What we accomplish in 2022 will not be done with flash and dramatics. It will be done with quiet spiritual practice, with a commitment to deeper things, and by doing the kind of things that require careful planning and stealth.

Part Six of a history I’m writing, telling the story of Unitarians in Palo Alto from the founding of the town in 1891 up to the dissolution of the old Unitarian Church of Palo Alto in 1934. If you want the footnotes, you’ll have to wait until the print version of this history comes out … Continue reading "Unitarians in Palo Alto, 1926-1947"

                                                       New Year's Day by Taylor Swift.   For Americans New Year’s Day is a kind of low key and lethargic holiday.   Many New Year’s Eve revelers nurse hangovers.   For others it’s a spend the day in pajamas and robe affair to veg out in front of the tube and watch the Rose Parade and endless college bowl games.    It is the biggest day of the year for ordering pizza delivery.   New Year's Eve has long been an amateur night with excessive drinking and mixing of libations, National Hangover Day is an appropriate designation for the first day of the year. There have not been many songs for January 1.   For years we were stuck with U2’s first big ...

The power of invitation and intention go along with each other. On this, the first day of a new year, we have an opportunity to set our intentions for 2022–to invite into our year qualities that will guide us in the months to come. What are you inviting into your life in 2022?

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind." - Kurt Vonnegut This site has been working hard, so it's retiring now.

The meditation group led by Larry Androes will not be meeting on New Years Day (Saturday, 1 January 2022). This meditation group will resume meeting on Saturday, 8 January 2022. This group is a sitting Buddhist meditation including a brief introduction to mindfulness meditation, 20 minutes of sitting, and followed by a weekly teaching. The … Continue reading "No Meditation Group on 1 January 2022 — Meditation Resumes 8 January 2022"

I don’t usually do New Year’s resolutions, but I’ve thought of two that would improve my life that I think I can actually carry through for an entire year. One is to draw a leaf every day of the year. In this I was inspired by my friend Janet, who drew her way through a […]

I am finally embarking on a project to go through all of my papers, now in boxes in the basement. These range from files that I brought from my office when I retired 3 1/2 years ago, to boxes that I have carried around since college. This week I have been going through a box […]

TWH Editor-in-Chief Manny Tejeda-Moreno reviews the biggest stories from 2021. Continue reading The stories that shaped 2021: a Pagan perspective at The Wild Hunt.

    Today is the last day of the year of our Lord 2021. I’m not going to say good riddance. Well. At least not without some qualification. For many of us it’s been hard. No doubt. And there’s not a lot of evidence it’s going to get better any time soon. But. And. In […]

When I talk about class, defenders of capitalism complain that socialists want to divide us. They don’t understand that socialists are universalists who want to unite everyone by ending the class system that capitalists maintain.When capitalists say talking about class divides us, they’re refusing to admit there’s a difference between who we are and what we own. Terms like rich and poor or

The following are the top ten best books I’ve read since this time last year–in alphabetical order by the author’s last name because agonizing over a precise order would take all the fun out of remembering these books: 1. One Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race by Yaba Blay 2. Atlas of the Heart: Mapping […]

Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail is often cited by people who miss one or more of three essential points:1. King criticized black middle-class people as well as whiteSome say King was only criticizing white moderates and quote bits like this:I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White

The cusp of the New Year is always a moment for pause and reflection, looking back over the winding paths that have brought us to the present while gazing ahead toward the road stretching before us. Here at Side With Love, we too join in this practice of breathing in all that has been, and exhaling our hopes for all that is to come.  2021 brought us both the unprecedented, and the all-too-familiar. And while we could catalogue all the heartbreaks of what it means to be alive in this moment, at this turning of the year, your Side With Love team is choosing to look back on this year through the lens of gratitude. Today, we reflect and offer our deep thankfulness for our life-giving faith, for the movements that are leading us and imaginin...

                                                                 Auld Layng Syne performed by the Band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards. Although there have occasionally been other songs that made feeble attempts to displace it, New Year’s Eve belongs firmly to Auld Lang Syne and it promises to remain supreme in defianceof any and all changes in musical tastes and styles. Most of us know that the song comes from a poemby the revered Ploughman Poet and Scottish national icon Robert Burns.  But you may not know the whole story.                                     The Scottish Ploughman Poet Robert Burns. After his first blush of fame with the publication of his Kilarnock Poem...

The sixth day of Kwanzaa celebrates Kuumba, the principle of creativity. People are instructed to reflect on what they can do to leave their communities more beautiful and whole. What are the ways you can add beauty to the world (and to your community) in 2022?

TWH asked our resident tarot expert and news editor, Star Bustamonte for some spiritual insights on the year ahead, Continue reading A tarot spread for 2022 at The Wild Hunt.

“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” — Desmond Tutu

2022 will see UUSC build partnerships in Haiti to lift up civil society organizations and center their leadership.

Giveaway285, CC BY-SA 4.0Thinking about prejudice in Igbo society, I had a simple realization: caste is race because it’s about our parents, not us. Most Americans think race is based on what we look like, but the old phenomenon of race-passing shows that’s not true—in this century, Rachel Dolezal and Jessica Krug were able to pass as people of color until their parentage became public knowledge.

                                                                      What Are You Doing New Year's Eve  by the Orioles. Back in the day everyone who was not a misanthropeor a shut-in went out on New Year’s Eve.   The toffswore their white ties and tails and elegant evening gowns and furs to don paper hats and dance the night way to orchestras in sprawling Art Deco ballrooms.   At least that is what all of the old movies taught the rest of the Depression and war weary populous.   But those average Joes and Jills also went out and celebrated with their own funny hats and noise makers in urban ballrooms, lodge halls, piano bars, and neighborhood saloons.   And it was not just attractive youn...

      It’s the eve of the eve of a new year. At my age with little time to squander, nonetheless I have to say about 2021, goodbye, and good riddance. Although I am not particularly sanguine about how 2022 will shape up. People like to note it is the year, after all, that […]

The past is the past and we can not change it.  The future can be different if we choose to make it so.  We can grow a vision of a more peaceful, happier and harmonious future and work toward it.  The mystery is how we trade complacency for action. What is the next thing you … Continue reading The Future

Tibetan slave, working in the field while shacked“I may not be free under Chinese Communism, but I am better off than when I was a slave.” —Wangchuk, quoted in “In Tibet, a Struggle of the Soul”“Old Tibet was dark and cruel, the serfs lived worse than horses and cattle.” —Dechen Chökyi Drönma, the 12th Samding Dorje Phagmo, quoted in “Female living Buddha condemns Dalai Lama”“When the Chinese

The number of lawsuits filed in connection with climate change, global warming, and environmental concerns has sky-rocketed in the past decade. Continue reading Lawsuits as a tool to mitigate the climate crisis at The Wild Hunt.

Sunday, January 2, 10:30 a.m. Group Healing and Transformation on the Labyrinth Path An Online Service with Lay Speaker Karen Szklany Karen’s first introduction to walking a labyrinth path involved a group gathered around creativity and artistic expression, and that has shaped the relationship she has developed with labyrinths over the past 20 years. When the   [ … ] The post Sunday, January 2 ~ Group Healing and Transformation on the Labyrinth Path ~ 10:30 a.m. appeared first on Unitarian Church of Marlborough and Hudson.

      “Hello Goodbye” Living in the Kali Yuga with a Little Help from the Beatles Silvio Nardoni (My friend Silvio Nardoni is a Unitarian Universalist minister as well as a practicing attorney. He shared this with me and I thought it a perfect New Year’s reflection. I asked for permission to share it, […]

                                             River by Joni Mitchell.   Last week CBS broadcast the Kennedy Center Honors.   First up for recognition was Joni Mitchell, who now stands and walks with difficulty since recovering from a devastating 2015 brain aneurysm rupture but was in good spiritsas the story of her life unfolded on stage along with many of her finest songs.   Among them was River from her 1971 album Blue sung by Brandi Carlile.   It was a breathtaking, wounded,and personal song off the most highly regarded album of her long career.   It is also a Christmas song like none you ever heard before or since.   Mitchell, of course, is the iconic Canadian singer/songwriter, who emerged from ...

The Top 10 posts of 2021 on Under the Ancient Oaks: dealing with troublesome leaders and toxic ancestors, the Law of Attraction, who put the Odal run on the CPAC stage, what kind of a witch do you want to be, and more.

Ujamaa, or cooperative economics, is the fourth principle of Kwanzaa. How do you support Black- and brown-owned businesses with your spending?

Opposition by Columbia's Indigenous communities to illegal mining, the presence of armed groups in the region, and a proposed dam project results in a series of violent attacks on their sacred ceremonial houses. Continue reading Indigenous ceremonial centers destroyed in Colombia at The Wild Hunt.

Wow. It’s been a year of change. As 2021 winds down, I’ll briefly summarize the changes I’ve seen in Unitarian Universalist congregations — some positive, some not so positive, some neutral. Not-so-positive (A) Enrollments of children and teens appear to be falling precipitously. We don’t yet have official numbers from the year-end certification count, but … Continue reading "The UU year in review: 2021"

The Door of No Return, jbdodane, CC BY 2.0“African chiefs were the ones waging war on each other and capturing their own people and selling them. If anyone should apologise it should be the African chiefs.” — Yoweri Museveni, President of Uganda, 1998“We cannot continue to blame the white men, as Africans, particularly the traditional rulers, are not blameless. … In view of the fact that the

  四相詩Poems on the Four States Bu Fu-Ta-shih ［傅大士］ (497–569) Fu Ta-shih was a householder, whose teachings and actions led him to be revered as an incarnation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya. Birth Relying upon the ovum, consciousness arises, birth arises from love and desire. In a time now past he grew up, today he returns as […]

                                                       The Seven Principles by Sweet Honey and the Rock. Today is the third day of Kwanzaa which was created in 1966 during the blossoming of a period of Black Nationalism by Maulana Karenga, a Black studies scholar and a leading Los Angeles militant .   Beginning on December 26 and running through January 1, candles are lit representing values.   Each of the values is given a Swahili name.   Today is day three— Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility) “To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems, and to solve them together.” A Kwanzaa button from the collection of theNational Museum o...

“Because we live with mystery, we trust that which is deeper than we know—which touches our hearts—which steadies us and rekindles our spirits—which, finally, in faith, may be named the love that has laid hold upon us, and will not let us go.” -George Kimmich Beach What will your faith not let go of today? … Continue reading Faith

In this week's Pagan Community Notes, Happy Kwanzaa! A new documentary about Heartland Pagan Festival, an update on Scottish Parliament's exoneration of witches, and more news! Continue reading Pagan Community Notes: Week of December 27, 2021 at The Wild Hunt.

      Today, the 27th of December the Roman and Anglican churches mark out as a feast for John the disciple of Jesus, sometimes called the Apostle, sometimes the Evangelist, sometimes the Beloved. The Orthodox celebrate his life in September. I cannot think of him without thinking of John the Revelator… As with all […]

                                                       The Holly and the Ivy sung by Annie Lennox. Today we feature one of the oldest English carols , The Holly and the Ivy.   Its origins are shroudedin the mist of time.   Pagan greenery was anointed with Christian symbolism. The most familiar melody of several that have been set to the is very old and resembles the songs of the Tudor era 1485–1602 which is why it is a favorite of Madrigal Singers . The earliest surviving mention of the song in print occurred in the early 19th Century when collecting folk music became fashionable.  The earliest recorded version of the lyrics was in a broadside published by H. Wadsworth in Birmingham between 1814 and ...

“May we know once again that we are not isolated beings but connected, in mystery and miracle, to the universe, to… community and to each other.” -Anonymous What connections do you feel today? How do you remind yourself that you are not isolated?

    THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS A Meditation on What Comes Next James Ishmael Ford Here we are. The day after Christmas. With a cup of coffee in hand I turned to the Associated Press newsfeed. The lead story this morning was that Desmond Tutu, retired Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, hero of the anti-apartheid […]

Antonio Pagliarulo describes how his Christmas even changed from his Italian family ritual for removing the evil eye. Continue reading Old-World Magic Transformed My Christmas Eve at The Wild Hunt.

Don’t get me wrong, but sometimes I feel like a grinch. The holidays are fun, but also hard. Expectations often exceed the reality, but there are small miracles that happen too. We had fun, good times, and some chaos that was stressful. I ate and drank more than I should have. As a result, I […]

Pcb21, CC BY-SA 3.0Studies of anti-racism training find it doesn’t work or makes racism worse. The reason seems counter-intuitive to anti-racists: Teaching people to think more about race can make them more racist. But the reason is clear if you remember this old observation:“Try to pose for yourself this task: not to think of a polar bear, and you will see that the cursed thing will come to mind

A repeat of a video sermon from 12/6/2020 - Rev. John shares some thoughts on the importance of pausing amidst the daily rush.  

                                                       The Wren in the Furze by the Chieftains. Today is the second day of the 12 Days of Christmas, a day with multiple personalities as we will see.  The Brits and the residentsof other former pink blotches on Queen Victoria’s globe like many Americans usually spend today, Boxing Day, storming the malls and shops on what is the busiest retail sales day of the year. Disgruntledgift recipients hit the refund and exchange desks while others spend the gift cards and even old fashion cash.   But unlike Yanks they do it on an official National Holiday as a paid day off.  Officially December 26 is just another Bank Holiday.  But Boxing Day is a treasured t...

While I’ve come to accept that sometimes the Pagan community just doesn’t care about something as much as I do, there are times when I find myself screaming “this is important! Why are you not reading this?!”

The first day of the African-American holiday of Kwanzaa asks people to reflect on the principle of Umoja, or unity. Who do you feel unity with? Reflect on what is keeping you from feeling greater unity with all of humanity.

Please join us on Sunday (26 December 2021) at 11:00 AM for ‘A 2022 Poetry Survival Kit:  Poems to Get You Through the Year” with Rev. Barbara Jarrell, Susan Caldwell (All Souls Director of Religious Education), and poetry contributions from our members and friends. Our service will be livestreamed on Facebook Live here. For this … Continue reading "Online All-Ages Worship (26 December 2021)"

For this Sunday (26 December 2021) and next Sunday (2 January 2022), our adult religious education class is taking a holiday break. On 9 January 2022, we will resume our discussion of the podcast episodes Learning How to See with Rev. Brian McLaren, Father Richard Rohr, and Rev. Jacqui Lewis. They are discussing the 13 … Continue reading "No Online Adult Religious Education on 26 December 2021 and 2 January 2022 — Class Resumes 9 January 2022"

We will continue to watch the local COVID numbers.  We feel encouraged by the cooling weather and the possibility of comfortable outdoor activities. We are not resuming regular classes for children and youth at this time because our classrooms are too small to be safe for unvaccinated children, and because we want some time to … Continue reading "Children and Youth Religious Education Updates"

Please join us next Wednesday (29 December 2021) at 12 noon for our weekly Zoom lunch. Bring your lunch and meet up with your All Souls friends, have lunch, and just catch up.

In a special Yuletide offering, Karl Seigfried addresses the god Odin, giving thanks for his gifts at Midwinter. Continue reading Column: To Odin at Midwinter at The Wild Hunt.

This morning, I went for a walk up in the Santa Cruz Mountains. I was expecting showers, and forecast warned me there might even be thunderstorms. But I was not expecting hail. In places, the tiny hailstones covered the ground, looking so much like snow that I decided it was a white Christmas — just … Continue reading "White Christmas"

    I see how I wrote a report for Christmas 2017. A sort of Christmas letter. It seems a good time to add an update. Overdue even, perhaps. Jan & I continue to live in Long Beach, California. Christmas Eve began with a heavy rain storm. Something good considering we’ve been in drought conditions […]

                                                                      I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day sung by Johnny Cash.   This carol is my own personal favorite.   I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day is unusual in that there is no referenceto the Christ child , manger , Holy Family , shepherds, Magi , or even the Herald Angels .   Instead, if focuses on the message of those angels amid the ghastly carnage of war.   It was written not by famed Unitarian hymnist Samuel Longfellow, but by his brother Henry Wadsworth Longfellow , then America’s most honored and adored poet who had created national epics like The Courtship of Miles Standish , The Song of Hiawatha , and Evangeline as well as...

One of the things that must happen as we get together to sing in harmony with each other is to settle on the perfect pitch. And when someone sings a solo in the choir, they do not perform alone. And so it is with a revolution.  There are times when we take turns at the lead, letting our own voices rise and fall in pitch and in volume, and there are times when we hold back, taking a breath. I want to introduce you to a branch of the choir, led by soloist Joe Youcha, who in the spirit of a great choir does not sing alone. The organization he founded, Teaching with Small Boats Alliance, is a good one. I made a small donation today because I believe they, by building small wooden boats with kids, offer many students a chance to actually lea...

                                                                        Joy to the World by Whitney Houston and the Georgia Mass Choir. Note —Christmas Day is good for two great carols. Joy to the World is one of the most exuberant of announcement carols and is a perineal favorite for both choir performance and congregational singing at Christmas services .   Yet it is based on two Old Testament verses said to foretell the coming of the Messiah— Psalm 98, 96:11-12 and Genesis 3:17-18—but like other popular carols it is sung as if it is an announcement of the birth of Christ by angels on high.                          English Dissenter and hymnist Isaac Watts published Joy t...

In the Bible the term mystery is often used.  It denotes a revealing of something that was unknown, unseen, or hidden. Sometimes the mystery is associated with Christ, who is for many the great community maker.  I wonder how he intentionally took people from different stations in life and created community. I wonder whether successfully … Continue reading The Mystery of Christ

Possum asks Dr. Sharpie about the meaning of Christmas. Then Possum asks some of his other housemates, and Muds finally helps him find the meaning of Christmas. As usual, full text is below the fold. Possum: Hey Sharpie, I’ve been thinking about Christmas. Sharpie: Mmm? Possum: I like the Christmas story and everything. But what’s … Continue reading "What’s the meaning of Christmas?"

The meditation group led by Larry Androes will not be meeting on Christmas (Saturday, 25 December 2021) or New Years Day (Saturday, 1 January 2022). This meditation group will resume meeting on Saturday, 8 January 2022. This group is a sitting Buddhist meditation including a brief introduction to mindfulness meditation, 20 minutes of sitting, and … Continue reading "No Meditation Group on 25 December 2021 or 1 January 2022 — Meditation Resumes 8 January 2022"

Join us once again for the reading of the Christmas story, with carols and candles.

I looked around, trying to find the chimes, and saw a woman walking towards me from the east. Tall and graceful, she carried a book in the bend of her arm. She wore a long, flowing gown of pale green, pale yellow, and white. The chiming grew louder as she drew near, but the sound remained pleasing. As she passed by, I asked, "Do you hear that sound?" She laughed in a way that echoed the chimes and answered, "The question is: do you?" Continue reading Column: Elemental Air at The Wild Hunt.

(Click on this link to hear a recorded version of the following piece) —o0o— In 1955, on the eve of his retirement from Union Theological Seminary in New York, the Christian existentialist philosopher and Lutheran Protestant theologian, Paul Tillich (1886–1965), gave an influential sermon called “The New Being.” Not surprisingly, given his Christian upbringing and role, Tillich thought the New Being — or what he also called a New Reality or New Creation — was “certainly manifest in Jesus who is called the Christ.”  But for Tillich — who was fully open to dialogue with other religious traditions and non-Christian philosophies — the manifestation of the New Being was not something confined to the particular, Christi...

John Englart (Takver), CC BY 2.0When Race and Economic Opportunity in the United States came out in 2018, many writers wrote about how racially unequal the US still is and ignored the promising findings: There are places in the US that show no signs of racism. We can apply the lessons from them to end racism in the entire US.The researchers, Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, Maggie R. Jones, and

                                                                      Stille Nacht performed by the  Dresdner Kreuzchor [ Choir]. Note —The second of a Christmas Eve two-fer! By far the most beloved and sung of all Western Christmas carols is Silent Night.   It will be sung tonight at Catholic midnight masses, candlelight services like the Tree of Life UU Congregation’s virtual one on Zoom for the second year in a row , by hardy carolers in neighborhood streets, in many versions on Holiday radio, and in family roomsaround the Christmas tree. Two hundred and three years ago Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht was first performed at St. Nicholas parish church in the village Oberndorf on the Salzach R...

      Last year I gathered a couple of my favorite Christmas poems together. They’re still my favorites. As are those illustrations from Everett Patterson and Fritz Eichenberg. The first of the poems is by the mid twentieth century Unitarian Universalist minister Sophia Lyon Fahs. For so the children comeAnd so they have been […]

A friend, Knud in Stavanger sent these words from Norwegian poet/lumberjack Hans Børli. ”A good/kind word : a seed. – In a hundred years – birds shall build their nests – in whistling wide branches. – God’s oaks – grow slowly on earth…” May these gentle words serve as my season's greetings to you. In a world where whole forests in the Southeastern US are destroyed and marketed as green energy to feed power plants in Europe, and too many of us are consumed and corrupted by the short term, may we think in longer terms (lengre sikt). May we plant seeds that grow into finer things that nourish our families in more meaningful ways. May we think of the days a hundred years hence in which birds nest in our branches. The image...

                                                       It Came Upon a Midnight Clear sung by Mahalia Jackson.   Note—Both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day deserve bonus two-fer entries! In churches around the world this evening announcement carols will be central to the services.    Many are bold and glorious whether sung by massed choirs or by congregations who know them by heart.   Adeste Fideles ( O Come All Ye Faithful ) and the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah are two of the grander examples.   Although there are plenty of others in Christmas song books , my personal favorite is much more modest. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear is one of the oldest and most beloved of American Christmas ...

On the eve of Christmas, Christians around the world over put themselves in a space of possibility. The birth of the infant Jesus is heralded as the birth of new possibilities into the world. What would you do if only it were possible?

Because I am working on a writing project I have become obsessed with a small factoid that is completely unrelated to the subject of my writing. Specifically where does the term “Christ Consciousness” come from? I kind of assumed it came from Theosophy. And it might, although a search of pdfs of Madam Blavatsky’s two […]

According to Pew Research Center, the number of U.S. adult Christians is decreasing, a trend observed in other research. Continue reading Studies show US Christians decreasing in number at The Wild Hunt.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas sung my Judy Garland to Margaret O'Brien in  Meet Me in St.Louis . We are closing in on the big day and haven’t honored some of the greatest secular songs from the Golden Age of American Christmas Music.  In particular we have been remiss in failing to share the greatest performance of a modern Holidaysong ever.  Period. No arguments.  The crown goes to Judy Garland singing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas to Margaret O’Brien in the 1944 film classic Meet Me in St. Louis. As the Coronavirus pandemic resurgesand rages yet again, the throat catching melancholy of Garland’s performanceis more resonate than ever. In some ways the role of the second daughter Esther of the comfortably midd...

The baby carried by Mary in the Christian Scripture is more than just a baby. Within her is growing hope for the world. Within her is growing a new way of human relations. What is growing in you?

Peter Kasin, the coordinator of the monthly sea chantey singing from San Francisco Maritime Historical Park, sent out a holiday greeting filled with fish puns. I love fish puns. Even though they give some people a haddock, and other people carp about them, and still others say that puns are crappie — I love fish … Continue reading "Fishy carols"

As we approach the end of a challenging year, we reflect on some of the ways our advocates have worked to advance human rights around the world.

A round-up of archeological finds from ancient pagan sites in Cyprus and eastward to the Persian Gulf. Continue reading Finds from the ancient Mediterranean and Eastward at The Wild Hunt.

Prof.lumacorno, CC BY-SA 4.0Medium’s tags make it easy to know what people are happy to talk about. The tag for racism has been used 65,000 times, and race has been used 25,000 times, but the tag for class has only been used 3,900 times, and classism has been used less than 400 times. On Medium, writers are more than six times willing to talk about race than class, and 170 times more willing to

      I’m a life long student of the koan way. It has given me the contours of the formal part of my interior life. And, I remain endlessly grateful. I’m also interested in how we might find koans outside of the formal canon, the received cases enshrined in the great anthologies and within […]

Laura Shay May we continue to find ways to connect while keeping safe this holiday season. Continue reading "A Village of Strangers"

My new book, "The Wisdom of our Hands" has been reviewed and recommended by Booklist, a review service maintained by the American Library Association as an aid to librarians selecting books for their collections.  https://www.booklistonline.com They say in part, "This book will appeal to readers who wish to learn more about woodworking and crafting, but from a broader perspective, anyone looking for a way to reconnect with the Earth would do well to read Stowe's wisdom."  The full review will go live on their website on January 13, 2022. Foreword Reviews will review the Wisdom of Our Hands in their March/April print magazine. Forewordreviews.com Make, fix and create...

                                                                        Bessie Smith-- At the Christmas Ball . Tired of sweet , sentimental , silly , juvenile , or holy holiday music ?   Yearn for something different , grittier , and more raucous ?   We’ve got just the pill for what ails you courtesy of Bessie Smith who as always was ready to party down .   At the Christmas Ball may be the first blues Christmas track ever laid down.   The Empress of the Blues was just 31 years old and two years into her tenure on Columbia Records on November 18, 1925 when she cut a recording in New York City. Bessie Smith in flapper finery in the mid-1920's. She was already the most popular female singer o...

“Let parents sense and share with their children the glory and mystery of everyday things.” -Sophia Lyon Fahs How can you share a sense of wonder with someone else today?

Would you like to have your words or art woven through worship and other UUSS activities? Using the theme, “Connected Through Love, We Nurture the Flame,” as inspiration, you are invited to write a poem, chalice lighting, chalice flame releasing, prayer, meditation, create visual art, ... read more . The post Calling all Poets, Writers, and Artists! appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

Montclair Film, CC BY 2.0In How Racism Relies on Arbitrary Hierarchies, Ibram X. Kendi does what the smartest identitarians do: he mixes interesting facts with mistaken beliefs. The most mistaken is this:“It is one of the ironies of antiracism that we must identify racially in order to identify the racial privileges and dangers of being in our bodies.” —Ibram X. KendiThat comes from his belief

We have been appreciating the incredible array of light and darkness this week… the colors of the sunrises and sunsets, the bright glow of the full moon, the grey-white skies when it is overcast, and the long nights as Winter begins. With all this, there ... read more . The post Co-Ministers’ Colloquy – Dec. 21st appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

TONIGHT — CHILDREN’S WINTER SOLSTICE CELEBRATION! UUSS youngin’s and their families are invited to join Director of Lifespan Religious Education Robin Ahearn Tuesday evening, 12/21, 6-6:30, for an online Children’s Winter Solstice Celebration! Contact Kristin Cleveland, UUSS Congregational Life Coordinator, for the Zoom link. UPCOMING RE CLASSES: RE ... read more . The post RE This Week – Dec. 21st appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

Please join us for a four-part Adult Faith Development class titled: Transcendentalism Then and Now, led by Rev. John Buehrens. Hosted virtually at First Unitarian Rochester and sponsored by the St. Lawrence Chapter of the UU Minister’s Association. Background reading (optional) for the course is Rev. ... read more . The post Transcendentalism: Then and Now appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

The next book the BIPOC reading group has chosen is The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas, which we will discuss on Monday, January 24, at 6:30 pm. If you’d like to read this on your computer, here is a link to a PDF of it:  ... read more . The post Discussion of Angie Thomas’ book The Hate U Give appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

      Do not go gentle into that good night,Old age should burn and rave and close of day;Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning theyDo not go gentle into that good night.Good men, the last wave […]

Solstice blessings from The Wild Hunt Continue reading Solstice Blessings from The Wild Hunt at The Wild Hunt.

After the longest night, the shortest day dawns with beauty in the sky, and draws me outside into the cold and colors of morning. Snow is covering the ground at last, which has brightened up these last few dark days. Margy and I are learning to play backgammon for holiday fun during the isolation of […]

When I was a child, I would spend part of my summers visiting with my mother’s family in the mountains of Lebanon. I remember sitting out back of the house we shared with our aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins - drinking tea and playing card games with mismatched decks. Some of my clearest memories are from our nights spent outside, because it was then I noticed things that I hadn’t quite picked up on before. The scent of the jasmine blooming around the front yard. The flicker and flight of the bats that lived in the mountains. The persistent, if not foreboding, sound of mosquitoes on the hunt for a meal around our heads.  There were reflections of life around me that, were it not for the darkness of night, I might never have ...

Our Gods are not divine helicopter parents – I’ve heard one consistent message throughout this whole period: just keep moving. As we close down a difficult 2021 and get ready for an uncertain 2022, I think it’s important to share these words with everyone.