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  • Inexplicable. How we rise each morning, instead of burying our heads under bedcovers, sewing them shut. Why we keep on welcoming babies with bone-deep joy to this sordid world. How we fill burlap sacks with grit and gratitude, our hands shredded as we drag one over the other....
    Poetry | By Karen G. Johnston | April 7, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Balance, Brokenness, Disaster or Crisis, Grief, Hope, Integrity, Limitations, Living Our Faith, Mystery, Wholeness
  • I wonder Did God’s heart (I mean the love-mushy, endearing part of God) That part The heart that I don’t really believe in as a thing, With pulses... ANYWAY Did that heart Did it Break just a little; When God realized "Oh no— They have made leaves into underpants!" If God says things like...
    Poetry | By Robin Tanner | April 4, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Body, God, Playfulness, Self-Respect, Sexuality, Shame, Wonder
  • Through the windy night something is coming up the path towards the house. I have always hated to wait for things. I think I will go to meet whatever it is.
    Poetry | By Elizabeth Coatsworth | February 8, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Fear, Hope, Mystery
  • I want not dainty bone china-cupped, oh-so-polite, pinky-extended sips, but guzzle-by-the-gallon, drink-from-the-fire-hose- two-hundred-eighty-psi- Niagara-Falls volumes, and inch-thick slices of hearty multi-grain-hard-crusted- with-stick-in-your-teeth-seeds-bread (none of that bland supermarket...
    Poetry | By Peter Friedrichs | February 4, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Body, Direct Experience, Love, Playfulness, Sexuality, Valentine's Day
  • A man sits on the rubble— not just in the rubble, but on the pile of what remains. No people in the bombed-out houses. No dogs. No birds. Just ragged hunks of concrete and loss. And on his perch he is playing an instrument constructed of what is left—an olive oil can, a broom handle, a bowed...
    Poetry | By Lynn Ungar | November 20, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Arts & Music, Direct Experience, Grief, Healing, Hope, Humanism, War, Wholeness
  • Why is this blank page staring back at me, mocking, like an affliction, and fraught with dread? How can it hold such sway, this simple emptiness? Might it instead be a gift left on my doorstep overnight, waiting to be broken open with the dawn?...
    Poetry | By Peter Friedrichs | November 17, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Acceptance, Awe, Compromise, Direct Experience, Earth-Centered, Humility, Imagination, Purpose, Wonder
  • I vote we let the artists win the ones covered in paint from their last attempt to smuggle across the beauty of a bowl of fruit the 14-year-old rapper learning to spit throwing life's chaos on the rhythm wheel uncovering the shapes that live on after the next break I say we let the food bank...
    Poetry | By Bob Janis-Dillon | November 16, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Arts & Music, Awe, Caring, Direct Experience, Peace, Playfulness, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Suffering, Wonder
  • I wish I were like the trees, Who let their leaves go gracefully, without regret. Or the tumbling stream that flushes silt to sea, Exchanging murkiness for blessed clarity. Or the dandelion, who bows its head to the subtle breeze, Unleashing its future without fear or loss. Instead, I drive...
    Poetry | By Peter Friedrichs | November 11, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Forgiveness, Healing, Humility, Letting Go, Regret, Relationships
  • What is the history of any thing? This apple, let's say, that my grandson just picked as he sits on my shoulders, feet dangling like parentheses around my heart?...
    Poetry | By Peter Friedrichs | November 10, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Awe, Children, Connections, Direct Experience, Family, Fathers, Generations, History, Humanism, Interdependence, Parents, Wonder
  • I am so tired and weary, So tired of the endless fight, So weary of waiting the dawn And finding endless night. That I ask but rest and quiet— Rest for the days that are gone, And quiet for the little space That I must journey on.
    Poetry | By Joseph Seamon Cotter | August 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Activism, Challenge, Despair, Hope, Journey, Limitations, Stress
  • Now the autumn shudders In the rose's root, Far and wide the ladders Lean among the fruit. Now the autumn clambers Up the trellised frame And the rose remembers The dust from which it came. Brighter than the blossom On the rose's bough Sits the wizened orange, Bitter berry now; Beauty never...
    Poetry | By Edna St. Vincent Millay | August 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Autumnal Equinox, Beauty, Death, Earth-Centered, Fall, Humility, Samhain
  • #‎BlackLivesMatter Let the only burning be the fire of commitment in our hearts, minds, hands, spirits in our community of faith. Live solidarity. Use your voice. Demand justice... better, live it into being. Cry out for others to join you. Name hate as hate—without shrinking back without...
    Poetry | By Jeannie Shero | August 11, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: #BlackLivesMatter, 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 2nd Principle (Justice, Equity, & Compassion), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), 6th Principle (World Community), 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), Anti-Oppression, Black History / Whitney Young / James Reeb, Change, Direct Experience, Honesty, Humanism, Martin Luther King, Jr. Sunday, Oppression, Power, Privilege, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Race/Ethnicity, Solidarity, Unitarian Universalism
  • “Hope” is the thing with feathers— That perches in the soul— And sings the tune without the words— And never stops—at all— And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard— And sore must be the storm— That ­could abash the ­little Bird That kept so many warm— I’ve heard it in the...
    Poetry | By Emily Dickinson | June 25, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Hope, Listening, Nature, Secular
  • Ah, it’s true. When our ancestors spoke of heaven, they were speaking of this moment. When they went on about nirvana they imagined a time like this. When they sang of paradise, it was this morning they imagined....
    Poetry | By Mark Belletini | June 25, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Body, Community, Generations, Imagination, Living Our Faith, Love, Mystery, Presence, Silence, Truth
  • Is the fire going out? Not in your belly, for you are still alive, but in your soul, that place where dreams fuel commitment where longings shape action where meaning flames purpose where passion ignites and rekindles your life fire. If your soul smolders dream on till you flame like a chalice of...
    Poetry | By Stephen M. Shick | June 18, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Commitment, Courage, Despair, Hope, Meaning, Purpose
  • Sometimes I offer to make a deal with God. “I’ll tell you about my resistance to prayer,” I say, “If you’ll explain the Holocaust.” God declines to comment, and the lawyers make their prepared statements on his behalf. I kind of hate when he does that. I love God best, I confess, when I...
    Poetry | By Bob Janis-Dillon | June 15, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Doubt, Forgiveness, God, Playfulness, Searching, Spiritual Practice, WorshipWeb
  • Later there were mutterings at the bar, and throughout the law courts, that Jesus only showed at the gay pride parade to love the jewel, but not the quality, to love the potluck, but not the food, to love the vessel, but not the wine, to love the hot rod, but not the driver, to love the baby, but...
    Poetry | By Bob Janis-Dillon | June 9, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), Anti-Oppression, Christianity, Inclusion, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer, Pride Sunday
  • if we show them at all most of us who write our secrets down and call it poetry prefer to slip it under the door and run, and if we must be present at the reading, disguise ourselves in sotto voice and pale monotone but here was one who could take us into his personal life and show us around as i...
    Poetry | By Ric Masten | June 3, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Connections, Home, Honesty, Hospitality, Humility, Intimacy, Relationships, Solidarity, Vulnerability, Wholeness
  • In what form did the spirit appear to you today, the blossom of a flower, the tug of a child’s hand, the silent twinkling stars, an old woman smiling at the bus stop, a lover’s ­gentle hug, a presence so close to your soul you ­could almost touch it, words of truth formed unbidden in your...
    Poetry | By Jean M. Olson | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Direct Experience, God, Immanence, Mystery, Sacred
  • Of course I want the truth, but here’s the rub: Truth doesn’t sit around still as a rock, it breathes and flows and turns inside out. Ever seen a lion in a cage? He paces and glowers. That must be how God feels locked in our little religions. Look how big the sky is, the deep distances between...
    Poetry | By Janet Hutchinson | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Awe, God, Mystery, Revelation, Sacred, Truth, Wonder
  • I am praying again and how does one pray when unsure if anything hears? In the world I know as reliable and finite when time and matter cycle back and forth and I understand the answers to so many puzzles there are moments when knowing is nothing and I this accumulation of systems, histories...
    Poetry | By Barbara J Pescan | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Atheism, Direct Experience, Spiritual Practice, Truth, Wonder
  • It is not old, Yet it comes through the wisdom of the ages. It is not young, Yet it comes through the passion of innocence. It is not revolutionary, Yet it comes proclaiming change. It is not solitary, Yet it travels alone, seeking the open heart. It is not lonely, Yet it seeks relationship....
    Poetry | By Stephen M. Shick | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Connections, God, Reverence, Sacred
  • You bring yourself before the sacred, before the holy, before what is ultimate and bigger than your lone life bigger than your worries bigger than your money problems bigger than the fight you had with your sister and your aches and pains bigger, even, than your whole being, your self who is part...
    Poetry | By Angela Herrera | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Generations, Mystery, Sacred, Wonder
  • Barukh atah, Emeth! Blest are you, o Truth. Like the fabled Moses, I too can never claim to have seen you “face to face.” Too often, I’ve hung my own face on you and pretended that I know something I do not. Indeed, my most honest heart confesses that at most, I have only caught the briefest...
    Poetry | By Mark Belletini | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Awe, Connections, Earth, Imagination, Interdependence, Nature, Truth, Wonder
  • shouting back to Stevie Smith who cried “I’m drowning! Not waving!” I ain’t waving babe, I’m drowning going down in a cold lonely sea I ain’t waving babe, I’m drowning so babe quit waving at me I ain’t waving babe, I’m crying I’m crying, oh why can’t you see? I ain’t fooling...
    Poetry | By Ric Masten | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Brokenness, Caring, Connections, Despair, Pain
  • I stretch forth my hand Knowing not what I shall touch... A tender spot, An open wound, Warmth, Pulsing life, Fragile blossoms, A rock, Ice. I am tentative, trembling... Wishing to avoid hurt, Wanting to link my life with Life. Lonely, I desire companions Naked, I long for defenders....
    Poetry | By Gordon B McKeeman | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Caring, Connections, Despair, Hope, Intimacy, Vulnerability
  • In order to get out I must go through. There is no other way. No other way? But there must be another way, an easier path, a well-lit road. I cast about, scan the horizon— No other way. The way out is the way through. The way through is the way hard....
    Poetry | By Kathy Fuson Hurt | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Challenge, Ending, Journey, Letting Go, Patience, Strength
  • It hurts to let go of intensity that zapped like electricity yesterday. It hurts to disconnect arcing power, watch it ground and vanish. What was it that surged through us to lighten gray, indifferent skies? What was it that connected our hearts to hope?...
    Poetry | By Stephen M. Shick | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Forgiveness, Letting Go, Pain, Power
  • I must live my own way, Refusing all that binds. I must know my own mind Among all other minds. I must do my own deeds, And in whatever lands. I will know my own hands Among all other hands. I must forsake the crowds, And walk with lonely fools, To seek for my own face In bleak, deserted pools. I...
    Poetry | By Kenneth L. Patton | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Identity, Individualism, Self-Care
  • Give all to love; Obey thy heart; Friends, kindred, days, Estate, good-fame, Plans, credit and the Muse,— Nothing refuse. ’T is a brave master; Let it have scope: Follow it utterly, Hope beyond hope. It was never for the mean; It requireth courage stout. Souls above doubt, Valor unbending, It...
    Poetry | By Ralph Waldo Emerson | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Caring, Family, Friendship, Generosity, Love, Relationships
  • This is what one hundred years look like: A rounded wrinkled back, sparkling wet and soapy above the shower bench, and my hand, having ­gently formed in your seventieth year, and emerged with lifelines bent ­toward blessing, scrubbing ­circles across your soft, white skin. I drag the cloth...
    Poetry | By Angela Herrera | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Body, Caring, Connections, Direct Experience, Generations, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Relationships, Service
  • New ­People came this time, and we shared our stories, the familiar truths, about shock and healing and being glad that at last our children can say who they are, and we know them now, love them more. Funny stories and good news ripple around, and smiles about lesbigay ways, and jokes, against...
    Poetry | By Geoffrey Herbert | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Brokenness, Connections, Direct Experience, Healing, Love, Relationships, Wholeness
  • I lift my eyes up to the hills from where will my help come? My help comes from Love abundant. my help comes from the hills my help—my help, it comes from ancient Mothers whose hearts beat in mine. It comes from the trees that sway and the breeze that sways them . . . my help comes from all that...
    Poetry | By Alicia R. Forde | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Awe, Beauty, Healing, Love, Wonder
  • Now is the time to call on the memories of the ancestors who thought they ­could not walk another step ­toward freedom—and yet they did. It is that time and place to call on the memories of the ancestors who, when the darkness of their lives threatened to take away the hope and light, reached a...
    Poetry | By Qiyamah Rahman | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Calling, Connections, Generations, History, Power, Purpose, Responsibility
  • Let my body remember. Let my hands and feet remember. Let my breath remember those who have come before me, those who have come before us. Didn’t Muhammad wait quietly in his cave? And didn’t Jesus sigh silently by the blue lake? And Guan Yin, didn’t she sit in silence thinking about what to...
    Poetry | By Mark Belletini | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Connections, Contemplation, Generations, History, Silence, Unity
  • There is a living web that runs through us To all the universe Linking us each with each and through all life On to the distant stars. Each knows a ­little corner of the world, and lives As if this were his all. We no more see the farther reaches of the threads Than we see of the future, yet...
    Poetry | By Robert T Weston | April 23, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), Awe, Connections, Individualism, Unity, Wholeness, Wonder
  • We never know who we are (this is strange, isn’t it?) or what vows we made or who we knew or what we hoped for or where we were when the world’s dreams were seeded. Until the day just one of us sighs a ­gentle longing and we all feel the change one of us calls a name and we all know to be there...
    Poetry | By Margaret Wheatley | April 23, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Connections, Identity, Wonder
  • I am part of you, O Truth Unfolding. I am part of you. I am part of a cosmos. I cannot see either its edge or its end. How amazing! I am part of a galaxy of a million, billion stars. They say it’s a pinwheel. How wonderful! I am part of a system of planets that swing around a small parent star.
    Poetry | By Mark Belletini | April 23, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), Awe, Earth, Gratitude, Nature, Unity, Wholeness, Wonder
  • Spirit of the universe, Life force that flows through all beings, Power beyond our knowing, We ask you to help us see beyond our dependence on opposites— To transcend our desire to know who is like us, and who is not. Open us to the knowledge that in this room there are complexities and...
    Poetry | By Alex Kapitan | April 23, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Beauty, Diversity, Individualism, Multiculturalism, Unity, Wholeness
  • When I look up into the night sky, I am in awe of all that is. There in a far away galaxy A star has died, Yet it is still bright for my eyes to see. And make a wish upon When I walk in the ocean I feel the waves rush across my feet And I feel a certain peace with the world I peer out into the...
    Poetry | By Jay Wolin | April 22, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), Awe, Earth, Earth Day, Nature, Presence, Wonder, WorshipWeb
  • Forgive me dear father For all the trouble I caused The missed curfews The missed classes Your unfulfilled dreams for me Forgive me dear father But your dreams are not my dreams Forgive me dear father And I will forgive you For missed moments That you sacrificed So that one day I could follow my...
    Poetry | By Jay Wolin | April 22, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Children, Direct Experience, Father's Day, Fathers, Forgiveness, Generations, Love, Pain, Parents, Relationships, Wisdom, WorshipWeb
  • The Earth has returned. She is living, breathing, Realizing her breath was leaving. She was needing us to remember her worth, to recognize her worth all over again. We used to be her friends. We used to help her heal us. Help her, heal us. Help her heal us....
    Poetry | By Christopher Sims | March 30, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), Climate Justice, Earth, Earth Day, Earth-Centered, Healing, Nature, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Unitarian Universalism
  • Over the years your staples have slipped and pages loosened. Here a faded purple crescent of ancient wine, there a smudge from bricks of date paste. But when you speak I swoon....
    Poetry | By Rabbi Rachel Barenblat | March 24, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Courage, Freedom, God, History, Judaism, Reverence, Sacred, Tradition
  • The day after the seder, reality shoves back in like a football player with lowered shoulder. Dishes to wash: the browned kugel pan, chopping knives, the eggbeater that whipped the whites for Eppie’s matzah balls, the gravy boats that held haroset, the glass bowls encrusted with salt. All day...
    Poetry | By Rabbi Rachel Barenblat | March 24, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Food, Judaism, Passover (Pesach), Prophetic Words & Deeds, Spiritual Practice, Tradition
  • "So the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading bowls wrapped in their cloaks upon their shoulders." —Exodus 12:34 You’ll need to travel light. Take what you can carry: a book, a poem, a battered tin cup, your child strapped to your chest, clutching your necklace in one...
    Poetry | By Rabbi Rachel Barenblat | March 24, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Courage, Fear, Freedom, Judaism, Letting Go, Passover (Pesach), Tradition, Transformation
  • Breakfast on kosher macaroons and Diet Pepsi in the car on the way to Price Chopper for lamb. Peel five pounds of onions and let the Cuisinart shred them while you push them down and weep....
    Poetry | By Rabbi Rachel Barenblat | March 24, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Direct Experience, Food, Freedom, Generations, Judaism, Passover (Pesach), Prophetic Words & Deeds, Spirituality, Tradition
  • In gatherings we are stirred like the leaves of the fall season rustling around sacred trees, tossed hither and yon until we come to rest together, quietly, softly . . . We come to gather strength from each other. We come to give strength to each other....
    Poetry | By Marta I. ValentĂ­n | March 23, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Acceptance, Community, Covenant, Direct Experience, Gratitude, Power, Strength, Unitarian Universalism, Wholeness
  • We are all dying, our lives always moving ­toward completion. We need to learn to live with death, and to understand that death is not the worst of all events. We need to fear not death, but life— empty lives, loveless lives, lives that do not build upon the gifts that each of us has been given,...
    Poetry | By Mark D. Morrison-Reed | March 23, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Commitment, Death, Direct Experience, Fear, Living Our Faith, Playfulness
  • We float on a sea hidden beneath dry surfaces covered by stones. Isn’t this why we drink and dive so deeply go down to the sea in ships risk drowning, again and again? Isn’t this why Moses parted the waters to begin his journey? Why Jesus crossed the waters to comfort and challenge us? We were...
    Poetry | By Stephen M. Shick | March 23, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Abundance, Awe, Nature, Reverence, Sacred
  • Joy
    I have been wondering what the morning glories know. Is it envy that compels these vines to strangle other flowers arising in their path? Or perhaps self-preservation, to climb these walls, forsaking humbler beings, winding greedy stems around the trellis in their hungry pursuit of light. Still,...
    Poetry | By Terri Pahucki | March 23, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Connections, Earth-Centered, Joy, Nature, Reverence