From the Pulpit

In a time filled with as many violent images, incidents, and impulses as ours, how can we hold to a vision of nonviolence? When we wish people “the peace the season” in the coming holidays, can we imagine how peace might feel and seem — for us and for them? Hear the Rev. Dr. Kelly […]

As we continue to explore our 2021-2022 Touchstone theme of “Repairing the World,” we recognize how imperative an ethic of non-violence is for everyone’s survival. Hear worship associate Lynn Foreman give her reflection on the November Touchstone of “Nonviolence.”

What are the elements of a grateful outlook on life? How can we frame the past, present, and future tenses of our lives in terms that reinforce gratitude for our very existence? Apart from the fourth Thursday in November, where and when can we be grateful in public — and communally? Hear Senior Minister the […]

“An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind,” we have heard. While we know that we don’t want to be punching or bombing or shooting people as a way to settle our differences or to get what we want, what does it mean to be nonviolent in how we approach community life? […]

Why has it always been so important for us to share our individual losses with others in our community? How are our experiences of grief unique? What makes our mourning more universal? Hear Senior Minister the Rev. Dr. Kelly Murphy Mason preach her sermon “Shared Remembrance and Singular Loss.” This sermon was given Sunday, November […]

How do we come to understand who we truly are as people: by the words we use, by the choices we make, by the commitments we keep, by the relationships we form over time? What does it mean for us to keep faith with with one another — and with ourselves? Hear Senior Minister the […]

“The ripeness that our development must aim at is one which makes us simpler, more truthful, purer, more peace-loving, meeker, kinder, more sympathetic,” Dr Scweitzer wrote. “That is the only way in which we are to sober down with age.”

According to him, when we finally sober down, we replace our youthful idealism with something that is “full-grown” instead, full-grown and sturdier. Imagine yourself full-grown. Whatever your age is, imagine your soul full-grown. Imagine it alongside the other full-grown souls that your fellow sojourners are in possession of today. What do each of you individually revere? What do we revere collectively at UU Wellesley Hills? What does any of us UUs revere without reservation? The lives we lead answer the questions we routinely ask ourselves.

So pose this one now. What do you revere? Pose it once more. Pose it time and time again, and all the days of your life.

During this prolonged pandemic, in times as uncertain as ours, what might help us find our way back to feeling more at home in the world? Hear Guest Minister the Rev. Hank Peirce preach his sermon “Living in Mysterious Times.” This sermon was given Sunday, October 17th. The Rev. Hank Peirce comes from old Swamp […]

"One of our guiding UU principles is respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part, and we need to understand the part we play in it America now, the part we have played, and the part we would like to play well into the future. “And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that make one circle, wide as daylight and starlight… to shelter all the children of one mother and one father,” the Lakota medicine man Black Elk said, “and I saw that it was holy.” Can we see so many interlocking circles? Can we appreciate how enormous and inclusive they are? Can we revere them as holy?"

It is often said that human beings are social animals — but what sort are we: herds or packs or gaggles or flocks or… ? How can connecting with creature life make us more fully (and joyfully) human? Hear Senior Minister the Rev. Dr. Kelly Murphy Mason preach her sermon “Flock of Us”. This sermon […]