The final chapel service of Starr King School for the Ministry’s 2010-2011 academic year will include a faculty-led ritual for the many and myriad transitions that continuing students are entering with internships, field work, and low residency studies. We will hear a sermon from graduating student Sharon Wylie who invites …
I have moved my household three times in the past three years, and I am reminded each time afresh how much I hate moving. I am fundamentally a homebody, someone who likes to stay put. I like to put down roots, get to know a place, and build a routine. …
The recent devastation in Japan was followed, for me, by some difficult news from a dear friend whose family is experiencing a variety of losses. Whether bad news comes from the other side of the globe or from the neighbor next door, there are times when we are face-to-face with …
The second week of February, the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association gathered for a week in Pacific Grove for the Excellence in Ministry Institute. This event is the first of what will hopefully be an ongoing series of continuing education opportunities for Unitarian Universalist ministers. Katie and I were both fortunate …
Some aspects of Unitarian Universalist history are well known and documented, but the experiences of African Americans within our faith tradition are just starting to be told. In honor of Black History Month, we will hear some of these lesser-told stories of our history and reflect on their meaning. Click …
After my sermon for Martin Luther King, Jr. Sunday, many of you spoke to me about how hard it is to feel love or even compassion for people who have hurt you (or people who are hurting the world, or both). Some of those conversations got me thinking about the …
Understanding race and class privilege is an important part of resisting oppressive systems in our culture, but it’s also important spiritual work. Come consider how understanding privilege and marginalization enhances your own healing and wholeness. Click here to listen (file length is 24:17): Sermon 2011 January 30
Martin Luther King, Jr. is celebrated as the pivotal leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. But now it is more than 40 years since his assassination, and it is easy to forget—or not know!—that Dr. King’s teachings still have relevance for us today. Let us gather …
It’s a new year, and there’s lots of talk (as usual) about fresh starts, clean slates, and starting over. The past, it seems, is just luggage weighing us down, and if we can leave it behind, we can move forward faster, lighter, and unencumbered. My experience is that this is …
December is a month full of religious holidays: Hanukkah in the Jewish traditions, Hijra and Ashura in the Muslim traditions, Bodhi Day in the Buddhist traditions, Yule (winter solstice) in the Pagan traditions, and of course, Christmas in the Christian traditions. Aditionally, Kwanzaa, although a secular holiday, also holds spiritual …
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