The lemniscate, or Devil’s Curve, is a polar curve that traces back and forth in a series of loops. In a bonded community, we might feel safe enough to be vulnerable and authentic. In turn, this kind of vulnerability breeds the bonds of trust that build community.

Where does individual responsibility lie in this dynamic, and where does the community’s covenant-keeping make space for individual hearts to open? How do we balance the need for strong bonds of trust with an openness to new members in the community?

Please join us for this service where we will celebrate Rev. Dena MePhetres’ 10 years of service to our congregation, and explore the lemniscate interplay between trust and openness.

We can belong in a place, but might we also belong “to” a place? How are our bodies connected to the world around us? What is the relationship between a place and its people and their place?

Join us to reflect on belonging to a place on this Sunday before Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

We usually think about belonging in terms of the quest to find a place and a people where we feel at home, where we fit in, where something hard and protected in us can finally soften and relax.

We usually think of belonging as a choice and a one-time event. What if it’s a process instead? How would our relationships and community change if we think of belonging as a process of becoming, being and giving belonging to each other and those we have yet to meet?

Expectations are inherently about the future, binding them in time. What happens when a lack of time, or uncertainty about how much time is ahead, unmoors expectations?

Join us for this service that explores time, mortality, freedom, and the song of the present moment.

Balancing our expectations and responsibilities is difficult when we can’t predict the future. How do we regain our balance when life brings surprises? What happens to families when a child’s journey is not the one that was expected? What is our responsibility as a faith community in supporting families and meeting parents’ expectations for us to help raise their children?

There is a qualitative difference between a sense of expectancy, and having expectations. High expectations can lead to regular disappointment, while an open expectancy leaves room for mystery and surprise.

As a people, how might we dial down the concreteness and height of our expectations, and leave room for an open hope?

Join us for this service that leans away from expecting perfection and towards opening ourselves to wonder and even awe.

People use the phrase “we’re expecting” when they are planning to have a child. What are we birthing together as a people?

Join us for this Ingathering Sunday, where we will celebrate coming together, introduce our new staff members, and explore what we expect to create in the world.

The sacred idea of rebellion begins in our hearts, in the soles of our feet, and the centers of our palms. This work is hard, but it is necessary. In the space of beloved community, we will explore how we can best hold rebellion in our hearts and minds to combat today’s modern society and the forces of hate.

Aristotelian and Buddhist ethics can enhance each other. The outcome can be behaviors conducive of a more flourishing and fulfilled life.

Having a clearer sense of the philosophical underpinnings of one’s moral / ethical system and how those underpinnings connect with Unitarian Universalist principles can strengthen and vivify our moral lives. Their systems, Aristotle’s and the Buddha’s, are in many ways complementary, but they also differ in some interesting and fundamental ways. These understandings can be both enlightening and practicable.

Inspired by the Great Lakes, this service will outline the evolution of Rev. David Kraemer’s naturalistic, theological humanism.

The Rev. David Kraemer serves United Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Waukesha. He previously served for two years as interim minister in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and as intern in Rockford, Illinois. He is a graduate of United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities and was ordained in 2015 at his then-home church in Rochester, Minnesota. He is a former journalist, working as a reporter and editor at newspapers in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa. He has been an avid canoeist and kayaker, but admits he doesn’t find the time to paddle as much as he used to.