We don’t always know what comes next, but that cannot dissuade us.

When you heard that voice and knew finally it called for you and what it was saying—where were you? Were you in the shower, wet and soapy, or chopping cabbage late for dinner? Were you planting radish seeds or seeking one lost sock? Maybe wiping handprints off a window or coaxing words into a...

May each one among us have skin that longs to touch other skin: fingertips that long for other fingertips or whole hands and even arms; bodies that want to stand next to other bodies, not alone, while singing and bending, stirring soup. May ones whose skin doesn’t cry out for other skin wish it...

Blessed is this ground on which we stand. Holy is this place. Holy are the places of memory, the places which have formed us, where we store the icons of success and shattered dreams and gather threads and pieces of what we would become. . . Holy are the places of memory....

Here we are: children at the Big Party, having our moment in the sun, our piece of the action, till our bodies give way and we are called home. We’re one big, not-always-happy family, given life and breath by an eternal parent we dearly long to know....

Ever since I graduated from college, I have had a recurring dream. My wife has had it, too, as well as a lot of other people I know. In my dream, it is time to take an exam and I am unprepared. I have not gone to classes all semester. I failed to do the reading....

I am frequently astonished by monarch butterflies. Delicate beyond belief, they fly thousands of miles each year from all parts of the continent to settle in the forests of South America. To my delight, their migratory route takes them along a bridge near my home. A few days ago, I was driving on...

Each moment of our living brings us closer to our dying. Young or old, the knowledge of life’s end is with us, growing more real, more familiar through the experiences of time and of loss. Yet what is to keep us from frittering away what time is left to us, Making it almost a matter of...

Our locks tell us a lot about our lives. Locks of all kinds hold my attention because of a dream I had when I was thirteen. In the dream a gray-haired woman in a white coat sat behind a desk. I knew she was me, far in the future. Behind her on the wall was a cross-stitched sampler with a motto. I...

All summer, workers have been building a brick wall along the road by my neighborhood. Against the brutal heat, they stretch a tarp overhead to get a little shade. I’ve watched them take bricks in their dusty brown hands one by one, butter them thickly with mortar, line them up, and tap them...

The first stop on U.S. soil after a deployment is the airport. From there, it’s all downhill until you get to see your family and loved ones again. But the airport is its own scene when you’re a soldier in uniform. On my trip home, I’m reminded of the last time I was in the airport—returning...

I lean back in the chair and exhale a long breath of thick white cigar smoke into the night sky. It rises upward, swirls in a light breeze, and disappears. I think to myself, “Damn this is a good cigar, a good night, and a good place to be for these few moments.” Earlier today, I walked through...

They had no idea where they were going, when they left that night, in the dark, without lights, without shoes, without bread, their children smothered against them so they would make no noise....

I am afraid of nearly everything: of darkness, hunger, war, children mutilated. But most of all, I am afraid of what I might become: reconciled to injustice, resigned to fear and despair, lulled into a life of apathy. Unchain my hope, make me strong. Stretch me towards the impossible, that I may...

Gracious One: Keep watch on the innovators, the trailblazers, the takers of risk. Invite us to be persons of vision and integrity. Help us to remember the mystery from which possibility is born. Lead us to honor the sacred space where ministries, idealists, and realists meet....

Within the space of an instant, you can make a first impression show gratitude, kiss, change your mind, wipe away a tear, live, and die. It only takes a minute to write a note, tell a joke, change a diaper, sing a song, or be still....

O, send forth me, spirit, O Send Forth Me (form for corporate worship) O, send forth us, spirit, forth to do well our work, work of our lives, our living. May these our lives touch healingly, lovingly, those in need of love and healing....

Every day we experience hunger and yearning: for food, for approval, for respect, for love, for meaningful work, for any and enough work, for home, for family, for friends, for health, for healing, for hope, for the departed, for the newly arrived, for the green trees, for the cool clean waters, ...

I am Unitarian, I live and work in this faith. Jesus is my guide And God is my help. We, humans, are all brothers/sisters, Our law is one: love. The goal of our work is shared, Happy are those of God's Kingdom...

O Thou whose voice speaks from within the heart and soul of all, help us to be still, calm, silent, and thoughtful. We desire to listen, to learn and to meditate in such a way that our lives will grow in a new depth of wisdom and understanding....