Watch the service HERE. Mohandas Gandhi once speculated that with so many hungry people in the world, when God next comes to earth it will be in the form of a loaf of bread. My guess is that this loaf will be a simple one, as close to the integrity of wheat and water as … Continue reading Bread, Not Stone: Hunger and Homelessness in the Land of Plenty
Watch the service HERE. Read the service HERE. With destruction and casualties mounting in Ukraine and in Gaza, conflicts with grave global consequences, we’ll ask ourselves some questions this morning: why should we care about wars happening 1000s of miles from us, especially when we are compassion fatigued by COVID, domestic concerns, climate disasters, and … Continue reading Honoring Veterans Day – “Just Cause, Just War?”
PLEASE BRING A MEMENTO OR HEIRLOOM FOR OUR COMMUNAL ALTAR Watch the service HERE. What is it about objects that can evoke such poignant and potent memories? What lost piece of your life might you be grateful to have returned by the “Thrift Shop Angel” of New York City? Why do we keep the memorabilia … Continue reading All Souls and Día de los Muertos – “The Thrift Shop Angel and the Power of Memory”
Watch the service HERE. The publication of Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird prequel, Go Set A Watchman, unleashed a torrent of befuddlement about the recasting of Atticus Finch from paragon of white virtue to an emblem of deep south racism. Mary Louise goes home as an adult and sees a different shade of Atticus … Continue reading Go Set A Watchman: On Radical Honesty
Watch the service HERE. How can and should we be “good relatives” to the many Native Americans who have lived for centuries on the land we inhabit? Regardless of our individual and communal heritage, how have we benefitted from living and working on these lands? What are the ethics of land acknowledgements, and what reparations … Continue reading Honoring Indigenous People’s Day: “Being A Good Relative”
Watch the service HERE. In a 1980 speech at the First Parish Unitarian Church in Indianapolis, renowned novelist Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. declared: “Doesn’t God give dignity to everybody? No, in my opinion. Giving dignity, the sort of dignity that is of earthly use, anyway, is something only people can do. Or fail to do.” Throughout … Continue reading We Are UUs: An Occasional Series – “So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut’s Humanism”
Watch the service HERE. In the words of a colleague, “Autumn people slow down, enjoy a certain pace.” Sounds appealing, doesn’t it? Many of us run around being bouncy Spring people year-round and 24/7, not looking very closely at much except our watches and our smartphones. Can you “remember the kind of September that’s slow … Continue reading Autumn People
Watch the service HERE. During the Days of Awe, the Jewish High Holidays that begin with Rosh Hashanah on September 16 and end with Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) on September 25, the Book of Life is open as we are asked to consider our behavior, our transgressions and how to turn towards reconciliation … Continue reading Honoring the Jewish High Holidays – “The Possum Experiment and the Choice to Be Kind”
Watch the service HERE. The “third place” is a sociological concept that defines a space of significance that is not one’s home or workplace. For generations, and across theological viewpoints, this third place has typically been a religious community. Today, that landscape has changed. Is Eastrose your third place? Has it been in the past but … Continue reading Ingathering and Homecoming with a Water Communion Ritual – “Is Eastrose Your Third Place?”
Watch the service HERE. The conundrum of free will morality — thou “mayest” or “mayest not” — lay at the very core of both our American society and our liberal UU religion. This relative latitude to choose is both awesome and horrible at once. It begs the question: How do we know, or learn, moral … Continue reading Whooshing Up: Can America Be Moral?
