There are so many spiritual lessons from the natural world and—in a season filled with Ingatherings and Water Communions—this is one for me: oxbow lakes as a beautiful combination of resiliency, strength, and flexibility.

I was a foster parent long before I was a mom, and an inside look at families "in the system" reveals pretty quickly that love and parenthood are two different qualities, and the relationship between them is neither straightforward nor guaranteed....

As we begin a new year together, let us offer our blessing to the lay leaders who invest their time and care in the well-being of this congregation. If you help lead a ministry here, I invite you to rise in body, in spirit, in all the ways that we do. And I invite all of us to enter a spirit of...

In her 1975 theological treatise Suffering, German liberation theologian Dorothee Söelle* examines the ways that suffering can knit humans beings closer together, and can draw us more fully into the process of loving. She uses the term apatheia, “the inability to suffer,” to describe the...

Spirit of Life, I have witnessed a loud love, an out-loud love, that challenges me. I did not recognize it at first— the rumble of an ocean I had long been under. But here it is right now and it looks just like the whole world could be. It doesn’t play nice; why should it when nice has only ever...

As we light the chalice may our souls become its hearth. We join our hearts to the one great flame of bright compassion, Beloved Community, and fervent justice. May we become lanterns to the world, lighting the way for all.

You matter. There is no one like you; never will be again, from the birth of the earth to its outermost end. You — an eager shout, a sacred “Yes!” that moves your flesh, your bone, your breath. You— she, he, ze, they, you are whole and okay, gracefully teaching your truth and your way. You...

"A little bit of meditation is better than no meditation. Two minutes is better than zero minutes. Consistency sends a signal to your whole system, to the divine, to the planet that you want to serve that you’re showing up, that your attention is there. Just give it two minutes on the days...

Settle your mind upon the strength, the power that is yours. Draw that strength into your heart. Draw it up into your soul. As we gather together the many waters of this community, we need each of your power, each of your resilience, each of your love to make us whole.

Rain falls upon the surface of the earth, and pulled by gravity each drop begins to flow downhill. Drop merges with drop, flowing together, into a trickle, a streamlet, a creek, a mighty river, flowing onward. Some of the water seeps down into the earth itself, as groundwater, or deep aquifers,...

We gather together this morning tenderly—like drops of dew on a leaf of grass hopefully—like gathered raindrops in a cloud gleefully—like water rushing in a stream to the sea deeply—like groundwater pulled up from a well We gather from every direction, for another year of growth and depth,...

This was written as a blessing for pouring out the Water Communion waters onto a memorial garden. Like water that swells rivers and fills the ocean, the memories of those we have loved rush through us. Sometimes they are quiet, almost as if we have forgotten—and then suddenly, they flood our...

It was my inadvertent letting go that made this wild, interdependent beauty possible. And at that very moment, I knew I didn’t need that sort of control anymore.

The wellspring of decency is loving this life in which people die, people suffer, there are limits, and we make mistakes. The wellspring, then, of moral action is not utopia, not a counterfactual vision, not a declaration that the world could and should be otherwise....

Leader: For our earth, our ancient mother, blue-green planet of the galaxy, harbinger of lives beyond measure, we honor you with our humble presence, we bow with humility and gratitude. All: We pledge to transform our lives....

A common "issue" in anti-racism work is the use of the term culture of white supremacy or white supremacy culture, which many people view as charged, controversial, or even deeply offensive. Sometimes there are even challenges/dismissals from people in positions of power/authority about it....

Oh you You rebel You queer and wayward child You abandoned and listless You angry and forgotten You brown and black and indigenous You homeless and impoverished You dreamer You warrior You are not alone here You have never been alone Not in this place, not in this time Not in the whole of history...

This litany is intended to be read antiphonally (the congregation, split left and right, reading it to one another). Here I am, my sibling. Here I am. Can you hear me? Here I am. Saying you . . . You. Here. Now. We. We are. Here. Us. Together. Can you. Hear me here? I am calling to you....

Reader 1: In 1637, the white settlers in what was to become the town of Dedham, Massachusetts, wanted to start a church. What they longed for was sincere religious association based in love, and founded in freedom. Reader 2: The idea of a free church took shape among the people—a church whose...

This ritual entails having an empty vase on the altar, and cut flowers. It's especially meaningful to have founders or other "pillars" of the congregation have flowers with them in the service, and to have the congregation's children bring those flowers forward and put them in the vase (perhaps...