On Tuesday afternoon, March 31, the Day of Trans Recognition, I received an invitation from one of the planners of the upcoming Pride Festival to go to Leander High School to show support for trans students as they were leaving school that day. The day before, there had been several people...
Ministers and Faith Development Directors accrue sabbatical time for every year they serve a congregation, and I have some building up, so starting next Monday, I will be away for four weeks, through May 5. During that time, we will have some great preachers in the pulpit and pastoral care...
Each Unitarian Universalist congregation is independent. The wonky term for it is “congregational polity.” Unlike those with say, episcopal polity, (like the Catholic church), each congregation sets their own rules, calls their own ministers … and pays their own bills! We do not have Bishops overseeing what we do. But...
As I said in Sunday’s sermon, we are guinea pigs in an experiment that has never been done in the history of humanity: what happens when you subject people to unrelenting information? News, think pieces, entertainment, etc. are not only available, they are aggressively pushed out to our phones, pop-up...
Last Sunday, I talked about Viola Liuzzo, the civil rights (and Unitarian Universalist) hero and martyr. Right now, learning more about the prophetic people who came before us not only honors their stories, it gives us a chance to learn from their lives. There’s much to admire about Viola, so...
What a heartbreaking week, the heartbreak of the killing of Alex Pretti coming right after the heartbreak of the killing of Renee Good. I collect lines of poetry and lyrics of songs in my head, and they pop up often when I least expect them. This week, two dissimilar songs...
Merry Christmas, dear Live Oak congregation! In our family, Christmas and New Year’s blend together without a clear and beginning. We, more or less, follow the maxim that Christmas begins on December 25 and goes through January 5, just as the “12 Days of Christmas” decrees. (And then on January...
This past Sunday, at the end of the sermon, I asked the ushers to come back up to the chancel and to bring their offering baskets with them. I don’t know what folks were thinking – maybe that I was going to ask for a second go-round of people digging...
A personal sharing here. I attended a Grief Retreat for Clergy last week. People have kindly asked about it, and I’m happy to share some of my experience, especially since I believe as a society, we don’t talk enough about navigating grief. As many of you know, the last couple...
I’ve had some requests for more information about last Sunday’s sermon, “To Protect and Defend the Constitution” – I’m posting some of the direct primary sources below. I can also recommend some storytelling about the creation of the Constitution. One you may want to watch with your family is a...