Gathering for Sunday services in person and online at 10:30 am. Campus Vision Construction Continues - learn more
We’ve had our holiday of thanks, and now we have the season of giving. Giving might seem simple–you like someone, so you give them something they’ll enjoy–but it’s anything but. Giving can be motivated by affection, duty, obligation, gratitude, ingratiation, indebtedness, even fear; gifts can be received with gratitude, suspicion, delight, exasperation, indebtedness, even fear. … Continue reading Worship Services – The Season of Giving
In a series of services that explore the purpose and significance of different aspects of the service, we come today to our centering words, centering bell, and the silence that follows. As potters and dancers tell us, centering is what makes possible the art that follows. What does centering in our services do for us–and … Continue reading Centering
Thanksgiving is all about sharing and unity and going over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house! Right? Well, actually . . . In this friendly debate, Kris Geering takes the affirmative and Greg Becker, well, he’s the negative. But between them, they find a Thanksgiving story that honors both the truth of … Continue reading Thanksgiving: It’s Complicated (Intergenerational Service)
9:30 am service: outdoors and in-person only (weather permitting).11 am service: online only. There is one person each of us tends to dump on: we criticize them, withhold kindness and compassion because we don’t think they deserve them, and reach for the stick instead of the carrot so they’ll improve. That person is each of … Continue reading The Person We Treat the Worst
⏰ Turn your clocks back, or you’ll be very early to services! 9:30 am service: outdoors and in-person only (weather permitting).11 am service: online only. I’ve never preached on “followership” because it just seems so self-serving. I’m a leader, and every leader wants people to be good followers, right? But today I’d like to share … Continue reading The Power of Followership
A man named Itaru Sasaki missed his deceased cousin, so he set up a phone booth in his garden in Ōtsuchi, Japan. Although the phone was not connected to anything, he found it comforting to pick up the phone and speak to his cousin. After the devastating tsunami of March 2011, Sasaki invited anyone to … Continue reading The Wind Phone is Connected
Awake, enlightened: they might sound as if they are much the same thing, or at least close kin. But in two movements of the 18th century, they represented a conflict: between the emotion-driven “Great Awakening” and the reason-saluting “Age of Enlightenment.” Unitarianism and Universalism grew up in that conflict, and we are shaped by it … Continue reading Awakening vs. Enlightenment
Today’s service is the first in a series: Why do we do that in the service? Let’s consider Caring and Sharing, our name for what many congregations call “pastoral prayers” or “prayers of the people.” Why do we share our joys and sorrows? And especially, given that prayers evidently frequently go unanswered, what is the … Continue reading A Longing of the Soul
Sometimes a single, simple change can illuminate a very big problem–and what we can do about it. UUCPA’s own single-use plastics policy, implemented for the first time last month, provides a case study in how to make lasting change. Let’s follow a piece of plastic and see where it leads. You may be pleasantly surprised. … Continue reading Plastic. Policies. People. Power.
Our annual, intergenerational Water Communion restores our sense of connection with all beings, as we pour our different waters into one vessel. Please do not think your water has to have come from “someplace special.” It is special because it comes from you and from the planet. Do read this information for 9:30 and 11 … Continue reading Water Communion: Nothing Unconnected