The Journey to Marriage Equality
“Here is a place to bring your whole self and find sanctuary, nurturing, replenishment, love, and faith in the world we can and will build together.”
Unitarian Universalists stand as a beacon of love and hope during a national debate on LGBT rights. Our faith supports the inherent worth and dignity of every person, with no exceptions. Whether you are single or in a relationship, we believe that love is a gift from God. We also believe that loving couples of all kinds should be able to marry.
This belief is lived out within each person’s own personal call to faith, among congregants who gather for worship and service, and out in the world working for social change. The Unitarian Universalist campaign, Standing on the Side of Love, is described on their web site as, “a public advocacy campaign that seeks to harness love’s power to stop oppression.” It continues with, “No one should be dehumanized through acts of exclusion, oppression, or violence because of their identities.”
Losing a Job
We Are Not Moving On
We are not moving on
we are embracing our mourning
we are sad enough to know we must laugh again
no one deserves a tragedy
we are better than we think and not quite what we want to be
we will continue to invent the future
we will prevail—Nikki Giovanni (2007)
Unitarian Universalists affirm the inherent worth and dignity of all human beings. Inherent means that worth is not dependent on what we do or what we have. It is simply part of our being. We are part of the interdependent web and we have value.
Earth and Spirit: Belonging to the Earth
As the crickets’ soft autumn hum
is to us
so we are to the trees
as they are
to the rocks and the hills—Gary Snyder
What does it mean to belong to the Earth?
Alcoholism
Step Three: “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”
People say this step is a great tool in pain management—asking a person to turn her or his will and life over to the care of God, as we understood Him. In my alcoholic bottom I cringed when I first heard this approach. I said, “This is not what Dr. King taught. Dr. King taught people to sacrifice in order to help make the world a better place.”
For me AA’s, “Let Go and Let God,” conjured what Catholic Bishops working on the side of the landed elite told the peasants of Latin America.
Incarcerated Family Member
“We…covenant to promote and affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person.”
—Purposes and Principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association
Unitarian Universalists hold justice to be a particularly important aspect of right relationships among human beings. Among the Principles and Purposes that UU congregations covenant together to affirm and promote are “justice, equity and compassion in human relations,” and “the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.” And among the sources from which our living tradition draws, we lift up “words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love.”
But how can we temper justice with mercy?
Parenting a Child with Autism
“You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you.”
—Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
What do we want for our children? There is no one answer for all of us, and our individual answers likely change as we watch a child change and grow into a person with particular wants and needs.
But at a very basic level, I believe there are some things most of us would agree we want for our children—love and happiness, perhaps, are a good place to start. Sure, we know that no life escapes heartbreak or sorrow, but our hope is that the scales will tip in the direction of love and happiness.
Meeting Alzheimer’s: Companionship for Caregivers
“Caregiving is a defining moral practice. It is a practice of empathic imagination, responsibility, witnessing and solidarity with those in great need. It is a moral practice that makes caregivers, and at times even the care receivers, more present, and thereby more fully human.”
—Dr. Arthur Kleinman, Harvard Medical School Professor and primary caregiver for his wife, Joan
Based on what we know about Alzheimer’s disease and the observations we may make with “eyes to see but do not see” and “ears to hear but do not hear,” we could erroneously conclude that the potential and purpose of persons with Alzheimer’s is all used up. In order to discover their potential and purpose, we must look at them with the “fresh” eyes of one who is looking for the holy. Then, it is up to us—those who know and love persons with Alzheimer’s—to reveal their value so the rest of the world can also see and appreciate them.
Living in a Multi-Racial Family
We Unitarian Universalists…are mosaic makers. We piece together truths from world religions, science, poetry, and personal experience to create a whole. We believe revelation is not sealed. New truth can be revealed in every moment. Each person contributes their unique piece to the mosaic of community. Out of our broken pieces, together we create beauty.
—Rev. Bill Hamilton-Holway
Our Unitarian Universalist faith embraces and celebrates diversity. Our principles declare that every person has inherent worth and dignity and all of us are part of an interdependent web of life.
But for those of us who live in multiracial families, this ideal of diversity meets the messiness of putting it into practice in our homes, both our family homes and our spiritual homes.
Parenting a Child with a Life-Altering Illness or Condition
“Like they tell you on the airplane: first, put on your own oxygen mask. Then, you’ll be able to put your child’s on them.”
Bad things happen to good people. We know this, but when something happens to a child, when they are diagnosed with a serious illness or condition, their illness also “happens” to their parents or caregivers. 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.
Realities of a New Baby
“A new baby is an amazing miracle, radiating promise, evoking some of the most intense feelings of love. And at the same time…completely exhausting.”
We welcome new babies into our communities with rituals and ceremonies. We dedicate ourselves, as parents, family, and church members, to helping to raise this child to feel valued, loved, and able to fulfill their potential. Rather than seeing them as tainted by original sin, we see them as whole and beautiful, just as they are.
They are human, though, and just at the beginning of their becoming. They are, as the behaviorists say, “developmentally appropriate.” Which means incredibly needy, unable to adequately communicate, and completely dependent on their parents. Especially at 3 am.
