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To search for resources that support March's Soul Matter theme of Transformation, toggle the red arrow below and search for Spiritual Themes of: Transformation, Change, Endings, Beginnings, Searching.

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Displaying 1 - 20 of 46

  • Loss binds us together undeniably.
    Affirmation | By Atena O. Danner | August 23, 2022 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Brokenness, Connections, Grief, Healing, Kindness, Suffering
  • We are an angry and beautiful people.
    Reflection | By Laura Solomon | June 1, 2022 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: Brokenness, Connections, Direct Experience, Disaster or Crisis, Fear, Humanism, Love, Suffering, Unitarian Universalism, Worship
  • God of our hearts, God of our understandings, God who gives us hope and inspires us to commitment, God who commands us to remember: We come together today with hearts contrite and broken; We come together with minds awake, comprehension striving against incomprehension; We come together in hope...
    Prayer | By Paul Oakley | August 3, 2018 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Death, God, Holocaust Remembrance / Yom Ha'Shoah, Judaism, Solidarity, Suffering
  • This is a prayer for when words fail, for when they are not big enough or small enough to slip into the little cracks left in our hearts by life’s unbearable pressures....
    Prayer | By Leslie Takahashi | July 17, 2018 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Challenge, Community, Disaster or Crisis, Fear, Hope, Power, Suffering, Transcendence, Unitarian Universalism, Unity
  • As the news cycle brings us images of terror and heartbreak once again, We grieve together As each of us faces into this new level of horror, We grieve together As we remember other moments of pain, fear, and loss, We grieve together Yearning for an end to violence and suffering, We grieve togeth...
    Litany | By Caitlin Cotter Coillberg | December 8, 2017 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 2nd Principle (Justice, Equity, & Compassion), 6th Principle (World Community), Brokenness, Community, Connections, Disaster or Crisis, Grief, Healing, Solidarity, Suffering, Unitarian Universalism
  • It is always good to give thanks! All that we have is a gift from life: our food, our relationships, our shelter from the cold. And when we give thanks, it is always good to be mindful of all people, and notice those who are suffering and do what we can to ease suffering and change its causes....
    Opening | By Myke Johnson | November 23, 2017 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 2nd Principle (Justice, Equity, & Compassion), 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), 6th Principle (World Community), 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), Anti-Oppression, Gratitude, Healing, Justice, Spiritual Practice, Suffering, Thanksgiving, Vulnerability, Wholeness
  • "Suffering doesn't always mean something's gone wrong; it just means you're living a life." —from the Dear Sugars podcast, Sept. 2, 2017.
    Quote | By Cheryl Strayed | September 7, 2017 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Acceptance, Balance, Direct Experience, Suffering, Truth
  • An awakening passed through the whole theatre, and as if touched by some invisible hand, the people stood, clapped, shouted with joy, laughed, and wept… It was blessed to be connected to—no, to be a part of a community—a people. —Volker Kühn, in his essay about a cabaret performance during...
    Reflection | By Sean Parker Dennison | December 14, 2016 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: Arts & Music, Community, History, Personal Stories, Power, Responsibility, Self-Respect, Suffering, Tradition
  • All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain... By trying to handle all suffering through willpower, denial, medication, or even therapy, we have forgotten something that should be obvious: we do not handle suffering; suffering handles us in deep and mysterious ways that ironically...
    Quote | By Richard Rohr | May 23, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Christianity, Despair, Meaning, Mystery, Pain, Spiritual Practice, Spirituality, Suffering
  • Dear Liberal Allies, You and I learned very different things in very different ways. If you didn’t live an experience, then step aside. We students of color, gay students, trans* students, children of immigrants and refugees knew this stuff before our professors told us what to call it....
    Reading | By Trungles | March 30, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 2nd Principle (Justice, Equity, & Compassion), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Anti-Oppression, Direct Experience, Growth, Identity, Justice, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer, Multiculturalism, Personal Stories, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Race/Ethnicity, Solidarity, Suffering
  • "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 WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: God, Suffering, Unitarian Universalism
  • I vote we let the artists win the ones covered in paint from their last attempt to smuggle across the beauty of a bowl of fruit the 14-year-old rapper learning to spit throwing life's chaos on the rhythm wheel uncovering the shapes that live on after the next break I say we let the food bank...
    Poetry | By Bob Janis-Dillon | November 16, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Arts & Music, Awe, Caring, Direct Experience, Peace, Playfulness, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Suffering, Wonder
  • God of mercy, spirit who makes peace out of war, who wanders with refugees and keeps vigil with children at our border and all borders; Holy healer in hospitals and shelters, at schools, in homes, at weddings, and in planes; May your love be balm for all the hurt. May your truth be present in...
    Prayer | By Elizabeth Nguyen | August 31, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: #BlackLivesMatter, Brokenness, Doubt, Freedom, Healing, Hope, Justice, Peace, Suffering, Unitarian Universalism
  • [In the] spirit of love, harmony, and remembrance, we stand too often divided, too often set apart from one another in heedless ways. We seek to be compassionate but our vision may be clouded or distracted. We too often go forward, day by day, and look without seeing....
    Litany | By Dennis McCarty | August 3, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 2nd Principle (Justice, Equity, & Compassion), Anti-Oppression, Compassion, Direct Experience, Integrity, Relationships, Solidarity, Suffering, Vulnerability
  • Be revered In thee the faithful hope that still looks forward, And keeps the life-spark warm of future action Beneath the cloak of patient sufferance.
    Closing | By Margaret Fuller | June 25, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Faith, Hope, Patience, Self-Respect, Strength, Suffering, Unitarianism
  • “It’s hard to know when to respond to the seductiveness of the world and when to respond to its challenge. If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between the desire to improve the world and...
    Meditation | By Richard S. Gilbert | June 4, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Activism, Balance, Guilt, Individualism, Joy, Justice, Salvation, Service, Suffering, Wholeness
  • When we are overwhelmed with the world And cannot see our way clear, When life seems a struggle between tedium and apathy Or frenzy and exhaustion; When today seems a punishment and tomorrow a torment, May we find the courage of patience. May we recognize courage in ourselves and our companions;...
    Meditation | By Richard S. Gilbert | June 4, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Courage, Despair, Direct Experience, Fear, Pain, Patience, Solidarity, Strength, Stress, Suffering
  • It is the day before the election as I write these lines, and whatever the outcome, I will be glad when it’s over. Some will be elated by the results, and others will feel dejected, but regardless of who wins or loses, our world will still be broken and suffering from ills that government is...
    Meditation | By Gary Kowalski | June 3, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 5th Principle (Conscience & Democracy), Brokenness, Character, Freedom, Generations, Governance, Living Our Faith, Politics, Power, Responsibility, Suffering
  • A religion that promises a life without tension, a life without conflict, a life without suffering, is a religion of passivity, a religion of mediocrity, a religion of insignificance. Everything worth doing in the world is a desperate gamble, a game of chance, where nothing is certain. What is love?
    Meditation | By David O. Rankin | May 28, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Activism, Challenge, Conflict, Courage, Faith, Journey, Living Our Faith, Love, Religion, Suffering
  • I have learned to trust those who are witnesses rather than gurus, those who express their confusion as well as their knowledge, and those who share their suffering along with their joy.
    Quote | By David O. Rankin | May 28, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Humility, Joy, Suffering, Trust, Vulnerability, Wisdom

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WorshipWeb's Origin Story

Conceived in 1999, WorshipWeb was implemented in late 2000 and 2001 through funding from the Unitarian Universalist Association's successful 1997 "Handing on the Future" capital fund campaign.

We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association and its members in the development of WorshipWeb.