For holy days on which we recall the old stories, we light the flame. For Passover which reminds us of the courage and strength of those seeking freedom in the past, we light the flame. For Easter which reminds us that love is our greatest challenge, we light the flame....

Easter gets its name from the Teutonic goddess of spring and the dawn, whose name is spelled Oestre or Eastre. (The origin of the word east, the direction of the rising sun, comes from various Germanic, Austro-Hungarian words for dawn that share the root for the word aurora, which means “to...

May means Mother’s Day. I’m going to trust Hallmark and daddies and six year-olds and grown-up kids who are mommies themselves to honor the mothers among us as they deserve to be honored—with brass bands, flags flying, breakfast in bed (and kitchens cleaned up afterwards). I wish for those...

Emmanuel means "God is with us." Who is your Emmanuel? Who is your "God is with us," the one you were promised, the one you have been waiting for? For the ancient prophet Isaiah, he was a boy soon to be born who would guide the people of Judah back to peace and harmony with God....

Dear God, hear and bless Your beasts and singing birds; And guard with tenderness Small things that have no words...

In this familiar place, listen: to the sounds of breathing, creaking chairs, shuffling feet, clearing throats, and sighing all around Know that each breath, movement, the glance meant for you or intercepted holds a life within it....

For dragonflies, butterflies, Caterpillars on leaves, Lizards, wild turkeys, and tigers and deer, We give thanks! For sunset and seashells And starfish and sand, Octopus, jellyfish, and hammerhead shark, We give thanks!...

Spirit of life, help me remember that all animals belong. Bless the bats for eating mosquitoes. Bless the crows and buzzards for cleaning up the dead, and bless even the snakes, who keep the mice out of the rice. Each of them is important. And each does good in its own way. Blessed be.

I remember back to the 50’s and 60’s when, once a week, my mother would don her shirtwaist, climb into the family car, and make her way to the A&P. How did she choose her groceries then? In our family, in New England and a long way from the fertile, productive valleys of California, proximity...

Tomatoes are arguably the most consumed fruit or vegetable in our country....28% of Americans eat a meal every day that contains at least one tomato. It is estimated that every American eats about 29 pounds of fresh tomatoes a year and an additional 73 pounds processed in tomato sauces, ketchup,...

In 1935, a US government truck pulled up to my grandfather’s house, a two-room sharecropper’s shack in which sixteen people lived. They were starving to death. Not malnutrition. Starvation. The truck brought surplus food, which on that particular visit consisted of a gallon of mustard. My father...

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America..." "Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are!..." 1 "Sisters are we, Spurs always true, our hearts ring out for the yellow and blue..." "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both..." 2 A...

A Sermon for First UU Church of New Orleans and Community Church of New Orleans Sunday, August 27, 2006 First Presbyterian Church The clouds gather and the rumbling is enough to unsettle anyone....

Be ours a religion which, like sunshine, goes everywhere; its temple, all space; its shrine, the good heart; its creed, all truth; its ritual, works of love; its profession of faith, divine living.

A few summers ago my wife Suzanne and I took our son Christopher gem mining in the mountains of North Carolina. We mounded a pile of mud and dirt, got a sifter, and began sifting through the soil in search of treasure. Liberal religious education is like gem mining. In a Unitarian Universalist...

Adapted from Flower Sunday, 1969 On a day such as this may a great change come upon us. The sounds we have been hearing have been discordant; the sights we have been seeing have been violent; the words we have been reading have been hateful. All this has been wearying, discouraging and distracting.

First, let me bring you greetings from the larger family of faith of which you are a part. The Unitarian Universalist Association is the coming together of, now, 1055 free, liberal religious congregations in North America....

God of our hearts, that which enlightens and ennobles us, we come together in a unity of spirit to celebrate a personal commitment of these young men and women. We join in thanksgiving....

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We are here today to recognize the completion of your program of study for this Coming of Age ceremony and to celebrate with you the faith you have come to accept through this year of questioning and investigating. Some of you were brought to a Unitarian Universalist church to be Dedicated and...