Dear Families, You have been on my mind and in my heart as we all grapple with the horrifying behaviors seen yesterday at our Capitol in Washington, DC. I hope you have been able to find comforting ways to be with your children and to talk as a family about...
New Year’s is without a doubt the most meaningful winter holiday for me. As a religious humanist, none of the other winter holidays have ever really called to me. But to me there’s something almost magical about the chance for a fresh start. A new beginning. The start of a...
One of my favorite things about all the rituals and traditions attached to this time of year is the way they mess with time. My husband and son and I decorate our Christmas tree, and as we hang each ornament—the ones we brought from our parents’ houses and the ones...
For each new morning with its light, For rest and shelter of the night, For health and food, for love and friends, For everything your goodness sends, Thank you! Adapted from a grace of Ralph Waldo Emerson by Reverend Phil Lund. Sung to the tune of “Praise God from Whom...
An Activity to Celebrate Solstice with Your family. To connect with the sacred stillness of the longest night of the year, this activity guides us to create a symbolic, toy-sized cave with our children. This quiet, holy, protective cave will shelter Mother Earth and the Sun Child, symbolically reborn the...
As we move into this holiday season, I am grateful to have the ministry theme of “stillness” as our guide. There is so much swirling around — the pandemic and the toll it has taken, racial injustice and the continuous ways it manifests in our communities, widespread economic stress and...
“Don’t just do something, sit there!” Too often, when confronted with a challenge (within or without), we scramble to do something, anything! It feels better in the moment to match turbulence with turbulence. But stillness is often a good and valid response. Stillness is not inaction; it is the making...
By Rev. Alexandra McGee, Assistant Minister As you read this, pause, look away from your screen and up at something beautiful, and take a deep breath. Really. Did you pause? How did it feel to your eyes? Your breath? That simple act of pausing is essential in all areas of...
Explore our December theme “stillness” more deeply. In 2006, the Unitarian Universalist Beacon Press published Thirst, a volume of Mary Oliver’s poetry in which the poem, “The Place I Want to Get Back To,” appeared. The poem tells the story of the day that Oliver sat in perfect stillness in...