Previous Service Themes adapted from Soul Matters …
What does it mean to be a people of Healing?
Jewish teaching includes frequent reminders of the importance of a broken-open heart, as in this Hasidic tale: A disciple asks the rebbe: “Why does Torah tell us to ‘place these words upon your hearts’? Why does … read more.
What does it mean to be a people of Deep Listening?
This is your chance to listen carefully.
Your whole life might depend on what you hear. – Joyce Sutphen
Listening helps us find our way. The listening of therapists allows … read more.
September is a season of homecoming for us UUs. And renewal is central to that. At the opening of each new church year, we renew our commitments to each other and our church community. We renew our energy for another year of journeying together.
It’s also … read more.
It might seem like one of our easier monthly themes. After all, compassion sounds … well, nice. It conjures up a bunch of warm feelings. Images come to mind of people telling each other they are keeping them in their thoughts. It would seem to … read more.
When encountering thresholds, we often talk as if our work is that of successfully “passing through” them. We speak of “making healthy transitions.” We seek out advice and support as we decide which thresholds to lean into and which to resist. The goal, it would … read more.
True wisdom comes in understanding that sometimes, you are both the prison and the key. — Johnathan Jena
Jena is right. Liberation is much more complicated than we usually tell ourselves. It would be so much easier if life really was divided up neatly between the … read more.
When the topic of wisdom comes up, so do the usual images. Walls and walls filled with dusty old books. Elders with the wisdom of many years carved into the wrinkles on their faces. Diplomas framed and filling one’s office wall. Endless letters placed in … read more.
When did we decide that resilience was a solo project?
It’s not that we consciously defined it that way. It’s just what we were taught, from the time we were little until, well, today. The same thing was – and is – … read more.
What Does It Mean to Be A People of Integrity?
Wholeness is never lost; it is only forgotten. Integrity rarely means that we need to add something to ourselves: it is more an undoing than a doing, a freeing ourselves from beliefs we have about who … read more.
This at least seems to me the main problem … How can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and yet at home in it? … How can this world give us at once the fascination of a strange town and the … read more.
