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  • Of course I want the truth, but here’s the rub: Truth doesn’t sit around still as a rock, it breathes and flows and turns inside out. Ever seen a lion in a cage? He paces and glowers. That must be how God feels locked in our little religions. Look how big the sky is, the deep distances between...
    Poetry | By Janet Hutchinson | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Awe, God, Mystery, Revelation, Sacred, Truth, Wonder
  • I am praying again and how does one pray when unsure if anything hears? In the world I know as reliable and finite when time and matter cycle back and forth and I understand the answers to so many puzzles there are moments when knowing is nothing and I this accumulation of systems, histories...
    Poetry | By Barbara J Pescan | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Atheism, Direct Experience, Spiritual Practice, Truth, Wonder
  • It is not old, Yet it comes through the wisdom of the ages. It is not young, Yet it comes through the passion of innocence. It is not revolutionary, Yet it comes proclaiming change. It is not solitary, Yet it travels alone, seeking the open heart. It is not lonely, Yet it seeks relationship....
    Poetry | By Stephen M. Shick | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Connections, God, Reverence, Sacred
  • You bring yourself before the sacred, before the holy, before what is ultimate and bigger than your lone life bigger than your worries bigger than your money problems bigger than the fight you had with your sister and your aches and pains bigger, even, than your whole being, your self who is part...
    Poetry | By Angela Herrera | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Generations, Mystery, Sacred, Wonder
  • Barukh atah, Emeth! Blest are you, o Truth. Like the fabled Moses, I too can never claim to have seen you “face to face.” Too often, I’ve hung my own face on you and pretended that I know something I do not. Indeed, my most honest heart confesses that at most, I have only caught the briefest...
    Poetry | By Mark Belletini | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Awe, Connections, Earth, Imagination, Interdependence, Nature, Truth, Wonder
  • The delicate, flapping wings of a butterfly have the power to set molecules of air in motion, in turn moving more molecules of air—a tiny act that is eventually capable of affecting weather patterns on the other side of the planet. This notion comes from a concept within Chaos Theory called the...
    Reading | By Dana Capasso | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), Awe, Connections, Direct Experience, Interdependence
  • “The beauty of the world is the mouth of a labyrinth,” writes Simone Weil. We would be foolish not to follow its call. And so we enter the labyrinth, lured by the whiff of a dream still in the making: the possibility of a new relationship, the promise of a new career, the potential for a new...
    Reading | By Erik W. Martínez Resly | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Challenge, Change, Failure, Faith, Journey, Living Our Faith
  • May you be brave enough to expose your aching woundedness and reveal your vulnerability. May you speak your deepest truths, knowing that they will change as you do. May you sing the music within you, composing your own melody, playing your song with all your heart....
    Blessing | By Jean M. Olson | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Bridging Ceremony, Brokenness, Change, Child Dedication, Courage, Integrity, Journey, Love, New Child, Truth, Vulnerability, Young Adults, Youth/Teens
  • shouting back to Stevie Smith who cried “I’m drowning! Not waving!” I ain’t waving babe, I’m drowning going down in a cold lonely sea I ain’t waving babe, I’m drowning so babe quit waving at me I ain’t waving babe, I’m crying I’m crying, oh why can’t you see? I ain’t fooling...
    Poetry | By Ric Masten | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Brokenness, Caring, Connections, Despair, Pain
  • I stretch forth my hand Knowing not what I shall touch... A tender spot, An open wound, Warmth, Pulsing life, Fragile blossoms, A rock, Ice. I am tentative, trembling... Wishing to avoid hurt, Wanting to link my life with Life. Lonely, I desire companions Naked, I long for defenders....
    Poetry | By Gordon B McKeeman | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Caring, Connections, Despair, Hope, Intimacy, Vulnerability
  • In order to get out I must go through. There is no other way. No other way? But there must be another way, an easier path, a well-lit road. I cast about, scan the horizon— No other way. The way out is the way through. The way through is the way hard....
    Poetry | By Kathy Fuson Hurt | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Challenge, Ending, Journey, Letting Go, Patience, Strength
  • Headlights, taillights, going, coming; it does not matter inside. Draw a curtain across the window, lock the door and break the key. Let the interior deepen and broaden until it exceeds this ­little room. You will go out when you are ready, when the tiny inner Self no longer fits. Awareness will...
    Meditation | By Jean M. Olson | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Change, Growth, Identity, Integrity, Progress, Transformation
  • It hurts to let go of intensity that zapped like electricity yesterday. It hurts to disconnect arcing power, watch it ground and vanish. What was it that surged through us to lighten gray, indifferent skies? What was it that connected our hearts to hope?...
    Poetry | By Stephen M. Shick | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Forgiveness, Letting Go, Pain, Power
  • Oh, the comfort—the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person—having neither to weigh thoughts nor mea­sure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then...
    Quote | By Dinah Maria Mulock Craik | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Caring, Direct Experience, Friendship, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Relationships
  • with a bow to Ysaye Barnwell and Stephanie Kaza Spirit within all, mysterious force giving shape to life, miraculous source and river of being, help us to know who we are, to see our place in the history of the earth and in the ­family of things; help us to see that we are part of all that ever...
    Prayer | By Rebecca A Edmiston-Lange | April 27, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Awe, Connections, Earth, Generations, Gratitude, Wonder
  • 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
    Tagged 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 WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Identity, Meaning, Searching
  • 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
    Tagged as: Identity, Purpose, Self-Respect
  • 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
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Connections, Direct Experience, Diversity, Division, Interdependence, Multiculturalism, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Truth, Unitarian Universalism, Unity

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Conceived in 1999, WorshipWeb was implemented in late 2000 and 2001 through funding from the Unitarian Universalist Association’s successful 1997 “Handing on the Future” capital fund campaign.

We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association and its members in the development of WorshipWeb.