Twice in recent years I have preached on happiness, and I’m about to do so again, from yet another perspective, that of the philosopher and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht, author of The Happiness Myth: Why What We Think Is Right Is Wrong, billed on the cover as “A History of What Really Makes Us Happy.”
Some [...]
I was mulling over various ideas for this Thanksgiving homily when one of you good souls asked me how to deal with all the mailings a person may get from organizations seeking donations to allow them to address the many ills of the world. The average person can not afford to respond to all of [...]
Every year at this congregation’s annual fund-raising auction, both Erin Splaine, our associate minister, and I volunteer to preach a sermon on the topic selected by the highest bidder. For the generosity of that bidding we are appreciative, let me assure you. It helps maintain the plant and programs of this church. Plus, it gives [...]
This is Bring-a-Friend Sunday here at First Parish. This is not something we have done for a while, although it is not uncommon in churches of every sort.
I don’t know about others, but I don’t think of it as just a chance to proselytize, to get people here so we can convert them - although [...]
If you are fairly new to the First Parish, first let me bid you welcome. The rest of us hope you are feeling at home in this, our religious community. I would be happy to spend time getting to know you and doing whatever I can to help you find a place here that suits [...]
It’s amazing what people can do, working together, a fact that will no doubt be in evidence this afternoon. And it’s amazing what individuals can do, like those who organized today’s work day, Todd Leib and Bill Morrison in particular.
It was a combination at work in this congregation from its earliest days, from the group [...]
Here it is, the start of another church year at First Parish, or at least the start of regular services after last week’s ingathering get-together, otherwise known as Water Sunday.
It seems like it’s time today for the sermon to say, How wonderful it is to be together again, what a fine congregation and fine religion [...]
One of the satisfying things about sports is, they almost always have an ending and an outcome. Even when a game ends up a tie, at least it ends up, sometimes even with something as decisive as a three-run homer by Manny Ramirez in the bottom of the ninth. A lot of life is otherwise. [...]
MESSAGE FOR THE CHILDREN AND OTHERS
Church is a different kind of place, a special place, not quite like home or your school or other places, but sort of like them. It is sort of like school, because we learn things there and we learn things here. But we don’t learn the alphabet here, or arithmetic; [...]
A few years ago, the President of the Unitarian Universalist Association, Bill Sinkford, stirred up a lot of discussion by suggesting that we UUs needed “to cultivate what UU minister David Bumbaugh calls a ‘vocabulary of reverence’” - or what came to be referred to commonly as a language of reverence. Sinkford said he was [...]
Transcendentalism is being noticed again these days. Not as much as Anna Nichol Simpson’s daughter, Don Imus, or Sunjaya Malakar, but a new book did come out last fall about Ralph Waldo Emerson and that whole crowd called American Bloomsbury, written by Susan Cheever, a writer already known to many for her earlier books. [...]
Is there something you want to do,
maybe not today,
but maybe some time soon,
or maybe only eventually, by and by,
maybe something big,
big as a tree is big,
big like learning to play the French horn,
or getting really good at math,
or becoming a nurse or a writer or someone who builds houses?Is there some hope that has woken [...]