Podcast: Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto Sermons and Reflections

Flower Communion Intergenerational Service

,

For our annual Flower Communion, we each bring a flower (or several), fill vases and baskets with them, and after blessing the flowers and each other, choose a flower that someone else brought and bring it home. (There will be plenty of extras for those who didn’t know or forgot–a living example of abundance!) It’s a beauty-filled, joy-filled intergenerational service built around a ritual that has been practiced in Unitarian Universalist churches since the 1920s. Music: Sarah Kirton, Scandinavian music

Whither Unitarian Christianity?

,

Two hundred years ago today, William Ellery Channing proudly claimed the pejorative “Unitarian” and gave a 90-minute sermon called “Unitarian Christianity” in which he proclaimed the centrality of reason in religion. To- day’s sermon will be shorter, but Amy will take up a related issue. How can reason and the other elements of religion co-exist? Music: Teresa Oroco. flute; Orlando Castro, guitar

Lima Bean Respect Day And Other Neglected Celebrations

,

What we honor with a special day or simply a moment of our attention, we elevate in our lives. What needs attention that we neglect too much? (It may or may not be lima beans, celebrated last Saturday by those in the know.) And what do we attend to that we could begin to ignore, the better to pay attention to more important things? Music: Martin Manley, jazz piano

Intergenerational Easter Service

,

Have you ever felt that you were losing something about yourself – or even that it was being taken away? Those moments are like deaths, and what follows can be like resurrection: something within us being born out of the ashes of what we used to know or what we used to be. In this intergenerational service, we hear the rest of the Easter story as Dan’s Unitarian mother told it to him, and Amy leads us all in using our minds and bodies to remember those transformative moments. We also celebrate several of our community’s newest children today in child dedications. Music: Elizabeth Russ, soprano

In The Dark

Did Jesus know, when he entered Jerusalem to cheers and choruses of “Hosanna!,” that this was a moment of triumph? Did he know it was the beginning of the end of his life? The most important moments often go unrecognized. Instead, we build a life in the dark, by feel, and need hindsight to discover what was most important. Dan tells the Palm Sunday story and Amy preaches. Music: Jessica Martin, guitar

Pluribus And Unum

With fewer people vaccinating their children and the incidence of once-rare diseases on the rise, our community is struggling to respect two ethical imperatives: the responsibilities that individuals have to the community, and those the community has to individuals. How should we weigh decisions that will curtail some people’s freedoms? Music: Kerensa Fu, flute

What Limits You?

We all carry around a set of beliefs about ourselves, particularly things we “can’t do or be”; like paint, sing, dance, be smart, be beautiful, be athletic. Many of these beliefs are formed at one period of our life, often early child- hood, and may not apply to who we are now. We’ll explore our limits, and talk about how to test them and, perhaps, remove the ones that don’t fit any more. Be prepared for a pep talk! Music: Eric Leong, violin

The Meaning of Meaning

,

What gives our lives meaning? As scriptures have been toppled from their heights of infallibility, and the doctrine of special creation has given way to natural selection, the old answers have stopped working. But the need for meaning has not diminished. So what does meaning mean for questioning, doubting people like us? Music: Nicholas Dold, pianist

Evil the UU Way

,

The theologically-liberal have been charged with being unable to talk frankly about evil, a criticism that has some merit. However, today we’ll show the world that UUs can do evil as well as anyone.  Special music: Veronika Agranov-Dafoe, piano

Unitarian Is an Adjective

,

Shakespeare’s Juliet famously discounted the importance of labels, saying “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” However, as her story unfolds she learns the social power behind all names. What meaning comes with the name Unitarian Universalist? Why is there no hyphen, and could it be that “Unitarian” is an adjective? Come explore the truth within names this Sunday. Special music: Aaron Lington, saxophone