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Let us call each other to this time and place, as we seek the Ground of our Being. When invited, please respond: “I am arriving. Together, we arrive.” We are here in body, and yet we are still arriving. When we left our homes this morning, we left behind to-do lists, coffee, household tasks,...Litany | By Erika Hewitt | March 12, 2016 | From WorshipWebTagged as: 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Beginnings, Commitment, Community, Connections, Purpose -
وطن المرء ليس مكان ولادته و لكنه المكان الذي تنتهي فيه كل محاولاته للهروب "Home is not where you were born; home is where all your attempts to escape cease."...Quote | By Naguib Mahfouz | March 4, 2016 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Family, Home, Identity, International, Presence, Strength -
Desire and sexuality are not held in high regard by many of the world’s religious traditions today. And sex? Don’t even go there! As extremism rises, desires are seen as objects of suppression while bodies become things to control. The Greeks first articulated this idea of separation of the...Reading | By Robin Tanner | March 2, 2016 | From WorshipWebTagged as: 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Body, Christianity, Direct Experience, Intimacy, Islam, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer, Sacred, Secular, Sexuality -
One day, your church was born. Maybe it was a gathering of saints, called together for the common worship of a wrathful god, ceaselessly praying between bouts of decrying the evil of Christmas or dancing. Or maybe a few brave souls answered a notice in the newspaper, curiosity piqued by the...Reading | By Sean Neil-Barron | February 26, 2016 | From WorshipWebTagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), 5th Principle (Conscience & Democracy), Building/Space Dedication, Business Meetings, Change, Child Dedication, Community, Creativity, Direct Experience, Generations, Installations, Leadership, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Purpose, Religion, Sacred, Unitarian Universalism -
Bruises are a part of roller derby — a celebrated part. It’s not uncommon for players to take pictures of their biggest, most colorful shaped bruises: bruises that go deep into your tissue, and come out in amazing blues, purples, and blacks that eventually fade to greens, browns and yellows. A...Reading | By Dawn Skjei Cooley | February 23, 2016 | From WorshipWebTagged as: #BlackLivesMatter, 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 2nd Principle (Justice, Equity, & Compassion), 6th Principle (World Community), Anti-Oppression, Black History / Whitney Young / James Reeb, Body, Commitment, Direct Experience, Healing, Justice, Multiculturalism, Privilege, Race/Ethnicity, Secular -
When we talk about a liberal theology and ethic of sexuality, we need to start in our vulnerable, needy bodies, in real life, in the struggle to navigate our embodied neediness with others in an embrace of the still-possible mutual wholeness and transformation. Any theology of sex that doesn’t...Reading | By Gretchen Haley | February 22, 2016 | From WorshipWebTagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Body, Coming Out, Gender / Sex Change, Healing, Intimacy, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer, Multiculturalism, Sexuality, Wholeness
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Today, you join in membership. This is a moment of excitement and possibility. And although I don’t wish to pull you out of this moment, I need to talk to you for a bit about a moment in your future....Reading | By Liz James | February 11, 2016 | From WorshipWebTagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Commitment, Community, Covenant, Inclusion, Living Our Faith, New Member Ceremony, Reconciliation, Relationships, Strength, Teamwork, Transformation, Unitarian Universalism -
"Desire is owning the wanting."...Quote | By Esther Perel | February 11, 2016 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Body, Connections, Direct Experience, Humanism, Intimacy, Relationships, Sexuality
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Through the windy night something is coming up the path towards the house. I have always hated to wait for things. I think I will go to meet whatever it is.Poetry | By Elizabeth Coatsworth | February 8, 2016 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Fear, Hope, Mystery
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I want not dainty bone china-cupped, oh-so-polite, pinky-extended sips, but guzzle-by-the-gallon, drink-from-the-fire-hose- two-hundred-eighty-psi- Niagara-Falls volumes, and inch-thick slices of hearty multi-grain-hard-crusted- with-stick-in-your-teeth-seeds-bread (none of that bland supermarket...Poetry | By Peter Friedrichs | February 4, 2016 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Body, Direct Experience, Love, Playfulness, Sexuality, Valentine's Day -
"The purpose of the church is to heal the consequences of lovelessness and injustice in the hearts and souls of our members so they might heal the community and together heal the world."...Quote | By Nancy Bowen | February 1, 2016 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Healing, Identity, Integrity, Living Our Faith, Purpose, Seven Principles, Unitarian Universalism, Wholeness -
"We hold on to hell because when we discard it we glimpse through the clearing smoke a God who is too complicated for us."...Quote | By Robert Walsh | January 10, 2016 | From WorshipWebTagged as: God, Suffering, Unitarian Universalism
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I am always in a bit of a shock when December 1st arrives on the calendar. I always feel like there should be at least another week beyond Thanksgiving before I can even contemplate the next holiday....Reading | By Cynthia Frado | December 21, 2015 | From WorshipWebTagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Advent, Birth, Christianity, Christmas Eve / Christmas, Compassion, Hope, Mindfulness, Unitarian Universalism, Winter Solstice / Yule, Wonder -
I want to say to all those who would close the door, who would be guided by fear instead of hope, who would clutch in scarcity rather than live in generosity, who would say “No, you can’t come here”— I want to say: How dare you. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, . .Reading | By Matthew Johnson | December 7, 2015 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Acceptance, America, Anti-Oppression, Christianity, Direct Experience, Immigration, Inclusion, Justice, Secular -
In eighth grade, we were assigned a project: to make a poster about some part of our ancestry. I made mine about the story of the 1930 migration, from Germany to the United States, of my great-grandmother, her husband, and their three children. My great-grandmother, Emma Johanna Jacoba Kranenburg...Reading | By Matthew Johnson | December 7, 2015 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Acceptance, America, Anti-Oppression, Direct Experience, Family, Generations, Immigration, Inclusion, Multiculturalism, Prophetic Words & Deeds -
Note: this reflection was written at the end of Rev. Janis-Dillon's week in Samos, Greece working in a Syrian refugee center. The people of Samos, Greece have done something that sounds ordinary, only it's not: they have treated the Syrian refugees like human beings. Past the terror of the rubber...Reading | By Bob Janis-Dillon | December 6, 2015 | From WorshipWebTagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 6th Principle (World Community), 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), Anti-Oppression, Compassion, Dignity, Human Rights, Immigration -
We hear it said we are witnessing a “clash of civilizations.” We hear it from presidential candidates, from right-wing talk radio pundits, from white supremacist, nationalist and terrorist organizations. They say we live in the midst of a “clash of civilizations.” This is the first great lie...Reading | By Joshua Mason Pawelek | December 6, 2015 | From WorshipWebTagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), America, Direct Experience, Immigration, Inclusion, International, Justice -
For many reasons, people depart. They leave home—or the places given to them, in place of home that might’ve been lost to war—and seek refuge from a thousand dangers and uncertainties. For many reasons—many of them inconceivable to us, who live in relative peace and prosperity—people...Reading | By Erika Hewitt | December 3, 2015 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Acceptance, America, Anti-Oppression, Compassion, Immigration, Journey
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A man sits on the rubble— not just in the rubble, but on the pile of what remains. No people in the bombed-out houses. No dogs. No birds. Just ragged hunks of concrete and loss. And on his perch he is playing an instrument constructed of what is left—an olive oil can, a broom handle, a bowed...Poetry | By Lynn Ungar | November 20, 2015 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Arts & Music, Direct Experience, Grief, Healing, Hope, Humanism, War, Wholeness -
I heard the Second Brandenburg Concerto played in honor of Bach’s 300th birthday, and I was swept away. I remembered a story about the people who send messages into outer space. Someone suggested sending a piece by Bach. The reply was “But that would be bragging.” Some say we get what we...Reading | By Robert Walsh | November 18, 2015 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Arts & Music, Awe, Beauty, Direct Experience, Gratitude, Humility, Thanksgiving, Wonder, Worth