John Pavlovitz Tis the Season to be Jolly or Not

It’s the holiday season—so, whoop dee do!

There is always pressure to have it all together and to be outwardly joyful, but this is never more true than in a season when everyone else seems to be singing.

As we gather this week and this season, we can embrace the full breadth of who we are and what we’re carrying: our joy and our grief, our faith and our doubt, our joy and our sorrow.

There is room for all of it.

Come and sing Read more

Spread the Love...

John Pavlovitz The Activism of Gratitude

By Sunday, Thanksgiving will be well over but our giving of thanks cannot be.

Gratitude isn’t just a nice idea or a word to put on pillows and profile photos, it is critical to having peace in our present circumstances, to clarifying what matters to us, and to propelling us into the good work of being human in difficult days.

Let’s cultivate gratitude together and watch the way it changes us and the world around us.

Spread the Love...

John Pavlovitz Electing Hope When It All Hits the Fan

We’re all worried about it. Tuesday, November 8th is the place our minds and hearts are fixed on, because it represents more than just politics. It is about our individual and collective values, convictions, and dreams. Right now our energies are understandably directed and our hopes pinned to this singular Tuesday. But what if things don’t go our way? What if the news is bad? Where will hope be on that Wednesday morning, if the worst- case scenario plays out? Let’s talk about it.

Spread the Love...

Reverend Rebecca Jaine Suzik The Secret People Turning the World: Jewish Mysticism for Our Times

There are many concepts and teachings from the Judaic faith tradition offering wisdom and truth amidst the breaking and remaking world. Jewish mysticism is here to inspire us and contemplate our role in the healing and restoration of humanity and our hurting planet.

 Interfaith and Interspiritual Minister Reverend Becky will lead us to discover secrets and ideas that might just help us persevere and even thrive during these uncertain and ever-changing times.

Spread the Love...

John Pavlovitz 8 Billion Funerals. Grief Trauma and the Collateral Damage of Being Human

To live here is to lose something.

Every single human being is moving through this life while mourning a letting go: of someone they loved, their old story about God, their former image of country, the earlier mythology of their family, their belief in the goodness of people, the disconnection of a treasured relationship, of their sense of optimism about the future.

The loss here is universal. If we lean hard into this truth, we can trace the source of our trauma, we can courageously face our own Read more

Spread the Love...

John Pavlovitz Agnostics With Suspicions

What happens after we die?

We all live with this fundamental question hovering in the periphery of our minds.

A fortunate few of us find absolute answers in our theology, others in Science.
Most of us however, live somewhere in between, with far more mystery than certainty. What if there was something in between: a way of being rooted in the here and now, while still courting our better angels?
Whether we think we go to Heaven, Hell, or the dirt when we die, can we find holy common ground now?

Spread the Love...

Reverend Rebecca Jaine Suzik A Reverent Reverend

A Reverent Reverend: The Currency of Community and a Path to Interfaith Ministry with Reverend Rebecca Jaine Suzik

Rebecca Jaine Suzik has been a member of UU PEACE Fellowship for the past decade and currently serves as the Religious Youth Director. Joining and serving our lay-led Fellowship prompted her realization and calling as an Interfaith and Interspiritual Minister. Last month she became ordained after completing an intensive interfaith and interspiritual seminary Read more

Spread the Love...

Rev. Patty Hanneman The Spirit of This Place

Our culture has largely succumbed to the individualistic set of responses to the gift of life, easily forgetting questions of the common good.  Progressive religion, at its best, seeks to bind us to the whole, to one another through our covenants with one another, and to multi-generational thriving.  What does it mean to gather together, to be a “congregation” and to approach religious community as a way of learning to balance giving and receiving?

Spread the Love...