When money feels tight and the future feels uncertain, it’s easy to get into a bunker mentality. Yet humanity’s survival has always been more dependent on the strength of our communities then the wealth of any individual. In frightening times like these, how can we strengthen our trust in each other?

As the season turns to spring and we celebrate our annual intergenerational Flower Ceremony, we reflect on what the garden can teach us about awakening love and justice in our hearts and in this maddening and beautiful world. All are invited to bring a flower to participate in the in-person ceremony (we’ll have extras too), wear floral prints, or have flowers with you on your zoom screen at home.

Dare I say it? There I said it! Let us gather and meet with agency and transformative action the dystopian realism of these days. However, the most vital step is determining and practicing these values in our daily lives as individuals and communities.

“Unitarian Universalism is a living tradition that has changed in many ways from the original Christian roots of its Universalist and Unitarian heritages, and it continues to evolve today.” At the General Assembly in June 2024, UUs voted to replace the existing Seven Principles and Six Sources language in the bylaws of the Unitarian Universalist Association with language describing Unitarian Universalism through the shared values of Interdependence, Pluralism, Justice, Transformation, Generosity, Equity, all centered around Love. UUA bylaws mandate that this review and revision process be done every 15 years.
However, the most vital step is determining and practicing these values in our daily lives as individuals and communities.

In these days when our values and our very lives can feel under daily assault, how do we balance the need to tend to our souls with the need to rise strong for healing and resistance?

Join us in our annual Music Sunday service as we ponder the heavens through music and poetry exploring the mysterious wide universe our blue boat is sailing through. The various ensembles of the Music Ministry will lead us in star-inspired works in a music-centered worship experience.

“No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark” writes Somali British poet Warsan Shire. How might our lives, and our world, change if we transformed our instinct to “banish” people or parts of ourselves into the faithful work of healing, loving, and making whole?

How can we continue to encourage one another on the path of self-discovery, self-determination, reclamation of identities, and solidarity with vulnerable and marginalized identities?

Seeking out and rooting ourselves in relationships that transform us and the world around us is the start to dismantling oppressions. Amidst the federal assault on anything that advances the gifts of diversity, equity, inclusion, and shared thriving in our world, how do we continue to work toward what Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called “the beloved community?”

The descent into tyranny often involves the populus slowly accepting small new oppressive practices, one at a time, until they find themselves in a “new normal” that they never would have accepted at the start. In these times, how do we make ‘normal’ the work of respect, justice, and mutual support?

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of his belief that we can “transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood” to a national gathering of Unitarian Universalists in 1966. This Sunday as we honor Dr. King’s legacy and look ahead to a new political era, where does our hope for transformation in our time lie?

Each of us is shaped by the stories we have been told, and the stories we tell ourselves, about who we are. Yet there are times when old stories can limit how we grow into the next version of ourselves. Join us this morning to dedicate children and wrestle with the age old questions of nature, nurture, being, and becoming.