Sermons

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...

What does FPW mean to me? Well, that question is going to require a walk down memory lane, because FPW has meant so much to me and my family over the years, and like all things, has evolved a great deal. So, the year was 2008, Matt and I had moved to the Boston area about 18 months earlier for work and graduate school, and had been living in Watertown for the past 6 months (just down the street on Summer street). Aside from some colleagues, we didn’t know anyone in the area. Growing up, I...

I’ll start with a feeling. One morning after church I was sitting in my chair, not ready to leave the sanctuary to head home. This seems to be happening a lot to me these days at First Parish – this not wanting to leave here feeling. Something drew me into the Heart of the Matter discussion in the nearby room – and for those of you who are new – it’s a monthly get-together led by Rev Sophia to share what’s on your mind and to consider the topic of the month. It only took a little bit of...

A couple of weeks ago Rev. Sophia asked us, “How has First Parish affected your heart and soul?” If I listed all the ways there would be no time to hear from anyone else.  But I’ll tell you about a few of the most meaningful. I first came to First Parish in 1988. I was recently divorced and a single mom.  I had been working with a bunch of mothers at the former Phillips School to start an afterschool program.  I learned that most of them attended the church around the corner from me.  So I...

This reading comes to us from Black Elk, a renowned holy man of the Oglala Lakota people. Black Elk’s vision was written down and published, with his permission, by John Neihardt in 1932 in the book, “Black Elk Speaks.” “I was still on my bay horse, and once more I felt the riders of the west, the north, the east, the south, behind me in formation…and we were going east. I looked ahead and saw the mountains and there with rocks and forests on them, and from the mountains flashed all colors...