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 

 

Speaker Paul McCarthy who has a new Tanizaki translation of "Longing and Other Stories" Topic "Sons and Mothers"

 

Dear friends and members,

 

We will meet ONLY ON ZOOM from 3:00-5:00 ( JapanST) , Sunday December 9th. 

 

Speaker: Paul McCarthy, professor emeritus, literature specialist and translator.

 

Topic: "Sons and Mothers," a look at family relationships, society's expectations and uncomfortable even  unacknowledged realities.

 

McCarthy will read from and explore ideas from his  newly published  translation (jointly with A. Chambers)  entitled, "Longing and Other Stories."  The  three short stories are by

Tanizaki Jun'ichirō

 and were written early in his career.  That is around the time the author's own mother died in 1917. 

Tanizaki (1886-1965) is a major, prize-winning  20th century Japanese fiction writer.

To join the Zoom meeting request the link from

 

My apologies for the delay in sending out this notice as we regretfully backtracked at the last moment finally deciding NOT to meet at International House  for a "hybrid" combination  in person and ZOOM meeting. 

 

Repeat: no in-person meeting this month.

 

We hope the current Covid-19 surge will have resolved (as boosters also become available) and those of us who are vaccinated  can meet if they wish  at International House on February 13 for a hybrid meeting.

 

Please contact us at this email for any questions or problems. 

 

Your moderator,

-- who joins you all in hoping for a more peaceful , health-filled and happy year in 2022!

Peggy Kanada