Any of you who were not here last week were no doubt surprised on arriving today if you passed through the room downstairs (the vestry), or you will be when you go to coffee hour and see that all around the walls there are glorious banners, each prepared by one of the committees here at [...]
The church exists to be a loving community, a place where we come to meet our own needs and those of each other, a place of friendship and peace and beauty and learning. It can be all those things, and here at First Parish, I think that we have been such a place and [...]
The title of this morning’s sermon is, “Mary Oliver: Our Favorite Poet.” You may well be thinking, hey, she’s not my favorite poet. What, did we take a vote or a poll or something, and now just because I love this church community I have to say I’m a big Mary Oliver fan? [...]
The First Parish has existed since 1640, and occupied this building since 1815. But the American Unitarian Association was only created ten years after that, and this congregation declared itself part of that side of the split in the Standing Order of Congregational Churches three years later, the same year the Trinitarian Congregational Church of [...]
Things are not always as great as you expect them to be. You have always imagined that you would love some restaurant, some particular food, some view, some event, some activity, only to come away with the feeling expressed in the Peggy Lee song, “Is that all there is?”
She also reports that response to the [...]
The seasons come and go and come again and go again and on and on, departure and return, all in cycle, all in flux. Much of nature is that way: ebb and flow, back and forth, yield and resist, growth and decay.
People have sometimes imagined a static state to which nature tends. Scientists are finding [...]
Here’s hoping you are feeling well.
Here’s hoping you continue to feel well all year.
Here’s hoping justice will flourish this year, and peace descend on a war-tom world. Here’s hoping the year will bringjoy and wellbeing to you, to all you love, to all beings
everywhere.
Here’s hoping environmental awareness, concern, and action will become a passion among [...]