Wholeness is a challenging spiritual theme, in part because we are so ambivalent about it. Wholeness suggests finality. “To do list” complete. Check.   Most of us are such goal-directed folks that living without a destination is a disorienting experience.  Gwendolyn Brooks describes, poetically, a different understanding of the way the universe works and how we might best approach our own lives. The title of the poem is almost as long as the poem itself:  Speech to the Young: Speech to the Progress-Toward (Among them Nora and Henry III)  Say to them,  say to the down-keepers,  the sun-slappers,  the self-soilers,  the harmony-hushers,  “Even…

We enter Black History Month 2021 after a year which saw, among many other things, the Movement for Black Lives manifested in the largest and most diverse demonstrations for equity in our nation’s history. More and more Americans affirm the need to dismantle the Culture of White Supremacy and the need to center the voice of Black, Indigenous and People of Color.  Black History Month was made a national celebration in 1976 during the US Bicentennial. But the celebration traces back directly to historian Carter Woodson, who, with the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History which he founded,…

Rev. Sinkford is on break this week. The following is by Rev. Marilyn Sewell, Minister Emerita of First Unitarian Church. At last it’s over! I mean the last four years of suffering from an abusive relationship—with our former president.  Why am I not alive with energy, ready to get back to my writing? Wanting to Zoom with friends? Pushing ever harder with my climate activism? I find that I’m simply exhausted, needing to recover. The ethical and relational norms in our society have been breached, not just a few times, but almost every day for four years. Truth? Doesn’t exist. Decency?…

I have heard from many of you how much you appreciated Rev. Connie Simon’s sermon, From the Inside Out, last Sunday. A book group of elders that has been meeting for more than 50 years with whom I met wanted to talk about it. A group of racial justice activists praised it. More individual folks wrote to me with comments, praise, or critique than I receive most weeks.  Connie addressed, in a more focused way than I have from the pulpit, what Process Theology suggests about how the world works and how love works in our lives.   Perhaps the eagerness to understand, to have at least a working hypothesis about how the…

The first time I teared up during the Inauguration was when Lady Gaga sang the Star-Spangled Banner. Neither the singer nor the song normally bring me to tears. It was not grief, though there is much to grieve. Nor were they tears of anger, though I have felt much anger.  They were tears of relief. Almost a let-down reflex after maintaining vigilance for so long.  From that point on I simply allowed the tears to flow…not every moment to be sure, but my eyes never fully dried until the final prayer.  I was grateful for the Catholic priest’s invocation, a prayer that, with…

James Baldwin Weary. That is how many of you have described yourselves to me in recent days. Not tired. We know how to deal with being tired. Rest is recommended, and respite. Recovery is predictable and expected. Weary is a feeling of being worn down. Over time. Resources depleted. Spent. Rest may be recommended, but the weariness that has been described to me has more to do with demands on our strength that we have carried successfully, but not without effort, for just too long.  Yet we are approaching an inauguration, a time “to begin” or “mark a new beginning” … those are two of the…

‘Twas the week before Christmas…and I must confess to feeling a bit like one of the elves in the mythical St. Nick’s workshop as we prepare for the holidays at First Unitarian. I guess Santa would be my role in that imagination.  We are working on all of the seasonal holiday services and the post-Christmas services as well. The winter holidays are always a busy time in the life of the church. In addition to that normal busyness, we are having to re-invent so much of how we celebrate while we are at a distance. It is a busy time.  The differences in how we will celebrate pale in…

The eight days of Hanukkah begin tonight. This Jewish celebration is one of the many ways that people of faith pause and witness during this season of long nights. The Solstice, Diwali, Kwanzaa, Christmas… all ways that communities mark this season of the turning year.  Hanukkah means “dedication” in Hebrew and the holiday commemorates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem during the second century Before the Common Era (BCE). Syria, the empire then dominating Palestine, outlawed the practice of Judaism. Syrian soldiers occupied Jerusalem and desecrated the Temple by erecting an altar to Zeus and sacrificing pigs within the Temple compound.  Led by a priest…

Women’s March, Pretoria, South Africa, 1956   This Sunday is the second Sunday of Advent in the Christian liturgical calendar. In that tradition, Advent is a time of waiting and personal preparation to receive the mystery and the miracle of the birth of Jesus.   Mystery is our spiritual theme for December and I am looking forward to exploring it from the pulpit. Our religious tradition(s) have a complicated relationship to the idea of miracles and our experience of mystery. But like many of you, I find myself waiting for miraculous changes…for vaccines to end the pandemic, for a new administration to end the lies and mean-spiritedness, for a New Year to…