By Sue Ferguson“It is impossible to see the angel unless you first have a notion of it.” —James HillmanTrust is critical to progress on a spiritual path but it doesn’t come easily for some of us. I learned a little bit about it while I was living in Japan. Returning to Japan from a work trip to the
By Tania Márquez “Is it that we come in vain to live, to sprout over the earth? Let us leave at least flowers, let us leave at least songs” —NezahualcóyotlI have been working as a hospital chaplain for almost two years now. During this time, I've had the honor to accompany people as they say goodby
By Joanna Fontaine Crawford“Faith development is all we do. Unitarian Universalism is the faith we teach. The congregation is the curriculum.” —Connie GoodbreadThere was a single mother in our congregation who had two young children, a daughter and a son. Seeing the painted fingernails of his mom a
By Jennifer Hundley-Batts"How can I bless this food? It blesses me." —Rev. Nancy Shaffer, in “Field at Table” from Instructions in JoyI compost. Obsessively. You may be a dinner companion whom I've awkwardly asked to gift me your leftover broccoli stems or tamale wrappers. You may be a coworker who
By Lynn Gardner“This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.” –Naomi Shihab Nye, in “Gate A-4”On a chilly winter morning, my beloved and I took our small, shy dog for a walk to a nearby park. The morning light, frozen pond, and snow were all lovely. On the way home we walked past a neigh
By JD Stillwater“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement . . . get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. To be spiritual is to be amazed.” –Abraham Joshua HeschelSince the pandemic I’ve been growing vegetables on the flat roof of our garage, i
By Lindasusan Ulrich“We can believe something to be true without it making much difference to us, but we place our faith only in something that is vital for the way we live.” —Harvey CoxLast spring, whenever I drove home from work, I’d keep an eye out for the being I came to call My Bird Friend. Th
By Myke Johnson“I don’t know how to love him….” —a song by the same title by Yvonne Elliman, in "Jesus Christ Superstar"My best friends Lori and Tom and I, in our first semester of college, were in love with Jesus and all he represented: a life radically beyond the ambition and greed of our society
By DeEtte Waleed“When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?” —Amanda Gorman, “The Hill We Climb”“How long, O Great Mystery, how long?” I ask as I turn off the news of yet another act of senseless violence ending the lives of innocent people. As a mother, g
By Lynette Yetter "Everyone who wills can hear the inner voice. It is within everyone.”—Mahatma GandhiIntuition. When I used to hitchhike around the country in the 1970s, I called it “road sense.” My intuition became honed, for safety and survival. It became so honed that from a distance I could se
