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Living Our Mission
Life is Fragile
It’s gotten so I’m not sure what I would do without the morning (dog) walk to ground me and get me ready for the day. The quiet (or sometimes the podcasts) help me wake up to the world and myself. I read once somewhere, and …
Sorrow, Fear, Frustration and Hope
I feel so much sorrow. Between what is happening in the world right now, combined with the UTUUC staffing changes and financial situation, there is just so much to be sad about. And to be scared about. I am guessing that many of you feel …
Big Feelings
It was a few years into parenthood when I first heard the term “big feelings”. I loved it right away because it captures the way that sometimes little bodies and hearts and minds are filled with emotion, and kids don’t usually have the words or …
The Antidote to Despair is Action
For the past six years, our son has attended the elementary school around the corner from our house. He started when he was tiny pipsqueak of five and a half and now, at eleven, in his last days there, he is taller than me. Every …
Worth the Risk
I met my Irish friend Eibhlin (pronounced Ev-leen) Walsh in 2012. She was at Drew University as a Fulbright scholar who taught Irish language (Gaelic) to students. That was the year that hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast. Because students and staff needed to evacuate …
Telling the Story
Chelle, one of my college roommates and dearest friends these past thirty years, was one of the first people I met on campus. She basically introduced me to John, my husband. She was someone I followed around because her smile and her personality embodied love …
Feel From Every Direction
When I think back a couple of years ago to the beginning of the pandemic, as we were getting started in a new way of doing worship services, I had to re-think how I did messages for all ages. So many of those early weeks …
The Middle of Our Epic
During my Ph. D. studies (no, I didn’t finish) I studied the origins of the English novel. My advisor, a brilliant man, published a book while I worked with him. It showed how the structure of the great epics –The Iliad, The Odyssey, Paradise Lost, …
A Heart that Responds
For the upcoming year, while continuing our emphasis on Welcoming All, we are highlighting the next part of our mission statement, Inspiring Compassion. In Spring 2021, we put together a wonderful team of people who expressed an interest in building some programming related to compassion. …