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  • When I was a kid I liked to skip stones on lakes. If I threw a flat stone at the correct angle and with enough speed and energy it would kiss the surface and leap into the air again and again. If we have too much stuff in our lives, our attention skips from one object to another without really...
    Reading | By Doug Kraft | June 1, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Balance, Buddhism, Compromise, Direct Experience, Mindfulness, Patience, Playfulness, Self-Care, Simplicity
    Worship element
  • Don’t speak to me of “healing” racism, or “wounded souls” or the “painful hurt” until you are willing to feel the scars on my great-great-grandmother Laury’s back. Don’t speak to me of “values” or “justice” or “righting wrongs” until you are able to feel the heartache...
    Reading | By Adam Lawrence Dyer | May 17, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: #BlackLivesMatter, America, Anti-Oppression, Brokenness, Direct Experience, Healing, Identity, Justice, Personal Stories, Race/Ethnicity, Responsibility, Secular, Shame
    Worship element
  • You’ve seen it. Two black men pass each other on the street. They nod. Subtle, sometimes imperceptible, but there is acknowledgement. “Do you know him?” “No . . . (yes) . . . no.” I learned this from my father and my grandfather and my other grandfather and my uncles and my great uncle and...
    Reading | By Adam Lawrence Dyer | May 17, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: #BlackLivesMatter, 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 2nd Principle (Justice, Equity, & Compassion), America, Anti-Oppression, Connections, Direct Experience, Identity, Race/Ethnicity, Secular, Solidarity, Unity
    Worship element
  • 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
    Worship element
  • 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 WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Abundance, Community, Creativity, Direct Experience, Leadership, Unitarian Universalism, Unity
    Worship element
  • For decades prior to my mother’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, we had suffered a strained relationship born from her alcoholism. When I learned she had Alzheimer’s, my hope for forgiveness and reconciliation drained away, along with her cognitive abilities. But the world of Alzheimer’s teems...
    Reading | By Jade C. Angelica | April 18, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Aging, Caring, Children, Direct Experience, Family, Forgiveness, Mother's Day, Mothers, Transformation
    Worship element
  • The word desire comes from the Latin desiderare: “to long for,” but the Latin desiderare comes from de sidere: “from the stars.” From the stars. I find this extraordinary: to think that somehow our desire, our longing, is connected to the very stars in the sky. The stars, which share their...
    Reading | By Laura Horton-Ludwig | April 8, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), Connections, Intimacy, Love, Mystery, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Sexuality, Wonder
    Worship element
  • The religious mystics of every tradition tell us union is what we are here for — union is what we are: we are connected to each other, to the earth, to everything that exists, and to the force that lies beyond it all—only most of the time we don’t realize it. Union is not a myth or a pipe...
    Reading | By Laura Horton-Ludwig | April 8, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), Body, Connections, God, Intimacy, Love, Mystery, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Sexuality, Unity
    Worship element
  • One of the potential spiritual lessons of sports comes in its ability to connect people—to each other as well as to a team of strangers. Not too long ago, I was in a workshop in which we were discussing “peak experiences,” those mystical, transcendent experiences of what Abraham Maslow would...
    Reading | By Michael J. Tino | April 5, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Awe, Connections, Direct Experience, Personal Stories, Playfulness, Secular, Teamwork, Unity, Wonder
    Worship element
  • Dear Liberal Allies, You and I learned very different things in very different ways. If you didn’t live an experience, then step aside. We students of color, gay students, trans* students, children of immigrants and refugees knew this stuff before our professors told us what to call it....
    Reading | By Trungles | March 30, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 2nd Principle (Justice, Equity, & Compassion), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Anti-Oppression, Direct Experience, Growth, Identity, Justice, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer, Multiculturalism, Personal Stories, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Race/Ethnicity, Solidarity, Suffering
    Worship element
  • Desire and sexuality are not held in high regard by many of the world’s religious traditions today. And sex? Don’t even go there! As extremism rises, desires are seen as objects of suppression while bodies become things to control. The Greeks first articulated this idea of separation of the...
    Reading | By Robin Tanner | March 2, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Body, Christianity, Direct Experience, Intimacy, Islam, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer, Sacred, Secular, Sexuality
    Worship element
  • 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 WorshipWeb
    Tagged 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
    Worship element
  • Bruises are a part of roller derby — a celebrated part. It’s not uncommon for players to take pictures of their biggest, most colorful shaped bruises: bruises that go deep into your tissue, and come out in amazing blues, purples, and blacks that eventually fade to greens, browns and yellows. A...
    Reading | By Dawn Skjei Cooley | February 23, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: #BlackLivesMatter, 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 2nd Principle (Justice, Equity, & Compassion), 6th Principle (World Community), Anti-Oppression, Black History / Whitney Young / James Reeb, Body, Commitment, Direct Experience, Healing, Justice, Multiculturalism, Privilege, Race/Ethnicity, Secular
    Worship element
  • When we talk about a liberal theology and ethic of sexuality, we need to start in our vulnerable, needy bodies, in real life, in the struggle to navigate our embodied neediness with others in an embrace of the still-possible mutual wholeness and transformation. Any theology of sex that doesn’t...
    Reading | By Gretchen Haley | February 22, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Body, Coming Out, Gender / Sex Change, Healing, Intimacy, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer, Multiculturalism, Sexuality, Wholeness
    Worship element
  • 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 WorshipWeb
    Tagged 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
    Worship element
  • I am always in a bit of a shock when December 1st arrives on the calendar. I always feel like there should be at least another week beyond Thanksgiving before I can even contemplate the next holiday....
    Reading | By Cynthia Frado | December 21, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Advent, Birth, Christianity, Christmas Eve / Christmas, Compassion, Hope, Mindfulness, Unitarian Universalism, Winter Solstice / Yule, Wonder
    Worship element
  • I want to say to all those who would close the door, who would be guided by fear instead of hope, who would clutch in scarcity rather than live in generosity, who would say “No, you can’t come here”— I want to say: How dare you. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, . .
    Reading | By Matthew Johnson | December 7, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Acceptance, America, Anti-Oppression, Christianity, Direct Experience, Immigration, Inclusion, Justice, Secular
    Worship element
  • In eighth grade, we were assigned a project: to make a poster about some part of our ancestry. I made mine about the story of the 1930 migration, from Germany to the United States, of my great-grandmother, her husband, and their three children. My great-grandmother, Emma Johanna Jacoba Kranenburg...
    Reading | By Matthew Johnson | December 7, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Acceptance, America, Anti-Oppression, Direct Experience, Family, Generations, Immigration, Inclusion, Multiculturalism, Prophetic Words & Deeds
    Worship element
  • Note: this reflection was written at the end of Rev. Janis-Dillon's week in Samos, Greece working in a Syrian refugee center. The people of Samos, Greece have done something that sounds ordinary, only it's not: they have treated the Syrian refugees like human beings. Past the terror of the rubber...
    Reading | By Bob Janis-Dillon | December 6, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 6th Principle (World Community), 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), Anti-Oppression, Compassion, Dignity, Human Rights, Immigration
    Worship element
  • We hear it said we are witnessing a “clash of civilizations.” We hear it from presidential candidates, from right-wing talk radio pundits, from white supremacist, nationalist and terrorist organizations. They say we live in the midst of a “clash of civilizations.” This is the first great lie...
    Reading | By Joshua Mason Pawelek | December 6, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), America, Direct Experience, Immigration, Inclusion, International, Justice
    Worship element