By Kim Mason October 28, 2026 “Grief is the confusion caused by not knowing how to love someone who is gone. Grief is love’s frustration, bitterness, anger, and resentment at death’s destruction… Grief is love’s unwillingness to give up. It’s stretching bonds and redefining limits in order to creat
By Tucker Culbertson October 21, 2026 “The past is never dead. It’s not even past. All of us labor in webs spun long before we were born, webs of heredity and environment, of desire and consequence, of history and eternity. Haunted by wrong turns and roads not taken, we pursue images perceived as n
By Melissa Jeter October 14, 2026 “Our bodies are the texts that carry the memories and therefore remembering is no less than reincarnation.” —Rev. Dr. Katie Cannon, Womanist theologianWherever I go, I bring my ancestors with me. There was a time when I was disconnected from this sense of being. I’
By Stacy Duffy October 7, 2026 “Blessings on all the life in this pile that will transform decay to fertility, death to life. May I always remember that the cycle of life is a miracle. May I continue to feel a sense of wonder and joy in the presence of death and life.”—Starhawk’s Blessing for Compo
By Ann Stillwater September 30, 2026 “I’m not broken. I’m different and that’s okay.”—Ellen Hedger“Hablo mejor que entiendo.” Years ago I memorized this phrase to explain my Spanish-speaking abilities: “I speak better than I understand.” My aunt was trilingual and I have her gift for learning prope
By JeKaren Bell September 23, 2026 “When great souls die, the air around us becomes light, rare, sterile. We breathe, briefly. Our eyes, briefly, see witha hurtful clarity.” –Maya Angelou, in “When Great Trees Fall”I became a death doula to companion people in their grief. That was the calling I tr
By Christine Slocum September 16, 2026 “We live by each other and for each other. Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.”—Helen KellerMoving slower lets you observe what’s around you. I’m a bicycle commuter for many reasons, but the ability to better notice the world—and its birds—i
By Carleigh Heckel September 9, 2026 “Of course I wake up finallythinking, how wonderful to be who I am,made out of earth and water, my own thoughts, my own fingerprints—all that glorious, temporary stuff.” —Mary Oliver, “On Meditating, Sort Of” Tending to my houseplants has become a spirit
By Kim Mason June 24, 2026 “When it’s time to go onstage, know that you’re not ready butthis is not about being ready, it’s not even about being fierce, or fearless, it’s about being free.”—Dean Atta, The Black FlamingoThree religious professionals walk into a bar: a queer UU minister, a female pri
By Cat Rambo June 17, 2026 “My use of their is socially motivated…: a deliberate response to the socially and politically significant banning of our genderless pronoun by language legislators enforcing the motion that the male sex is the only one that counts. I consistently break a rule I consider
