Finding Healing Through the Mail
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Many UUs don’t realize that the CLF ministers to over 350 incarcerated members through its Prison Ministry Letter Writing Program. Rev. Patty Franz matches incarcerated members of the CLF with freeworld UUs for the exchange of friendly letters. Members of my own family don’t understand why I do this. “If a person has done something terrible then they deserve to suffer, so why bother?” Why indeed?
From Your Minister
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I wanted to see Harriet Tubman’s grave.
I wanted to see it enough that I drove from Boston, Massachusetts, to Rochester, New York, about 400 miles, for a speaking gig I ordinarily would have flown to. Tubman is buried in Auburn, New York, close to Rochester. Read more →
REsources for Living
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For Christians, Easter is a big deal holiday. Unitarian Universalists (Christian and otherwise) tend to focus on the life and teachings of Jesus, rather than his death. But for most Christians the Easter story of how Jesus died—and then reappeared to his friends three days later—is the central mystery of their religion. Read more →
Mending
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How shall we mend you, sweet Soul?
What shall we use, and how is it
in the first place you’ve come to be torn?
Come sit. Come tell me.
We will find a way to mend you.
I would offer you so much, sweet Soul:
this banana, sliced in rounds of palest
yellow atop hot cereal, or these raisins
scattered through it, if you’d rather.
Would offer cellos in the background singing
melodies Vivaldi heard and wrote
for us to keep. Would hold out to you
everything colored blue or lavender
or light green. All of this I would offer you,
sweet Soul. All of it, or any piece of it,
might mend you.
I would offer you, sweet Soul,
this chair by the window, this sunlight
on the floor and the cat asleep in it.
I would offer you my silence,
my presence, all this love I have,
and my sorrow you’ve become torn.
How shall we mend you, sweet Soul?
With these, I think, gently
we can begin: we will mend you with a rocking
chair, some raisins,
a cat, a field of lavender beginning
now to bloom. We will mend you with songs
remembered entirely the first time
ever they are heard.
We will mend you with pieces of your own
sweet self, sweet Soul — with what you’ve taught
from the very beginning.
From the meditation manual, Instructions in Joy, by Rev. Nancy Shaffer, published by Skinner House in 2002. Available from the CLF library or (617) 948-6150.
Healing
April 2011
“Suddenly there is a point when religion becomes laughable. Then you decide that you are nevertheless religious.”—Thomas Merton
Articles
The Impossible and the Laughable
Well, this sermon does mention Jesus and his resurrection. There also will be mention of Pharaoh, Moses, and the parting of the Red Sea. I will speak of miracles and I will also invoke the supernatural — things so mysterious so as to be inexplicable. But bear with me, because my starting point is something ...Read more »
Prayer 101
To keep ourselves halfway decently in tune, we must tinker all the time: here on our anger, there on our bitterness, lethargy, pettiness, or pride. Fully to love we must mute our fears; fully to serve, tone down our piping little egos. In order to produce anything like beautiful music, we must join in the ...Read more »
Finding Healing Through the Mail
Then two years ago I was matched with Alex, who is in prison in Texas. Alex is extremely verbal, very bright, and almost a poster child for how to raise a career criminal. It is possible to look up a prisoner’s conviction record, but I never felt it was relevant to do so. I wanted ...Read more »
From Your Minister
This was in 1993. At the time, I had a picture of Harriet Tubman on the wall behind my computer screen. Her courage and tenacity spoke to me as I was becoming visible in ways I had never dared before, inspired to free my own people. Read more »
REsources for Living
How do souls get healed? Well, there are plenty of different answers for that one. Some Christians would say that the way to heal souls is simply to accept that Jesus has saved you. But UUs tend to expect that each of us is more involved in our own healing, and in the healing of ...Read more »
Mending
How shall we mend you, sweet Soul? What shall we use, and how is it in the first place you’ve come to be torn? Come sit. Come tell me. We will find a way to mend you. Read more »
Healing
“Suddenly there is a point when religion becomes laughable. Then you decide that you are nevertheless religious.”—Thomas Merton Read more »
