I am writing from Chicago where I am attending the 175 Anniversary celebration for Meadville/Lombard Theological School, one of only two Unitarian Universalist seminaries preparing ministers to serve our faith. This is the first formal introduction of a new President for Meadville, Dr. Elias Ortega-Aponte. During this past year, I have served on the Search Team that recommended Elias’s appointment. He comes to Meadville from Drew Theological School in New Jersey and brings a commitment to Unitarian Universalism grounded in his work in religious education, theologies of liberation and faith formation. This celebration also includes the opportunity to warmly thank…

“Reproductive justice asserts that all people have the right to bodily autonomy, to have a child (or not have a child), to parent that child with dignity in safe and sustainable communities, and to determine their own reproductive and birthing experiences.”                                       - Black Mamas Matter Alliance This is not a “feel good” message. As we approach Mothers Day, there is one more first for the United States that needs mention: The US has the most deaths resulting from pregnancy and pregnancy related complications of any nation in the developed world. 700 women die each year and that rate has…

I made a mistake this morning. Just up, wondering whether our political system would lurch another step closer to some final melt-down, I turned cable news on. As I watched, I found myself sucked into that world of posturing and lies, that world in which it seems truth cannot survive and where hope is so hard to find. I do not avoid the news these days, though I know some of you do. But I have to be prepared to be present to it. What I find is that without preparation engaging the news of the day does not promote…

I am fond of telling stories about how children who grow up in the First Unitarian community remember highlights from their younger years here. I have loved hearing from adults, some my age and older, who still speak about their roles in our Christmas Pageant when they were children, for example. One of our members, Darin Stewart, shared a story with me recently that brought a smile: Children learn far more from what we adults do than what we say, of course. We liberal religious folks with our love of learning and our academic degrees can forget this. In this…

“Almost Biblical.” That is how one staff member at the church described this week. Between the flood in our own Buchan building and the fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, that description had me nodding my head in agreement. In this week when the tulips have finally opened at my house, when we look forward to Easter Sunday and singing “Hallelujah,” one temptation is to focus only on the miracle of rebirth around us and within us in this season. But religious life calls us also to hold disappointment and even the disasters of life. Religious life is…

I always get the words wrong. The hymn “We Would Be One” is a favorite of mine and of many of us: We would be one as now we join in singing Our hymn of love to pledge ourselves anew… My problem is that I learned different lyrics, because this was the official hymn of Liberal Religious Youth, the youth ministry of the newly consolidated Unitarian Universalist Association when I became a UU. “Our hymn of youth” is what we sang and what still is called up for me whenever the simple and stately chords of Finlandia (the tune) introduce…

This is the season when preachers and teachers in religious communities search within themselves and in the world to justify hope. The renewal in the earth around us stands in stark contrast to the failures in human community, also around us. Human failures are now compromising even the resiliency of earth. It is a challenge always to find an honest message in the spring, as we approach Easter. I had the privilege of leading a First Connections session last Sunday, the first one I have led. The topic was Theology 101. I recounted the Unitarian and the Universalist contributions to…

Opportunity rather than equality has shaped the American vision of Beloved Community, at least the dominant vision. Equality as a goal, in fact, has been broadly embraced only as equality of opportunity. The conversation about reparations, which I introduced again in my sermon last Sunday, calls for a more honest understanding of the impact of trauma and oppression. That understanding raises real questions about the adequacy of opportunity as a singular standard and a goal. Based on my inbox, looking at the way trauma is passed down provided a lens that resonated deeply for many of us. One way that…

The Gospel of Mark, the earliest in the Christian tradition, begins with the adult Jesus seeking baptism. The earliest Gospel begins with his yearning for cleansing and the hope of new life that John the Baptist promised. It was a very human yearning, I think, that drew Jesus to the Jordan. Immediately after his baptism, “the spirit drove him into the wilderness.” This is the season of Lent, in the Christian liturgical calendar, a time of preparation, of seeking and centering, modeled on the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness. Many of us know wilderness journeys in our own…

A number of congregants have spoken or written to me about the UU WORLD article on transgender issues that I discussed in my sermon last Sunday. Some expressed thanks that we are dealing with this controversy in an open and direct way. You have heard me say, more than once, that keeping questions and conversations about our identities “on top of the table” is the path to learning. There were also folks who told me that they had read the WORLD article and did not understand what the problem was. I am so thankful for those questions because they model…