While thoughts and prayers are often offered as gestures of support and empathy, what is often needed is prayerful action. How can we learn to pray with our feet, our hands, and our actions rather than just our hearts and minds?

All Souls Day is a time to remember everyone who has died, everyone who has been part of the gathered community. The phrase “All Souls” has a particularly Unitarian connotation because of something that one of our own “saints,” William Ellery Channing, said: “I am a living member of the great Family of All Souls; … Continued

Our newly-articulated value of generosity suggests that “our generosity connects us to one another in relationships of interdependence and mutuality.” How can we cultivate this kind of generosity and practice it within and beyond our congregation?

In our current era of discord and strife, empathic understanding and loving-kindness seem to be in short supply. How can we develop these qualities and help share them with others? And how can deep listening help us get there?

Unitarian Universalists and other religious progressives tend not to conform to orthodox views and practices. How then can we expect to unite? This sermon will explore this question and others having to do with moving from a culture of identity to one of solidarity.

Sometimes it seems that there is an immovable stone on the path before us, blocking the way toward any progress. Yet even the largest, most daunting barrier can be shifted, given enough patience, practice and leverage. How might we harness the power of transformative love to move the immovable obstacles before us?

At this year’s UUA General Assembly, a major change in our bylaws included a new articulation of our “UU Values” that supersedes (and includes language from) our UU Principles, including the 8th Principle that our congregation ratified. This service looks at our central UU Value: love.

Sometimes we dwell so much on the challenging and difficult aspects of our lives that we forget about all the joy that is available to us. In a world often filled with despair, struggle, and heartbreak, how can we hear and respond to the invitation to joy that the world offers?

 It often seems as though we are living in an era of despair. There are signs of despair all around us—including increased self-harm rates, soaring rates of addiction in various forms, and a general sense of weariness and foreboding. What are the alternatives to despair, and how might we make the turn from despair to … Continued