June ARCHIVES

by Barbara Turk

Our service March 13th saw cheerfulness, in abundance. Later I thought a stranger would have pondered that it was, in truth, a worship service. (We did call it, “Laughing at the Human Condition”!) I considered it a most enriching worship service, and then I found the following:

“Cheerfulness is the atmosphere in which all things thrive.”

AMEN!

And thanks to German art historian Jean Paul Friedrich Richter (1847-1937).

Anticipating our July through August-2016 hiatus, may you THRIVE in cheerfulness, and be most generous with spreading it about.

As we UU’s claim Ralph Waldo Emerson to be “ours”, the following may prove to be a great send-off to us for this summer.

The Nature Conservancy’s 2008 purchase of 14,600-acres of forest property in the New York Adirondack Mountains, “came with a crown jewel: Follensby Pond, the idyllic locale where Ralph Waldo Emerson and nine of his intellectual contemporaries spent a contemplative summer in 1858.

“Their expedition, which included artists, poets, scientists, and doctors, constructed a simple, “Philosophers’ Camp” on the pond’s shore, and spent their days in discussions, exploration and creative endeavors. Emerson penned a long poem about, ‘The Adirondacs’ , rejoicing in the freedom of escaping everyday life for a while”.

(Nature Conservancy magazine Feb/March 2016)

May you find a Follensby Pond in your Summer-2016 adventures.

Happy C H E E R F U L Summer

“Our memories are the only paradise from which we can never be expelled.”

(Unknown)