Given that Unitarian Universalists believe in the inherent worth and dignity of all people, not just black people, why should we say “black lives matter” rather than “all lives matter”? To answer this question, we must draw a distinction between a faith stance and a description of reality.

Step One:​ Invoke an external and internal threat. Pose it as a threat to civilization itself. Create a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond the reach of any traditional solution. Insist that the leader’s superior instinct and access to privileged knowledge are more reliable than universal...

How clearly I remember it. My husband, Dan, and our daughter, Sarah, had spent the night in Taos, New Mexico. The next morning we set out for the pueblo, an ancient village inhabited by indigenous people known as the Pueblo. Clearly tourists, easily identified as European Americans, we were...

Pity the poor dandelion. It is, in many ways, nature’s perfect plant. With a tap root that grows more than a foot long, it can survive in climates of scorching heat and bitter cold. Its tender, young greens make a tasty addition to any salad, or they can be boiled like fiddleheads or as a tea...

I had jet-lag. That’s my excuse—that, and it was a hot, humid Sunday afternoon in Chicago, the end of a three-day family reunion. All of us were well-fed and happy, but tired and...well, the family had been together for three days. When my aunt remembered that she needed to return the flower...

Call to Gather “The struggle of today is not altogether for today; it is for a vast future also.” -- Abraham Lincoln’s annual message to Congress, December 3, 1861[1] Reading: “The Gettysburg Address” by Abraham Lincoln Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this...

The early settlers who risked life and limb to come to this land—a land strange and unknown, but full of promise—these early settlers had a dream. That dream included freedom to worship as they wished; it included the opportunity to prosper, if they were willing to work hard; it included the...