By Joseph Plummer
For the theme of this Sunday’s UUFSMA service, guest minister Reverend Dr. Craig Rubano adopts the title of jazz composer Benard Ighner’s song, “Everything Must Change.” While reflecting on the trope that change is one of the only certainties in life, Rubano will also change from preacher to performer and—with pianist Malcolm Halliday—sing the remarkable composition that Ighner himself performed as a track on Quincy Jones’s best-selling album “Body Heat” in 1974.
At the heart of being human is the capacity of each of us to choose to change our lives, and this service will explore the challenge for Unitarian Universalist communities to support one another as agents of change in one’s own life and in the world.
Rubano brings to this service a profound understanding of the communicative power of the human voice that he gained from a multilingual childhood in Peru and Argentina and a career as a singer on stages that eventually led him to the pulpit. He’s sung with The Whiffenpoofs, graced the Broadway stage in “Les Misérables” and other musicals, and entertained concert audiences across the country and from recording studios. He currently occupies the prophetic pulpit as minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Monmouth County, Lincroft, New Jersey.
An undergraduate with highest distinction from Yale College and an M.A. graduate of Columbia University, Rubano prepared for the ministry at Princeton Theological Seminary and was ordained in 2018. His dissertation, “Gender Creative Promise: Affirmative Pastoral Ministry Beyond Gender Binaries,” will be published by Lexington Books.
This Sunday’s Children’s Program will explore acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth. The children will explore the value of accepting things that can’t be changed. UUFSMA member LeoNora Cohen will read one of her many bilingual books for children, “Big Foot: Pie Grande.”
Unitarian Universalism is a liberal faith inviting its community to gather around a set of harmonizing values and principles for living. Our UU Fellowship welcomes people of all ages, races, religions, sexual orientations, and gender identities. Belief in a divinity is not the central issue around which we gather for worship and generous action. Rather, we come together with a belief in community, love, compassion, social justice, reverence for nature, and the spirituality of music, all within the interconnected web of existence.
UUFSMA donates generously to support nonprofit organizations that provide health, educational, and environmental services for underserved communities in the San Miguel region. Please support this work by clicking on the website home page Donate button.
To participate in our online Sunday Service, visit www.uufsma.org and click on the Zoom Service button on the home page. If requested, enter password: 294513. Sign in from anywhere Sunday mornings between 10:15 and 10:25am. Enjoy previous services at https://www.youtube.com/UUFSMA.
In addition to continuing live Zoom services, UUFSMA has returned to in-person Sunday services. Reservations are no longer necessary.
* Joseph Plummer is the UUFSMA Board Secretary.
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Sunday Service
“Everything Must Change”
Speaker: Reverend Dr. Craig Rubano
Sunday, Nov 6, 10:30am
Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/414604040
Password: 294513
