We gather in this time of uncertainty, full of unknowns, as angst closes in upon us. We light this chalice with a flame that draws us together. With this flame, we cut through the dankness of isolation and are warmed by the fires of our interconnection....

Our community knows no boundaries. We are not confined by the physical limits of walls Or, for that matter, Of what often Binds us, restricts us Holds us back. We are free-er than we know When we release ourselves And each other From expectations Of what is needed For true community. We are here...

In this community, we hold hope close. We don’t always know what comes next, but that cannot dissuade us. We don’t always know just what to do, but that will not mean that we are lost in the wilderness. We rely on the certainty beneath, the foundation of our values and ethics. —Rev. Theresa I.

The tree stood in the middle of the village. Its trunk was so large that it took six people holding hands to reach around it. The roots were strong and wide, and its branches spread out over the village square, offering shelter from the rain, or shade from the summer sun....

“Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.”...

So much held in a heart in a lifetime. So much held in a heart in a day, an hour, a moment. We are utterly open with no one, in the end—not mother and father, not wife or husband, not lover, not child, not friend. We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart. Perhaps we...

We all have our foibles; pieces of ourselves that we both admire and occasionally revile. These gifts and struggles exist in tandem.

an original retelling Daedalus was a brilliant inventor, and he had made a career, even a legend of himself for being able to create the seemingly impossible. So when he decided to escape from his tower prison by flying over the ocean like a bird, his son, Icarus, had no doubt he would do it. It...

In 1919, Henry Hallam Saunderson, minister of the First Parish Church (Unitarian) of Brighton (MA), decided to create “wayside sermons,” liberal messages that would make people stop, read, and search their conscience.

How might Unitarian Universalists acknowledge the sacred sources of people's water, in the annual Water Ceremony, without creating a parade of privilege and/or centering the ritual around an open mic?

If God’s name is love, then God compels us to resist the fall to sinful violence by pushing back with muscular resolve against the social structures that confine our capacity to care. A universalist God for a tragic era is not a gauzy, hymn-singing force of personal devotion that draws us...

Vibrant, thriving congregations arise from a meaningful worship life—which is based on the presence & energy that its leaders bring to worship. In this post, we’ll explore practices and skills that empower worship leaders to strengthen and deepen worship. Beginning Assumptions When people are in...

Worship planning is an act of hospitality. ...

Stories are a powerful tool in worship, especially multigenerational worship.

Sermon sparks are brief teasers of sermons that have been written and delivered by UU clergy.

Before I birthed my baby, he was a possibility, a kick against my insides. With that first cry, first breath, he became a person in the world.

If we aren’t willing to ask the important, uncomfortable, and even scary questions, we won’t get to larger and deeper truths.

Pleasure reminds us to enjoy being alive and on purpose... Pleasure—embodied, connected pleasure—is one of the way we know when we are free. That we are always free. That we always have the power to co-create the world. Pleasure helps us move through the times that are unfair, through grief and...

A lot of us feel like our lives should have come with instructions. Or maybe they did, but we lost the only copy a long time ago.

We are not automatic lovers of self, others, world, or God. Love does not just happen.