When I Die
I would like to believe when I die that I have given myself away like a tree that sows seeds every spring and never counts the loss, because it is not loss, it is adding to future life. Read more →
A Shovel Full of Earth
A few shovel fulls
of earth
await humbly.
Dark brown as only
earth can be—
dug from the fragrant depths. Read more →
New Quest for Meaning Website Launches
We are excited to launch a brand new website! All of the wonderful resources that were on the old site are still here, but now you can find and share them more easily. Plus, we think the design and graphics are much prettier and engaging. We have done a lot of work behind the scenes too, which will help us offer more resources and ways to be in community with each other.
As with any launch, we may have missed a few things and are still working on some areas. We ask for your patience and hope you’ll give us feedback—what you love about the site, broken pages you find, and suggestions for how we can make it even better.
This space is our building, our gathering place. May we grow in it together.
Home Is…
A Spiritual Home for Prisoners
Finding Home
By the Waters of Babylon
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By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down, and we wept when we remembered Zion. In the midst of it all we hung our harps upon the willows. They that carried us away captive required of us a song. They wanted us to sing of joy. “Sing to us,” they demanded, “one of the songs of Zion.” But how shall we sing the Lord’s song in this strange land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill. If I do not remember you, if I do not hold Jerusalem as my chief joy, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.— Psalm 137: 1-6
Home
November 2014
“Home is where one starts from.”—T.S. Eliot
Articles
Home Is…
When I was born, our house was a two-story grey box with a big rock in front of the house the size of a Volkswagen. The builders found it while digging out the basement. Its resting place in the yard was as far as they would move it. Read more »
A Spiritual Home for Prisoners
The CLF offers our 600 prisoner members a spiritual home via UU publications, correspondence courses, and more. Please help keep our Prison Ministry strong and active by donating at clfuu.org or calling 1-800-231-3027. Read more »
Home Is Where You Park It
“Trans or Rez?” A bellhop asks this question of Barton Fink, title character in the 1991 Coen brothers film. Barton Fink is set in the 1940s, when the bellhop (played by Steve Buscemi) was likely clueless about the possible transgender or immigration implications of his question. Read more »
Finding Home
I can think of few words more powerful to me than the word home. It is the word that gives me hope, while at the same time it seems to be nothing more than a dream. It is both unattainable and so absolutely vital to me. Read more »
By the Waters of Babylon
By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down, and we wept when we remembered Zion. In the midst of it all we hung our harps upon the willows. They that carried us away captive required of us a song. Read more »
From Your Minister
A trend which began in the San Francisco Bay Area is now spreading to other cities—the trend of hipsters paying four or five bucks for a piece of toast. Toast. You know, like you make in the toaster. Read more »
REsources for Living
I’ve been enjoying looking at pictures of tiny homes lately—little bitty houses made of cargo containers, recycled materials or just a lot less traditional building materials. Read more »
Coming Home
It happens with the simplest gestures: a door swung open, a light turned on in the hall, the snap of a lock as it opens somewhere unseen inside. Read more »
Working Through Environmental Despair (Excerpt)
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In August, 1978 I chaired a week-long seminar on planetary survival issues. College professors and administrators had prepared papers to deliver on themes ranging from the water crisis to environmental effects of nuclear technology.
As we convened, I took time to acknowledge that the topic we were addressing was different from any other, that it touched each of us in a profoundly personal way. I suggested that we introduce ourselves by sharing an incident or image of how it had touched us.
Mourning
October 2014
Even hundredfold grief is divisible by love.”—Terri Guillemets
Articles
Grief
Each person on this earth has experienced loss. We may think when grief comes over us that we are alone in our mourning, that the smiling chatty folks around us don’t know…but of course they do. Being alive in this mortal world means knowing loss. Read more »
Grief—One Year Later
In writing about her mother’s death, Meghan O’Rourke suggests, “A mother is a story with no beginning.” Read more »
Working Through Environmental Despair (Excerpt)
Just as grief work is a process by which bereaved persons unblock their numbed energies by acknowledging and grieving the loss of a loved one, so do we all need to unblock our feelings about our threatened planet and the possible demise of our species. Until we do, our power of creative response will be ...Read more »
From Your Minister
It was not a surprise when my mother died. Survival rates for ovarian cancer are not high, and hers was in stage four by the time it was diagnosed. Against those odds, she lived three years with a high quality of life. Read more »
REsources for Living
One way of defining religion might be as a place for talking about things that are hard to talk about. What does my life mean? Who or what is in charge? Where did everything come from? Read more »
Offering for Grief
Look! I have made this bowl for you, this large dark blue one with lilies etched across the bottom, around the sides. Read more »
