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To search for resources that support March's Soul Matter theme of Transformation, toggle the red arrow below and search for Spiritual Themes of: Transformation, Change, Endings, Beginnings, Searching.

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Displaying 1 - 31 of 31

  • 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 WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Community, Freedom, Leadership, Love, Oppression, Wisdom, WorshipWeb, Worship
  • It takes courage to bring our trust forward and invite another person to meet us there. This sometimes sure, often shaky, surrender is an opportunity to discover something deeper than the confines of our individual experience.
    Reading | By Adaku Utah | January 21, 2024 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Compassion, Earth, Earth Day, Earth-Centered, Freedom, Growth, Interdependence, Nature, Relationships, Trust, WorshipWeb, Worship
  • We are divine bodies of light and darkness
    Affirmation | By Elandria Williams | January 25, 2023 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Activism, Courage, Faith, Freedom, Integrity, Justice, Living Our Faith, Seven Principles, Solidarity
  • I never heard the word abortion in church when I was a child.
    Poetry | By Eileen Casey-Campbell | June 30, 2022 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Direct Experience, Freedom, Politics, Truth, WorshipWeb, Reproductive Justice, Worship
  • There’s never been a time in the United States history when black rebellions did not spark existential fear among white people.
    Reading | By Michelle Alexander, Leslie Alexander | May 12, 2022 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: #BlackLivesMatter, 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 2nd Principle (Justice, Equity, & Compassion), 6th Principle (World Community), America, Black History / Whitney Young / James Reeb, Freedom, History, Juneteenth, Race/Ethnicity, Secular, WorshipWeb, Worship
  • To be content to live in Mystery is central to the liberal religious tradition.
    Affirmation | By Paul Stephan Dodenhoff | November 17, 2021 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Doubt, Freedom, Mystery, Unitarian Universalism
  • When I was small and just learning how to do life in my body, I didn’t hesitate, didn’t hold back, didn’t worry how it would look, didn’t look for cues or ask for a line. My imagination ruled... I was entirely free to be, driven by the innovation my body inspired. This is the wild...
    Reading | By Rebekah Taussig | September 27, 2021 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 2nd Principle (Justice, Equity, & Compassion), 6th Principle (World Community), Anti-Oppression, Body, Dignity, Direct Experience, Freedom, Justice, Oppression, Wholeness
  • As Unitarian Universalists, our journey is to transform the big and the small, to transform ourselves, and to transform the world.
    Responsive Reading | By Elizabeth Nguyen | November 9, 2020 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Anti-Oppression, Calling, Freedom, Justice, Living Our Faith, Purpose, Seven Principles, Transformation, Unitarian Universalism, Universalism, Wholeness, WorshipWeb, Worship
  • The history of conquest is a scourge on the human condition. A lingering one.
    Quote | By Imani Perry | October 27, 2020 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 2nd Principle (Justice, Equity, & Compassion), Anti-Oppression, Evil, Freedom, Greed, History, Humanism, Oppression, Poverty, Secular
  • We teach girls to be likeable, to be nice, to be false. And we do not teach boys the same. This is dangerous.
    Reading | By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | October 22, 2020 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), Beginnings, Character, Children, Coming-of-Age, Direct Experience, Education, Freedom, Gender, Generations, Humanism, Secular, Self-Respect, WorshipWeb, Worship
  • The drag show was heaven broken open, given to us for the evening. Everything for a little while was perfect—and I saw the face of my God.
    Reflection | By Jami Yandle | July 1, 2020 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), Freedom, Gender, God, Identity, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer, Pride Sunday, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Sacred, Sexuality
  • "A faith that is not the sister of justice is bound to bring people to grief....
    Quote | By James Luther Adams | October 16, 2019 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), 5th Principle (Conscience & Democracy), Freedom, Justice, Religion, Unitarianism
  • Although the German word Giftschrank sounds like a quirky holiday tradition, the term is really a combination of the words poison and cabinet....
    Reading | By Erika Hewitt, Becky Brooks | September 25, 2019 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 5th Principle (Conscience & Democracy), Direct Experience, Freedom, Humanism, Interdependence, Limitations, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Relationships, Responsibility, Secular
  • To be free, you must embrace the breadth of your own existence without apology, even if they try to take it from you. You must know, not that you can do whatever you want; you are not a kudzu vine, eating entire hillsides for the purpose of feeding your own lush life. You must know instead, that...
    Poetry | By Julián Jamaica Soto | June 1, 2019 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 2nd Principle (Justice, Equity, & Compassion), 6th Principle (World Community), Anti-Oppression, Freedom, Justice, Responsibility, Solidarity, Unitarian Universalism
  • Surrender is the last thing, often the only thing, available. And so we give ourselves to it. We fear it is our end. Sometimes—with grace or luck—we find it is our liberation.
    Reflection | By Karen G. Johnston | January 23, 2019 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: 2nd Principle (Justice, Equity, & Compassion), 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), Animals, Direct Experience, Earth-Centered, Fear, Freedom, Imagination, Interdependence, Ministry, Nature, Salvation
  • We people, gathered here today on the quest for truth and meaning, bear witness. We bear witness. To the record of human lives extinguished, simply because these people dared to live authentically, we bear witness. To the lives and reported deaths of (number) transgender people, globally, so far...
    Responsive Reading | By Amy Brooks | January 22, 2019 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), Acceptance, Anti-Oppression, Choice, Conscience, Courage, Diversity, Empathy, Freedom, Gender, Identity, Transgender Day of Remembrance, Unitarian Universalism
  • I wanted so badly to break free and let loose—but I just couldn't. I was stuck in my own false ideas of the congregation's expectations of me. Luckily, there’s still time.
    Reflection | By DeReau K. Farrar | January 16, 2018 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Acceptance, Arts & Music, Body, Direct Experience, Empathy, Freedom, Joy, Limitations, Multiculturalism, Race/Ethnicity, Self-Respect
  • The freedom to doubt, to question, to be content to live in Mystery is central to the liberal religious tradition. Like the process of evolution itself, the path that we follow—our practice—is not easy or simple. It isn’t without its dead ends or its disappointments. It doesn't guarantee that...
    Reflection | By Paul Stephan Dodenhoff | November 21, 2017 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Awe, Challenge, Direct Experience, Doubt, Freedom, Humanism, Integrity, Living Our Faith, Mystery, Secular, Spirituality, Unitarian Universalism
  • We light the Hanukkah candles in wonder, joy, and gratitude, each candle a miracle. When the Holy Temple was rededicated at the time of the Maccabean liberation battle, only one day’s worth of oil remained, yet it burned for eight days so we light candles in remembrance....
    Responsive Reading | By Amanda Udis-Kessler | January 18, 2017 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Anti-Oppression, Awe, Freedom, Hanukkah, Judaism, Trust, Wonder
  • We gather at Thanksgiving, in some sense, to retell the creation myth of our country. In this myth is our very best and our very worst: a boldness; a care for the common good; a wish to say we before I. Yet from even before the first Thanksgiving feast, it’s a story of theft and violence, and a...
    Reading | By David Schwartz | November 15, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 2nd Principle (Justice, Equity, & Compassion), 6th Principle (World Community), America, Anti-Oppression, Freedom, Generations, History, Humanism, Indigenous American, Race/Ethnicity, Secular, Thanksgiving
  • "The power of transgression is the archetypal foundational story of the Bible because we transgress; because we want to break our own codes, sometimes of morality, sometimes of ethics, sometimes of the power structures… because there is freedom in transgression, and there is power in...
    Quote | By Esther Perel | June 5, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Blame, Brokenness, Commitment, Failure, Freedom, Power
  • To become an anti-racist faith community, the key question for a white/white majority community is not “How do we get people of color to join our faith community?” It is, instead, “How can we make a prolonged, spiritually-rooted, engaged commitment to uprooting white supremacy within our...
    Reading | By Chris Crass | May 9, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: #BlackLivesMatter, Anti-Oppression, Black History / Whitney Young / James Reeb, Direct Experience, Freedom, Justice, Living Our Faith, Purpose, Race/Ethnicity, Secular, Seven Principles, Solidarity, Unity
  • I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, To steal a view of the glorious...
    Reading | By Nelson Mandela | August 19, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Anti-Oppression, Direct Experience, Freedom, Humanism, Justice, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Purpose, Relationships, Responsibility, Service
  • 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
  • Wear God like a cloak / and stride forth with confidence.
    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
  • Life does not call us merely to do over and over again what we have already done; nor does it call us to act out, as puppets, parts already assigned to us. No. In the midst of a situation which is itself ever changing, we are free to bring into realization new relationships of understanding and...
    Quote | By Frank O. Holmes | March 9, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Change, Character, Choice, Courage, Freedom, Growth, Integrity
  • "What Woman needs is not as a woman to act or rule, but as a nature to grow, as an intellect to discern, as a soul to live freely and unimpeded."...
    Quote | By Margaret Fuller | January 21, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Freedom, Growth, History, Power, Self-Respect, Women
  • "We would have every arbitrary barrier thrown down. We would have every path laid open to Woman as freely as to Man. Were this done, and a slight temporary fermentation allowed to subside, we should see crystallizations more pure and of more various beauty....
    Quote | By Margaret Fuller | January 21, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: America, Equity, Freedom, History, Men, Self-Respect, Women
  • "For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another....
    Quote | January 21, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Christianity, Freedom, Interdependence, Love, Service
  • Every third Tuesday, I am a Buddhist I empty my mind and lighten my heart And try to let go of attachments Every other Friday, I am a Christian. I look for the least of these And try to love God and my neighbor The full moon of the month finds me Wiccan; I honor the dual nature of God And find my...
    Reading | By Joanna Fontaine Crawford | January 21, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Buddhism, Freedom, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Unitarian Universalism

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Our authors and artists have granted permission for use by Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) member congregations for any worship service, including printing materials, projecting onto screens, or including in audio/video podcasts. Thank you for crediting the author or artist.

WorshipWeb's Origin Story

Conceived in 1999, WorshipWeb was implemented in late 2000 and 2001 through funding from the Unitarian Universalist Association's successful 1997 "Handing on the Future" capital fund campaign.

We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association and its members in the development of WorshipWeb.