What would it mean to re-enchant the world, or a part of it? What would it mean to you to be doing that work?
There might be as many answers as there are UU-Pagans. The field is open.
This year, CUUPS is hosting a Sermon Contest. Here are the official rules:
“You are invited to write, deliver and submit a sermon on “Re-enchantment” to a UU congregation before October 31, 2015. The sermon must be made available in audio, preferably digital (.mp3), or it can be recorded phone call if necessary. Our panel of judges will listen to them and pick their top four finalists by the end of 2015. These four top sermons will be broadcast between January and April of 2016, then CUUPS membership will vote for the winner, online, in May. The winner will be announced at General Assembly 2016 and will be invited to deliver the sermon at the CUUPS annual meeting. Winner will receive a $500 prize.
We also request a digital copy of the Order of Service in which the sermon was presented. The sermon-writer retains ownership of copyright. CUUPS has the right to broadcast all submitted sermons on our podcast and make sound file and Order of Service available to our judges and to our membership. Sermons with adequate sound quality that are consistent with CUUPS mission are played on the CUUPS podcast at our discretion.”
I’ll add, in answer to early FAQs, that you do NOT need to be an ordained minister or a seminary student, nor do you need to be a member of CUUPS, but you do have to have delivered your sermon, live and in person, to a UU congregation between October 31, 2014 and October 31, 2015.
In case you haven’t already written and delivered your Re-enchantment Sermon,
What do other traditions say about re-enchantment?
Why would we …?
How can we …?
What would it mean to …?
My personal vision for this contest is:
- that we get somewhere between 5 and 50 submitted sermons;
- that contestants include people who have long experience in the pulpit and people who are delivering their first-ever sermon;
- that contestants include people who self-identify across the broad range of humans who are UUs, UU-Pagans, and Pagans (and perhaps a few preachers who are none of the above);
- that submitted sermons include some that restate old truths in new ways, some that move the conversation forward in unexpected directions, some that support us in what we’re already doing and some that challenge us to do more than we thought possible.
What’s your vision for this contest? What sermon will YOU preach?
And for those of you who have never preached a sermon before, what would it take for you to write one and persuade your local UU congregation to invite you to deliver it? And what do you think might happen if you did? Where could that lead?
The field is open. The future is waiting. What will YOU do?
Maggie Beaumont, MA, is a former Dean of Students of Cherry Hill Seminary and currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the national Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans. After an extensively varied career in mechanical engineering, journalism, real estate, and adult education, she is currently a Chaplain Intern at a level-one trauma center in Philadelphia and a first-degree member of Weavers of the Moonfire, a coven in the Assembly of the Sacred Wheel. She has been a member of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton (NJ) and of its affiliated Evergreen CUUPS chapter for more than 15 years and is also a member of the Unitarian Society of Germantown (PA). After leaving a long marriage last year, she now shares an apartment with one cat, three looms, and eight bookshelves full of books. She is also a member of the Reclaiming tradition and has taught classes and facilitated ritual at summer intensives on the East coast of the US.
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