In eighth grade, we were assigned a project: to make a poster about some part of our ancestry. I made mine about the story of the 1930 migration, from Germany to the United States, of my great-grandmother, her husband, and their three children. My great-grandmother, Emma Johanna Jacoba Kranenburg...

Note: this reflection was written at the end of Rev. Janis-Dillon's week in Samos, Greece working in a Syrian refugee center. The people of Samos, Greece have done something that sounds ordinary, only it's not: they have treated the Syrian refugees like human beings. Past the terror of the rubber...

We hear it said we are witnessing a “clash of civilizations.” We hear it from presidential candidates, from right-wing talk radio pundits, from white supremacist, nationalist and terrorist organizations. They say we live in the midst of a “clash of civilizations.” This is the first great lie...

For many reasons, people depart. They leave home—or the places given to them, in place of home that might’ve been lost to war—and seek refuge from a thousand dangers and uncertainties. For many reasons—many of them inconceivable to us, who live in relative peace and prosperity—people...

Introduction The Cornbread and Cider Communion is a tradition in some of our congregations. With gratitude for our freedom and for our abundance, let us celebrate this ritual today mindful of Syrian and other refugees who are unable to go home, those for whom we pray safe passage and a welcoming...

Spirit of Hope, God of Many Names, Source of Love, We gather, hearts heavy with grief for our neighbors in Paris, in Beirut, in Baghdad; all cities victimized by terrorists. We pray for the victims, for the families, for the communities marred by chaos and hatred. May they have the resources they...

Every June, representatives of the congregations in the Unitarian Universalist Association gather for the annual General Assembly. Each year as we do so, we try to shed some light on a local issue of justice, and we invite people of all faiths to join us in working to make our world a better place.

"When strangers sojourn with you in your land, you shall do them no wrong, the strangers who sojourn with you shall be to you as natives among you, and you love them as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." Levtitcus is the third book of the Hebrew Bible (sometimes called the Ol...

Source of Life who is known by many names; Over-turner and illuminator of hearts; We gather with gratitude for the earth and all who journey in it. We give thanks for the interconnectedness of all creation....

Am I a guest here. Here in this House. Are you? Are we guests here. Here in this House. And, whose House do we inhabit? In the small world of our lives the borders between us: easements, fences, gates, hedges—serve to delineate, to separate us. To remind us of where my property begins and ends.

On April 25, the Supreme Court of the United States began hearing oral arguments about the constitutionality of Arizona’s S.B. 1070 law, a law that broadly targets undocumented immigrants. Many across the country, including Unitarian Universalists and other people of faith, anxiously awaited the...

Spirit of Truth and Justice Hear us as we ask that you hold the collective anxiety that permeates this fear-filled situation. This is a call to arms. Arms that will hold broken hearts, and elated hearts arms that wrap themselves around a body, beaten and disfigured in truth and metaphorically…...

If you have been paying attention lately, you have been exposed to a mountain of information about the status of immigrants and aliens in the United States. You have heard some of the heart-wrenching stories about separated families and exploited workers, about thousands of deaths as a result of...

"Few of their children in the country learn English Unless the stream of their importation could be turned they will soon so outnumber us that all the advantages we have will not be able to preserve our Language, and even our Government will become precarious." Does this sound familiar? This...

Pity the poor dandelion. It is, in many ways, nature’s perfect plant. With a tap root that grows more than a foot long, it can survive in climates of scorching heat and bitter cold. Its tender, young greens make a tasty addition to any salad, or they can be boiled like fiddleheads or as a tea...

Congregation starts, reading the words in italics. They say I am “illegal”; But so is anyone who ever rolled through a stop sign, jaywalked or threw trash on the ground. Not having a visa is a civil infraction, not a federal crime. They say I am here to take your jobs; But the jobs are often...