Do you remember RuPaul’s hit Supermodel? RuPaul is the fantastic drag star who famously promotes self-love and igniting your spark within. He knows doing it is tough but possible. He puts it this way, “Look at me–a big old black man under all of this makeup, and if I can be beautiful, so can you.” … Continue reading Wisdom to Love Yourself
In the midst of this presidential season we are stunned by impeachment and primaries. I recall a simpler time when a general, Dwight D. Eisenhower, defeated a Unitarian Universalist, Adlai Stevenson. Then as now folks asked, “What will happen next?” Here is the video of the reflection and sermon “I Like Ike“
Our children teach us about creativity is that life’s waiting room is really a playground if we persist in having a perspective of playfulness. Practical Creativity is playful persistence. Practical creativity has its being and its power in the way we move among the everyday events of our living, the way we move from obstacles … Continue reading Practical Creativity
What our children teach us about creativity is that life’s waiting room is really a playground if we persist in having a perspective of playfulness. Spiritual Creativity is about being like children with their toys. We must be willing to turn our pain and problems upside down and look at them anew; we must be … Continue reading Spiritual Creativity
Use it up; wear it out, make do; do without. That’s the mantra of my New England upbringing. I am a native of New Hampshire which prides itself as being the most frugal place in the country. The motto on New Hampshire’s license plates is often mistaken as a patriotic slogan, when, in fact, the … Continue reading Use It Up
Born in Vancouver, B.C. in 1946, guest preacher Rev. Doug Wilson moved to Santa Barbara when he was five. After graduating from UCSB in religion and philosophy at age 20, he went to Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley and in 1971 he was ordained in the First Unitarian Church of Brooklyn. That summer he was … Continue reading Love Lives at the Heart of the Universe
MLK Jr. urged UU’s in his 1964 Ware Lecture to wake up and stay woke. He talked about Rip Van Winkle. We remember that Rip Van Winkle slept twenty years. When he went up to bed the sign on the Inn had a picture of King George III of England. When he came down, the … Continue reading Woke
Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards wanted to go to the 1988 Winter Olympics and compete as a ski jumper. There were a couple of obvious problems with this. He was about 20-pounds heavier than the average ski jumper, he had no sponsor and his trainers spoke languages that he could not understand. But sometimes, you just … Continue reading The Integrity of Your Future Self
Finding work with integrity and commitment is never easy, but throw eternal damnation and social rejection into the mix and the vocation becomes near impossible. Nobody knew this better than the Sin Eater, a spiritual healer who operated in England, Scotland, and Wales from the Middle Ages all the way up to the early 1900s. … Continue reading Integrity and Commitment are Dangerous
The Emancipation Proclamation went into effect January 1st, 1863, declaring that all enslaved people would be “henceforth and forever free.” Yet it did not free all enslaved people. As we move into a new year, what are some of the ways we are kept from freedom? What are ways we can offer and work for … Continue reading Let Us All Be Free
