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...

We speak so often of brokenness in religious life, Let us speak today of wholeness....

[S]piritual and meditative practices are not meant to erase pain. That's a symptom of our pain-avoidant culture, and not an accurate portrayal of the practices themselves. It's a misuse of so many beautiful teachings to force them into roles they were never meant to play....

“If your love for me requires that I hide parts of who I am, then you don't love me. Love is never a request for silence.”...

When we say, "Save the rainforest," we don’t mean that we cease to honor the mighty cedars or the reaching pines. We mean that one particular piece of a deeply sacred whole is more at risk than others, and that this risk, this threat, is worthy of our very bravest actions. So it is with black...

It’s been said that it’s easier to untangle a string of lights if you plug them in; it’s no different for people. Humans, just like strings of lights, are wired for connection.

Spirit of Compassion, help us draw strength from all that we are. Give us new language with which to claim our wholeness, a new litany of joy built out of words that wounded.

[Touch hands to your own forehead, if it feels natural] May you be blessed with wisdom, knowledge and understanding. May your intellect take you far on your journey. You have been blessed with reason and free will, it is your call every day to use these gifts. [Throat] May you be blessed with voice.

Welcome to this space, this sanctuary of peace where we come to not only create our best selves, but to also do the work of creating a beloved community....

This reading is an excerpt of the sermon delivered by Rev. Nancy McDonald Ladd on Sunday morning at General Assembly 2016. For as long as two or more have gathered in the name of the spirit, those two or more have fought some fake fights. You remember, perhaps, the classic wedding reading from...

Spirit of Life, if you have a lesson for us, it is that all life is beautiful. We are each born into this world who we are, tall or short, with our own colour of skin, with our own sexual orientation....

Take a moment to breathe into the silence. Our breath is always with us. We can always come back to the breath, our anchor, our grounding, our freedom. Spirit of life and love, we are here not just minds and hearts, but bodies too. We human beings, spirit and body joined together. On this day we...

Spirit of life and love, may we find appreciation today, and in our lives, for our embodiment. We are physical creatures: mind, spirit and soul housed within our bodies. Our bodies, our physical form, allow us to experience the world: Taste—chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven. Touch—the...

Spirit of Life, hold us in our pain and comfort us in our grief. Our grief feels boundless; our rage eats at us. We feel pain for all the wild creatures of the Gulf and the wetlands....

I spent some time this weekend with an old friend, a dentist. She's considering buying her own practice, but wonders if she could retain the current patients and attract new ones. She wonders if the office staff would like her, or befriend her too much, or resent her, or desert her; she wonders...

"Holy One, You knit me together in my mother's womb." This is the voice of Psalm 139: "[I] was not hidden from you when I was made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth." Let us remember and celebrate, this morning, that each of our bodies was woven together in the depths of...