It is fashionable these days to view New Year’s resolutions with cynicism. After all, we know very well that year after year our best intentions go unrealized. Still, I view the whole custom of New Year’s resolutions with sympathy and even with delight. They are an opportunity for us to express our often latent but ...Read more »

The facility in which I’m incarcerated is a tightly-packed, poorly maintained, old building, with no air-conditioning in the southern housing units where I’m located. A heat wave lasting over a week with high humidity and triple-digit temperatures causes a degree of suffering, especially for older and ill inmates, that I’m sure would cause a public ...Read more »

Last summer I was in Ely, Minnesota, a small town at the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, millions of acres of wild land. I was in the combination sporting goods/book store. Standing in line, I could see a sign that said something like, “We think this book is so important that we are ...Read more »

I think I deserve to be congratulated. For the first time ever, I have actually kept a New Year’s resolution. Yep, from the first of January 2010 right through to January 2011 I have consistently and diligently followed through with my resolution. This, in the face of the fact that hardly anybody ever actually does ...Read more »

Letters swallow themselves in seconds. Notes friends tied to the doorknob, transparent scarlet paper, sizzle like moth wings, marry the air. Read more »

Everything’s got a story in it. Change the story, change the world. —Terry Prachett

Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are. —Bertolt Brecht

“Nourish beginnings… Not all things are blest, but the seeds of all things are blest. The blessing is in the seed.” —Muriel Rukeyser

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” —Ernest Hemingway

“You cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.” —C.S. Lewis

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” —Seneca

“Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.” —James Baldwin

“There are cracks, cracks, in everything — that’s how the light gets in.” —Leonard Cohen

“Every intersection in the road of life is the opportunity to make a decision.”—Duke Ellington

When your child or infant is in the hospital, ill or injured, you may feel like all of life’s “knowns” are turned upside down. Suddenly unmoored, you may be struggling… Read more »

A disaster strikes fiercely and suddenly. It shatters our homes and property. It puts an end to many community services. It plays havoc with our interiors. A disaster leads people into and through stages of despair. Our once-so-comfortable-existence is replaced with anger, grief, frustration, and confusion. Looking back, I now see this after the disaster ...Read more »

For the first couple of months after I found AA I looked around to see if I could find a program without this kind of God language. With time I realized … Read more »

Illness, including mental illness, is nothing for which an individual should be blamed or shamed. But doesn’t our UU theology hold a fuller revelation? Read more »

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. (Rom 12:9-10) Read more »

We UUs value knowledge; we believe in facing the facts and tackling problems rationally. The human psyche does not always cooperate, however. What do we do when irrational—perhaps nonrational—fears seize us and send us running from the knowledge? Read more »

When we become ill, we discover what it means to be a human “being” as opposed to a human “doing.” Read more »

Unitarian Universalists hold justice to be a particularly important aspect of right relationships among human beings. But how can we temper justice with mercy? Read more »

Mental illness, like our faith, is a journey with no definitive answers and no correct path. Our illnesses demand a lot from us. There are no universally guaranteed medications or treatments; we must find what works for us. Read more »

If we look beneath memory loss and the inability to reason, we may be surprised to discover what persons with Alzheimer’s reveal to us … Read more »

For many of us, it proves impossible to limit religious thought to a narrow creed. The more we learn, the more difficult it becomes to restrict ourselves to the definition of ultimate reality, or God, that we grew up with, or held when we were young. Read more »

Caregivers often must put the rest of their lives on hold to attend to the sick child. But those of us in that role must also take care of ourselves so that we are strengthened to give that care. Read more »

What do we want for our children? Love and happiness, perhaps, are a good place to start. Read more »

Rather than seeing new babies as tainted by original sin, we see them as whole and beautiful, just as they are. Read more »

Whether we suspected it was coming or were taken completely by surprise, we have lost a job and we are likely stunned. In most cases it is not because we did something wrong and are being punished. Read more »

Many of us have long since mastered the art of despair. Many of us have fallen into despair’s trance, memorized by thoughts of suicide. Read more »

Optimism is often held up as a cardinal virtue. No matter the situation, we feel we should be plucky, searching for that silver lining, and courageous. Yet… Read more »