I wasn't flattered when one of my daughters confided that she had thought of me as "The Big There-There" when she was three years old. If I remember correctly, I was in the middle of a phase where I was hoping to reassure myself that I still had a fertile mind as well as a welcoming bosom. Now,...

Awesome and gracious God -- you who are the power that brings us to life and the spirit that sustains us -- forgive us for being less than we might be. Guide us to become what is in our power to become, in your service....

By our presence here with one another, Hearing the harmony that is the music of the spheres, May some of the harshness and discord of our human lives Be transmuted into music....

And now may the blessings of life be upon us and upon this congregation. May the memories we gather here give us hope for the future. May the love that we share bring strength and joy to our hearts, and the peace of this community be with us until we meet again.

Many Unitarian Universalist churches and fellowships start their worship service on Sunday morning by lighting a flame inside a chalice. This flaming chalice is a symbol for Unitarian Universalists just as the cross and the Star of David are symbols for other religious groups....

Many years ago in the land of Transylvania, in a mountain valley watered by quick rushing streams and shadowed by great forests of beech trees, there was a village of small wooden houses with dark-shingled roofs....

Most of us look for love in only the most obvious places, and as a result, most of us come away disappointed. Its as if we are still grade school kids, counting valentines as a measure of what matters. The love that matters is not typically the subject of sonnets or love songs....

A well-known poem by Robert Graves speaks of butterflies—their "honest idiocy of flight," "lurching here and there by guess and God and hope and hopelessness." Any number of quotations sound this way, and so, I think do we. But privately. Publicly we speak the civilized language of human beings...

I was working with a group of young people at a Safe Schools conference in Boston. They were discussing how to tell their parents they were gay or lesbian. Many of them had suffered harassment, brutality, and ostracism by their peers, and they worried about how to protect their parents from the...

A one-paragraph newspaper article describes a subway platform during the morning rush hour at Grand Central Terminal. A train pulls in; a well-dressed woman gets off. Before the doors close, the woman realizes that she is holding only one of her leather gloves. She looks back into the train and...

Do not live too far in the past or the future. Live now. In each moment expect a miracle: ten kinds of birds at the feeder, and the tracks of a fox in the snow. Pick up a magnifying glass and scrutinize that crocus. See the pollen at the center of the daffodil, life's dust, death-defying life. Be...

In a land far away, a wise old man who knew a great deal about people because he traveled from place to place arrived at a strange village. In this town all the people were carrying what seemed to be great bundles on their backs....

[Note: We have a tradition of asking each person to bring to church on Mother’s Day a single flower—colored if she is still living, white if she has died. The flowers are arranged on the spot into a bouquet and brought into the service just before the Call to Worship. With a bow to Max Coots for...

(Tea lights are set up in groups of 50 on either side of the chancel in this ritual borrowed from Soulful Sundown.) The long Summer has faded, now, and these first days of November mark the beginning of the coming of Winter....

I don't know about you, but I'm a little bit skittish about holidays that seem to have originated with the greeting card people. That's not true, in fact, of Mother's Day....

(May be read responsively) We are not alone. We are this flame, ancient as the stars, new as the vulnerable spark. We are not alone. We are this chalice, rimmed by the spiral dance of searching. We are not alone. We are the light soaring, the shadow deepening, the dance between them. We are not...

Some people say that Jesus is the light of the world. We all can be the light of the world if we seek to act in ways that enlarge the realms of love and justice. When we share another's pain or offer a comforting ear to a friend in need, We are the light of the world. When we give bread to the...

Praise the sun, the moon, the stars,...

We covenant with one another and do bind ourselves together in the presence of this religious community To express our deepest and most cherished convictions, as they are borne by each person to find a common vision for a better world; To seek the life of the spirit, as it is known by each person...

ALL: We come together as a living church. WORSHIP LEADER: We come together from different places as unique individuals. Our paths and the ways of our going are diverse, yet we share our journey....