Honey
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Luxury itself, thick as a Persian carpet,
honey fills the jar Read more →
Ancestors
November 2018
You are the fairy tale told by your ancestors. —Toba Beta
Articles
A Way Out of No Way
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s last speech is now called “The Mountaintop Speech.” Read more »
Spiritual Ancestors
Like many Unitarian Universalists of color (and many white allies), I get tired of white male dominance within our society and yearn for more diverse representation. Read more »
Nominating Committee Seeks Leaders
The CLF’s Nominating Committee seeks members to run for positions beginning June 2019. Read more »
Always
On the morning my grandmother died, I squeezed the juice out of citrus fruits and strained out the seeds with a fork so I wouldn’t drink them. Read more »
And When Ancestors Are Dishonorable?
Many people think of their ancestors as dead and gone, and therefore to be thought about only occasionally and with no real attachment, as if they have no claim on us who live. Read more »
From Your Minister
One sentence launched me into discovery about my ancestors. It’s the first line of a book, Tearin’ through the Wilderness, which my great-Aunt Marie researched, wrote and self-published in 1956, long before self-publishing was a thing. Read more »
REsources for Living
Our ancestors are the people gone before us—blood relations or family of mind and spirit—who guide and instruct and inspire us. Read more »
Audio Recordings
You can listen to audio recordings of Quest Monthly, read back issues or get electronic versions of the text to share with friends (and much more) at questformeaning.org Read more »
Oops!
In our June issue we thanked congregations that had supported the CLF in the past year. Unfortunately, we missed a couple of generous congregations in that thank you. Read more »
An Open Letter to the Closeted Gay Men Who Helped Draft the Nashville Statement
Dear Closeted Gay Men,
You think that, by lobbing the grenades of judgment and hate at other people, at vulnerable people daring to own the truth of our bodies, you protect your own vulnerable selves. In truth, you are terrified. I don’t know you, but I know your name. Your name is Shame. Your name is Self-Hatred. You think that your homophobia protects you. But we know. We can see right through you. The bigger the front, the bigger the back!
How do I know that at least one closeted gay man helped to draft this new statement? Honey, I’ve been around the block. I’ve seen homophobic preacher after homophobic politician busted by a prostitute or male escort, or by someone who recognized them at a sleazy dark gay bar. I’ve seen luggage lifters and men with a ‘wide stance’ in the mens’ room bleating out lies which no longer cover their duplicity, which no longer bury the lie that is the epicenter of all they say and do. You’ve cried to me on occasion, too, wearied by the energy of fighting off who you are but too scared to stop the fight. You are not invisible. And the misery that you foist onto the lives of others is very very real.
I don’t care if you like to lie about your sexuality. To each their own. But when you project your shame and self-hatred on the children who are trying to live into their authentic selves, when you spew out your terror and shame and judgment and try to pin it on God, when you throw it all over people who already have enough hate to deal with in the world, I call you on it.
You Shall Not Bear False Witness Against Your Neighbor.
That’s in the Top Ten from God, unlike the obscure passages you love to cite. And it is precisely this which you are doing.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
That’s the one big one from the man you claim as your Lord. You are violating both parts of this injunction, loving neither your neighbor nor yourself.
And I want you to know you’re not fooling anyone. We know that your homophobia is rooted in your own desires for men, which you hate. Science backs me up. When electrodes are wired to men’s genitals and they watch male-centered erotic materials, the virulently homophobic men have strong arousal. The gay and bisexual men are also aroused. The non-homophobic heterosexual men, not so much. This physical truth must terrify you. Perhaps you have spent a life distancing yourself from your body, sternly telling yourself that if you don’t act on your innate desires, you will stay in God’s favor.
What a waste of time, honey. What a waste of your life. Why don’t you stop hating yourself and see how much less hate you have to spew on other people? Why don’t you enjoy the gift of sexuality that God gave you and celebrate the diversity of genders and sexualities God put into the world?
I am one of the hundreds of thousands of people of all faiths who welcome and celebrate diversity of sexuality and gender, as well as every other kind of diversity given as a gift to us on this earth. I wish you could climb out of your prison of hate and join us.
In the meantime, I’ll keep reminding you that I see you. You will be judged by the actions you take, and the effects that they have on the lives of others. You’re not fooling me. And you’re certainly not fooling God.
Charlottesville is Us
This morning the nation must look squarely at images of people marching through Virginia with hateful slogans, confederate flags, and Nazi swastikas, who proudly proclaim that White Lives Matter and scream hateful epithets about Jews and gays and immigrants, who believe that slavery reflected a natural order. Some will say, in coffee hours in Unitarian Universalist congregations, that THOSE people are the white supremacists and people like Unitarian Universalists should not call ourselves that because it is confusing, people might think we are like them. I dearly hope those words will not be spoken from our pulpits. Read more →
We Belong to Each Other
The song “From You I Receive, To You I Give” is a beautiful articulation of how we serve one another in community. You can learn this song together as a family and sing it at bedtime, as a meal blessing, or any time you want to celebrate belonging together as a family.
Lyrics: 
From you I receive, to you I give.
Together, we share and from this, we live.
(To lead this song as a round, have the second group enter when the first group completes the line “From you I receive… “)
Listen as Rev. Lynn Ungar sings this song, and then join in!
(Words and music by Joseph and Nathan Segal)
In the Circle of Love
The poet Edwin Markham, who was born in 1852, and became the poet laureate of Oregon from 1923-1931, was invited to read his poem “Lincoln, Man of the People” at the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial in 1922.
But UUs most often remember him for a tiny little poem that expresses his Universalist beliefs in love that is big enough to include everyone—and offers a radical understanding of belonging. The poem, called “Outwitted,” says:
He drew a circle that shut me out—
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!
Think about what the poem says: He wanted to shut me out and say that I didn’t belong. He said that my beliefs made me someone who had to be pushed away. But because I live from a place of love, I did something very clever and sneaky—I found a way to include and welcome him, even when he wasn’t willing to include or welcome me.
That’s Universalism—love big enough to offer belonging to every human soul. Not because everyone is like us or even necessarily likeable, but because Love is big enough to include everyone.
