In our lives, people sometimes do us wrong.

Every time someone showed up for me, I learned that love is greater than skin deep.

It’s important to honor the footprint others leave on our heart.

May the invitation of prayer and meditation embrace this holy house and each precious person, moving each and all to connect with a sense of affirmation— sound, movement, or silence— in whatever way your body knows to be true. [chime] Spirit of Life and Love, our hearts are overflowing with...

Knit six purl six sets of two rows four rows six rows up to twelve, patterns, repeating, steady, soothingly same. This is not what life is like. Life is like picking up a tousled hunk of yarn pulled out of the basket by an impatient child looking for a string too many times. You find an end. You...

"Compassion is love's response to pain." from https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/500901.How_to_Be_an_Adult_in_Relati… To Be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Living, p. 36.

"Grief no more needs a solution than love needs a solution. We cannot 'triumph' over death, or loss, or grief. They are immovable elements of being alive. If we continue to come at them as though they are problems to be solved, we'll never get solace or comfort in our deepest pain."...

[S]piritual and meditative practices are not meant to erase pain. That's a symptom of our pain-avoidant culture, and not an accurate portrayal of the practices themselves. It's a misuse of so many beautiful teachings to force them into roles they were never meant to play....

We all know loss and pain. Let none of it divide us. In the rising sun today Let us do together what we cannot do alone: Roll away the stones that close our hearts.

"We can change. People say we can’t, but we do when the stakes or the pain is high enough. And when we do, life can change."...

What had to die was my shame: my belief that I was not worthy of such love. I discovered a greater love within myself as a creation of God, worthy of these gifts.

Emotional tempests aren’t always easy to weather — pain, grief, disappointment, even love — but the flatness of life without such currents is the slow silence of drowning.

How many more Sundays will the preacher in black robes and the solemn shuffle of papers Read the names of those whose light was extinguished for our right to bear arms? How many more Sundays will we try to believe that our hopes for justice are worth more than the lobbyists’ tailored suits and...

Spirit of Life and Love, we gather today under smoky skies, Aching from the onslaught of the daily news, Our spirits weary and sore, Our nerves jangling with every loss of power, every alert on our phones Our thoughts this morning are with the firefighters and all those whose bodies continue to b...

Reader One: You who feel your heart is breaking, come in. Reader Two: You who are confused and wondering. Come in. Reader Three: You who are angry, in pain, or not wanting to be here. Come in. Reader Four: You who are hopeful and energized. Come in. Leader: Come into this community of your heart...

Spirit of Life and of Love, Holy One that reaches wide to encompass all beings, Hold us to Yourself in this moment. We come to this place carrying so much in our hearts. Around us we hear the laments of a broken world, Torn by fire, storm and strife, Crying, “I too have suffered. I too have been...

This Lamentation is for two voices: one white, and one person of color/indigenous (POCI). Both voices invite people to repeat a refrain several times: white voices say, “So much has been lost,” and voices of color say, “Beloved, you must not be defensive when you hear our hurt.” The latter,...

When I was in middle school, I was taught that every person, to some extent, holds a set of prejudices that impact our perceptions of others. We were asked to think about what our prejudices might be, and how they might inform our relationships and our movement through the world....

I play this moment over and over again in my head: the day I heard of the Thomas Jefferson Ball, hosted by Unitarian Universalists in 1993. As a person of color, raised in a UU congregation, I felt a shiver down my spine as I learned something new and unsettling about the faith that I call home....

The summer of 2016 began as an exciting one for me: I was finally going to a beloved Unitarian Universalist conference and retreat center. I’d heard many wonderful stories about it, and I couldn’t wait to bring my three children with me. On the drive there, I felt excited about spending a full...

Diverse. Multicultural. Inclusive. Welcoming. If I made a list of every single Unitarian Universalist congregation I have served, visited or worshipped at, they would have a few things in common—including the use of these words. Perhaps on the front of the Order of Service?...

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....

"Love, once again, break our hearts open wide." Thanks to Rev. Jason Shelton for providing the sheet music (PDF) for this song.

"I went back to church thinking that it would be like an epidural, like it would take the pain away… that church would make the pain go away. Faith and church was not an epidural for me at all; it was like a midwife who just stood next to me saying, 'Push. It’s supposed to hurt a little bit.'"...

”If we don’t find a way to transform our pain, we will always transmit it to those around us or turn it against ourselves… If your religion is not teaching you how to recognize, hold, and transform suffering, it is junk religion.” —Fr. Richard Rohr People are in pain all around us, all of...

Each of us has gifts and wounds from those who fathered us. This is inevitable; even the best fathers in the world disappoint their children sometimes. Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to grow up. But I know that some wounds are deeper than others. Some people’s hearts have been broken by their...

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a time when particular songs get sung; one of them is "Lift Every Voice and Sing." It gets sung in school, in church, and at various MLK day celebrations or over the course of Black History Month....

“Empathy is not finite, and compassion is not a pizza with eight slices. When you practice empathy and compassion with someone, there is not less of these qualities to go around. There’s more. Love is the last thing we need to ration in this world. The refugee in Syria doesn’t benefit more if...

December 7, 2016 “Use loneliness. Its ache creates urgency to reconnect with the world.” — Natalie Goldberg I know a little about "merry" meeting "mess" at the holidays — and by a little I mean How much time have you got? Four Christmases ago, a painful break-up sent me spinning into a long...

Leader: [if applicable: In addition to our own beloved dead], we take the time to acknowledge all those already lost as the world feels the effects of global warming and climate change. Thousands of people, as well as animals and plants, die every year from the effects of global climate change....

Holy God, hear our prayer. There is pain and there is sorrow, there are broken relationships and broken hearts. Sometimes we are the cause of those things. We have caused pain. We have broken the relationship....

This welcome was written for a Sunday after a national crisis. Whether you’re here because worshiping with us is part of your routine or whether you feel like our country has been stopped in its tracks and it’s impossible to return to normalcy, on this morning we gather to proclaim that we...

I'm on my way to a job where I am the only black person in my office. I work with people who either don’t know or don’t care about Alton Sterling or Philando Castile. They are going to ask me “How are you this morning?” and the simple truth is that I can’t be honest. I can’t say that...

“We want to give you an update on our progress,” the captain said over the PA. A silent groan went through the passengers: the word “update” meant the problem wasn’t fixed. I was on a plane sitting on the tarmac trying to get to the East coast where I was officiating at my nephew’s...

All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain... By trying to handle all suffering through willpower, denial, medication, or even therapy, we have forgotten something that should be obvious: we do not handle suffering; suffering handles us in deep and mysterious ways that ironically...

We are called today, from the midst of pain and challenge, we are called to praise the world. From a world that appears broken, we are called to praise life’s moments of joy and grace. From time that seems to freeze in ongoing exchanges of platitudes and blame, we are called to reach out to those...

How often we seek refuge in this sacred flame From the world’s trouble and pain. Today, may our lamp light the way For whose who know no refuge, That we may open our minds Our arms Our hearts Our mouths to sing “Come, whoever you are,” Wholly new and wholly true.

The statement Black Lives Matter might be hard to hear because it floats. It is a bit of hyperbole. There is no counter point, no balancing narrative. This is something our culture is not accustomed to. We are used to having a good guy and a bad guy, a protagonist and an antagonist. We’ve seen...

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...

For all who die in war We lift up our hearts For all who live in suffering in the aftermath of violence We lift up our hearts For all who give their lives in smoke and flame We lift up our hearts For all who go on in honor of the dead We lift up our hearts For all who have served We lift up our...

This is a ritual of caring for one another, couched in terms of struggle and hope.

When we are overwhelmed with the world And cannot see our way clear, When life seems a struggle between tedium and apathy Or frenzy and exhaustion; When today seems a punishment and tomorrow a torment, May we find the courage of patience. May we recognize courage in ourselves and our companions;...

Torn and confused, lonely and enraged, I greet the new day with suspicion. Spirit of Life, show me the gate to healing. May I find in my hands the tools to craft a way through the pain. When even those tools fail me, may other hands reach out....

(The prayer was written to be read by three people, as indicated by the typefaces.) Peace is more than the absence of worry. It is the creation of safe havens for all; It is the building of security for everyone; It is the forgiveness of self, as well as one who would harm you. Let us seek...

I will lift up my voice and sing; Whatever may befall me, I will still follow the light which kindles song. I will listen to the music Arising out of grief and joy alike, I will not deny my voice to the song....

It is an hour before sunrise. The waves keep coming, but each minute they make less progress than the minute before....

Dear God: Good Friday is gone—a dark day on the calendar, A time of suffering—with more losses than gains, And more pain than we thought we could bear. We are tired of crying, We are tired of burying, We are tired of mourning. But Easter is here—and we who survived are prepared For the turning...

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...

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?...

Be ­gentle with another— It is a cry from the lives of ­people battered By thoughtless words and brutal deeds; It comes from the lips of those who speak them, And the lives of those who do them. Who of us can look inside another and know what is there Of hope and hurt, or promise and pain? Who...