There is a liminal space of time – between listening and healing – where we get a glimpse of our soul. Bill Monroe, one of the father’s of Bluegrass, called this space, ‘the high lonesome.’ He watched soldiers walk home along railway lines while mourning and moaning about all they’d lost. This is a service to see if we can respond to loss with learning instead of yearning. A commitment to how things could be rather than condemnation of how things have been.

Don Quixote travelled the world fighting windmills. He had a keen eye for the romanticism of what was ‘right’ and ‘just.’ So much so, few others recognized what he was so ardently trying to point out. As he would make a charge against injustice, others would accuse him of fighting windmills. Sancho Panza would, ever-so-carefully, be there to pull him from precipice of disaster. What do we do in this world on the brink of disaster with so few Don Quixotes and so many Sancho Panzas?

Kate Braestrup was not intending to be a UU minister. She has happy to leave that for others who dreamed of such things. But when tragedy visited her unexpectedly, she – quite by surprise – heard the call to offer love and solace from the most unlikely source: her own grief. This service will talk about the true stories that call us to be our true selves.

This past year we experienced a great pandemic, perhaps the twentieth or so in recorded history, and it continues. Like previous disease pandemics, it was accompanied by a pandemic of illogic, untruth and selfishness. Let us work, during this new year and new presidential administration, to infectiously spread a pandemic of logic, truth and love.

Abel Meeropol, like many of us, saw something he could not unsee. And he took it extremely personally. He connected the dots that wove a web of interdependence between himself, black men who were terrorized by racism, the children of spies, and the song no one liked but everyone remembered. This is a sermon about the prejudice that condemns and the acts we undertake for liberation.

Steven Covey wrote the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Habit 2 urges us to begin with the end in mind. That habit, calls us to begin each day, task, or project with a clear vision of our desired direction and destination, and then continue to flex our proactive muscles to make things happen. One of the best ways to incorporate Habit 2 into your life is to develop a clear and focused aspiration. This is a sermon about living our life with our intentions in mind.

Hoshmakatu is a jaded Camel who’s long had others greed strapped to his back. Now he turns his back on the world. He would have entirely missed the miracle that would save his life but for a Lamb who believed in him more than he could believe in himself. Join us for our first ever virtual pageant!

We live in a world of great disparity. Some get a lot. Some get enough. And some live every day on less than enough. The inequity of distribution of wealth and food and housing and privilege is striking when we look at it. What we do to see this or ignore it will determine whether it changes or remains in place.