opening song”YOU, ME, AND THE UNIVERSE” -Words and Music by A. SEVERANCE CHORUS: YOU, ME, AND THE UNIVERSEYOU, ME, AND THE WORLDSPIRIT OF LIFE,LOVE, AND HAPPINESSDWELLS IN EACH BOY AND GIRL LONG LIVE THE WEB WE CALL LIFELONG LIVE MOTHER EARTH, TOOCELEBRATE LIFE RELIGIOUSLYCELEBRATE ME AND YOU CHORUS: SING SONGS OF ALL RELIGIONSGODS AND GODDESSES ALLFIND THE MEANINGS DEEP WITHINBY HEEDING OUR…

A 19th century Protestant missionary was trying to convert a Taoist farmer in China, but was having great difficulty imparting all the rules and doctrines of Christianity, especially the part about nonbelievers God sending them to Hell. ‘If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?’ the farmer asked.‘No,’ said the missionary, ‘not if you did not…

Domestic Violence Reading‘Stopping the Other War-The One Within Our Families’September 30, 2007 Domestic Homicides On average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in this country every day. In 2000, 1,247 women were killed by an intimate partner. The same year, 440 men were killed by an intimate partner.16 Women are much more likely than men to be…

This is another transitional year for both you and me. Transition is, of course, another word for change. Most of us have problems dealing with change; we all get set in our ways, in our thinking, and it’s not easy to accept change, especially when they mean change of family, friends, even home. Let me share a parable about change: A man…

Since we are coming to the Jewish High Holidays of Yom Kippur and Roshhashanh, I thought I’d share this story: Sidney telephones Rabbi Levy. He says, “Rabbi, I know tonight is Yom Kippur, but tonight the Yankees are in the playoffs. Rabbi, I’m a life-long Yankees fan. I’ve got to watch the Yankees game on TV. “Rabbi Levy replies, “Sidney, that’s what…

The cartoon strip, Dilbert, by Scott Adams is popular because it examines the sometime idiocy of the business world. In a recent one that I saved particularly for this sermon, the boss by his door and says to Dilbert: ‘Prepare a proposal for this customer.’ ‘Why me?’ ‘You were walking by.’ Dilbert looks at it and says ‘We can’t win this business.…

An old Texan who had managed to live 99 years was asked by a new neighbor to what he attributed both his and his wife’s longevity and how the relationship had lasted almost 75 years. “Well,” the old man drawled, “Before the wife and me were married, we made an agreement that we’ve kept faithfully. Any time I started to nag at…

Former president of our denomination, John Buehrens, once gave his own favorite version of the fundamentalists’ favorite Bible verse as “God so loved the world that S/he did not send a committee.” Someone said that John Buehrens commented that he wasn’t surprised, when he became president, to see that we UUs shoot ourselves in the foot. After all, he’d been around this…

Why church? Why religion? Ok, add, why ministry? Here are some statements that begin to understand it with tongue in cheek: **’All religions are the same: religion is basically guilt, with different holidays’. ~Cathy Ladman ***’There’s something in every atheist, itching to believe, and something in every believer, itching to doubt.’ ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, The move here from our…

I think it was John Lennon who said that life is what happens while we’re busy making plans. Religion is like that, too. So is ministry. Perhaps we could say that life is what happens DESPITE our making plans. Religion is like THAT, too. Ministry is SO like that! In the running of churches, (and my educated guess is that denomination doesn’t…