Dear friends and members of the Fellowship,

We have an interesting presenter (thanks to member Takamatsu Yasuyo's continuing connection) James Hagy who lives in the Chicago area. 

However with the time difference he can only  join us at an earlier start.

NOTE:   UFT ZOOM  March 10   1:00-3:00 (Japan Time) 

Join Zoom Meeting

Request: Login link / ID and Password from Unitarian Fellowship of Tokyo <unitarianfellowshipoftokyo@gmail.com>

      James (Jim) Hagy after nearly 30 years as a lawyer at a global law firm in Chicago,  has had a second career as an educator, including as  Distinguished Lecturer at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, as well as stints in law schools at New York, Case Western Reserve and Peking universities.

All the while he has pursued a love of magic, earning recognition as a magician and a writer about conjuring  (performance magic) for over sixty years. He has given a keynote lecture at  The British Library and for 40 years, he has been in the Inner Magic Circle with Gold Star, the highest level of achievement in the British based organization of professional magicians. In 2023, he received the Literary Award from the Milbourne Christopher Foundation for his lifetime's work writing about the history of conjuring.　

Hagy is  a dedicated  Unitarian and active member of the North Shore Unitarian Church (Deerfield).

March 10 presentation--Juan's Goldfish and Other Tales: What Animal Law and Policy Can Tell Us About Social Justice, and Ourselves. 

Drawing from his academic legal work, he will explore the approaches society takes with respect to our relationships with animals  (non-humans) as examples of how social justice evolves. 

He will  share thoughts from his upcoming book, Animal Wizards: A Critical Short History of Magicians' Most Trusted Assistants, about the historical use of animals in entertainments by performing magicians. 

And at the end he plans to share some of his personal journey as a Unitarian.

Your co moderators, 

Glen Edmonds and Peggy Kanada

PS Don't forget we will start at 1:00 on March 10.

Spirituality in Politics - Sunday Sept. 10, 2023 on Zoom with Stan Yukevich

Dear members and friends of the fellowship,

We trust you have had a rejuvenating summer and we look forward to cooler weather here in Japan.

Our monthly UFT meeting resumes ON ZOOM

Sunday September 10  

Longtime UFT member, Stan Yukevich, lawyer in Tokyo,  will  lead a discussion on the place for spirituality in the political sphere, including possibilities, benefits and challenges.  

Stan will also speak briefly on the recent passing of Sinead O’Connor, as an exemplar of unconventional, committed living.  

Stan is a graduate of UCLA Law School and Harvard College.  

Sunday September 10  3:00-5:00 (Japan standard time)

Use the usual zoom login.

All are welcome.

Contact us if you have questions or  zoom problems at UFT website or 080-5077-5515.

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Our thoughts and prayers  go out to UFT supporter Takamatsu Yasuyo who is continuing to have medical and mobility problems in Shizuoka.

 October 8th and November 12th UFT meetings are now planned for ZOOM.

December 10 will be in person at International House with a (hybrid) link on Zoom. And dinner from 5:00 at the I house cafe.

Your co moderators,　Glen Edmonds and Peggy Kanada

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News Part II with be sent separately.

Summer Break and July Lunch

 

Dear friends and members of the Fellowship,

Next UFT Meeting, Sunday July 10^th, 2022 1:30 Informal Lunch RSVP please

Announcements

·       We will take our usual summer’s break from our Second Sunday meetings with speakers.  We plan to resume again September 11. 3:00 (JST).

The speaker and whether we will have a zoom meeting, hybrid meeting or in-person has not been decided.

·       The July UFT gathering will be a small lunch in Tokyo at International House on Sunday 10th from 1:00.  RSVP 

Please let us know if you plan to come  so we can confirm the reservation.

-- Next TUG (Tuesday Unitarian Gathering) on ZOOM from 2:30 July 26

All are welcome to join this informal discussion but contact us at this email for the ZOOM link which is sent out the day before. Check Berg link for possible reading material.

Topic: Further discussion about politics and climate change/ our interconnected web of existence.

 

UFT June Meeting Summary

Thank you to Glen Edmonds for chairing today’s gathering and asking our speaker to handle the Chalice lighting..

Our speaker, Joshua Louis Berg talked to us about Nature’s Music: An Eco-Theology of Spirit

Having been in Japan during high school, he had experienced the Shinkansen when it used to make a booming sound exiting tunnels.  He explained to us how railroad engineers learned from nature to solve this problem, adopting the characteristics of owl feathers, the Adele Penguin and the shape of the Kingfisher’s beak. 

Learning from nature and to live with nature is “a darn good justification for our (Unitarian Universalism) seventh principle; respect for the interdependent web of all existence, of which we are a part.   He quoted Albert Schweitzer on this, who wrote “by ethical conduct toward all creatures, we enter into a spiritual relationship with the universe.”  And Joshua showed us how our relationship with nature can be with inanimate as well as animate beings. 

Along the way he also introduced us to the thoughts of Janine Benyus, “Biomimicry”; Robert Cialdini “reciprocation”, and Ursula Goodenough.  Goodenough and Joshua both received degrees from Meadville Lombard where our dear friend and member Gene Reeves was Dean and CEO from 1979-1988, and I think Gene’s connections lead Joshua to us.

We wish Joshua good luck at his new job working as pastor in a children’s hospital in LA.

You can find some of his writings here.  Joshua Lewis Berg - TheHumanist.com

-- Also June 28 TUG facilitated by Naoko Fukai. Observations about the current situation in the USA.

From your moderator with much help, please take care in the heat.

Sunday June 12 - Joshua Berg on Biomimicry and Ecotheology

 

Hi everyone,

 

Just writing to let you know about the upcoming UFT meeting next weekend on Sunday 11th June. It will be on Zoom from 3 p.m. ~ 5 p.m. JST, and this month we are very fortunate to have Joshua Berg, humanist celebrant and newly-ordained UU minister, join us from Pasadena, California.

 

Joshua will be talking about biomimicry and ecotheology.  "Ecotheology is a form of constructive theology that focuses on the interrelationships of religion and nature, particularly in the light of environmental concerns." Wikipedia. As Joshua says, there is so much to learn from the modelling of nature:

 

'Whether it's the murmuration of swallows, colonies of aspens, or mega-shoals of herring living in community, or the impermanence and struggle represented by a single drop of dew in the Haiku of the poet Issa, nature models so much.'

 

 

Do join us in learning more! The Zoom details are the same as usual.

For new people, please contact us as below for the zoom link.

 

May 8 Speaker Dominick Scrangello : Metaphor and Myth in Religious Thought and Scriptural Traditions.

 

Subject: Unitarian Fellowship of Tokyo Regular Meeting on ZOOM May 8 2022

 

Dear friends and members of the Fellowship,

 We are happy to welcome again Dominick Scarangello, Ph.d who will talk about  metaphor and myth in religious thought and  scriptural traditions.

 Moving beyond modern literal interpretations, or on the other hand,  rationalism or   intellectualized symbolic understanding,  back to  earlier generations'  approaches who often found emotional engagement and resonance with ineffable aspects of spirituality in rituals and mythic-metaphors.

Bio:

Dominick Scarangello has joined us at Fellowship and spoken to us before.

He obtained his PhD from the University of Virginia in 2012. His interests include Lotus Sutra Buddhism in East Asia, Japanese religions, and religion and modernity. Dr. Scarangello has taught at the University of Virginia and was the Postdoctoral Scholar in Japanese Buddhism at the University of California, Berkeley (2013-14). Presently, he is the International Advisor to Rissho Kosei-kai and coordinator of the International Lotus Sutra Seminar. 

His talk on Sunday will summarize his paper on this topic in the Spring issue of Dharma World (p.28)

Spring 2022, Volume 49 | Rissho Kosei-kai International (rk-world.org)

To attend our meeting the same Zoom link for previous meetings will be used.  If you need the link, please contact a member or contact us at 

The April 10th meeting was a general discussion of our organization going forward. 

• Our June speaker on ZOOM  will be newly ordained Unitarian, Joshua Berg from L.A.
• During our usual summer break for July and August, we hope to schedule a meal at the International House of Roppongi.  Date for resuming life meetings is still undecided.

The Unitarian Fellowship of Tokyo has been meeting continuously for more that 50 years, and we hope to keep going.  Everyone with an open mind is welcome. 

Celtic Music for March 13

 Unitarian Fellowship of Tokyo (March 13 2022) Last Minute Announcement

Join us for a fun (and informative) program of CELTIC MUSIC.

On ZOOM 3:00-5:00

Jean McDermott, is a musician and teacher, as well as cousin of our indefatigable UFT supporter, Jeff Bruce.

Jean, since 2008, has run a studio in Fairbanks Alaska "Tartan Tundra Music."

This is her base for music teaching and performances and also to promote Irish/Gaelic language and culture.

She has been on line since the pandemic in 2020.

https://inktrails.blogs.com/tartan_tundra_music/

Her first love is the fiddle(violin) but she also teaches mandolin, bodhran (Irish drum) and vocals.

Feb 13th meeting - Michael Conway - Buddhist Patriarchs on early Jodo-Shin Scrolls

 

Dear friends and members of the Fellowship,

 

Sorry for the late reminder. 

We have canceled our room and hybrid plans  and will meet only on ZOOM.

 

Feb 13th  3:00 to 5:00

 

Speaker: Michael Conway

Topic:

Buddhist Patriarchs Depicted on Early Jodo-Shin Sect Devotional Scrolls

 

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in Japan, Kōmyō honzon 光明本尊 paintings played an important role as both objects of devotion during worship services and as teaching aids to relay central ideas of  the tradition centered on the Buddha Amida and rebirth in the Paradise Pure Land that Shinran 親鸞 (1173-1262) set forth for his followers. The scrolls contain images [sometimes called imaginary portraits] of the line of great teachers or  patriarchs who were important in the development of the Pure Land tradition from its roots in India and China to Japan. 

We can see by examining a scroll how these patriarchs were transformed through choices that were made to codify  their pictorial representations , but also in the choices of the quotations from each that are included. 

These depictions tell us  about important aspects of faith and  proselytization in these early centuries. 

The Zoom link will be the same as for previous meetings.   Contact a member or