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HOW DO I?...
...Help others or receive help?
The Caring & Sharing Committee provides meals for church members & friends in times of need, helps arrange rides to church, provides friendly visits to members, and more. We are waiting to help! Call the church office at 973-744-6276.
...Reserve space at the Church?
Call Donna Lauckner, Church Administrator, at 973-744-6276, x.12.
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Welcome!
This Unitarian Universalist congregation is welcoming of all seekers after truth, beauty, justice and compassion cherishing their diversity of race, gender, sexual identity and orientation, religious background and perspective on life.
Minister's Column,
April 2008:
"From My Window"
by Rev. Charlie Ortman
Abraham Lincoln once said, “Sir, my concern is not
whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is
to be on God’s side, for God is always right.” That
seems to me to be a good definition of God – that
which is always right. So, it is just as impossible to
know god as it is to know what is always right.
And yet, it is something worth striving for.
As this issue of the Gazette goes to print, it is the
day of the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the
war in Iraq. As I drove down into town this morning,
I heard our president on the radio. He sayed,“The world is better off today and the United States
is safer,” as a result of the war. I’m afraid that once
again, he is lying to himself, to us, to the Iraqi people
and to the world.
The war was predicated on a host of untruths that
have come to light since then. The only truth in the
scenario that still stands is that Saddam Hussein was
a murderous tyrant. We need to ask, who is the
murderous tyrant now? In the past five years, 4,000
U.S. troops have died. A documented 89,760 Iraqi
citizens have died, not counting those who’ve gone uncounted and members of the Iraq military who
have died. Half a trillion dollars of U.S. tax money
has been spent. There is no more stability in that
country, only less. There is no more stability in that
region, only less. Today, Iraq has no regular distribution
of ele ctricity or water, and hospitals continue
to go understaffed and under equipped. The U.S. is
hated by far more Arabs today than ever before.
We cannot claim that God, or what is always right,
is on our side. We cannot claim that the world is
better off or that we are safer. We are looking at a
colossal failure of morality.
Abraham Lincoln also said, “To sin by silence when
they should protest, makes cowards of men.” May
God, or that which is always right, forgive us for
what we have done and should not have, and for
what we should have but have failed to do.
I’ll see you at the “U.”
Pray for peace and act for justice,
Charlie Ortman |
