The Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Westport
10 Lyons Plains Rd., Westport, CT 06880 - Ph: (203)227-7205 Sunday Services: 10:00 AM
I met Maxine at a workshop called Alternatives to Violence. She was one of the oldest participants, in her late sixties. Maxine spoke with a sonorous voice as she spoke of family she lost in the Holocaust. Early in the weekend workshop, we brainstormed a long list of different types of violence. Each of us […]
Given that lambs are infant sheep, that sheep are afraid and foolish, and lack the means of self-protection, having neither rage nor claws, venom nor cunning, what then is this ‘Lamb of God’? This pretty creature, vigorous to nuzzle at milky dugs, woolbearer, bleater, leaper in air for delight of being, who finds in astonishment […]
(The Book of Hours, Book I, Poem 1, Stanza 1) A certain day became a presence to me; there it was, confronting me — a sky, air, light: a being. And before it started to descend from the height of noon, it leaned over and struck my shoulder as if with the flat of a […]
CLICK HERE for video of this sermon. CLICK HERE for audio of this sermon. CLICK HERE for a printable PDF of this sermon. How many times have you met someone who used the word awesome? “You drove here? That’s awesome. You would like the salad with the dressing on the side? Awesome!” Awesome is used […]
To speak of sorrow works upon it moves it from its crouched place barring the way to and from the soul’s hall— out in the light it shows clear, whether shrunken or known as a giant wrath— discrete at […]
Just when you seem to yourself nothing but a flimsy web of questions, you are given the questions of others to hold in the emptiness of your hands, songbird eggs that can still hatch if you keep them warm, butterflies opening and closing themselves in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure their scintillant […]
Don’t say, don’t say there is no water to solace the dryness at our hearts. I have seen the fountain springing out of the rock wall and you drinking there. And I too before your eyes found footholds and climbed to drink the cool water. The woman of that place, shading her eyes, frowned as […]
Days pass when I forget the mystery. Problems insoluble and problems offering their own ignored solutions jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing their colored clothes; caps and bells. And then once more the quiet mystery is present to me, the throng’s clamor recedes, the […]
As swimmers dare to lie face to the sky and water bears them, as hawks rest upon air and air sustains them, so would I learn to attain freefall, and float into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace, knowing no effort earns that all-surrounding grace.
(Dedicated to the memory of Karen Silkwood and Eliot Gralla) A voice from the dark called out, “The poets must give us imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar imagination of disaster. Peace, not only the absence of war.” But peace, like a poem, is not there ahead of itself, can’t be imagined before […]