Lighting the Chalice: Sermons from the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Berks County

Another week. Another tough week.

The Supreme Court struck a blow to unions and collective bargaining.

US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy tendered his resignation.

The House rejected a bill to protect the Dreamers.

 

How can your resilience, your humanity, serve as your spiritual practice in times of trial?

Join us to celebrate the wisdom and spirituality fathers of all shapes, sizes, and connections bring to our lives.

John O'Donohue says, "The state of one's heart inevitably shapes one's life." What is the shape of your heart right now? Is it courage, fear, heaviness, love, forgiveness? Join us today as we explore blessings for these times of confusion and possibility.

This month we begin an exploration of what it means to be a people of blessing. The idea of blessing often gets associated with key life events. We baptize or dedicate a child, bless a new home, consecrate a marriage, do a blessing of the animals ceremony, or pray over the dying. Blessings are offered at vigils and public ceremonies. Often for these occasions a minister or another religious professional is called upon to officiate.

Empathy is not self-satisfied. It does not replace the need to take action. In fact, empathy fuels the commitment to fix systems not people, to dismantle unjust and cruel systems. It fuels the passion for a kinder, more caring world. It fires our commitment to give life the shape of justice.

Collaboration is the art of working together. Doing it well takes creativity, experimentation, and the willingness to learn from our mistakes. How well are we doing in our lives and in our congregation as getting creative together?

Julia Ward Howe, the Unitarian abolitionist who wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic, wanted to establish a Mother's Peace Day. In her 1870 proclamation, she wrote: "Arise, all women who have hearts." This Mother's Day we take our cue from Howe and explore what it means to practice creative resistance.

The Sufi mystic Rumi writes that "you were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life." How are we being invited to emerge into our fullest selves, finding our wings and taking flight?

Join us as we celebrate the sacredness of the Earth and the unique beauty of all its creatures with our Unitarian Universalist Flower Communion. This beautiful ceremony was created by Rev. Norbert Capek, who founded the modern Czechoslovakian Unitarian Church. To learn more about this UU traditional holiday, visit https://www.uua.org/worship/holidays/flower-ceremony or www.uuberks.org.

On the way to becoming butterflies, caterpillars are insatiable, eating and eating. This morning we reflect on what we need to consume in order to emerge more fully into who we are trying to become and what we are trying to create in the world.