Sermons

Reading: blessing the boats By Lucille Clifton may the tide that is entering even now the lip of our understanding carry you out beyond the face of fear may you kiss the wind then turn from it certain that it will love your back     may you open your eyes to water water waving forever and may you in your innocence sail through this to that Reflection and Ritual: “Our Beautiful Blue Boat Home” Here’s something fun: did you know that UUs have nicknamed a particular hymn that we love to sing the...

“Radical Kinship” READING: The reading today was written by UU minister and celebrated activist Rev. Theresa Soto and was published in her 2019 book, “Spilling the Light: Meditations on Hope and Resilience.” “The Spark Between” There must be fuel. There must be a spark, and there must be oxygen. We have principles and ethics. The fuel of the fire we would light. The spark is what passes between us, along with our aliveness, our possibility. Spirit moving in us is our clear invitation—...

READING: Adapted from “The Moor,” by Welsh poet R.S. Thomas It was like a church to me. I entered it on soft foot, Breath held like a cap in the hand. It was quiet. What God was there made [themselves] felt, Not listened to, in clean colours That brought a moistening of the eye, In movement of the wind over grass. There were no prayers said… I walked on, Simple and poor, while the air crumbled And broke on me generously as bread. SERMON: Last night, enjoying the meal we shared together, and...

This morning’s reading comes to us from contemplative writer and thinker Thomas Merton. The language has been adjusted to be more gender inclusive. From “No Man is an Island”: “…There must be a time of day when [a person] who makes plans forgets [their] plans, and acts as if [they] had no plans at all. There must be a time of day when the man who has to speak falls very silent. And his mind forms no more propositions, and he asks himself: Did they have a meaning? There must be a time when the...

READING: “I Will Not Die an Unlived Life,” by Dawna Markova I will not die an unlived life  I will not live in fear  of falling or catching fire.  I choose to inhabit my days,  to allow my living to open me,  to make me less afraid,  more accessible,  to loosen my heart  until it becomes a wing,  a torch, a promise.  I choose to risk my significance;  to live so that which came to me as seed  goes to the next as blossom  and that which came to me as blossom,  goes on as fruit.  SERMON: In the...

READING: From “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” by Robert Fulgham. “All of what I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be, I learned in Kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the sandpile at Sunday School. These are the things I learned:  - Share everything.  - Play fair.  - Don't hit people.  - Put things back where you found them. - Clean up your own mess.  - Don't take things that aren't yours.  -...

READING: Our reading today comes from Muskogee or “Creek” Nation Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo.  It is called Remember. Remember the sky that you were born under, know each of the star's stories. Remember the moon, know who she is. Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is the strongest point of time. Remember sundown and the giving away to night. Remember your birth, how your mother struggled to give you form and breath. You are evidence of her life, and her mother's, and hers. Remember your...

Easter–“By My Side” This passage comes to us from Karen Armstrong, a former nun whose departure from her convent in the 1960’s led her on a spiritual and religious journey around the world that has yielded more than 20 books, including the bestselling “A History of God.” From “The Spiral Staircase” Karen Armstrong writes: “…I have discovered that the religious quest is not about discovering ‘the truth’ of the ‘meaning of life’ but about living as intensely as possible here and now.  The idea...

READING: Trust, by Thomas R. Smith It’s like so many other things in life to which you must say no or yes. So you take your car to the new mechanic. Sometimes the best thing to do is trust. The package left with the disreputable-looking clerk, the check gulped by the night deposit, the envelope passed by dozens of strangers— all show up at their intended destinations. The theft that could have happened doesn’t. Wind finally gets where it was going through the snowy trees, and the river, even...

  Reading: “Otherwise,” by Jane Kenyon I got out of bed on two strong legs. It might have been otherwise. I ate cereal, sweet milk, ripe, flawless peach. It might have been otherwise. I took the dog uphill to the birch wood. All morning I did the work I love. At noon I lay down with my mate. It might have been otherwise. We ate dinner together at a table with silver candlesticks. It might have been otherwise. I slept in a bed in a room with paintings on the walls, and planned another day...