We are not automatic lovers of self, others, world, or God. Love does not just happen.

This group blessing is designed to be shared by many voices or read by just one. Alex suggests creating an altar with a chalice and testing supplies (which are then distributed to students as they need them). Speaker 1: We have come to the end of the quarter/semester/year. An end to these classes.

This Message for All Ages requires its leader to feel comfortable soliciting answers from the congregation—both children and adults—and then reframe or summarize each response for all to hear. Will you play a game of “Let’s Pretend” with me? It goes like this: You’re on a television game...

We people, gathered here today on the quest for truth and meaning, bear witness. We bear witness. To the record of human lives extinguished, simply because these people dared to live authentically, we bear witness. To the lives and reported deaths of (number) transgender people, globally, so far...

Traditions and habits can be changed or broken and that’s not always bad. It doesn’t mean we didn’t learn or like what we did in the past, it just means that we moved on to something else and that’s okay too.

We could see the main path to the swimming hole ahead, but we had to pick our way through sand spurs to get there. Behind us were rattlesnakes. What did the youth do? They started playing.

This is a story of in-the-middle for those wondering how their story ends.

People move places for jobs, relations, opportunities, escape, hindering our ability to put down new roots. And yet, we carry a constancy: the still, quiet voice within.

In real life, we can only place the pieces, one by one, and see what kind of picture we create. Sometimes we turn out to have chosen the wrong piece. Sometimes the picture is wildly unexpected.

Last year for Lent, I decided to say yes to any request. I made it all the way to Easter without  having to honor my decision.

An adequate Christmas would have you calm and open, taking it in, accepting whatever is. Slow it all down like you might be, in some way, attuned to the pace of the Eternal. If you need, you can fake it at first.

Your gifts—whatever you discover them to be— can be used to bless or curse the world. The mind's power, the strength of the hands, the reaches of the heart, the gift of speaking, listening, imagining, seeing, waiting Any of these can serve to feed the hungry, bind up wounds, welcome the...

Help us to live in peace together and serve one another and to see the holy light in everyone, even when those holy lights are especially hard to see.

Jesus was a teacher, long ago, of love and compassion.

A Free Retelling of the Shevirat haKeilim (from the Kabbalah) At the beginning of time, before anything else at all existed, Love was all there was, and it filled up everything in the whole universe. But Love got bored and lonely. There was no one to be in love with....

He's not where he is supposed to be. He should be practicing sprints in the desert sun with all the other aspiring Marines, but instead he is here, retreating into the quiet shade of the chaplain's office, the one person who won’t yell at him. Since he was seven years old, he wanted to be a...

Prayer of Thanks for Hoes & Scythes & Spatulas & Toothbrushes & Binoculars & the Myriad Other Tools & Instruments That Fit Our Hands So Gracefully & Allow Us to Work with a Semblance of Deftitude Lovely little inventions, just right for the job at hand—a lawn edger, for example, or an arrow, or...

Sisters, I stand before you without homily or lecture or opinion. I stand here naked on the page. I stand here with my hands extended in helpless prayer. I will never know your pain. I will never know your agony of spirit. I will never know the dark nights of your souls. I will never know the...

Our Time for All Ages this morning is a time of make-believe. I’d like you to put your imagination caps on so that we can pretend together. Raise your hand if you've ever been to a baseball game. How many of you follow a team you think of as “your” team? Well, I have bad news. (Here’s the...

The light green shoots of blossoms-to-have-been are out of sight under the drifting snow. Gale force winds are rattling the old house. The temperature is far below freezing. Nature is not cooperating with preparations for Easter. The storm evokes the spiritual quality of Good Friday more than...