I don’t know if you realize just how patriotic we are becoming. People are actually buying American flags faster than the Chinese can make them. ‘I have a dream,’ by Travis Meyer, 3rd Grade February 12, 2003. This piece was written after classroom studies of MLK, Jr. and his famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. I have a dream, that one day,…

There are some people who never let anything get them down. They are like the little boy who bragged to his father about what a great hitter he was. Finally the father said, ‘all right, show me!’ So the little boy got his softball and his bat and went out into the back yard. The father stood over to the side while…

Writer Lincoln Steffans tells the fable of a man who climbed to the top of a mountain and, standing on tiptoe, seized hold of the Truth. Satan, suspecting mischief from this upstart, had directed one of his underlings to tail him; but when the demon reported with alarm the man’s success ‘ that he had seized hold of the Truth ‘ Satan…

Unitarian Universalist minister and satirist, Christopher Raible, has   written a parody of some of our hymns in a little book called,   appropriately enough, “Hymns for the Cerebration of Strife”, because   the old hymnal was called  ?Hymns for the Celebration of Life.? This   is his version of the Easter hymn, “Lo, the Earth Awakes Again”:   Sing an Easter hymn in season, Alleluia!/Even…

The pastor was standing at the church door welcoming people at the Easter morning service. He shook the hand of one man and said, “Let me introduce myself. I’m the pastor of this church. We are pleased to have you visiting with us today.” The stranger said, “Now, wait a minute, pastor. I’m a member of this church, not a visitor.” The…

Yes, this is also Super Bowl Sunday, isn’t it? So Joe gets a ticket to the Superbowl from his company but when he gets there, it’s in the last row in the corner of the stadium. Halfway through the first quarter, he sees through his binoculars an empty seat ten rows off the field, right on the fifty-yard line. He decides to…

During his ordination examination, a Presbyterian seminary student was being asked a series of doctrinal questions by an elderly conservative minister. He came to this question: “Do you believe in the Doctrine of the Total Depravity of the Human Soul?” His immediate smiling reply: “Yes, but I find it very difficult to live up to!” — But one of the main reasons…

Universalist ministers were often circuit riders. Hosea Ballou was one of these. There is a story told about him riding the circuit in New England, while riding over Hampshire’s craggy hills with a Baptist preacher one afternoon. Ballou told him that he used to be a Baptist as well, but that now he was a Universalist and went on to tell of…