Water unites us. All water is one water, shape-shifting as it goes on and on in its unending cycle. The stream we gather by unites us with all the waters of the world, for all of life depends on water. That's why this common, everyday element on which our very lives depend is sacred. In our...

I put my faith in you. I put my faith in every one of you who woke up this morning with the weight of loss—manifesting as numbness, anger, fear, or an alienating, aching pain. I put my faith in you, and I pray you will put your faith in me. We need one another now, because we will not make it...

Hold fast to summer. Enjoy with heightened appreciation these still-warm September days. Create more memories, take more pictures. Enjoy a bit of denial. Suck all the summer sweetness out of your sun-warmed garden tomatoes. Smile at someone. Squeeze a hand. Put up some jam or pickles....

I do not wish to breathe another breath if it is not shared with others. The breath of life is not mine alone. I brought myself to be with you, hoping that by inhaling the compassion, the courage, the hope found here, I can exhale the fear, the selfishness, the separateness I keep so close to my...

May I remember in this tender moment that Love is my guide, always, shepherding me toward ways of openness and compassion. I have what I need, really, with Love at my side, above me, below me, in front of me, behind me, inside every cell of me, Love infused everywhere! Just when the weight of the...

On Mother’s Day, let us mark how beautiful and complex it can be to mother and be mothered: To those who have mothered, we thank you. To those who rejoice in the work, the role, the presence of mothering and mothers, we celebrate with you....

Kristin Kany wrote this multi-voice poem in 2016 to be read by a group of "diverse moms." I am mother Mother 1: I am Mother Mother 2: I am Mother Mother(s) 3: I am Mother Mother 4: I am Mother Mother(s) 5: I am Mother Mother 6: I am Mother I am Mama, I am Mommy, I am Chinese, Jewish, African,...

The road that lies ahead of us is a long one, and the pace of progress will sometimes feel glacially slow. Never forget that glaciers over time can carve out grand canyons and great lakes. Moving tectonic plates can rise up mountains over millennia, or they can explode awe-inspiring volcanoes in...

As December opens up before us, we welcome in the gift of reflection.

When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flocks, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to...

You are loved beyond belief. You are enough, you are precious, your work and your life matter, and you are not alone. You are part of a “we,” a great cloud of witnesses living and dead who have insisted that this beautiful, broken world of ours is a blessing…

There's my temple! Believer, unbeliever or wild one. You are welcome! We have no definition of who we are but human. We have no code but that of respect. We have no creed but that of equality. There's my temple! Identity-seeker, sinner, stateless or not. You are welcome! We have no constraints on...

Do not be alone right now. Gather together. Gathering together grows courage: in ourselves and in others who see the numbers swelling. It is a small thing, but right now it is an important thing....

In religious community, we share our joys and our triumphs, our sorrows and our broken places. In this circle of care, we make space for the complexity of life, the myriad experiences that bless and break our hearts....

Often people say that they love coming to a place with so many like-minded people. I know just what they are getting at -- and I know that they aren’t getting it quite right. I don’t want to be with a bunch of people who think just like me. I want to be in a beloved community where I don’t...

As drops of rain that find each other and build to become a track, a rivulet, a stream, a river, a sea, so are we drawn together; so are we fortunate to find each other; so are we bound together, on this shared passage toward an unknown ocean and eternity.

I can feel the suffering of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think it will all come right, and that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again. In the meantime, I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry...

We are all longing to go home to some place we have never been—a place half-remembered and half-envisioned we can only catch glimpses of from time to time. Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of...

We, bearers of the dream, affirm that a new vision of hope is emerging.

In the ­struggles we choose for ourselves, in the ways we move forward in our lives and bring our world forward with us, It is right to remember the names of those who gave us strength in this choice of living. It is right to name the power of hard lives well-lived. We share a history with those...