I hope that this Great Silence, which has come alongside the suffering, holds the beginnings of our healing.

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...

All that we have been separately and all that we will become together is stretched out before and behind us like stars scattered across a canvas of sky. We stand at the precipice, arms locked together like tandem skydivers working up the courage to jump. Tell me, friends: What have we got to lose?

The religious mystics of every tradition tell us union is what we are here for — union is what we are: we are connected to each other, to the earth, to everything that exists, and to the force that lies beyond it all—only most of the time we don’t realize it. Union is not a myth or a pipe...

Spirit of Love and Power, we are gathered today in beloved community that we might manifest in our lives the values and truths that we hold dear. Let us rejoice that we are together for this time is holy time, the transformation we seek is holy work, and the bonds that hold us together are sacred.

We are all longing to go home to some place we have never been—a place half-remembered and half-envisioned we can only catch glimpses of from time to time. Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of...

These words, by composer Sarah Dan Jones, are from hymn #1009 in Singing the Journey.

This is what one hundred years look like: A rounded wrinkled back, sparkling wet and soapy above the shower bench, and my hand, having ­gently formed in your seventieth year, and emerged with lifelines bent ­toward blessing, scrubbing ­circles across your soft, white skin. I drag the cloth...

Note: This ritual combines fresh water with water from the previous year that has been boiled and filtered. The combined water is poured over the hands into the common bowl. Minister: The ancient Greek philosopher Heracltus of Ephesus is famous for one belief. He taught his students that...

On a deeper level, do we consider what we are eating and whether its origins are compatible with our personal values? Since the beginning of time, dietary practices have been incorporated into the religious practices of humanity....

A while ago my friend told me that his son had come home from school with a new put-down expression. “That is sooo gay.” My friend explained to his son that perhaps he didn’t want to say that—after all, he lived in a family with two daddies—“gay” as a put-down just didn’t seem the...

Spirit of Love, we pray for all your people. For people who are blind and cannot see and for those who can see but are blind to people around them Spirit, in your mercy, help us touch each other....

Let us turn inward now Feel the rhythm of the breath. In and out, In and out, Find the peace of just being with the flow of the breath. Letting go of yesterday and tomorrow. Feel the restorative power of the peace of this moment....

Let us sing the magic of imagination by which we know one another and learn the lives of eras gone by. Let us sing the magic of creation by which we build the world of our soul and teach its wisdom to others, young and old. Let us sing the magic of our lives together, holding and shaping by the...

The most important thing that I’ve learned in traveling to more than twenty countries is the art of being a guest. And I’m a particularly fine visitor at the supper table. I’ve consumed live fish in Inner Mongolia, not-quite-coagulated blood sausage on the Tibetan plateau, shredded pig’s ear...

O Mysterious God whose ways are many, we ask for your comfort today. Help us feel your healing spirit as we work with the wounded. Help us feel your life-giving spirit as we work with the dying. Help us feel your spirit of hope as we witness the suffering....