Ricardo and his grandparents arrived at Camp Taylor for the congregation's weekend retreat. This was Ricardo's third year at the retreat and he had been looking forward to this weekend for months. He helped bring the bags to their cabin....

Trout Are Made of Trees by April Pulley Sayre, text copyright 2008. Used with permission by Charlesbridge Publishing, Inc.Read the story dramatically and have fun with the sound effects! Trout are made of trees. In fall, trees let go of leaves, which swirl and twirl and slip into streams....

Adapted from "Why the Sky is Far Away" in The Barefoot Book of Earth Tales by Dawn Casey and Anne Wilson (Cambridge: Barefoot Books, 2009). Used by permission. In the beginning, they sky was close to the earth. So close you could reach up and touch it. And you could eat it! In those days, people...

Charles Chauncy was the leading opponent of the Great Awakening, the Protestant evangelical movement that swept through the British North American colonies between 1739 and 1745. Chauncy was born into the elite Puritan merchant class that ruled Boston....

Dr. Anthony Pinn is the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University. He serves as a trustee of Meadville Lombard Theological School. This article is abridged, with permission, from one published in Religious Humanism (Winter-Spring 1998)....

By Janeen K. Grohsmeyer. In the month of July in 1969, a gigantic rocket was launched into space. It sailed through the darkness away from the Earth, and it carried three people to the moon, a quarter of a million miles away. Two people got out of the spaceship and walked on the moon. It was...

When you go camping, what do you miss most? Electricity? Or toilets? Only a hundred years or so ago, people didn't have either one. There were no microwave ovens or toasters. There were no light bulbs. You couldn't just flip a switch or push a button to make things happen. For thousands and...

Activity time: 20 minutes Materials for Activity Newsprint, markers, and tape Sticky dots, ten for each participant Preparation for Activity Post two sheets of newsprint. At the top of one write "Dominant Culture." At the top of the other write "Counter-Culture." Optional: Write your own list of...

Activity time: 25 minutes Materials for Activity Handout 2, LRY, Cons, and the Counter-Culture Preparation for Activity Read Handout 2 and copy for all participants. Description of Activity Introduce the activity by explaining that participants will examine an example of a Unitarian Universalist...

Description of Activity Invite some children, youth, or adults who have attended a Unitarian Universalist camp or conference to come and share their experiences and impressions with the group. Explore these questions: Did the experience change you in any way? How? Did the conference create a...

Read the story aloud, and ask the questions as they come up to encourage interaction and deeper thinking about the concepts. Or, if you are familiar enough with the ideas, tell the story in your own words, being sure to emphasize the four themes: freedom of thought, or noncreedalism; on-going...

Pablo Casals, born in Vendrell, Spain to a Puerto Rican mother, is thought by many to be the greatest cellist who ever lived. His recordings of the Bach Cello Suites, made between 1936 and 1939, are considered unsurpassed to this day.

Odd Velvet by Mary E. Whitcomb, illustrated by Tara Calahan King (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1998). Permission pending. On the first day of school, Velvet's classmates brought their teacher cinnamon tea, lace handkerchiefs, and heart shaped boxes of potpourri....