the prisoner. Who is in prison and why? What is befriending? What would call us to befriend prisoners? What would it mean?

This Sunday we will take the second of three offerings for the Interfaith Worker Rights Center of the Chicago Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues.

February 24
The Rev. Gordon Gibson

This sermon is the Rev. Dr. Gordon Gibson's attempt to put into words the lived facts of the liberation struggle that was intensely focused in the 1950s and 1960s.

Gordon Gibson grew up in Kentucky and in his first year in our ministry participated in the early phases of the 1965 voting rights drive in Selma. From 1969 to 1984 he was the Unitarian Universalist minister in Mississippi. He is the current Minister in Residence at Meadville Lombard Theological School and at the end of March he and his wife, Judy, will for the third time be leading a weeklong Southern Civil Rights Tour. This will be his third appearance in our pulpit.

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