Archives: Services

Mystics: Women, Power, and Hope

Mysticism has deep roots across religious traditions and at its best teaches us how to live in ways that help us focus on deep truths. The sermon will include messages from an 8th century Sufi mystic, Rabia, 12th century Christian mystic Hildegard of Bingen, and contemporary western Buddhist, Pema Chodron.

Margo Rinehart has recently earned her Masters in Divinity from Seattle University. She has attended the Kitsap UU Fellowship for over twenty years and recently completed a one-year UU Ministerial Internship at Westside UU Congregation in West Seattle. Finding current messages of compassion, integrity, and clarity in older texts is a passion of Margo’s. She tells us “as Unitarian Universalists, we are all called to be our best selves, a never ending process of discovery, discernment, and action.” Come and hear how the wisdom of mystics can help you on this path.

What Am I Doing Here?

You can live your life without a vision. It’s a life, but there isn’t any cayenne pepper in that soup. And, there is the question, is the world a better place because you are here? A life lived with a vision wakes you up early and yanks you out of bed. It helps you live out your deepest aspirations, it imprints your values into your daily actions and serves as your moral compass. That’s what we will be talking about in this sermon.

Finding Our Future

Our Religious Explorations for Children and Youth begin today, and we’ll reflect upon how we imagine the future and how we act now to create a future in which they’ll thrive.

Maintain Hope

Returning to suggestions made by Bryan Stevenson, we’ll consider what it means to maintain hope in our lives. How do we keep the vision of a better world alive?

Blessing of/and/with the Water

This summer offered us a chance to appreciate water by its lack. Dry and smoky, many of us are ready for fall. We’ll begin with our annual water service. Bring water from somewhere you’ve been, or that has some meaning for you, or just from home. We’ll have water to pour into our common bowl, too. We’ll sing, bless, be blessed, and remember the gift of water in our lives.

Bread and Roses

Labor Day reminds us of what was fought for as unions were formed. Bread and Roses in particular calls us to make both bodily sustenance and beauty possible. We’ll consider what it looks like today.

Begin Again

The habits of school starting in late summer or early fall follow many of us through our lives. In that spirit, we’ll have a service to celebrate beginning again as we come into fall. Students (of any age!) are invited to bring along a backpack or similar object that represents the new year to be blessed. We’ll consider what it takes to begin again and again and again.

Box of Questions

One of our hymns says “even to question truly is an answer” and we’ll take up a practice in many UU congregations: the Question Box service. You get the chance to write down a question that you have wondered about, and Linda will answer as many as she can during the time allotted for the sermon. Other questions may become sermons later, so don’t hesitate to ask!