Service Planning – Canadian UU Women's Association

Women’s Day Service Packets

Link to Service resources from the International Women’s Convocation

Reading Suggestions

Unitarianism and Feminism – by David Jordan

“Every Unitarian is a feminist so he has to watch his language.” Kidding aside, Mary Fairchild states in “Unitarian Universalism: Christian or Not “The Unitarians and Universalists were religious denominations that accepted the ordination of women earlier than most Protestant denominations did, and many early woman suffrage and women’s rights leaders came out of one of these denominations.” . . . .

“So, if this were indeed my Final Hour, these would be my words to you. I would not claim to pass on any secret of life, for there is none, or any wisdom except the passionate plea of caring … Try to feel, in your heart’s core, the reality of others. This is the most painful thing in the world, probably, and the most necessary. In times of personal adversity, know that you are not alone. Know that although in the eternal scheme of things you are small, you are also unique and irreplaceable, as are all of your fellow humans everywhere in the world. Know that your commitment is above all to life itself.”
Margaret Laurence

Tuesday

Nothing forced works.
The Gordian knot just worsens
if it’s jerked at by a person.
One of the main stations
of the cross is patience.
Another, of course, is impatience.
There is such a thing as
too much tolerance
for unpleasant situations,
a time when the gentle
teasing out of threads
ceases to be pleasing
to a woman born for conquest.
Instead she must assault
the knot or alp or everest
with something sharp
and take upon herself
the moral warp of sudden progress. (Kay Ryan, 1945 – )

A New Manifestation by Margaret Fuller, Singing the Living Tradition # 575

A new manifestation is at hand, a new hour has come.
When man and woman may regard one another as brother and sister, able both to appreciate and to prophecy to one another.
A new manifestation is at hand, a new hour has come.
What Woman needs is not as a woman to act or rule, but as a nature to grow, as an intelligence to discern, as a soul to live freely and unimpeded, to unfold such powers as were given to her . . . see hymnal for rest of reading

Hymn Suggestions

Singing the Living Tradition and Singing the Journey, the current UU Hymnals have a wealth of songs by women composers and women poets.

“One Woman” was written for UN Women, inspiring listeners to join the drive for women’s rights and gender equality.

Book Suggestions

Invisible Influence: Claiming Canadian Unitarian Universalist Women’s History – edited by Jean Pfleiderer, Heather Fraser Fawcett, Kathy Sage is available from the UUA bookstore for $20 (plus shipping) or by using this Invisible Influence- order form 2014

Make cheque payable to Kingston Unitarian Fellowship (memo for Inv. Infl book) by mail; the cost is $25 per copy (including postage).

Concise Portraits of Canadian Unitarian and Universalist Women
“Concise Portraits of Canadian Unitarian and Universalist Women” (May 2004, republished May, 2006) is a book prepared by the Uppity Women’s study group of the Universalist Unitarian Church of Halifax, lead by Mary Lu MacDonald and Irene Baros-Johnson. Profiles of eminent women leaders (12 in the first edition; 16 in the second) remind us of how many other women have served with distinction as ministers, minister’s wives, chaplains, lay leaders in our respective congregations and the wider community. The book is available from Mary Lu MacDonald

Useful Links

United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women