Vincent van Gogh is, easily, one of the world’s most famous artists. But during his life, society marginalized him for his Madness and mental illness. After his suicide, his family continued to celebrate his art, forever enshrining it in our culture. In this service, we’ll reflect on how Madness can gift us spiritual clarity, and explore the role memory has to play in building a more just world.

Many of the texts we see as foundational to our collective understanding of the world, culture, and faith practices are not native to English, but at one point have been reinterpreted from another language. In this service we’ll explore how Taoism, a philosophical tradition dating back over two-thousand years, can help us think about language, and what it means to truly read and understand what another human has written.

Writing has served as a powerful spiritual discipline since time immemorial. Through the practice of putting words to mystery, inner longing, and sacred silence, writing becomes a connecting, enlightening, and healing ritual: a way to witness the divine in everyday, to reflect on human existence and purpose.
Poetry, especially, distills truth with reverence, offering a contemplative path where language becomes an ever-unfurling prayer and ever-unfolding practice of Being, and each word is both a step inwardly and a bridge to All That Is.
What if we were to write and honestly (re)write ourselves into evolving existence, and in doing so, encounter something+someone.

The impulse to give in to distrust, cynicism, and despair is strong in these dark times, but both science and our faith counsel a different path: not blind optimism, but a practice of hope.

Beth Ralston and service leaders will lead the congregation in celebrating the annual Summer Solstice, the longest day and shortest night of the year which is marked by sun, warmth and growth and abundance of nature. Marking the transition from Spring into Summer, the Summer Solstice has been celebrated for thousands of years by ancient people from all over the world. By sharing readings and poems, and anecdotes, she and other service leaders hope to illustrate the importance for all of us to better understand and experience our personal connections with nature as well as with all of the natural world at this time of year.

“What is religious about sexuality education?
“To offer sexuality education in a congregation is to acknowledge that human sexuality is simply too important, too beautiful, and too potentially dangerous to be ignored in a religious community…
Although our society is saturated with images of sex, those images are often lacking in love and mutual respect.”
What if we were to offer our children, youth, and adults “a vision more consonant with our beliefs and values, and enhance intergenerational bonding and trust?”

Have you ever had an experience that filled you with something that felt sacred, holy, or meaningful beyond words? When we are filled with “the spirit,” what becomes possible in our lives, in our love, and in our work for a more just world?

How can the history and culture of the LGBTQIA+ movements help us all to get in touch with our inherent worth, joy, and power to resist oppression? Join us Sunday to reflect on bravery, receive a glitter blessing, and for all who wish, to head together to the Pride festival afterwards!

In an increasingly dystopian world…
How can we continue to move towards Utopian+Futures (in the best sense of this term)?
Ocean Vuong encourages us to use art to “corrupt” systems of oppression,
as well as to delight for the sake of pure joy and healing.
Ava DuVernay reminds us that “your art will free someone else.”
Then… What if we allow curiosity and imagination to lead us towards liberation,
and into the liminal spaces of “already+not+yet+ and the healthy+worlds+to+be?

Has someone suddenly shown up with exactly what you need at a key moment? Has the course of your life been altered by what felt like a chance encounter? Whether we believe in a higher power or not, what meaning might coincidences – or some may say moments of grace – have in our lives?

“Never get between a mother and her cubs” we are told. How can we be fierce like the mama bear in our work for a more just and peaceful world? Join us this Sunday, whether your relationship with “mothering” is joyful or complicated.

Where is joy in the pursuit of happiness?