Beyond Sunday: Reflections, News and Flyers
For favorite sermons, the current Friday Flyer, Rev. Lori’s reflections, and the Monthly Messenger, this is the place!
Rev. Lori: Are We Listening People?
“In a world where everyone seems to be speaking, listening can be a spiritual practice.
Hearing is easy; listening takes intention. It asks us to pause, to quiet our own voices, and to make room for someone else’s truth. Our Unitarian Universalist tradition invites us into that deeper listening—to one another, to the wisdom of many traditions, and to the quiet voice within.”
“Music has always been a companion to resistance. When we sing together—especially the hymns of our tradition—we do more than make sound; we remember, we connect, we strengthen one another.”
Rev. Lori on the The Wayside Pulpit in our Modern Age
“I invite you to think about how and where and how much you tap into social media. What do you look at? Consider how it impacts you. Consider how it impacts people younger than you. Consider how it impacts kids. Positive messages promoting love and right relationship must be sent out into the webosphere. It is a pulpit. Another version of a wayside pulpit.”
Rev. Lori: Wake Up!
“There are many kinds of sleep. There is the sleep that comes at night, when our bodies finally release the day. But there is another kind of sleep that can last for years. The sleep of routine.The sleep of numbness. The sleep of believing that nothing can change—not in us,not in the world. We move through our days on autopilot. We answer the same emails. We worry the same worries. We rehearse the same stories about who we are. And we call it being awake.
But every spiritual tradition, in its own way,
whispers the same invitation:
Wake up.”
The Messenger: March 2026
“Paying attention means waking up to the new possibilities that come in and from strife. It is in March that the clocks springs ahead, when we hopefully see more green on the ground thats white, when the sap starts running and when there is an earthy smell in the air from the mud emerging. It is inviting our senses and bodies to wake up. To wake up to the new possibilities that we have yet to even imagine. Every moment we are living in holds the collapse of the illusions of our past. Choose joy and peace that can be found in taking care of one another and taking care of the earth!”
Rev. Lori on Our Quaker Forebears and The Gift of Silence
“Open and affirming, liberal, environmentally focused (especially here) and justice focused, everyone is equal….and here is the theology part, everyone is understood to have their own unique experience of the Divine that informs them how to live their life.’”
Rev. Lori on the Intersection of Love and Truth
“Love without truth can become sentimentality. Truth without love can become cruelty. But where love and truth meet, something holy happens.’”
Rev. Lori on Gathering Together In Community ~ An Act of Resistance & Resilience
“As it is said every Sunday, ‘When we gather together as a community, we bring the gifts of ourselves, our hearts and spirits, our time and energy, our talents and skills, to support the work of this church here within our walls and out in the larger community.’”
Rev. Lori on The Light of Resistance and the Blessings of Imbolc
“I began noticing this week how it gets lighter earlier in the morning and stays light later. In spite of the bitter cold temperatures I feel some encouragement by the addition of the minutes. I feel like light is also returning on in other areas of my consciousness. As hard and sad as things can feel these days, the light of effective resistance is shining. Small wins are popping up in the nation and in our community.”
The Messenger: February 2026
“It is February 2026. The theme for our month is Embodying Resilience. I believe that is perfect after the January we have experienced and the calls to resist in the many ways we can and do! Resilience is an ultimate act of resistance and it is our task and our study this month. We will live our resilience by eating together, worshipping together, saging together, singing together, kit making, and working side by side. We will celebrate our volunteering, and each other and we may even squeeze in a game night….Stay tuned for that. There is also an ecumenical/interfaith service in the works for early February.”
Rev. Lori: Don’t Stay In Your Seats!
“We are a faith community, even if we come from different faiths or no faith. We walk together and support one another on our own individual spiritual journeys. Faith without action is incomplete. Spiritual journey without witness is vacant. It is important to practice our spirituality in the ways that nourish ourselves and our community. And our spirituality also requires we look outward.”
ICE Response & Resources
Beloved Congregation:
Many people have questions about how to respond to the ICE presence in our community.
A hopeful truth:
When communities have verification pathways, legal observer connections, mutual aid readiness, and clear safety protocols, we the people, take back some power. We breathe again, stop freezing and start helping because our local communities help us feel less alone.
This article contains helpful actions and resources from the Regional UU offices.
For Those Who Came Before: Honoring UU Activists and Resistors Through the Ages
“We gather with the memory of Unitarian and Universalist activists, and with the memory of all those across the world who stood against injustice with nothing more than courage, clarity, and love. We gather to consider how our values shaped them—and still shape us. We gather to consider how these values, in shaping our lives, have shaped our communities, our society, and our world.”
Rev. Lori With A Modern Parable of Readiness
“There once was a traveler who set out with nothing but a thin cloak and a determined heart. Whenever the winds changed, she gathered the cloak around her. When storms approached, she cinched the cloth tight at her waist so her hands were free—free to build, free to shield, free to lift others up. When asked why she always prepared herself so deliberately, she said, “The world is full of work that requires both strength and tenderness. I gird myself not for battle, but for love.””
Rev. Lori on letting go and dreaming forward at the new year.
“Two faces, one looking back, one forward—keeper of thresholds, guardian of beginnings. In one eye, memory: what shaped us, what we survived. In the other, possibility: doors unlatched, light not yet named….”
The Messenger: January 2026
“The theme for January is practicing resistance. We will explore and highlight our history and focus on the ways resistance shows up for us in in our lives and the life of the community right now. Resistance is often imagined as loud, confrontational, or defiant. And sometimes it must be. But more often, the most enduring form of resistance is quieter, steadier, and rooted in love. That is our mantra after all. What is love calling us to do in this moment and in all things.? To practice resistance through love is to refuse the stories that tell us we are alone, powerless, or disposable. It is to stand beside one another when fear would have us turn away. It is to show up—again and again—for those whose voices are dismissed, whose lives are made harder by systems that prize profit or power over people.”
Rev. Lori: What is Love calling us to do in this moment?
“…not all stories have readily available happy endings. There is sadness and brokenness that is highlighted and that may not ever have resolution. In this instance, it is not our place or character as a community to look away. We are obligated as UUs and people of faith to provide compassion, seek justice, and care for people. We are obligated to be a people of hope. We are also obligated to be in constant conversation about what our chalice and beacon is calling us to do. What is love calling us to do in this moment?”
Rev. Lori on Choosing Hope
“Choosing hope is choosing relationship—trusting that others will show up, that love will meet us again, and that the future is shaped not only by outcomes but by the spirit with which we meet the journey. In choosing hope, we commit ourselves to tending sparks of possibility wherever they appear, and in doing so, we become part of the light we long to see.”