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Universalism in practice
Black lives matter.
An unexpected journey
May we remember our power to bless, ourselves, and others.
Grief and weariness
Grief has often worn me out, while restoring me to myself at the same time.
Rise in body or in spirit
Truth be told, I don't think I ever took aging seriously or personally, until recent years.
Will we accompany immigrants and deportees?
What is the 'gospel' Unitarian Universalists have to share with migrants and deportees?
What can you see from your back porch?
I used to think my grandfather's worldview was limited and small-minded.
Yellow shirts for climate action
More than 1,500 Unitarian Universalists took part in the People's Climate March.
Zentangle chalices, doodling, and meditation
Meditative doodling as a Unitarian Universalist spiritual practice.
Embracing a new universalism
We find our completeness in knowing that we are woven out of each other and the cosmos itself.
Poem: Sustenance, body of Earth
I behold this scrap of bread.
Poem: Small bites
No longer greedy / at this magnificent feast.
A kind of mirror
I never considered myself a visual artist, but then, I never expected to have cancer.
Preparing for a hike
Imagine your way through the good route / and also the other route.
Remembering Pete Seeger
To be honest, I still want to grow up to be like Pete Seeger.
T-shirt evangelism
Wearing my Standing on the Side of Love shirt tells the world, including me, what I stand for.
Our visit to Chernobyl
Sabbatical travel allowed us to see history with our own eyes.
Painting: Hal's apple
A 'magickal being' from the artist's Incognito Witch project.
Questions of comfort
Where do you find comfort in suffering if you don't believe suffering has a greater purpose?
Beyond comprehension
Visiting Auschwitz, the imagination can only handle so much.
Sankofa Ghana: A spiritual journey home
What did I need to retrieve from a visit to the slave ships' point of departure?
As I ebb toward the end of life
Hear / the ocean's roar and backdrop din / in the death-hollowed shells.
The only time I was called by my first name
When I was in the Army, the Sunday service was the only hour of my week when I could be my true and whole self.
The necessity of religion
We need a way to pull everything together and celebrate wholeness.
Painting: EJ
'Coming out is kind of like being reborn.'
Painting: Meg
Raised Unitarian Universalist, I have 'no problem with things that feel religious.'
Exhibition: Passing through
Paintings part of an exhibition to honor the experiences and voices of young people.
Birth, breath, and death
Doulas are called to care, to encourage, and to leave the world better than we found it.
The power of visual design for UU evangelism
In our multimedia society, an image's worth is probably closer to a million words.
Poem Proportions
A mélange of garbage / and triumphant blooms.
Simply listening
I hated candles of joy and concern, until I started listening.
Image: Adventure of discovery
Being part of a Unitarian Universalist community means being on an adventure of discovery.
I'll stand her ground
What I'm telling my daughter, an African-American teenager, about Trayvon Martin's death.
Drawing: Pigs
Drawing from a 'weird and highly focused comfort zone.'
May you have ease of well-being
Do I really want to spend this entire day with whatever might come up about my mother?
Meditation: Calling, part two
Being in the world who I was created to be.
Meaning in the midst of war
Easy answers lead to difficult questions. So why not just start with the questions?
Installation: Valley UU Congregation, Chandler, Arizona
Wooden panels created by and for the congregation.
Metamorphoses
Grief and celebration are interwoven in this world, like winter and spring.
A humanist's guide to prayer
What would the prayer of a humanist sound like?
Painting: Walking stick memories
The emergence of character over time.
Poem: Everyday poem
The more I have to lose, all these ordinary joys.
Glass sculpture: We are each other's keepers
Symbols of infinity and the interconnected life force.
Golden hours
Time is the most volatile and elusive element in our lives.
Poem: Joy
I want to believe it is something more.
Workshop of being
Where was I to find a liberal religious community in the middle of Kansas farm country?
Speaking with many voices
True multiculturalism means being humble and brave enough to explore differences.
Meditation on gratitude
We give thanks for the voyage of life from seed to harvest.
Poem: Continuum
I'll return to that time and space that was my home.
Painting: Night dance
Rough, improvisational, many-layered.
I too am beautiful
Look at the way you see me.
Stitching it together
It would be easier to use a blanket, but we ask more of people who enter our churches: We ask them to be quilters.
The taste of awakening
On having a spiritual practice.
The green after
'When I die, I want to have my ashes buried under this tree.'
Sitting and writing
'Small noticings' can lead to larger insights.
Faith and belief
Sometimes grabbing on to what appears most solid is exactly the wrong thing to do.
A different church
They would embrace me in my full Amazon glory, or they could fry ice.
The stars are dancing
Do not sit alone in the dark.
Quilt: O Life that maketh all things new
A minister's sabbatical quilting project.
Textile: My heart bleeds for you III
Today's refuse, sewn together as 'a Garden of Eden.'
Lessons from love
Our weakest parts help us communicate with others.
Sermon bingo
We come to church to hear meaningful words spoken to us.
International flower communion, June 10, 2012
Czech Unitarians mark their church's 90th anniversary.
Seeing what is real
A photographer describes his spiritual practice of "looking for the pattern of things."
Listen from the heart so others can speak from the heart
In Soul to Soul groups, silence can connect us more deeply than using words or questions.
Stained glass: Nautilus
'Paradoxically simple in its beauty and complex in its engineering.'
Me, Jewish?
An odyssey into my family's religious past.
Poem: April wind
Unburden yourself.
Mixed media: Woods sentinel
Interpreting the visual treasures that surround us.
Prayers of desperation
My prayers are prayers of desperation lest I wish ill on the merely irritating.
Wandering in the wilderness
Personal feelings of being in the wilderness can help us tap into a collective force that evidences grace.
Painting: 57th and Broadway at 5:00 pm
The challenge of not relying on recognizable subject matter.
Two poems
I watch the trees / as seasons cycle.
As the crow flies
I aspire to live as the crow flies.
Painting: Snowy bank
A rare storm offers a new scene.
Poem: The day after
The tree alone directing us / To peaceful paths / With its symbolic star.
Winter solstice and the shaman within
It is we ourselves who must don the shaman's mask.
How to give a blessing
I didn't mean to give an honest answer when asked, 'How are you?'
Are you a wretch?
Not every religious tradition asks you to choose your theological stance midway through a hymn.
Loving birds
Modern life interferes with the lessons and warnings of Nature.
How Unitarian Universalists break the rules
Rule breaking just might be right up our alley.
Mixed media: Unity
Celebrating natural, wild forms.
The koan
The 'I' of me is a snapshot of something in motion.
Sculpture: A reliquary of wood
Honoring the native hardwoods of Arkansas.
Sculpture: Unitarian windows
A collaboration yields a classical form.
Slow making
What if our new metaphor for time was craftsmanship?
Sculpture: 88 notes
A piano is transformed.
My patient's faith
Before I began the operation, my patient asked, 'Could I say a prayer first?'
Poem: Getting through another loss
This time, I need the words of a prayer.
Sing me to sleep
I wanted things to go back to normal. I wanted none of this to be happening.
Poem Attitude adjustment
Multiculturalism? Well and good. But don't stop there!
The wisdom of the wild
I don't mean misbehavior, but real wildness, elemental wildness, animal wildness.
Grace wins in the end
'I am a sworn enemy of the saccharine, and a believer in grace over karma.'
Painting: Quarry
Brilliant colors and the 'crazy parts of our lives.'
