You never know what the wind will blow in or which way the wind blows. The wind can change directions and maybe change your life. It happened to John Murray. As a young man, John Murray had excellent fortune blow his way. He had a fine education, a steady job, a loving wife, and a young son. Life...

Materials for Activity A copy of the story "The Mish-Mash Heart" A sample mish-mash heart made by a leader or participant in Activity 2 Card stock in a variety of colors Fabric pieces, ribbons, and other decorative items Glue sticks, scissors (including left-handed scissors), and hole punch(es)...

In July 2003, I went on an eight-day spiritual retreat at a Benedictine monastery in Wisconsin. The night before I left Chicago to drive to the monastery, as preparation for the journey, I made a series of decisions about what kinds of clothes I would need while on this retreat. I was thorough. I...

Based on multiple sources, particularly a letter from Margaret Fuller to Caroline Sturgis, October 22, 1840. The letter may be found at Houghton Library, Harvard University (call number MS Am 1221 (242))....

Excerpted from Some Remarkable Passages in the Life of Dr. George de Benneville, translated by Rev. Elhanan Winchester (Germantown, PA: Converse Cleaves, Publisher, 1890), with material to explain the context for each.George de Benneville was raised by his godmother, Queen Anne of England....

By Rev. Elizabeth Buffington Nguyen, Leadership Development Associate for Youth and Young Adults of Color. When I was 24, my father gave me a new name. I was learning Vietnamese in graduate school....

By Ellen Zemlin, a White Unitarian Universalist.For me, there's never really been a question about whether my Unitarian Universalism and my commitment to antiracism, anti-oppression, and multiculturalism are related. My introduction to justice work came sitting in a circle on the floor at youth...

In September 1965, Filipino grape workers in Delano, California, went on strike for more pay and better working conditions. A week later, the predominantly Mexican American National Farm Workers' Association joined the strike....

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)....

Originally published in Stirring the Nation's Heart: Eighteen Stories of Prophetic Unitarians and Universalists of the Nineteenth Century (Boston: Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, 2010). In the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the year 1858, a young woman entered a...

It was the first gathering of a newly formed small group. The eight people who gathered in Ann's living room recognized one another, but had no real connection, except for the two married couples who were there....

Young prince Siddhartha had been raised in complete luxury. His life had been so arranged that he knew no suffering, no lack, no want. So when he first encountered suffering—in the form of a sick person, an old person, and a dying person—he was determined to find its cause and its solution. For...

2 Samuel 12: 1-10 (New Revised Standard Version) But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord, and the Lord sent Nathan to David. He [Nathan] came to him [David], and said to him, "There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor....

A contemporary painter named Debora Jones-Buck has what many consider an unusual approach to her work. She prepares a canvas and then paints a picture on it. Then, when the paint has dried, she paints an entirely different image on top of it. And then another, and another. Eventually she puts the...

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.

Every religion has factions that disagree about "doctrine"—that is, the official beliefs of that religion. Even ours. Even though Unitarian Universalism is a free religion without a set doctrine or creed, there are plenty of ways to disagree about what it means to be a UU. One such disagreement...