We are dealing with uncharted waters in so many aspects of our lives right now.  There is assurance in knowing that transformation and change often sit on the other side. 

Following the service on July 19th, we will have a virtual discussion group.  Email uucl.office@gmail.com if you are not already on our Discussion Group list and would like to participate.



A Brief Bio of Dafina Ward:

Dafina is an expert in program and organizational development, with a focus on community health initiatives. She currently serves as Director of Community Investments for the Southern AIDS Coalition (SAC). For nearly a year she served as Interim Executive Director of SAC during a period of unprecedented organizational growth and expansion. In her role as Director of Community Investment for SAC, she oversees grantmaking and other resource investment initiatives for community-based organizations.

A grant writer, speaker and trainer, she utilizes her legal training and negotiation skills to build collaborations through problem solving and strategic engagement to build impactful and sustainable programs. She also offers trainings and seminars regionally and nationally on inclusion, culturally responsive communication, and building intersectional health and wellness programs.

As a grantwriter she has secured more than $10,000,000 in funding for community-based programs. Her work focuses on areas of health and wellness that greatly impact marginalized communities. She works to end siloed approaches to transformation, through thoughtful partnerships and meaningful relationships.

Dafina also has five years of experience as a remote manager, and coaches managers in areas of "trauma informed" supervision and remote organization process development. She has shared her strategies with dozens of organizational leaders during COVID-19 pandemic through webinars hosted by Emory University and the Professional Association of Social Workers in HIV/AIDS.

Dafina is also a writer and a 2017 Ford Foundation/Op-Ed Project Public Voices Fellow. Her work has been published in The Washington Post, The Lily and Role Reboot.

Dafina received her BA in Mass Media Arts from Clark Atlanta University (Atlanta, GA) and her Juris Doctor from Temple University’s Beasley School of Law (Philadelphia, PA). She and her husband, Ahmad, reside in the Lowcountry of South Carolina with their two brilliant girls. ​

Join us, Sunday July 12th at 10:00a.m. on our Facebook Page for a series of special videos including Opening and Closing words from Rev. Charlie Tyler.  An Intergenerational message from Ann Harrison.  A musical Prelude and Postlude from John Sheppard and a special Video Message from Rev. Jane Page.  

Rev. Jane Page explores the fifth principle, "The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large," especially in the crisis we face related to COVID 19.  Is our democracy also in crisis?

These videos will be viewable at Facebook.com/uulowcountry at 10:00a.m. on Sunday July 12th.
 

‘Democracy means not “I am as good as you are,” but “You are as good as I am.”’ My connection with the sacred is only as precious as my willingness to acknowledge the same connection in others.” Theodore Parker

This service was Live Streamed at Facebook.com/uulowcountry

Our patterns have been challenged, our thinking has been questioned and there is almost no place to escape reality. In 3000 BCE Sefer Yetzera, The Book of Creation, it is written ‘if your mind runs return to the place,’ and Caribbean poet Derek Wolcott writes in Love after Love  we must 'feast on our life'.  
How does this relate to justice & Tikkun Olam -  healing the world? Join us for the fun of being an adventurer, a curious pilgrim in 2020.

This Service was Live Streamed at Facebook.com/uulowcountry.

Due to Technical Difficulties - Rabbi TZiPi Radonsky's Sunday June 28th Service is broken into two videos.

"Intuitive Wisdom and the Love of Justice" Part I

"Intuitive Wisdom and the Love of Justice" Part II

Our fourth principle is a distinguishing character of our faith, and possibly it's strongest attraction. We encourage and support each other in the free pursuit of truth and meaning; each of us is called to be a theologian, and to define what is true for us, with no creed binding us to one way of seeing the world. This Sunday we'll talk about about this precious aspect of being UU and what it means in today's world.

This service was Live Streamed in our Facebook Page:  Facebook.com/uulowcountry.

​

Never doubt the power of a vision. Rev. Jobe returns to us, maybe in person, but probably via video for a vision check. He's not an eye doctor, but he believes deeply in the power of how we see things. He will give us his vision for moving forward as a congregation and as us about ours.  
 
This service was a series of six videos that can be viewed below

Video 1: Lighting the Chalice and Prelude

Video 2: Opening Words with Rev. Pat Jobe and Rev. Travis Smith

Video 3:  Inter-Generational message from Ann Harrison

Video 4: Sermon with Rev. Pat Jobe (and Rev. Travis Smith)

Video 5: Interlude

Video 6: Postlude and Extinguishing the Chalice

“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn..." Thoreau
(With thanks to Paige Getty. UUC Columbia, Maryland)

This Live Streamed service was streamed on our Facebook page - at Facebook.com/uulowcountry

I am a firm believer in the power of language.  How we communicate with our physical presence and how we communicate verbally with others begins to open the door to the message of Acceptance.  Thinking 'spherically" allows us to open doors to our own souls, and allow others, perhaps for the first time, to open their own. Acceptance leads to trust, and trust can be transforming.  

This service was Live Streamed on our Facebook page (Facebook.com/uulowcountry).  The service can also be viewed below.

Our Third Principle – that of acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth - is a Big Deal. Through sharing some of a personal journey, Nancy will explore some of the thoughts, feelings, and other sensations that accompany the phenomena of feeling accepted by others, by the Spirit of Life, and by self. We will also think about how encouragement to spiritual growth is woven together with acceptance in the same Principle.

This service was live streamed on our Facebook page (Facebook.com/uulowcountry) it will also be available to view on our homepage for a short time.  

​​Let's take a moment to get to know Nancy a little better:
Nancy’s personal, professional, and faith development have influenced her journey to find a home in the UUCL. Originally from Maine and the third child of parents who divorced when Nancy was five, Nancy grew up as a Quaker Church drop out. Her spiritual formation came from Nature and contentedness with summer beach combing, exploring, and boating on the ocean. When Nancy was in her twenties she learned that both sides of her family were assimilated Jews – Polish and German on one side and Russian on the other. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s Nancy began a conversion experience that called her to a spiritual life through the new age spirituality of Shakti Gwain. She was in the midst of a career of much travel as a statistical and behavior psychological professional engaged in process and quality improvement consulting work with companies in remote places – Yukon and Northwest Territories of Northern Canada, as well as Baffin Island. As the Spirit called to her increasingly, she found home in the gifts of faith in Christianity and the Catholic Church.

After many years as a Catholic convert, she was called to the profession of chaplaincy and in 2017 completed a several year education journey to become a board-certified Catholic chaplain. In addition to her full-time employment as a hospice chaplain, she began to do service work for her parish as a chaplain. Shortly in the process of helping the Church, Nancy’s sexual orientation as a lesbian got caught in the cross hairs of a powerful enough homophobe in the Catholic church to set Nancy adrift and feeling spiritually bereft. Lucky enough to continue her life as an explorer, she continued to search for a place to give her spiritual life form. She came to the UUCL service one Sunday with friend Martha Girardi somewhere in the Summer or Fall of 2018. She continued attending on a somewhat regular basis until a permanent return home to Maine in December 2018. After a few months in Maine she learned that South Carolina and Bluffton – not Maine - had become home. As explorers are prone to do, Nancy returned in July of 2019 and soon became a name tag carrying member of the UUCL. The sense of belonging and acceptance that Nancy feels at UUCL makes today’s message a punctuation mark in a wonderful continuing spiritual journey.

“Spiritual growth isn’t about a vertical ascent to heaven but about growth in every dimension at once. It’s spirituality in 3-D. Growth in spirit doesn’t measure one’s proximity to a God above, but rather the spaciousness of one’s own soul—its volume, its capacity, its size."  

Rev. Rob Hardies, All Souls Church Unitarian, Washington, DC   

This Live Streamed service is also viewable at Facebook.com/uulowcountry

https://www.facebook.com/uulowcountry/videos/583220282576694/