The Danger of a Single Story, Sara Ford, August 4, 2024
Release Date: 08/04/2024
Let Us Say, Grace, Rev. Lara Cowtan, November 24, 2024
Sunday Sermon Podcast
On this Thanksgiving weekend, we consider the traditions from around the world and at our own tables of offering words of gratitude. How do these rituals provide opportunities for deepening and growing in our spiritual and personal relationships. What is grace? How can we give and receive it in our lives and the larger world?
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Anchored Over the Horizon, Rev. Dr. Oscar Sinclair, November 17, 2024
Sunday Sermon Podcast
Vaclav Havel, the Czech statesman and literary figure, wrote that hope “…is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons.” How do we anchor ourselves to hope, even when it exists beyond our vision, on the other side of the horizon?
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What's Next?, Rev. Dr. Oscar Sinclair, Sunday, November 10, 2024
Sunday Sermon Podcast
This sermon podcast begins with a reflection by worship associate Anna Newton. What can we say, in the aftermath of an election? How have the church’s commitments changed, or have they? How do we balance the uncertainty of this moment with the certainty of faith?
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If You Can Keep It, Rev. Dr. Oscar Sinclair, November 3, 2024
Sunday Sermon Podcast
“Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” “A republic, if you can keep it.” Benjamin’s Franklin’s words at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in September 1787 have obvious relevance in 2024. The first Unitarians and Universalists in the United States came from the first generation after the American Revolution, and from that first generation, our tradition has been actively involved in the democratic process. How does that legacy speak to us today?
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The Only Constant, Rev. Lara Cowtan, October 27, 2024
Sunday Sermon Podcast
We have heard it said, the only constant is change, and that there is no growth, no growing forward without letting something go and embracing change. Sometimes a door must close in order for a window to open, but how do we navigate this kind of loss, these decisions about what and when to let go in order to be open to new possibilities? Anatole France wrote, “All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves. We must die to one life before we can enter another.” But, this doesn’t mean we throw everything out the window and...
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More of Who You've Always Been, Rev. Dr. Oscar Sinclair, October 20, 2024
Sunday Sermon Podcast
This sermon podcast begins with a reflection by worship associate Betsy Hearn. Dan Hotchkiss writes, “Congregations create sanctuaries where people can nurture and inspire each other — with results no one can predict. The stability of a religious institution is a necessary precondition to the instability religious transformation brings.” How do we balance the tradition and change in our lives together? How do we embrace the future we imagine while holding onto the traditions that define us?
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Seeds of Joy, Rev. Dr. Oscar Sinclair, October 13, 2024
Sunday Sermon Podcast
Join us for Celebration Sunday, as we gather to celebrate Unity Church and commit to a joyful year together. Unitarian Universalist congregations depend on the support of their members for everything from religious education and kitchen volunteers to legacy giving and ongoing financial support. How do we root our gifts to the church in our spiritual practices?
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Re-Imagining the World, Rev. Dr. Oscar Sinclair, October 6, 2024
Sunday Sermon Podcast
Pop culture is full of dystopian stories. In a time of climate change, war, and political uncertainty, dystopia feels near at hand. Even as they grapple with the consequences of the suffering and destruction, authors from Octavia Butler to Becky Chambers can help up to imagine a better world. What are the tools of storytelling that might help us imagine ourselves into a sustainable, joyful future?
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Salve, Rev. Dr. Oscar Sinclair, September 29, 2024
Sunday Sermon Podcast
This sermon podcast begins with a reflection by Chris Russert, worship associate. In 1348, a community of monks in Sienna opened the doors of their abbey to serve as a hospital during the plague. Seven hundred years later, the abbey exists as a picturesque ruin, popular with tourists and filmmakers. What are the risks of hospitality, and why do we do it anyway?
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Whose Are We? Rev. Lara Cowtan, September 22, 2024
Sunday Sermon Podcast
This sermon podcast begins with a reflection by worship associate Meg Arnosti. The ancient question, “Who am I?” inevitably leads to a deeper one: “Whose am I?” because there is not identity outside of relationship. You cannot be a person by yourself. To ask, “Whose am I?” is to extend the question far beyond the little self-absorbed self, and wonder: Who needs you? Who loves you? To whom are you accountable? To whom do you answer? Whose life is altered by your choices? With whose life, whose lives is your own all bound up, inextricably, in obvious or invisible ways?
info_outlineThere were some audio issues with this recording. The audio gets better at the 30 seconds mark.
We are all familiar with the story of Henry David Thoreau and his two-year experiment on a plot of land owned by his teacher, Ralph Waldo Emerson. We are less familiar with the story of Harriet Jacobs, Thoreau’s contemporary, who also, alone, entered a space that cut her off from society, and who also wrote a book about that experience. A look at these two experiences and the national appetite for one story, to be told in one, specific way in every school in the country for almost 200 years, and for the other not to be told at all gives us insights into the dangers of a single story, dangers that contort our history and uphold power in the same hands. Over, and over, and over again.