Recent Stories
An unexpected journey
May we remember our power to bless, ourselves, and others.
The next Selma
How the Black Lives Matter movement challenges Unitarian Universalists.
Letter from a hoped-for future
What Unitarian Universalism looks like, twenty years from now.
Grief and weariness
Grief has often worn me out, while restoring me to myself at the same time.
Rise in body or in spirit
Truth be told, I don't think I ever took aging seriously or personally, until recent years.
Tarantula
I faced my fears and they faced me. It wasn't that big a deal.
What can you see from your back porch?
I used to think my grandfather's worldview was limited and small-minded.
O gremlins, O St. Anthony!
My faith is in science, but I try to keep an open mind.
Yellow shirts for climate action
More than 1,500 Unitarian Universalists took part in the People's Climate March.
Zentangle chalices, doodling, and meditation
Meditative doodling as a Unitarian Universalist spiritual practice.
In hopes of traveling light
Some people seek balance and stability, but I like to be off-kilter.
Hearing others' stories reveals their humanity
We affirm women's dignity, yet UUs still wrestle with the systemic undercurrents of misogyny.
A kind of mirror
I never considered myself a visual artist, but then, I never expected to have cancer.
When pigs fly
Do we try too hard to grasp joy when it comes?
Remembering Pete Seeger
To be honest, I still want to grow up to be like Pete Seeger.
Our visit to Chernobyl
Sabbatical travel allowed us to see history with our own eyes.
Room to be both Jewish and UU
Religious pluralism was as much a part of our lives as the Southern drawl that flavored our interactions.
Growing up on Star Island
Looking back on my summers spent at a beloved UU retreat.
War zone sabbatical
I went to Afghanistan and Iraq to learn something about hope.
Beyond comprehension
Visiting Auschwitz, the imagination can only handle so much.
Fellowship days
I remember the truth and the love and the social justice, but also the cartwheels and the donuts.
Sankofa Ghana: A spiritual journey home
What did I need to retrieve from a visit to the slave ships' point of departure?
Following my moral compass
We all navigate through circumstances at the limits of human experience.
Breaking on through
Language helps us make meaning of what is happening to us, when it isn’t a barrier.
The only time I was called by my first name
When I was in the Army, the Sunday service was the only hour of my week when I could be my true and whole self.
The necessity of religion
We need a way to pull everything together and celebrate wholeness.
Birth, breath, and death
Doulas are called to care, to encourage, and to leave the world better than we found it.
A pond behind the church?
In my experience, no one improves by way of a scolding.
I'll stand her ground
What I'm telling my daughter, an African-American teenager, about Trayvon Martin's death.
May you have ease of well-being
Do I really want to spend this entire day with whatever might come up about my mother?
Magic Mondays
Three decades later, a weekly women's group is still going strong.
The Honey Springs worship committee ponders joys and sorrows
‘I’m just a fool for church people and the things that happen in church.’
Meaning in the midst of war
Easy answers lead to difficult questions. So why not just start with the questions?
I'm going to have to let me go
Who is really in control here?
Writing to the general
Or, how I realized that copying letters for Amnesty International was a spiritual discipline.
Kite mother
I kept hoping that one day I would up and be the mother from the greeting card picture.
Golden hours
Time is the most volatile and elusive element in our lives.
The lesson of Clive
I am a rock person; my husband is a cloud person.
Workshop of being
Where was I to find a liberal religious community in the middle of Kansas farm country?
The spirituality of the body
People watch the Super Bowl for reasons not usually recognized as spiritual, though they are.
The next Jesus to come through the door
When I meet a Jesus, I like to keep an open mind.
The gravity of family
All my adult life, I have valued my chosen relationships over the ones I was born into.
The green after
'When I die, I want to have my ashes buried under this tree.'
A passion for reason
Reason needs the energy of passion in order to inspire others.
A different church
They would embrace me in my full Amazon glory, or they could fry ice.
Heroes with feet of clay
Where did I get this idea that the people in my shrine should be perfect?
Making sure General Assembly has something for everyone
General Assembly needs good social action, but in our diverse faith it needs other things, too.
A recipe for connection
An hour spent looking through old recipes is like a visit with old friends.
Me, Jewish?
An odyssey into my family's religious past.
At my mother's funeral
Unitarian Universalists are precisely the people who can't believe whatever they want.
A little change
Pretending I'm self-sufficient at the Family Dollar store.
The raucous gardening fairy
So much for a tranquil ten minutes in the garden.
My patient's faith
Before I began the operation, my patient asked, 'Could I say a prayer first?'
Love, freedom, and wonder
Recalling a childhood in a Unitarian Universalist fellowship.
Sing me to sleep
I wanted things to go back to normal. I wanted none of this to be happening.
A nation of immigrants
I couldn't help but connect the plight of these migrants to my own family history.
Stop the elevator; I'm not done
If someone on an elevator asked you what Unitarian Universalism is, could you answer before one of you reached your destination?
Responding to holiday depression with compassion
She stomped up and down the aisles until she saw her Christmas tree.
Stirring up gratitude
In a flash, memories of joy and sorrow mingle in thanksgiving.
Surviving, without a memorial
Where are the tangible memorials to what survivors have lost?
Sudden death
The real sting of death is the thought that all life’s possibilities were supposed to wait until I got around to paying attention.
Protesting Arizona's new immigration law
We must respond with love to the fear that drives the debate about immigration.
Finding spirit in the sundown
The only way to prepare for facing Alzheimer's is to remain attentive to the present moment.
Mary Daly changed my life
I am not sorry that I used to be ‘one of those angry women.’
Holy family
A family holy enough to merit the highest forms of reverence.
Jesus, peasant revolutionary
A paradoxical power is revealed in people the world despises, in people the world deems weak.
What do you need a potion for?
Maybe I went too far mixing V8 and Pop Rocks, but life isn't always sweet.
Cricket's song shows life's fragility
There is a cricket playing the violin in my bathroom.
A spark of understanding
My first encounter with Unitarianism.
From mother to gypsy
Saying goodbye to the home where I raised my children.
Growing up in a UU family
People probably thought my parents were hippies because we were out-of-the-closet Unitarian Universalists.
Prayer for the people of Iran
An Iranian-American holds her breath as hundreds of thousands march for democracy in Iran.
Finding relief in the storm
The complexity of asking for, and offering, help.
Lessons from an elephant sage
Speak from a place of distraction, and the elephant will not move.
Graduation day
Parenthood makes life serious and challenges you to push past limitations you have accepted too easily. But those issues don't go away when you decide not to have children.
The love truck
The Karma Fairy is laughing her head off at the SUV in my driveway.
Serving Dionysus
I worshiped the gods of comedy and tragedy long before I worshiped Jesus's God.
Reclaiming my space in the sisterhood
The International Convocation of Unitarian Universalist Women revived me.
An African pilgrimage
Coming face to face and heart to heart with the reality of slavery.
Flat tire and a beating heart
A heartbeat is one thing you want to do like everyone else.
That elusive more
What do Unitarian Universalists need to go deeper?
It's all about family
There's no better context than a family reunion to get over your fears.
The church and the unicorn
One of them is a mythical creature worth believing in.
How it feels to be 80
The only really upsetting thing about being old is realizing that I'm not going to see how everything comes out.
Love can't fix everything
I knew the gunman who killed two in a Knoxville church, but I can't fathom his choice.
Biggest coffee hour imaginable
First impressions of a first-time General Assembly goer.
PostSecret Project reveals our common humanity
People keep secrets for all kinds of reasons.
The call of self
Finding my path when the choices I made in my twenties didn't work out.
Letter to a new parent
Your heart will be worn and joyous, wise and beat up, and full of sorrow and amazement.
Love and death
Facing cancer with lessons learned from my parishioners.
The daffodil rescue mission
People say, ‘Bloom where you’re planted,’ but things happen.
Universal love
'And what church did you say you attend?'
Do you feel loved?
On alternating days, a resolution to stop beating myself up.
One thing I am sure of
A chaplain's counsel to a grieving brother.
Rekindling the flame
Tickets to the Keith Urban concert weren't just a gift. They were a miracle.
The floating life
Going with the flow sounds nice, until the river tries to kill you.
Confessions of a prodigal volunteer
Life after burning out at church.
Once and for all
Watching a loved one fade into dementia.
The death of li'l Anthrax
A more vicious little creature you could hardly imagine.
Fireworks at the wedding
Fireworks and church may not seem to go together, but in my family they do.
How Jesus claimed me
One Unitarian Universalist's religious journey.
Great art and the gods
Five-year-olds in a fine art museum.
From fear to eternity
Learning to walk backward down a cliff.
Religious reality in a virtual world
Second Life, the much-hyped online virtual reality world, is home to a growing Unitarian Universalist congregation.
Finding a talisman
A gift brings healing and unexpected loss.
Mayhem and the manger
Why didn't you warn me about Christmas pageants?
Can Unitarian Universalists talk about failure?
Original Sin isn't a good idea. Expecting perfection isn't, either.
Miracle flowers
The persistence of beauty in New Orleans.
From Islam to Unitarian Universalism
One woman's religious odyssey.
Of hummingbirds and immigrants
'Hummingbirds migrate north and south just like we do.'
Military chaplain's tribute for Memorial Day
A Unitarian Universalist military chaplain can't fight but honors those who do.
What's spiritual about parenting young children?
A passage from Bless This Child.
Three ways husbands express love
A new book surveys men in heterosexual marriages.
One event, two perspectives
A racially-charged encounter reveals worlds of difference.
Repression of the sublime
To realize your potential you must recognize your gifts.
Hope in an unmarked envelope
A request for liberal religious contraband.
Meditations on our cosmic significance
Who hasn't felt tiny and insignificant?
Spiritual lessons from running
Ten spiritual lessons that running has taught me.
Midlife spirituality for women
Drawing closer to the sacred at middle age.
Why I go to General Assembly
Denominational diversity in all its splendor.
Ric Masten, dancing through life
A poet responds to cancer the way he knows best.
Was Thomas Jefferson really a Unitarian?
What makes someone 'one of us'?
Playing with the Italians
Despite my father's fears, those men were not the enemy.
A mother's bond
Grief and recovery transform the author's relationship with her mother.
Jesus and the modern seeker
It may take an act of great will to see past the relics of tradition to something new.
The middle of everywhere
How Lincoln, Nebraska, came to be the picture of America's multicultural future.
In praise of the imperfect life
Spring enlivens us, yet from our human vantage not all resurrections are equally welcome.
'His rightful place'
The Rev. W.H.G. Carter's great-granddaughter shares a family's living tradition.
9-11 postcard from Brooklyn
One minister describes a day of shock and mourning.
Unfinished houses
Life as a work in progress.
Memoir of King's eulogy for James Reeb
A witness's diary captures the torment and magic of James Reeb’s eulogy.
Witness to Reeb's death looks back
A witness to Selma's tragedies revisits the path of tears and learns to dry his own.
Bearing witness to human diversity
A visit to Auschwitz.
What do sons really need from their dads?
What losing a father teaches men about fatherhood.
Living at the edge
By living in the present moment, we can find ourselves at the gateway to eternity.
