Today we light our candle of remembrance. On April 19, 1943 the Jewish community in the Warsaw ghetto rose up against their captors in a valiant effort to regain their freedom and return a common humanity to those intent on destroying their very existence....
Reading
| By
Karen Mooney
|
April 27, 2015
| From
WorshipWeb
I somehow lost my chalice necklace on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston the same day I lost my marriage and my religion. I must have dropped it while I was walking down the street. It was a bad day. Let me back up. I grew up Unitarian Universalist. I had a chalice necklace for a long time that I only...
Reading
| By
Robin Bartlett
|
April 26, 2015
| From
WorshipWeb
Our task is to be who we are, in every way we can be; our salvation proceeding in putting ourselves back together after each tumble...We irridesce, shine, and radiate. We exclaim and roar: we are.
Quote
| By
Kenneth L. Patton
|
April 26, 2015
| From
WorshipWeb
Identity is one of those concepts I have tried desperately to push to the sidelines for most of mi vida. It was always too complicated, too painful, or too divisive....
Reading
| By
Saul Ulloa
|
April 26, 2015
| From
WorshipWeb
Tagged as: Anti-Oppression, Direct Experience, Family, Generations, Identity, Multiculturalism, Race/Ethnicity
They teach us to read in black and white. Truth is this—the rest false. You are whole—or broken. Who you love is acceptable—or not. Life tells its truth in many hues. We are taught to think in either/or. To believe the teachings of Jesus—OR Buddha. To believe in human potential—OR a power...
Meditation
| By
Leslie Takahashi
|
April 26, 2015
| From
WorshipWeb
I must live my own way, Refusing all that binds. I must know my own mind Among all other minds. I must do my own deeds, And in whatever lands. I will know my own hands Among all other hands. I must forsake the crowds, And walk with lonely fools, To seek for my own face In bleak, deserted pools. I...
Poetry
| By
Kenneth L. Patton
|
April 26, 2015
| From
WorshipWeb
I realized I was a woman, or more precisely at the time, a girl, the day in first grade I noticed boys were looking up my dress when I was on the monkey bars. I started wearing shorts under my dresses. I now prefer pants. I realized I liked other women when I was nineteen and noticed I was...
Reading
| By
Kayla Parker
|
April 26, 2015
| From
WorshipWeb
Tagged as: Anti-Oppression, Direct Experience, Identity, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer, Living Our Faith, Self-Respect, Young Adults
By the time I was in my late twenties, I was convinced that I would never find love. I had had a few boyfriends, but over and over again, I was exiled to the dreaded Friend Zone. I always suspected that it was because I was “too much”: too smart, too feminist, too radical, too fat, too...
Reading
| By
Ashley Horan
|
April 26, 2015
| From
WorshipWeb
Tagged as: Direct Experience, Gender, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer, Living Our Faith, Love, Relationships, Young Adults
Give all to love; Obey thy heart; Friends, kindred, days, Estate, good-fame, Plans, credit and the Muse,— Nothing refuse. ’T is a brave master; Let it have scope: Follow it utterly, Hope beyond hope. It was never for the mean; It requireth courage stout. Souls above doubt, Valor unbending, It...
Poetry
| By
Ralph Waldo Emerson
|
April 26, 2015
| From
WorshipWeb
This is what one hundred years look like: A rounded wrinkled back, sparkling wet and soapy above the shower bench, and my hand, having gently formed in your seventieth year, and emerged with lifelines bent toward blessing, scrubbing circles across your soft, white skin. I drag the cloth...
Poetry
| By
Angela Herrera
|
April 26, 2015
| From
WorshipWeb
Tagged as: Body, Caring, Connections, Direct Experience, Generations, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Relationships, Service
New People came this time, and we shared our stories, the familiar truths, about shock and healing and being glad that at last our children can say who they are, and we know them now, love them more. Funny stories and good news ripple around, and smiles about lesbigay ways, and jokes, against...
Poetry
| By
Geoffrey Herbert
|
April 26, 2015
| From
WorshipWeb
Tagged as: Brokenness, Connections, Direct Experience, Healing, Love, Relationships, Wholeness
Be gentle with another— It is a cry from the lives of people battered By thoughtless words and brutal deeds; It comes from the lips of those who speak them, And the lives of those who do them. Who of us can look inside another and know what is there Of hope and hurt, or promise and pain? Who...
Meditation
| By
Richard S. Gilbert
|
April 26, 2015
| From
WorshipWeb
There was a period in my life when, within three months, all my major relationships changed. The most joyous of these was getting married; Sarah and I had dated for three and a half years, and I proposed to her at our holiday party....
Reading
| By
Carey McDonald
|
April 26, 2015
| From
WorshipWeb
Tagged as: Change, Direct Experience, Letting Go, Marriage, Transformation, Young Adults
Love is knotted and gnarled, like an old tree fighting with the wind, like branches too brittle for their own good, like roots that relentlessly inform how deeply we can trust and how freely we can forgive.
Quote
| By
Jan Carlsson-Bull
|
April 26, 2015
| From
WorshipWeb
The history and legacy of Unitarian Universalism are shaped as much by Emerson, Fahs, and Channing as it is by the ancestors in our congregations. We come to it through different avenues: the Internet, an invitation, reading the Transcendentalists, or as babies or little kids. I came as a fourth...
Reading
| By
Elandria Williams
|
April 26, 2015
| From
WorshipWeb
Tagged as: Anti-Oppression, Community, Direct Experience, Faith, Identity, Living Our Faith, Love, Violence, Wholeness
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...
Affirmation
| By
Kathleen McTigue
|
April 26, 2015
| From
WorshipWeb
Tagged as: All Saints Day, All Souls Day, Día de los Muertos, Generations, History, Justice, Leadership, Memorial Services, Ordinations, Progress, Responsibility
I call upon you, <ancestor>, from the Cloud of Witnesses to accompany me today. You teach me <value(s)>, and today I am called to <action/mission>. Walk with me. Inspire me....
Prayer
| By
Tandi Rogers
|
April 26, 2015
| From
WorshipWeb
Tagged as: Identity, Presence, Reverence, Spiritual Practice
I lift my eyes up to the hills from where will my help come? My help comes from Love abundant. my help comes from the hills my help—my help, it comes from ancient Mothers whose hearts beat in mine. It comes from the trees that sway and the breeze that sways them . . . my help comes from all that...
Poetry
| By
Alicia R. Forde
|
April 26, 2015
| From
WorshipWeb
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Today we light our candle of remembrance. On April 19, 1943 the Jewish community in the Warsaw ghetto rose up against their captors in a valiant effort to regain their freedom and return a common humanity to those intent on destroying their very existence....Reading | By Karen Mooney | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWebTagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 2nd Principle (Justice, Equity, & Compassion), 6th Principle (World Community), 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), Anti-Oppression, Brokenness, Direct Experience, History, Holocaust Remembrance / Yom Ha'Shoah, Human Rights, Humanism, Identity, Judaism, Prayer Practices, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Race/Ethnicity, Solidarity
I somehow lost my chalice necklace on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston the same day I lost my marriage and my religion. I must have dropped it while I was walking down the street. It was a bad day. Let me back up. I grew up Unitarian Universalist. I had a chalice necklace for a long time that I only...Reading | By Robin Bartlett | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Identity, Meaning, Searching
Give all to love; Obey thy heart; Friends, kindred, days, Estate, good-fame, Plans, credit and the Muse,— Nothing refuse. ’T is a brave master; Let it have scope: Follow it utterly, Hope beyond hope. It was never for the mean; It requireth courage stout. Souls above doubt, Valor unbending, It...Poetry | By Ralph Waldo Emerson | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Caring, Family, Friendship, Generosity, Love, Relationships
Love is knotted and gnarled, like an old tree fighting with the wind, like branches too brittle for their own good, like roots that relentlessly inform how deeply we can trust and how freely we can forgive.Quote | By Jan Carlsson-Bull | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Forgiveness, Love, Strength, Trust, Weakness
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...Affirmation | By Kathleen McTigue | April 26, 2015 | From WorshipWebTagged as: All Saints Day, All Souls Day, Día de los Muertos, Generations, History, Justice, Leadership, Memorial Services, Ordinations, Progress, Responsibility