By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down, and we wept when we remembered Zion. In the midst of it all we hung our harps upon the willows. They that carried us away captive required of us a song.

I can think of few words more powerful to me than the word home. It is the word that gives me hope, while at the same time it seems to be nothing more than a dream. It is both unattainable and so absolutely vital to me.

“Trans or Rez?” A bellhop asks this question of Barton Fink, title character in the 1991 Coen brothers film. Barton Fink is set in the 1940s, when the bellhop (played by Steve Buscemi) was likely clueless about the possible transgender or immigration implications of his question.

The CLF offers our 600 prisoner members a spiritual home via UU publications, correspondence courses, and more. Please help keep our Prison Ministry strong and active by donating at clfuu.org or calling 1-800-231-3027.

When I was born, our house was a two-story grey box with a big rock in front of the house the size of a Volkswagen. The builders found it while digging out the basement. Its resting place in the yard was as far as they would move it.

Look! I have made this bowl for you, this large dark blue one with lilies etched across the bottom, around the sides.

One way of defining religion might be as a place for talking about things that are hard to talk about. What does my life mean? Who or what is in charge? Where did everything come from?

It was not a surprise when my mother died. Survival rates for ovarian cancer are not high, and hers was in stage four by the time it was diagnosed. Against those odds, she lived three years with a high quality of life.

Just as grief work is a process by which bereaved persons un­block their numbed energies by acknowledging and grieving the loss of a loved one, so do we all need to unblock our feelings about our threatened planet and the possible demise of our species. Until we do, our power of creative response will be crippled.

Each person on this earth has experienced loss. We may think when grief comes over us that we are alone in our mourning, that the smiling chatty folks around us don’t know…but of course they do. Being alive in this mortal world means knowing loss.