May 20th: "Book Review: Healing the Heart of Democracy by Parker Palmer" by Carl Newton

Palmer's book, which is based on his and Abraham Lincoln's life experiences, is subtitled The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit. When facing the heartbreaks of loss, failure, defeat, betrayal, or death, if our heart breaks open into greater capacity to hold the complexities and contradictions of human experience, the result may be new life. With the assistance of Courtney Martin, they have created a program of action circles. The object of which is to enable the participants to deal with the "tragic gap" that forever separates what is from what could or should be. Creative tension holding is essential to the heart of democracy.

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May 13th: "The Story Corps" by Pam Risley

The Story Corps Committee will present our history in photos for intergenerational, timeless sharing. We need your help to identify many of the photographs. We invite everyone to take a look and share their memories. We will be documenting as many tales and memories as possible. Prepare to laugh and be amazed.

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May 6th: "Begin With the Kitchen Sink" by Kathy Campbell

United by Friendship is an organization based in Espanola that works in a single county in the central highlands of Guatemala. Despite (or because of) its small budget, it is a model of how to help people help themselves.

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April 29th: "Transitions" by Janet VanCleave and Mary Hrbek

Feel like the rug's been pulled out from under you? Transitions can be tough -- what might help and where to tap into such knowledge will be the subject of this forum. Small Group Discussions to explore these topics in more depth will follow at a later date.

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April 22nd: "Take a Walk in Their Shoes" by De Anna Hoyle

Beginning in March many of you donated shoes for our Soles4Souls social justice project. Today we will continue honoring the Earth as we create and walk an outdoor path of shoes. Join us in the grove as we turn our focus on Unity this month, giving us an opportunity to "take a walk in their shoes". Mystery Friends are encouraged to attend and participate with your buddy. We also plan to have an informal discussion relating to how we live our values through activism.

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April 15th: "The State of the Economy" by Steve Wells

Steve Wells, President of Los Alamos National Bank will discuss the state of the economy from both a national and a regional perspective and the effects it is having on a local basis. This will include LANL's influence, as well, as other local projects under way or likely to be started in the near future. He will also give his take on residential housing in Los Alamos.

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April 8th: "Is Voting in Los Alamos Unconstitutional?" by Terry Goldman

One person-one vote is implemented in many ways in the US and around the world. Undistricted block voting as in LA County is different from just about any other method. I will present some of Kathy Campbell's review of voting methods in use and compare them with what we have here. I will show that our method has a tendency to produce disproportionate representation when single issues dominate voter concerns and suggest an alternative that I consider to be more democratic.

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April 1st: "Review of the Church's FY13 Proposed Budget" by Dianne Wilburn

Dianne and others will go over the proposed budget and answer any questions about it during the forum. This is to help the congregation understand the proposed budget before we have to vote on it on April 29th.

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March 25th: "Lies My Teacher Told Me" by Andrea Determan and Felicia Orth

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March 18th: "Steve Jobs" by Dean Carstens

Jobs was an exceedingly complicated person with some interesting characteristics, both good and bad, who founded one of the most successful companies in the history of the United States. This morning, we look at the man based on his official biography Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.

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March 11th: "Community Mental Health" by Cheryl Pongratz

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March 4th: "Coming of Age" by Mark Petersen

Over the past half year, thirteen UU youth have participated in "Coming of Age," an intensive program of evaluating and expressing your values, beliefs, and life-long goals. Each youth is coupled with a mentor who discusses these issues and relates his/her own beliefs and experiences. During the forum our three advisors, De Anna Hoyle, Mark Petersen, and Bernice Williams, will give an overview of the program, and mentors will describe their perspective in helping the youth work through these big questions.

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February 26th: "Book Review: The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker" by Bill Priedhorsky

Steven Pinker argues that violence has declined steadily over human history, and continues to do so. Presented with a choice between Rousseau's descent from the "noble savage" and Hobbes's ascent from a life "nasty, brutish, and short," Pinker makes his case for Hobbes and Hope.

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February 19th: "Somewhere in Ireland" by Rev. Linda Whittenberg

Rev. Linda Whittenberg will read poems from her newest book and selections from her earlier publications. Linda was a member of the Los Alamos Church for several years and now makes her home in Santa Fe, after serving UU churches in California and Washington state.

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February 12th: "Mystery Friends Party" by RE Committee

This is the culmination of our month-long Mystery Friends program, where each child in the church is paired with an adult. Has your mystery friend figured you out yet? At the party, the new-found friends will get to know each other even better! No mystery there!