Braver/Wiser
Braver/Wiser
Braver/Wiser
Worship
Life is full of hard edges and complicated choices. Braver/Wiser gives you weekly message of courage and compassion for life as it is. Every Wednesday we deliver an original written reflection by a contemporary religious leader, and brief prayer, grounded in Unitarian Universalism. Join the Braver/Wiser community and sign up today!
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Big Shoes to Fill
Traditions and habits can be changed or broken and that’s not always bad. It doesn’t mean we didn’t learn or like what we did in the past, it just means that we moved on to something else and that’s okay too.By Rayla D. Mattson | 1/16/2019Average rating:0/5 -
Love's Hiding Place
My soul nudged me from a hiding place to confess and to seek forgiveness, and only through the grace of the Great Mystery of Life unfolding around us did I receive the blessing of journeying with a beloved, grieving friend.By Rebekah Savage | 1/9/2019Average rating:0/5 -
Quitting
Once I quit drinking, my inner voice and I began the harder work: that of creating a life from which I do not need or want to escape.By Alix Klingenberg | 1/2/2019Average rating:0/5 -
Too Much of Everything
In real life, sometimes grief looms largest in December. Sometimes there's one too many dress-ups and the gold tulle makes your legs itch. “I just needed it to stop for a minute. Next time I will take calm breaths.”By Misha Sanders | 12/19/2018Average rating:0/5 -
Hope Is Currency
There's nothing simple about the holidays. Joy can feel empty when it is compulsory. The promise of liberation is hard fought and well earned.By Alex Haider-Winnett | 12/12/2018Average rating:0/5 -
Radical Expectations
Advent is about expectation—radical expectations that undo the status quo—and anticipation: a skillful search for the places where liberation rises from the ashes.By Robin Tanner | 12/5/2018Average rating:0/5 -
To Break Our Hearts Open
What, exactly, are we doing when we invite love into our lives? Surely we know that it's much tidier without it, when things stay at a distance.By Amanda Poppei | 11/28/2018Average rating:0/5 -
A Cause for Thanksgiving?
Something new could come out of this moment of discomfort; something like healing. This is our opportunity to reimagine what Thanksgiving could be — and who we could be.By Daniel Gregoire | 11/21/2018Average rating:0/5 -
The Kindness of Others
A white woman pulled over and ran over to me with a shopping bag. She noticed that I never have on a coat and I often stand in the rain. She didn’t know if the things would fit, but the receipt was in the bag. She smiled and drove away. As I looked down at the bag, I had very...By Rayla D. Mattson | 11/14/2018Average rating:0/5 -
Love Does Not Disappear
In the eighteen years I’ve served as minister of my small-town congregation, I have led 96 memorial services, most for people I have loved. The longer I stay, the deeper I love and the more I grieve.By Elea Kemler | 10/31/2018Average rating:0/5 -
Out of the Spiritual Fog
God is not a distant force, far away. God is in the beating of our hearts and the backbeat of a funky baseline. God is in a four-on-the-floor drum fill, and in the achy joints and sore muscles the day after.By Alex Haider-Winnett | 10/24/2018Average rating:0/5 -
Worthy of Love
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.By Rebekah Savage | 10/17/2018Average rating:0/5 -
Blessed Are the Magic-Makers
We could see the main path to the swimming hole ahead, but we had to pick our way through sand spurs to get there. Behind us were rattlesnakes. What did the youth do? They started playing.By Teresa Honey Youngblood | 10/10/2018Average rating:0/5 -
The Storm
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.By Lindasusan Ulrich | 10/3/2018Average rating:0/5 -
The Compliment
I trusted the woman at the pharmacy to be capable of hearing hard truth. Bless her wounded heart with its internalized misogyny. She just wants women to love and support each other. Thank you. Me too.By Misha Sanders | 9/26/2018Average rating:0/5 -
Amen-Peanut Butter-Eyeballs
Our family prays at mealtime to practice gratitude in our lives. I love that my children are taking it as their own, finding their own meaning.By Christian Schmidt | 9/19/2018Average rating:0/5 -
Angry Birds
Who are the angry birds in my life? Do I avoid opportunities in fear of risks? What are the sticks I carry in my heart so as not to be hurt again?By Yuri Yamamoto | 9/12/2018Average rating:0/5 -
The Beauty Spilling Out
It's an impulse of the human self to be known fully, and that’s almost never possible unless we risk the conversations that help us see past our initial impressions.By Amanda Poppei | 9/5/2018Average rating:0/5 -
Fear Can't Last Forever
This is a story of in-the-middle for those wondering how their story ends.By Robin Tanner | 8/29/2018Average rating:0/5 -
Bruh
Black people are so accustomed to being ignored and invisible that a simple acknowledgement—a simple I see you —from a peer goes a long way.By DeReau K. Farrar | 8/22/2018Average rating:0/5
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