Through January 30, total pledge dollars for 2019 are virtually identical to last year at this time. We budgeted for a 3% increase. We anticipate an income shortfall in the $50,000 range by fiscal year-end.
We are not yet prepared to discuss how we will deal … read more.
Rev. Bill Sinkford and Rev. Sophia Betancourt
Few sermons have generated the level of engagement of last Sunday’s dialogue. Sofia Betancourt, who keynoted Seminary for a Day on Saturday, and I reflected on one of the shifts required to secure Unitarian Universalism as a liberating faith … read more.
It is the 475th anniversary of the death of Mevlana Jalaluddin al-Rumi. A Sufi mystic, Rumi is quoted as often in UU congregations as almost any other poet. “Come, Come, Whoever You Are,” has become one of our most familiar hymns. What does it mean … read more.
The gift giving and the gift finding season is hard upon us.
The commercial culture that surrounds us is insistent on it. Even if we manage
to resist the lure of the expensive “toys,” even if we bake or make our gifts,
even if we donate to good … read more.
As the winter solstice approaches, the longest dark of the year, the truth of the seasons and the cycles of life becomes so clear. We live in a culture that praises linear movement toward goals and the “crossing things off our lists.” Earth-centered traditions from … read more.
It is the season of the long dark. From time out of mind, religious communities have found reason to gather and to light candles against the dark in this season. We moderns know the truth of the seasonal cycles. Some of us can even explain … read more.
I was in seminary, in the early 1990’s, when progressives began seriously questioning “Columbus Day” and the narrative of Manifest Destiny. That early response to the American Indian Movement was an attempt to correct the American story.
To remind you, Columbus never set foot in what … read more.
Wednesday morning, early, I passed a congregant at the gym. “Are you buoyed, Bill? Are you buoyed, at least a little?” Another friend used that term later in the morning: “I’m feeling buoyed.”
Buoyed. Held up. Floating. Light of Spirit.
Tuesday’s election offered many reasons to celebrate, … read more.
Halloween. All Saints Day. All Souls Day. This is the season when we humans have always sensed that the world of the spirit, or the spirits, is most closely aligned with our world. This is a time when the boundary between the living and the … read more.
At church last Sunday, after the 9:15 service, a congregant approached me, with concern on her face. “Can the new assault on the trans community be true? Haven’t you seen the news?”
I had not. She was referring to the unconscionable proposal to require that gender … read more.
