Paul Wilczynski's Observations

I am Theist, You are Humanist

A song by Joyce Dowling and Connie Coombs of the Davies Memorial Unitarian Universalist Church in Camp Springs, Maryland ...

posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 8:51 AM 0 comments

Application Guidelines for TARP Capital Purchase Program

If you're wondering how to get a handful or so of the billions of dollars the Treasury is giving to banks, here's the 2-page application (with instructions).

The entire first of the 2 pages is name, address, phone stuff. No address - apparently they'll know where to send the check.

Should take about 5 minutes for anyone with decent hand-printing skills to complete.

posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 3:36 PM 0 comments

Lending Club

I've been following the social lending concept for a few years. One of the older ones is Prosper, but that one is currently closed to investors because they're in a lender "quiet period" and going through a registration process.

Another social lending site is Lending Club. Here's how they describe themselves:

Borrowers with good credit can get personal loans at interest rates they find more attractive than those available from conventional funding sources such as banks and credit cards, taking advantage of a streamlined process between the source of funds (lenders) and the borrowers who need those funds.

Lenders get an opportunity to fund specific borrowers by investing in Notes we issue that correspond to specific borrower loans. The stated interest rates on Notes range from 6.69% to 19.37% (after deduction of our 1.00% service charge). Notes are offered only by means of a prospectus.

They've got a pretty high-powered team, including senior people from MasterCard International and JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Charles Schwab, and Visa.

posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 11:20 AM 1 comments

2008 Holiday Pastoral Message from Rev. William G. Sinkford

The President of the Unitarian Universalist Association, recently returned from a pilgrimage to Africa, offers his thoughts on our reasons for concern as well as hope in this season of renewal.

posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 7:17 PM 0 comments

Unitarian Universalist Minister/Blogger Known As Peacebang has written a piece called How To Write and Deliver a Sermon. I'm not a minister, of course, so I can't comment on most of her points from experience (although intuitively they make sense).

The one I can totally agree with - from the perspective of someone who listens to UU sermons weekly is this:

Sermons are not "talks" or lectures. They should minister to people, not merely inform them.

Now I like lectures as much as the next guy - I love to learn things. But there are lots of places I can go for lectures. My guess is that lectures are a lot easier to write than sermons that minister to the congregation, and some ministers have a greater or lesser tendency to lapse into taking it a little bit easy.

posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 3:28 PM 0 comments