What does it mean to be a people of Stillness? Don’t tell me to be calm when there are so many reasons to be angry … I didn’t say to be calm, said the wind, I said to breathe.  We’re going to need a lot of air to make this hurricane together.      – Rev Lynn … Continue reading Stillness (Dec 2020)

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 it not tell us to place these holy words … Continue reading Healing (Nov 2020)

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 us to navigate our way through life.  We turn to prayer to hear God’s … Continue reading Deep Listening (Oct 2020)

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 a time of renewing our renewal questions.  Yes, that … Continue reading Renewal (Sept 2020)

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 be all about emotional connection and empathetic feeling. But then … Continue reading Compassion (June 2020)

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 seem, is figuring out how to travel forward in the … Continue reading Thresholds (May 2020)

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 good and bad guys, between those trapped and those … Continue reading Liberation (April 2020)

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 front and behind your name (Dr, PhD, LCSW, JD, Rev, … Continue reading Wisdom (March 2020)

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 – said in so many ways: “Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps”; “You’re … Continue reading Resilience (February 2020)

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 we are and ways we have been persuaded to … Continue reading Integrity (January 2020)