A sermon preached during the Unitarian Universalist Association's 2024 Climate Revival.
Future Visions, Future Selves
The first sermon in the 2024-2025 series, "Future Visions, Future Selves," places play and imagination at the center of religious life.
Grace Lee Boggs: The Next American Revolution
The ninth sermon in the series Lives of the Spirit focuses on the Detroit based activist Grace Lee Boggs.
Remarks Celebrating the Installation of Solar Panels at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston
The remarks I gave at a press conference celebrating the installation of solar panels at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston.
Widening Love’s Circle: Stewardship
The sermon celebrating the start of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston's 2023-2024 stewardship campaign.
Ordinary/Extraordinary; an ordination sermon for J Sylvan
as preached February 26, 2023 at Bay Area Unitarian Universalist Church, Houston, Texas There is much in the ordinary life of a religious professional that more secular people find extraordinary. A friend recently reminded of this over dinner. A word about my friend, he is a well-known writer and war correspondent. Most of us would probably describe his life as extraordinary. He has reported from...
The Ground of Being
as preached at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston, November 6, 2022 We are in the midst of one of liberal democracy’s great civic rituals: the country’s biennial elections. Their stakes seem to be much higher than usual. In the past weeks, I have talked with more than few of you who have reported losing sleep about their possible outcomes. Pundits, politicians, scholars, and a...
Act Upon Hope
as preached at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston, November 13, 2022 This past summer, I had the opportunity to hear the Commoners Choir in concert. The show was part of their Hope & Anger tour. They are a British folk choir that sings all original compositions. Our choir sang one of their pieces, “Hope,” earlier in the service as today’s special music. It was the song’s North...
To Give, To Receive
as preached at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston, October 16, 2022 The Unitarian Universalist theologian Rebecca Parker has always been clear eyed about the purpose of our religious communion. In essay after essay, in book after book, writing alone or with a collaborator, she has told us that we gather in “hope for the recognition and realization of paradise on earth, rather than...
The Sacred and the secular
A sermon about the nature of the sacred and the secular offered during the Jewish High Holidays.