Reflections given by members of the Dream Act Action Team (Kathy Clark, Janet Holden, Shirley Lundin, Kris Mazza, Juan Ramirez) and sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Taylor on October 9, 2011.

Sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Taylor on October 2, 2011.

Sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Taylor on September 25, 2011.

Sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Taylor on September 18, 2011.

This service from September 11, 2011 celebrated the congregation's coming together with a water ingathering ceremony. Members were asked to bring water from their summer journeys or from wherever was meaningful to them. They then expressed on index cards the significance of their water offering. Some of the cards were read by Rev. Alan Taylor, Rev. Emily Gage and Rev. Scott Aaseng who will be our ministerial intern this church year. Sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Taylor.

Sermon delivered by E. Eliot (Ben) Benezra, M.D. on September 4, 2011. Ben was born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey and learned to speak Turkish, Greek, French and Ladino, an ancient Sephardic form of Spanish that was spoken in his home. He graduated from Robert College which was part of the American University system where he learned English.

Ben immigrated to the United States in 1943 during World War II. He traveled on a Merchant Marine ship as part of a returning convoy that had delivered supplies to U.S. service members stationed in the Mediterranean area. He attended Carleton College and Northwestern University Medical School and served in the U.S. Air Force as a Base Psychiatrist.

He and his wife, Betty, settled in Elmhurst with their three children. Ben, who with his family, was an involved member of Unity Temple, worked as a psycho-analytical psychiatrist for 55 years in private practice. He lectured, taught residents and was active in various medical organizations until his retirement in 2010. Twelve years after his divorce from Betty, Ben married Barbara in 1984 in a Unitarian service. Together, they made their home in Oak Brook with Barbara's two children. Ben believes that the power of every human lies not in a higher being, but within himself/herself and considers himself a secular humanist. Ben can be reached at b.benezra@comcast.net.

If you would like to follow a PowerPoint presentation of Ben's sermon, you can download it by clicking here.

Sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Taylor on August 28, 2011.

Sermon delivered by Rev. Emily Gage, Minister of Faith Development on August 21, 2011.

This service from August 14, 2011 was presented by the Squash Blossoms who started a garden together in 2009 after taking a Menu for the Future class at Unity Temple. Since that time, they have discovered something much larger and more meaningful than a kitchen garden free of pesticides. They have found each other and a means of protecting the posterity of the seed, whose mysteries we will never fully understand. The Squash Blossoms are Cathy Busking, Sunny Hall, Maribeth and Rocco Petrosino, Monica Phillips, Sharon Storbeck and Anne White. The podcast includes a meditation, readings and a sermon by Anne White. You can visit the Squash Blossoms' blogsite at www.squashblossomblog.com.

In this service from August 7, Rev. Alan Taylor solicited questions from those in attendance to be written on note cards. His "sermon" consisted of his responses to many of those questions.