Displaying 1 - 20 of 27
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When we are engaged in acts of love, we humans are at our best and most resilient… If the goal was to increase the love, rather than winning or dominating a constant opponent, I think we could actually imagine liberation from constant oppression.Reading | By Adrienne Maree Brown | April 19, 2024 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Community, Freedom, Leadership, Love, Oppression, Wisdom, WorshipWeb, Worship -
The journey toward inner truth is too taxing to be made solo.Reading | By Parker J. Palmer | December 14, 2023 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Community, Contemplation, Discernment, Journey, Searching, Truth, WorshipWeb, Worship -
Can we enfold other people in the way we long to be enfolded?Reading | By Kate Landis | October 18, 2022 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Community, Healing, Hope, Love -
I didn’t know the human heart could hold so much love before I met this congregation.Reading | By Kate Landis | October 18, 2022 | From WorshipWebTagged as: 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Community, Love, Salvation, Spiritual Practice, Unitarian Universalism, Unity -
The only way we survive this modern agony is together.Reading | By Kate Landis | October 18, 2022 | From WorshipWebTagged as: 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Brokenness, Community, Compassion, Connections, Globalism, Humanism, Mental Health, Unity
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People of faith are experts in human kindness.Reading | By Barbara F. Meyers | July 27, 2022 | From WorshipWebTagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Addiction/Recovery, Caring, Community, Healing, Hope, Kindness, Mental Health
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Safety is not tied to our capacity to watch our neighbors, but rather based on our capacity to truly look out for one another.Reading | February 16, 2022 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Activism, Caring, Community, Fear, Solidarity, WorshipWeb, Worship -
We can’t run from ourselves. The answer to safety is always closer rather than farther away.Reading | By Zach Norris | February 16, 2022 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Activism, Community, Fear, Justice, Solidarity, WorshipWeb, Worship
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In her 1975 theological treatise Suffering, German liberation theologian Dorothee Söelle* examines the ways that suffering can knit humans beings closer together, and can draw us more fully into the process of loving. She uses the term apatheia, “the inability to suffer,” to describe the...Reading | By Erika Hewitt | September 9, 2019 | From WorshipWebTagged as: 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Brokenness, Community, Connections, Individualism, Politics, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Relationships, Self-Care, Self-Respect -
What images comes to mind when I say, “Labor Day”? Chances are you think of the holiday weekend and celebrations with your loved ones, the Federal Holiday, Unions and the cause of a working wage and benefits, maybe the history of the struggle of working people to have a fair share of the profits...Reading | By Jennifer Willet | February 5, 2019 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Aging, Caring, Community, Compassion, Dignity, Disability, Economy, Education, Generations, Interdependence, Labor Day -
Our communities of memory and promise are founded upon covenants because we all need a defense against the impulse of immediate feelings that challenge our best intentions. It is necessary to be reminded from time to time of what you said you were going to do, and what you really want, over and...Reading | By Kendyl L. R. Gibbons | February 21, 2018 | From WorshipWebTagged as: 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Building/Space Dedication, Business Meetings, Commitment, Community, Connections, Covenant, Homecoming / Ingathering, Installations, Integrity, Interdependence, Living Our Faith, Ordinations, Relationships, Unitarian Universalism, Unity -
Joy Unspeakable is not silent, it moans, hums, and bends to the rhythm of a dancing universe…. For our free African ancestors, joy unspeakable is drum talk… For enslaved Africans during the Middle Passage, joy unspeakable is the surprise of living one more day… For Africans in bondage in the...Reading | By Kimberly Quinn Johnson | October 15, 2017 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Anti-Oppression, Arts & Music, Community, Direct Experience, Joy, Living Our Faith, Multiculturalism, Personal Stories, Race/Ethnicity, Spiritual Practice, Unitarian Universalism -
When I started attending a UU church, I was excited by the promise of worship that would draw from the arts, science, nature, literature and a multitude of voices. Indeed, some of the voices that Unitarian Universalists hear in worship each week belong to Thoreau, Emerson, Ballou, and others....Reading | By Connie Simon | October 15, 2017 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Community, Direct Experience, Identity, Inclusion, Listening, Multiculturalism, Pain, Personal Stories, Race/Ethnicity, Reconciliation, Unitarian Universalism
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This reading is an excerpt of the sermon delivered by Rev. Nancy McDonald Ladd on Sunday morning at General Assembly 2016. For as long as two or more have gathered in the name of the spirit, those two or more have fought some fake fights. You remember, perhaps, the classic wedding reading from...Reading | By Nancy McDonald Ladd | October 19, 2016 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Anger, Christianity, Community, Compromise, Conflict, Conscience, Purpose, Relationships, Secular, Self-Respect, Seven Principles, Unitarian Universalism, Unity, Wholeness -
I understand participation in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) as a spiritual practice or discipline. While the word discipline may want to make us run and hide, a spiritual practice or discipline is meant to help us find our center. Approaching my participation in the CSA as a spiritual...Reading | By Nicole Janelle | July 10, 2016 | From WorshipWebTagged as: 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Community, Contemplation, Direct Experience, Earth, Earth Day, Earth-Centered, Family, Food, Food Justice, Gratitude, Nature, Spiritual Practice, Summer Solstice, Table Grace, Wonder -
Fertility in social movements and among people is not something we control. We cannot make new life like we make plans or money. It's hard to be fertile when we are not grounded. Fertility is about making new life that becomes self-determining: that does not belong to us. If we drain ourselves as...Reading | By Caitlin Breedlove | May 3, 2016 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Abundance, Community, Creativity, Direct Experience, Leadership, Unitarian Universalism, Unity
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One day, your church was born. Maybe it was a gathering of saints, called together for the common worship of a wrathful god, ceaselessly praying between bouts of decrying the evil of Christmas or dancing. Or maybe a few brave souls answered a notice in the newspaper, curiosity piqued by the...Reading | By Sean Neil-Barron | February 26, 2016 | From WorshipWebTagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), 5th Principle (Conscience & Democracy), Building/Space Dedication, Business Meetings, Change, Child Dedication, Community, Creativity, Direct Experience, Generations, Installations, Leadership, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Purpose, Religion, Sacred, Unitarian Universalism, WorshipWeb -
Today, you join in membership. This is a moment of excitement and possibility. And although I don’t wish to pull you out of this moment, I need to talk to you for a bit about a moment in your future....Reading | By Liz James | February 11, 2016 | From WorshipWebTagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Commitment, Community, Covenant, Inclusion, Living Our Faith, New Member Ceremony, Reconciliation, Relationships, Strength, Teamwork, Transformation, Unitarian Universalism, WorshipWeb -
We gather together this morning, Because others came before us. Some have left examples for us to follow, Others lessons for us to learn from, and the paradox is that many have left both pain and joy. We honor our ancestors this morning, not because they are perfect, But because, without them, we...Reading | By Chris Rothbauer | November 11, 2015 | From WorshipWebTagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), Community, Generations, History, Limitations, Meaning, Pain, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Vulnerability -
Hay tantísimas fronteras que dividen a la gente, pero por cada frontera existe también un puente. There are so many borders that divide people, but for every border there is also a bridge. Adapted from "Copla #1," Puentes y fronteras/Bridges and Borders, translated by Katherine Callen King.Reading | By Gina Valdés | August 26, 2015 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Anti-Oppression, Community, Connections, Culture, Direct Experience, International, Multiculturalism, Relationships, Secular