December News & Views
- 2 days ago
- 12 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Faith, wherever it develops into hope, causes not rest but unrest, not patience but impatience. It does not calm the unquiet heart, but is itself this unquiet heart in [all of us]. Those who hope… can no longer put up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer under it, to contradict it. [It] means conflict with the world, for the goad of the promised future stabs inexorably into the flesh of every unfulfilled present. - Jürgen Moltmann, Theologian
From the Minister's Studio
Ned’s Christmas Caramels
I miss our long-time member, Ned Lund, for lots of reasons. His humor was as dry as my dad’s and that always made me smile. His deep knowledge of church finances was legendary, and we called him more often than any church should have to call a former treasurer to help us figure stuff out (almost as often as we have to call Judy about church history). And, ohhh, the Christmas peanut caramels, given out widely and looked forward to by anyone lucky enough to be on his list. The first thing I thought of when the season of giving arrived was Ned and his caramels, remembering him proudly delivering them to the office in person, saying something like, “Don’t eat them all at once,” or “I won’t tell anyone I gave you these, so you don’t have to share.”
Then I remembered that our church cookbook, compiled for the 300th anniversary of our congregation in 2008, had the recipe for Ned’s yummy peanut caramels in it! I’m trying to do “make it or bake it” this holiday and I know just what I’m going to make. Maybe you’d like to make them, too, so here’s the recipe, as it was printed.
Enjoy, and may the warmth of good memories be with you this season. A Blessed Yuletide and Happy New Year! -Karen
The book says the recipe was from “Cousin” Elizabeth Baker Smith, via Ed Lund.
1 ½ cup sugar
1 cup Grandmother’s dark molasses
1 cup milk
4 (1 oz.) squares Baker’s unsweetened chocolate
Butter, the size of 2 small eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 pt. shelled, dry roasted, unsalted peanuts
Mix together, in the above order, all ingredients except peanuts. Using medium heat, bring all the ingredients to a boil in a heavy pan, and boil for about half an hour, until the mixture reaches 240°- 248°. The last 10 minutes are critical if you don’t want peanut brittle!
Butter a 12x8 inch pan and line the bottom with peanuts. Pour the mixture over the peanuts and let cool. Cut into pieces. Makes about 2 ½ pounds or 200-230 pieces. Wrap each piece with waxed paper cut into 3 – 4 inch squares.
Note: Elizabeth was born in 1874. You don’t want to know the nutrition facts, like calories and fat content on this candy.
Soul Matters: Welcome to Choosing Hope
It’s not always easy to hear well this time of year, especially when it comes to hope. The dominant messages are about hope, offering us calm: “The light will return.” “A new day is on its way.” “Justice and joy are growing in the womb and will soon be born.” Hope, from this point of view, is a voice that reassures. It’s a welcome whisper that says, “Yes, the sky may be dark now. Yes, the road you’re on at this moment may be hard. But trust me, just over that horizon, there’s a new world waiting for us all.”
This soothing message comes to us as a gift. During dark days, we all get tired. The fruits of our efforts are hard to see. The cold seems to have set in deep. We feel small and alone. So, the promise that things will change offers us relief. We are released from the burden of believing that “it is all up to me” or that it all must be solved now.
It’s a beautiful and needed message. But, as Moltmann and others remind us, it’s also only half of what hope is trying to say. Hope doesn’t just whisper “It will be different,” it also shouts, “It should be different,” and “It can be different.” Yes, it speaks soothing words about trusting and waiting, but it also takes the form of a holy impatience that declares, “Enough is enough. The time is now!”
In other words, hope doesn’t just promise us that change will come in the future; it also changes who we are in the present. When we believe that a new day is possible, we don’t just sit down and wait to see what happens. We get up and go out to meet the light. When hope convinces us that there are unseen forces working for the good, we begin to look around more closely, and in doing so, we notice that darkness and pain are not all that is there. When hope’s holy impatience gets into our bones, we start acting as if we are worthy of that new day now. Which in turn changes others by convincing them that we all have waited long enough.
Bottom line: listening to hope, makes you dangerous, not just soothed! It doesn’t relieve us of duty as much as it reminds us that reality is more complex, unruly and open to change than the pompously powerful want us to believe. Yes, hope reassures, but it also emboldens. It doesn’t just offer us a promise; it gives us a push.
But all of this only happens if we listen fully. So maybe the most important question this month is: “Are we listening to everything that hope has to say?
What is hope? It is a hunch that the overwhelming brutality of facts that oppress and repress is not the last word. It is a suspicion that reality is more complex than realism wants us to believe and that the frontiers of the possible are not determined by the limits of the actual. -Rubem A. Alves
Choosing Hope Playlist, Compiled by Soul Matters
Living Between Stories
A Meditation by Rev. Cameron Trimble
There are times in history when it becomes painfully clear that we are standing at the edge of something. One story is dying. Another is being born. We find ourselves here, somewhere in between.
The age we are leaving has been defined by extraction, domination, and the pursuit of control. It taught us to measure success by how much we could consume, how high we could climb, how efficiently we could exploit what seemed to be endless resources. It gave us grand narratives of conquest and triumph, wrapped in myths of innocence and progress. For a long time, we believed those stories—because they promised safety, superiority, and clarity in a chaotic world.
But now, the consequences of that age are everywhere. The planet is warming. Trust is eroding. Entire communities are being displaced, devoured by systems designed to take rather than tend. Rather than gently letting go, this old story, best illustrated by the MAGA movement in the US, is fighting to survive. It’s loud. Defensive. Cruel. It feels like life, but it’s really just momentum. A system running on habit and fear.
It’s easy to confuse that kind of noise for power. But what we’re actually witnessing, I believe, is the death rattle of a story that has run its course.
Just beneath that crumbling surface, something else is beginning to stir.
It’s quieter. Harder to name. It doesn’t yet dominate headlines or campaign platforms. But it’s present—in small communities rooted in care, in movements guided by relationship rather than rivalry, in rituals that honor the Earth as teacher, not resource. It is a way of being that does not put humans at the center, but sees us as part of an intricate, sacred web. It values reciprocity, humility, and interconnection. It listens more than it speaks. It asks not, What can I take? but How can I be in right relationship?
To live in this in-between moment is to develop a new kind of spiritual skill. We have to become people who can hold grief in one hand and hope in the other. Who can recognize what must be laid down—not in bitterness, but in truth. And who can also sense what is just beginning to take root, and guard it with tenderness.
That means naming the illusions we’ve outgrown.
It means giving up the idea that we can live with clean hands—that we can be ethical without being entangled, or good without being implicated.
It means letting go of our need to be the saviors of every story, the protagonists of every plotline.
It means examining the ways we’ve cloaked control in spiritual language and asking whether we’re still willing to listen to a God who doesn’t always speak in certainty.
And then, it means paying attention to what might be carried differently.
What if prayer is not about asking for outcomes, but learning how to be still long enough to hear the pulse of the world?
What if salvation isn’t an escape, but a deeper descent into solidarity—into the complexity, the pain, the beauty of shared life?
What if the question is not just What do I believe? but What does the way I live say about what I believe?
These aren’t questions we can answer overnight. But they are the ones that guide us through this passage. We won’t always know which story we’re in on a given day. Sometimes we’ll feel torn between them. Other times we’ll feel like we don’t belong to either. That’s okay. The task isn’t to resolve the tension. It’s to remain present within it. With compassion. With discernment. With a willingness to be shaped by something truer than what we’ve known before.
The old world is ending.
The new world is not yet fully here.
But the way we live now will determine what grows next.
We are in this together,
Cameron
Download the entire Soul Matters packet below.
Moving Forward with Hope: December 2025 Update from Side With Love
As we enter this holiday season and arrive at the threshold of another year, we are reminded of the deep currents that run through our Unitarian Universalist faith: the inherent worth and dignity of every person, the interdependence that binds us together, and the enduring call to place love at the center of our public and spiritual lives. December offers us a chance to breathe, to honor the complexity of our world, and to return to the wellsprings of courage and compassion that animate our movement.
In this spirit of reflection and renewal, we’re preparing to begin 30 Days of Love in January: our annual month-long spiritual journey that invites UUs and our partners to ground ourselves in imagination, justice, and faithful action. This year’s theme, Love at the Center: Imagining the World as It Could Be, calls us to engage the theological heart of our tradition: a belief in the transformative power of human agency, collective liberation, and the possibility of a world shaped by compassion and mutual care.
As 2026 approaches, we move forward with hope not as a feeling, but as a practice- one rooted in community, sustained by spiritual imagination, and strengthened through our work for justice.
We’re grateful to be on this journey with you.
The Side with Love Team
Did you miss Sunday service last week? Watch it here!
Trustees Meeting
The Board of Trustees Meeting was rescheduled to Tuesday, December 16, at 6 PM. An agenda will be sent out to members on Monday. Please feel free to join us in person, in the church office, or virtually, by Zoom.
Holiday Flowers Order Forms DUE
The deadline to order pointsettias for the holiday is Sunday, December 14. There are order forms in the santuary, and each pointsettia is $20. If you prefer to pay by Venmo our handle is @UUNewBedford. Please make sure to put "flowers" in the memo line.
Social Justice Committee Meetings: New Day!
Join the SJC virtually on every other MONDAY at 6:30 PM. Be part of the change you would like to see in your community and beyond. View the online calendar to view the dates.
What does it mean to be a people of Choosing Hope?
On Sunday, December 7, we discussed Hope and Choosing to Create the Light for Each Other, with the story of Lewis Latimer. You can learn more about Lewis's life here.
December 11: Art, History, Architecture {AHA} NBFestive
December 14: Lessons & Carols, Hope and Choosing to Trust That it Will Work Out
December 21: Solstice Service Hosted by The Way Cool Sunday School, Hope and Choosing to Look in Unexpected Places
December 24: Christmas Eve Candlelight Service, 7:00pm, No Childcare
December 28: No Sunday School, Church Closed, Hope and Choosing to Begin Again
At times when our own light goes out, it is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. -Albert Schweitzer
Soul Matters So Far at the UUNB…
In September we were and still are a people of Building Belonging, Interdependence . We belong to each other. Our true belonging rests in a web of interconnection.
In October we were and still are a people of Cultivating Compassion, Generosity. We covenant to freely and compassionately share our faith, presence, and resources.
In November we were still and are a people of Nurturing Gratitude, Generosity. We cultivate a spirit of gratitude and hope.
Without music life would be a mistake.—Friedrich Nietzsch
Interdependence
We honor the interdependent web of all existence. With reverence for the great web of life and with humility, we acknowledge our place in it. We covenant to protect Earth and all beings from exploitation. We will create and nurture sustainable relationships of care and respect, mutuality, and justice. We will work to repair harm and damaged relationships.
Pluralism
We celebrate that we are all sacred beings, diverse in culture, experience, and theology.
We covenant to learn from one another in our free and responsible search for truth and meaning. We embrace our differences and commonalities with Love, curiosity, and respect.
Justice
We work to be diverse multicultural Beloved Communities where all thrive. We covenant to dismantle racism and all forms of systemic oppression. We support the use of inclusive democratic processes to make decisions within our congregations, our Association, and society at large.
Transformation
We adapt to the changing world. We covenant to collectively transform and grow spiritually and ethically. Openness to change is fundamental to our Unitarian and Universalist heritages, never complete and never perfect.
Generosity
We cultivate a spirit of gratitude and hope. We covenant to freely and compassionately share our faith, presence, and resources. Our generosity connects us to one another in relationships of interdependence and mutuality.
Equity
We declare that every person has the right to flourish with inherent dignity and worthiness.
We covenant to use our time, wisdom, attention, and money to build and sustain fully accessible and inclusive communities.
Please share these events with your family and friends, and consider attending yourself. We would love to see you!
FREE Events Happening at UUNB
Being Human takes place every Friday at 11 AM. Please use the parking lot door.
There is also an open AA meeting, led by Walter Silvia, that takes place each Saturday at
noon in the Parish House.
We are excited to announce a FREE class on understanding US Govornment, taught by Fairhaven resident and local attorney Ellen Nelson, Esq.
Registration is required. See the event details by clicking on the "Register Now" button above.
The calendar on our website shows everything happening at UUNB. Updates are displayed immediately, so you will always know what is planned.
Greater New Bedford Choral Society
COME JOIN THE CHORUS! Greater New Bedford Choral Society has a new music director and is looking for new singers–everyone is welcome–no auditions necessary! We rehearse every Tuesday night from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm at First Unitarian Church in New Bedford. Attend an open rehearsal January 6, 13, and 20th to find out how much fun it is to sing with us! Visit our website at https://www.gnbcs.org/ for more information or follow us on Facebook.
Oversoul Theatre Collective, Inc., in collaboration with 3rd Eye Unlimited, is proud to announce The GRIOT’s CORNER, a 12-week improvisational theater workshop dedicated to building the foundation for a new community-based improv theater troupe.
Workshop Details
Start Date: Tuesday, February 10, 2026
Duration: 12 weeks
Location: 3rd Eye Unlimited, 230 Union St, New Bedford, MA
Ages: 16 and up
The GRIOT’s CORNER offers participants the chance to develop foundational, professional acting skills in a creative and supportive environment. Over the course of the program, participants will deepen their improv abilities, ensemble work, and collaborative storytelling techniques—culminating in the creation of an original performance and the establishment of an ongoing improvisational theater troupe.
For more information, please contact: artdir.oversoultc@gmail.com
For Registration, Visit HERE
Food Pantry Update
We have seen an outpouring of support for our little food pantry! We have received donations from our volunteers at LifeStream, church members, and people who saw our plea on social media. In total we received over $1,300 in cash donations to purchase food! We also partnered with the YWCA and provided 8 turkeys to individuals who needed one for the holidays.
This is PROOF that when we come together, we can accomplish great things for our community!
Our Mission is to encourage diversity and mutual acceptance and work for positive change in ourselves and our community.
"We envision a congregation in which we practice the principles of our faith. We seek to enjoy peaceful reflection and inspiration in intellectually and spiritually satisfying church services. We aim to embrace the people and efforts of our church community by supporting our children and their programs, our committees and their goals, our staff and their efforts on our behalf, and each other."
Our Promises
Each person is important.
Be kind in all you do.
We help each other learn.
We search for what is true.
Each person has a say.
Work for a peaceful world.
The web of life’s the way.
Build the beloved community, free from racism and oppression.
First Unitarian Church in New Bedford
71 8th Street, New Bedford, MA 02740
(508) 994-9686
Administrator ext. 10
Minister ext. 13
Karen cell: (508) 441-9344
Thrift Shop ext. 12
Board Members & Officers
Steve Carmel, President
Charles Morgan, Vice President
Deborah Carmel, Treasurer
Trustees
Committee Chairs
Staff
The Thrift Shop is open Tuesdays and Saturdays from 10 AM to 1 PM
(508)994-9686 ext.12
Comments