UU Community Church member and retired Unitarian Universalist minister Rev. Harold Beu was a senior in high school when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. He participated in anti-war protests, including the March on Washington against the Vietnam War. He worked in a poverty-stricken neighborhood in Pittsburgh as part of ViSTA, the domestic version of the Peace Corps. He worked for a time as a high school teacher of history, civics, math, and psychology.
Harold went to graduate school in Berkeley and received his MDiv from Starr King School for the Ministry in Oakland. Ordained in 1982, he served Unitarian Universalist churches in California, Michigan, and Indiana before retiring a few years ago.
Harold actively works for Peace and Justice in our community as a member of Kalamazoo Non-Violent Opponent to War (KNOW) and can frequently be found at one of KNOW’s weekly vigils for Peace, Sunday at noon to 1:00 PM, in front of the Federal Building at the corner of Park and Michigan downtown Kalamazoo. Harold would like you to know that you are always welcome to join him at these vigils and reminds everyone to, “Keep hope alive!”
The most difficult problem in knowing what to do about the environment is knowing what the problem is. It is hard to know because we generally do not feel the results of ecological degradation until it is too late, too painful, or too toxic. Obviously, we need to do better. And we can also do … Continue reading Summer Sunday Forum: Climate Change
“Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” These words were spoken by Robert Oppenheimer on the occasion of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon on July 16, 1945, in Los Alamos, New Mexico. He named the weapon Trinity after a John Donne poem. Oppenheimer is seen as the “father” of the atomic … Continue reading Now, I Am Become Death
Much of the division we are experiencing in our land is our inability to come to terms with what happened 160 years ago, our Civil War, which was our nation’s greatest crisis and carnage. As the great Southern writer, William Faulkner said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Join Rev. Harold Beu … Continue reading Summer Sunday Forum: A Divided Nation
What does it mean to be a patriot? Does having patriotism mean having a love of country, of the land, of its people, and its traditions? Is it an important quality for citizens to possess? Join Rev. Harold Beu for discourse and discussion about the word and idea for the sake of creating a nation … Continue reading Summer Sunday Forum: Patriotism
In our nation today, and indeed, in the world, there seems to be a movement away from people seeking the truth. Instead too many have become captivated by harmful illusions. We must find a way to reverse this trend for the good of all humanity. Please read through our Covid 19 Gathering Guidelines before joining us. If … Continue reading The Truth Will Set You Free
Tis the season to think about money at UU Community Church. Money is not the most appetizing subject since asking for it can make one feel vulnerable and being asked for it can make one feel annoyed. Harold invites us to focus our minds instead on the idea of a gift. What is a gift? What … Continue reading Tis a Gift
Online Services will be live-streamed via Facebook on Sundays at 10:00 AM. Video recordings of services can be found on YouTube. We will mark the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of the police and the massive worldwide protests that followed with a dialog between Rev. Gy and Rev. Harold about the need to find methods … Continue reading Defund the Police
Online Services will be live-streamed via Facebook on Sundays at 10:00 AM. Video recordings of services can be found on YouTube. This will be the last of Rev. Beu’s trilogy of sermons centering on Reinhold Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer. Wisdom is hard to come, it seems, and there is so little of it in our world, especially among our … Continue reading Wisdom
Online Services will be live-streamed via Facebook on Sundays at 10:00 AM. Video recordings of services can be found on YouTube. Reinhold Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer begins with the idea that we must learn to accept what we cannot change. This can be a hard thing to do. What then does acceptance mean and does it make sense in … Continue reading Acceptance
Unitarian Universalists sometimes have a difficult time trying to explain what we believe to others and even to ourselves. Join us as we attempt to us to gain a clearer understanding of what it is that we believe, of what brings us together as a community of faith.
