A little love can sway the world. We’ll look back in history we see how little acts influenced larger outcomes. Then, in our own lives, the same applies. Little changes in our spirit, mind, and mood make for little acts of love in our world. This then goes out to sway our whole world in ways we don’t yet know, but will. Henry David Thoreau, friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson, refused to pay his tax because it was going to help fund the war on…
I stand before you today with a mixture of trepidation and daring. Like often, I think we can consider touchy and complex issues with broad-minded thinking and good-hearted caring. I’ve no particular authority or expertise other than tending to think for myself and speak out loud in a setting of the “free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” So I dare, though I am uneasy; I trust we can handle it together. The topic is easy for some, unsettling for others. Homosexuality is a…
Better than Guns "Speaking is difficult, but I need to say something important. . . Violence is a big problem. Too many children are dying. Too many children. We must do something. It will be hard, but the time is now. You must act. Be bold, be courageous, Americans are counting on you. Thank you." Gabby Gifford I do not mock Gabby here; I join her in desperate vulnerability. We’re all vulnerable. We’re vulnerable to a whole host of problems before and beyond guns –…
I’m from Michigan, in what is still called the Midwest – located in the mid east section of our country. Odd. Once, it was in the far west, for few had ventured past the east coast. A similar misnomer applies to the so-called northern California, by which they mean central California, where San Francisco is. Redding and Shasta are in the real northern California. But old words have a way of sticking, be they about geography or religion. Our religion may have been defined in…
Are Unitarian Universalists Christian? Some are. Some aren’t. The question is as old as the religions themselves, going back to their forming and founding. The answer depends on who gets to answer. If orthodox (that is, “conforming to approved doctrine”) Christians get to determine, then no, we’re not. We’re heretics, which word comes from “those who choose,” because we choose to see and say our truth, our Christianity, as our religion. That’s older than the Protestant Reformation, for the early Christians differed too, some claiming…
These letters are acronyms for four kinds of drugs that I would like to explore in this sermon. Basically, I will recommend them as possibly problematic but potentially beneficial for persons and society. On the whole, and especially compared with the Counter Culture, I have not found a lot of interest in entheogens or other drugs in our UU culture. UU’s have concern for civil liberties, curtailing a needless and excessive police/prison state, the right for people to live their own lives as long as…
(I believe in human wholeness – not fragmentation, not partiality, not alienation. Does this include sex? Yes! What the Creator built in we should not shame and alienate. The topic is vast, the approaches to it are many, and the feelings about it can be prone to upheaval. What I offer here is limited, provocative, reasonable, and sincere. I appreciate my liberal congregation, which took this in thoughtful stride. The version they heard was about half as long as what here follows.) “Oh, God!”…
The most unusual wedding I ever performed was of a woman to herself. On the shore of Lake Michigan I pronounced this lovely, creative creature One, adding, “What God hath joined together, let no one rent asunder.” Of course, this was a spiritual ceremony, not a legal contract, though the marriage issue could be stretched to consider calling such a union a marriage. Or should it? Just what is a marriage, who qualifies, and who decides? Let us consider marriage, gay marriage, and the…
“These things abide: faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Cor. 13:13) “Love, oh love, you crazy love.” Love is the cause and core of being human. Lusty love, luscious love, languid love, lively love, lovely love, we yearn for love, go wild in love, grow stale in love, grant our love, give it, get it, grasp it, lose it, find it, make it, grow it, get saved by it. Annoying love, obsessive love, exploring love, ignoring love, deploring love,…
Dogs don’t dance. I’ve been to many a bouncy dance situation where everyone is jerking and swaying, but the dogs just walk around. They’re not alone. Lots of animals don’t display an interest in music or dancing, and I’ve noticed most young children also don’t dance. Only a few rare ones seem to get the beat and try to bob up and down with it. As they mature, though, they do get it and start liking certain songs, going to dances, and sometimes playing an…