Our first principle “The inherent worth and dignity of every person” seems obvious. Of course people have worth and deserve dignity, right? Things are not always as obvious as they seem. A while ago, in my little liberal church in Salt Lake City, Utah, I gave a sermon about Everything…
The 7 UU Principles
I’ve decided to take a deeper look at the 7 Unitarian Universalist principles. As I look back on my life, and my spiritual practice in martial arts, mysticism, as well as my professional life, I have come to realize that I’ve been living these principles whether I identified myself as…
Shout Out to Micah – Great Sermon
Micah Scarbrough from Humanzee came to South Valley this past Sunday and gave his first sermon. He talked about balance and being a catalyst for change, using his knowledge of Parkour to create a muscular metaphor for balance. It was a beautiful sermon, well done, and the workshop he gave…
RLLS: Heading Home
Last morning at RLLS was full of a sense of deep connection. Though most were clearly eager to return home to their loved ones, there was also a sadness. In worship, we reflected upon how we had successfully built a beloved community together, and took time to think about the…
RLLS: Prophetic Voice
Our Prophetic Voice is not a voice that speaks the future, it is our voice which speaks truth; or at least our voice which speaks our truth, and in particular, the voice that speaks truth to power. This is a short post, because well, its been a long week, and…
RLLS: Building Beloved Community
Beloved Community. “Take care of the people, the all-mighty God can take care of himself.” – Kurt Vonnegut Day 4, or really, Day 3 of classes here are RLLS. There was again, a lot of ground today; what stuck with me is that to create our community, our beloved community…
RLLS: Our Mission and Vision
“Claiming our Mission” Day 2, Day 3 of Classes. “A church that is not growing has a mission problem.” – Robert Latham Mission is simply a bit misty and hard to nail down unless you are working on one. It seems, from the coursework, and my thought, that our mission…
RLLS: Our Covenantal Faith
Covered an amazing amount of ground today; covenantal faith, mission, vision, Universalist history, Unitarian history and small group discussion. Literally some 14 hours of dialog, music and worship. What stood out the most? Even though today was about mission, the importance of our covenants to our faith was what stuck…
RLLS: Gathering
First night at RLLS (Russell Lockwood Leadership School) tonight; we met, did introductions, an ice-breaker name game where everyone added an adjective to their name (there are almost 40 participants so that took a while and was much, much harder than it sounds), broke down into Covenant Groups then back…
Pioneers of Freedom
I read an interesting quote today about Prop 8 from its proponents, Protect Marriage (actually their counsel said this): “For our opponents to say, as they have repeatedly, that there is no rational reason for limiting marriage to a man and a woman except for animus and bigotry is to…