Braver/Wiser: Courage and Compassion for Life as It Is

Life is full of hard edges and complicated choices. Braver/Wiser gives you weekly message of courage and compassion for life as it is. Every Wednesday we deliver an original written reflection and brief prayer, grounded in Unitarian Universalism. Join the Braver/Wiser community and sign up today!

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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8

  • What’s your most memorable story about getting lost? What do you remember about finding your way home?
    Reflection | By Erika Hewitt | March 15, 2023 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Connections, Despair, Direct Experience, Home, Hope, Humanism, Journey, Searching, Worship
  • As a hospital chaplain, I often listen to painful stories. We call it compassionate presence, but I may be crying inside. When words fail, I pray and sing.
    Reflection | By Yuri Yamamoto | June 12, 2019 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Arts & Music, Brokenness, Challenge, Despair, Direct Experience, Faith, Fear, God, Presence, Unitarian Universalism
  • We, the willing, follow the threads to one another; past rightness and quips and tweets. We will find one another and persist past sunrise.
    Reflection | By Robin Tanner | October 4, 2017 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 2nd Principle (Justice, Equity, & Compassion), Children, Despair, Direct Experience, Disaster, Disaster or Crisis, Hope, Humanism, Parents, Salvation, Secular, Unitarian Universalism, Violence, Vision
  • It's in one tiny moment in time / for life to shine to shine Burn away the darkness You've got one tiny moment in time / for life to shine to shine To burn away the darkness I will be light. — “I Will Be Light” by Matisyahu About six months ago, I got a new tattoo. It’s a lit match on my...
    Reflection | By Sean Parker Dennison | February 1, 2017 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: Activism, Anger, Anti-Oppression, Arts & Music, Despair, Direct Experience, Humanism, Identity, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Secular
  • “Suddenly summoned to witness something great and horrendous, we kept fighting not to reduce it to our own smallness.” —John Updike, “Tuesday, and After,” The New Yorker, September 24, 2001 We sat on the back steps watching transfixed as hundreds of rust-red spiders, big as thumbs, dropped...
    Reflection | By Teresa Honey Youngblood | January 18, 2017 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: 2nd Principle (Justice, Equity, & Compassion), 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), Balance, Brokenness, Courage, Despair, Direct Experience, Earth-Centered, Hope, Nature, Solidarity, Unity, Violence
  • May we give thanks always, believing that, even in the world’s bleakest moments, the dance of life is always underway.
    Reflection | By Maureen Killoran | November 23, 2016 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: Balance, Despair, Earth-Centered, Hope, Nature, Thanksgiving
  • November 16, 2016 "Well, the only chains we can stand / Are the chains between hand and hand Keep your eyes on the prize / Hold on" —Adapted lyrics to “Gospel Plow,”* attributed to Alice Wine Holding on does not come easy to me. As a teenager who left home and bounced around, I am talented at...
    Reflection | By Robin Tanner | November 16, 2016 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: America, Anti-Oppression, Commitment, Democracy, Despair, Hope, Relationships, Secular
  • Those of us with some privilege in this empire may be tempted to seek refuge in it, as if privilege was ever going to save us. But who’s to say whether you’ve come to this place and position for a time such as this?
    Reflection | By Jake Morrill | November 9, 2016 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), 5th Principle (Conscience & Democracy), America, Brokenness, Commitment, Despair, Direct Experience, Humanism, Integrity, Judaism, Politics, Secular

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