Beyond Sunday: The UUCSB Blog
Reflections, Sermons, and the Monthly Newsletter
Rev. Lori on The Ministry Outside the Pulpit: What Do You Do To Take Care of Our Community?
“There is a temptation to think of church as something that simply happens on Sunday morning—a service prepared, a building opened, coffee brewed, music sung. But a thriving congregation is not built by one voice, one leader, or one committee. It flourishes because many hands and many hearts quietly, faithfully, lovingly say: I will help carry this. To flourish together is to recognize that ministry belongs to all of us.”
Rev. Lori on The Importance of Curiosity
“Ted Lasso is a popular series on Apple TV, starring Jason Sudekis, as an amateur coach being hired to lead a British football team. Hired to set the franchise up to fail with his rudimentary skills as a coach. However this feel good series and character turns the narrative around with Ted Lasso being super positive and spinning all or most of his challenges with a mantra of “Be Curious, Not Judgmental” which in someways feels like a little toxic positivity, to be honest. ”
Rev. Lori on Mother’s and Mothering
“Mother's Day can be tricky for a lot of people for a lot of reasons. The essence of the day is the essence of our faith tradition. Love is at the center of our life. It brings us forth and nurtures us and sustains us. As we all know, it doesnt look the same for everyone. Mothers and mothering take many shapes, genders, gender expressions. In this community we mother each other in both the best and sometimes the not so best ways. It grows our community, our connection to one another, and to the wider world.”
Rev. Lori on Navigating Change
“Change is rarely gentle. Even when we know a new way is needed, something in us clings to what is familiar—old habits, old stories, old comforts.The path toward right relationship with one another, with the earth, and with our own deepest values asks courage not just once, but again and again. It asks us to keep choosing love when resentment would be easier, truth when silence would be safer, and responsibility when avoidance would be more comfortable.”
Rev. Lori Is Asking Questions
“Your question this week.
What is my biggest discomfort when it comes to the issue of homelessness and the unhoused population? ”
Rev. Lori on Taking Responsibility for Finding What is Sacred For You
“There is an invitation and a responsibility for you to define what is sacred to you. You are invited and supported while you explore it in the ways that you do explore it or don't explore it. There is freedom and there is responsibility.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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….”
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?”