The third sermon in The Pulpiteer's four-part series reading Deepa Iyer's social change ecosystem — from her book Social Change Now, the 2025–26 Unitarian Universalist Association common read — through a developmental lens drawn from the Enneagram's centers: gut, heart, head, and spirit. This week: the thinking triad, whose underlying feeling is fear, and the three ecosystem roles where head energy finds its work — Visionaries, Builders, and Storytellers. Along the way: Frank

July 12, 2026 - The second sermon in a four-part series reading Deepa Iyer's social change ecosystem — from her book Social Change Now, the 2025–26 Unitarian Universalist Association common read — through a developmental lens drawn from the Enneagram's centers: gut, heart, and head; plus spirit. This episode turns from gut to heart: the feeling triad, whose underlying struggle is shame, and the two ecosystem roles where heart energy finds its work — Caregivers and Healers. Al

July 6, 2026 - We begin a four-part series exploring Deepa Iyer's social change ecosystem — from her book Social Change Now, the Unitarian Universalist Association's common read — through a developmental lens drawn from the Enneagram's three centers: gut, heart, and head, plus spirit. This episode explores the instinctive (gut/body) triad: the people whose call to justice arrives as anger, and the three ecosystem roles where that energy finds its work.

As Bill Withers sings, "Then I look at you, and the world's alright with me. Just one look at you, and I know it's gonna be: A lovely day!" Think of this as a love letter to the congregation and to all those who gather in joy and in sorrow to work toward the beloved community that signals a lovely day for all. We will have our Annual Congregational Meeting after service.

The Great World House segment recounts the origin: in 1923, Norbert Čapek, founder of the modern Unitarian church in Czechoslovakia, asked each congregant to bring a single flower. Placed together in one vase, blessed, and exchanged — each person carrying home a flower someone else brought — the ceremony offered his largely ex-Catholic congregation a communion rooted not in bread and wine but in nature herself: receive the gift, cherish the gift, pass the gift on. The Voice o

"For the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn't give you a fig. But for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, for that I would give you anything I have." - Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.. What is the simplicity on the far shore of complexity? Why brave the treacherous seas of complexity to get there?

Our covenants are promises that are the foundation of our congregational polity - they make us, practitioners without creed or canon, a bound community. But why? What do these promises make possible? Combining the work of Parker Palmer and James Luther Adams, we'll put forward a claim about our community's purpose and process. Full Podcast Transcript Lightly edited for readability: transcription errors corrected, filler words reduced, punctuation repaired. Bracketed items are

This workshop will explore a sequence of skills to develop and deepen your living wisdom practices. Session 1: Responding to Change. You can also download the Session 1 Worksheet. Session 2: Identity. You can also download the Session 2 Worksheet. Session 3: Head, Hand, Heart. You can also download the Session 3 Worksheet. Session 4: Spirit, Presence, and Practices. You can also download the Session 4 Worksheet.

Parker Palmer's Letter, Faithful Witness, and the Launch of this year's stewardship: the theme is Learn, Love, Grow — three words that describe what SGUUF does every week and three words that describe what we're asking of ourselves as a community this year. Learn. Love. Grow. This service launched San Gabriel UU Fellowship's annual stewardship campaign, and the sermon takes its shape from Parker Palmer's letter to his granddaughter — the letter he is writing so that she can r

"If you love someone, set them free." - Sting How can this way of putting Love at the Center, inform how we approach Religion as modern UU's? Not just in how we serve the adults in our community, but in how and what we teach our youth? This service takes Sting's line as its heart anthem and asks what it demands of a congregation — in the religious education of children, and in the welcome of adults. The sermon argues that mainstream religious education — in Christian denomin

There is a wall, a veil, between our world and the spirit world... the sages and prophets found ways through the wall, they brought back teachings from the spirit world. They left behind signs so that we could find our way through. Some folks who came after, got really into sign making. Some thought that the tunnels through the wall should be enlarged, decorated, celebrated... Some spent their lives making their religion's entrance look more beautiful and inviting than others

March 22, 2026 - In our third and final service in the Simone Weil Series, we'll explore the culminating movement of her thought: DECREATION. I'll get you pointed in the right direction with this teaser: "We do not become just by adding virtue. We become just by subtracting the self that blocks reality." Mic. Drop. The third and final service in a three-part Simone Weil series honoring Women's History Month centers Weil's most demanding idea: decreation. The Voice of Wisdom s

For International Women's Day, we'll continue our exploration of the work of Simone Weil - moving from her work on attention as spiritual practice, to her social justice oriented work on the necessity of duties preceding rights. "Beloved community is not where everyone gets their rights. It is where everyone has taken up their obligations." The second service in a three-part Simone Weil series honoring Women's History Month — delivered on International Women's Day — centers W

"Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer." The first service in a three-part Simone Weil series honoring Women's History Month centers Weil's teaching, from Gravity and Grace, that we cure our faults by attention and not by will — and that inner supplication is the only reasonable way. The sermon was delivered on a hard morning: the Great World House holds both the memorial of Rev. Meg Barnhouse — a matriarch of Unitarian Universalism, honored with the story of how elephants c

Greensleeves is one of the oldest and most familiar songs in our tradition—tender, plaintive, and enduring. It has been sung as a love song, a lament, and a prayer, carried across centuries and cultures. This Sunday, we’ll listen to it together, reflect on what it has meant, and consider what it might still be teaching us. We’ll sing it, sit with it, and listen again—trusting that sometimes an old song can open new space when we give it our full attention.

I got on a bus headed south, past San Antonio to a community called Dilley, Texas. There is a modern day American internment / concentration / prison camp there, we call it a detention center. Let's talk about what I saw, what I learned, and what we might all need to learn if we want things to change.

Could it be that one of the most effective ways to subvert a prophet is to turn them into an idol? There is a case to be made that this is what "the church" has done to Jesus. There is a case to be made that this is what American Culture has done with Dr. King. If we toss the idol, maybe we can ask what the prophet was trying to teach.

On (or around) the first Sunday of each month, we explore our Soul Matters theme. For this month, that's Practicing Resistance.

As I reach the midway point of my Doctor of Ministry in Social Justice program at Meadville Lombard — our UU seminary in Chicago — I want to share the heart of what has been unfolding. Stephen Jenkinson has said that we live in a time with more old folks and fewer wise elders than ever before. In this reflection, I’ll explore what it might mean to rescue wise elderhood from western history’s dustbin — to draw a clear, compassionate distinction between wise elders and old adol

On the first Sunday of each month, we explore our Soul Matters theme. For this month, that's Choosing Hope.