Topical Sermon Archive

This page is an archive of Rev. Carl's sermons at UUCF, categorized by topic. For the sake of simplicity, each sermon has been placed in only one topic even though many sermons connect to multiple topics.

A chronological sermon archive (often with audio & video) is also available.

Artificial Intelligence (Big Data)

• “A Brief History of Tomorrow” (July 9, 2017)
• Immigrants Aren't Coming for Your Job, Robots Are (March 25, 2018)
• “'No Fate But What We Make': Darwin Day, Transformational Artificial Intelligence, & Human Values" (February 12, 2023)

Bioethics

• Bioethics, CRISPR, & Our Children Redesigned (September 10, 2017)
• “Our Grandchildren Redesigned: Navigating the Bioethics of the Near Future” (November 19, 2017)

Broadway

• Pippin: The Search for Truth and Meaning (May 3, 2015)
• Listening to "Les Mis" as a Spiritual Practice (March 13, 2016)
• The Wiz (April 2, 2017)
• Into the Woods: The Deeper Meaning of Fairy Tales, Then & Now (March 4, 2018)

Conflict Resolution/Transformation (Persuasion)

• “What You Say Next Will Change Your World”: Practicing Nonviolent Communication (December 7, 2014)
• How to Maintain UU Principles When You Can't Agree on the Facts (October 8, 2017)
• Is There An Antidote to Bad Faith? How Minds Change & Deep Canvassing (October 30, 2022)

Constitutional Law/Interpretation (also see: "First Amendment, Religious Freedom/Liberty")

• Dissent (July 16, 2017)
• "We the Corporations?!" (January 27, 2019)
• Justice, Liberty, Equality: Toward a Progressive Reading of the Constitution (July 5, 2020)
• Social Progress, Religion, & Law (January 23, 2022)

Creativity

• Celebrating the Spirit of Creativity (August 18, 2013)
• Where Does Creativity Come From? David Lynch, Twin Peaks, & Transcendental Meditation (November 12, 2017)
• The Spirituality of Shakespeare (April 10, 2016)
• “Live Your Life as a Work of Art”: The Spiritual Practice of Creativity (February 11, 2018)

Death/Mortality

• “None of Us Are Getting Out of This Alive”: How & Why to Make End-of-Life Choices (October 23, 2016)
• The Death-positive Movement & The Order of the Good Death (August 2, 2020)

December Holidays

• Chrismukah, IllUUmination, & Chalica: Navigating the Holidays (December 2, 2012)
• Slowing Down for the Holidays (December 22, 2013)

Democracy

("UU 5th Principle: The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large")

• Reclaiming Prophetic Witness: Liberal Religion in the Public Square (May 31, 2015)
• Pluralistic Ethics & Political Polarization: Struggling to “Speaking the Truth in Love” in Election Season (May 1, 2016)
• Reactions to the End of White Christian America: Building a Democracy with Economic, Gender, and Racial Justice for All (October 9, 2016)
• What Liberal Fundamentalism Is--and What It Isn't (October 28, 2018)
• Hope & Fear in America, Then & Now: Lessons from 1919 for Today (November 24, 2019)

Pre-Election Sermon

• Change We Can Believe In? (October 21, 2012)
• “The Righteous Mind” and the Democratic Process (November 4, 2012)
• Can You Be Both a Religious Liberal and a Political Conservative? (November 2, 2014)
• “How the Founding Fathers Became Infallible”: Liberal Religion, Shifting Interpretations, and the Democratic Process (November 1, 2015)
• Voting on the Side of Love (November 6, 2016)
• "Daring Democracy": For Such a Time as This (November 5, 2017)
• "The People vs. Democracy (November 5, 2018)
• How Democracies Die & An Education in Hope (3 November 2019)
• A Brief History of Equality: Reflections on the State of Our Democracy (November 6, 2022)

Post-Election Sermon

• In the Wake of an Election (November 11, 2012)
• "No Permanent Waves": Rising Up Again after an Election (November 13, 2016)
• "History Teaches Us to Resist" (November 11, 2018)
• How Change Happens: Why do some social movements succeed & others fail? (November 10, 2019)
• “Widening Circles & Active Hope: Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects” (November 8, 2020)
• Fear, Heartbreak, & Hope: What Wants to Emerge through You? (November 15, 2020)
• Imaginable: How To See the Future Coming (November 13, 2022)

Discernment / New Year's Resolutions

• Not All Resolutions Are Created Equal: Future Me and Fire Communion (December 30, 2012)
• What Is Yours (Not) to Do? (January 5, 2014)
• "Thrive": Choosing Well-being in the New Year (January 4, 2015)
• “Are You Living the Life You Chose?”: How To Discern Your Call (August 2, 2015)
• “Are You Fully Charged?” How to Make and Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions: Reflections on Tom Rath (January 3, 2016)
• On Saying Yes (December 31, 2017)
• How to Excel at One Hard Thing: Grit, Passion, & Peak Performance (January 1, 2017)
• How to Find Meaning in Life (January 3, 2021)
• Survival Is Insufficient: What Will You Do with Your Four Thousand Weeks? (January 2, 2022)
• What Should You Do in This New Year? Trusting Your Gut & Trusting the Data (January 8, 2023)

Embodiment ("Bodyfulness")

• Spirituality of Embodiment: The Science of Yoga and Befriending Your Body (July 19, 2015)
• "Mindfulness, Heartfulness, Bodyfulness" (September 26, 2021)

Emotional Intelligence (Compassion/Care, Heartfulness)

• Blue Christmas: The Longest Night of the Year (December 23, 2012)
• After Trauma & Loss: What (Not) To Say (November 3, 2013)
• How to Practice Self-Compassion (February 18, 2018)
• “What Truly Needs to Get Done? What Needs to Be Protected? Listening to What Your Feelings Are Trying to Tell You” (September 13, 2020)
• Boundaries, Healing, & Hope: How to Shift Out of Survival Mode (July 11, 2021)
• Fierce Self-Compassion (August 22, 2021)
• Awkward, Brave, & Kind: A Valediction from Brené Brown (June 12, 2022)
• Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart (September 25, 2022)

Forgiveness

• "Practicing Forgiveness" (June 7, 2015)

Gratitude

• Savoring the Small Stuff: Ordinary Gratitude as Spiritual Practice (November 18, 2012)
• Brené Brown and the Gifts of Imperfection (April 27, 2014)
• Gratitude: Common Sense Spirituality (November 20, 2016)

Happiness

• How to Be Happy — for a Moment, Day, or Lifetime (December 4, 2016)
• Four Paths to Happiness & the Good Life: Which One Is Right in This Season of Your Life? (December 30, 2018)

Jungian Spirituality

• Shadow Work: How to Be More Interesting to Yourself & Less Dangerous to Others

Linguistics/Grammar

• “Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages” (December 15, 2019

Masculinity

• The Sacred Masculine (June 16, 2013)
• "Feminist Masculinity and Father’s Day" #YesAllWomen #AllMenCan (June 15, 2014)
• Toxic Masculinity, Many Masculinities: Reflections on the 15th Anniversary of 9/11 (September 11, 2016)

Mother’s Day

• Mothers Day for All (May 12, 2013)
  

also see sermon series below on "Founding Mothers of Unitarian Universalism"

Music

• The Sacred in Music (June 1, 2014)

Ordination

• To Bless, to Hope, to Ordain: For the Ordination of Megan Mathieson (June 30 2019)
• The Love of Wisdom & the Wisdom of Love: For the Ordination of Scot Hull (February 2, 2020)
• We Are All Called: For the Ordination of Karyn Bergmann Marsh at Towson UU Church (May 7, 2022)

Poetry

• Elizabeth Bishop (April 30, 2018)
• Gwendolyn Brooks: “A Surprised Queenhood in the New Black Sun” (April 28, 2019)
• “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”: The Life-saving, Ecstatic Poetry of Mary Oliver (April 26, 2020)
• In the name of the Bee — And of the Butterfly— And of the Breeze: Emily Dickinson (April 11, 2021)
• “The Short Life & Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath” (April 10, 2022)

Philosophy: The Love of Wisdom

• "In the Face of Despair — Choosing Hope, Community, and Meaning: Reflections on Richard Rorty" (January 10, 2016)
• Religion & Truth: Insights from John Caputo’s Postmodern Religion of the Rose (June 4, 2017)
• “We Are Freer Than We Think”: Power/Knowledge & Tools for Resistance—Foucault for Today (October 3, 2021)
• "Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?: Unexpected Adventures in Philosophy" (January 29, 2023)

Privacy/Surveillance

• “Privacy, Social Justice, & Survival in a Hyper-connected World" (November 25, 2018)

First Amendment, Religious Freedom/Liberty (also see: "Constitutional Law/Interpretation")

• Religious Freedom, Corporate America, & Christian America (January 8, 2017)
• "One Nation, Under God(s)": Why “Freedom of Religion” Doesn’t Protect the Right to Discriminate in Public #Torda450 (January 7, 2018)
• Sacred Liberty & Desolating Sacrilege: On the Storming of the United States Capitol (January 10, 2021)

Resilience

• Addiction and Grace (August 5, 2012)
• Falling Down & Rising Strong: Learning from Brené Brown (July 31, 2016)
• Brené Brown, True Belonging, & the Courage to Stand Alone (September 23, 2018)
• Spiritual Practices for a Pandemic: Connection, Meaning, & Hope in the Time of Coronavirus (March 15, 2020)
• Kindness, Courage, Connection, & Creativity amidst Coronavirus (March 22, 2020)
• Meaning, Purpose, & Love: How to Reimagine Your Life during a Pandemic (March 29, 2020)
• “Strength to Strength: How to Find Lifelong Purpose” (September 18, 2022)

Six Sources of Unitarian Universalism

("UU 3rd Principle: Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.")
("UU 4th Principle: A free and responsible search for truth and meaning.")

1st Source: “Direct Experience”

• The First Source: Direct Experience (August 12, 2012)
• Help, Thanks, Wow (December 15, 2013)
• How Ordinary Spirituality Can Transform Your Life (September 28, 2014)
• What Happens When You Immerse Yourself in the Sound of Silence? (August 23, 2015)
• Rewatching “Groundhog Day” as a Spiritual Practice (January 31, 2016)
• Gnosticism, Then & Now: Firsthand Spiritual Experience vs. Secondhand Theology (May 7, 2017)
• “How William James Can Save Your Life”: Peak Spiritual Experiences, Psychedelics, & Consciousness Research (December 4, 2022)

2nd Source: “Words and deeds of prophetic women and men"

• Cesar Chavez & Why David Sometimes Wins (September 14, 2014)
• George Orwell, Margaret Atwood, & Octavia Butler: Reading for Resistance & Resilience (August 27, 2017)
• “Imagining How a More Just World Might Feel”: The Life & Legacy of Woody Guthrie (May 22, 2022)

3rd Source: “Wisdom from the world's religions"

Animism

• Marie Kondo, Animism, & Changing Your Life (January 5, 2019)
  

Buddhism / Meditation

• Pragmatic Buddhism, Westernized Dharma, 21st century Sangha (May 5, 2013)
• Becoming a Buddha, not a Buddhist (March 9, 2014)
• “The Fourth Turning of Buddhism” (May 24, 2015)
• From Baby Boomer Buddhism to Lodro Rinzler’s Millennial Hipster Buddhism: Insights for Modern Life (November 22, 2015)
• Beyond “McMindfulness”: How Not To Get Stuck in the Early Stages of Buddhist Meditation (May 15, 2016)
• "Hardwiring Happiness”: How to Have More Positive Experiences in Your Life (August 28, 2016)
• What Comes "After Buddhism"? (February 25, 2017)
• Chögyam Trungpa, Freedom, and Meditation (June 11, 2017)
• Contemplative-Curious: What Happens on an 8-Day Meditation Retreat? (December 10, 2017)
• The Dharma of "The Princess Bride” (January 28, 2018)
• How to be "10% Happier” (September 8, 2019)
• Meditation, Neuroscience, Psychedelics: Who Am I? Who Are You? Who Are We? (June 7, 2020)
• Even One Deep Breath Can Make a Difference: How to Change the Channel in Your Mind (30 August 2020)
• Love, Rage, & Radical Dharma (January 31, 2021)
• Yasodhara: The Forgotten Story of the Buddha's Wife (August 1, 2021)
• Postmodern Buddhisms & American Dharmas (December 19, 2021)
• Contemplative Cross-Training: Six Ways to Meditate; or, How Do You Know If You Are Making Progress in Meditation? (August 14, 2022)

Chinese Religions

• The iChing (Yijing), Jung, and Lunar New Year (January 26, 2014)
• “Chinese Religions & Religions in China” (January 26, 2020)
• How Chinese Philosophies Can Change Your Life (January 30, 2022)

Daoism

• "Don't Just Do Something, Sit There: The Meaning of the Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) for Today (October 20, 2014)

Hindu Tradition

• Living the Bhagavad Gita (June 9, 2013)
• Krishna and the Hindu Tradition (March 2, 2014)

Interfaith/Multifaith/Pluralism (Religious Studies)

• Embracing Pluralism, Building Bridges, and "Common Action for the Common Good” (July 28, 2013)
• Interspirituality: Experiencing the Heart of the Six Sources (September 22, 2013)
• Religious Mystic & Rational Humanist: from Ramakrishna to the Mystical Humanism of Jeffrey Kripal (March 30, 2014)
• "A History of Religion in 5 1/2 Objects: Bringing the Spiritual to Its Senses" (June 22, 2014)
• Comparing Religions: Reflexive Re-readings (August 31, 2014)
• Celebrating Mixed Religion: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Syncretism (August 30, 2015)
• How Do You Define Religion? (Who Benefits? Who Decides?) (December 11, 2016)
• The Price of Monotheism (January 19, 2018)
• Sexy Secrets about Religion or, What I Really Think (December 9, 2018)
• Tales of Wisdom & Wonder: The Fascinating Life of Huston Smith (December 8, 2019)
• Who Owns Religion? (December 6, 2020)

Islam

• The Future of Islam (October 5, 2014)
• Practicing Safe Texts: Misquoting Moses, Misquoting Jesus, Misquoting Muhammad (October 4, 2015)
• Islamophobia & Democracy (September 25, 2016)
• American Muslims & Islam in America (September 17, 2017)
• Reading Rumi in a Pandemic: Poetic & Healing Insights for Today (July 26, 2020)
• Demystifying Shariah & Reimagining Islam (April 18, 2021)

“Mormonism”

• Mitt Romney, Mormonism, and Latter Day Saints (October 14, 2012)

“New Religious Movements”

• Star Wars: Jediism, Invented Religions, & the Spirituality of the Force (December 10, 2017)

4th Source: “Jewish and Christian teachings”

• Since We All "Pick & Choose," Why Not Choose Love? (September 12, 2021)
• Reading the Same Text Differently with Jews & Christians (September 21, 2014)
• Jewish Readings of Christian Scripture: Parables as Deeds Not Creeds (October 12, 2014)

Christian Tradition

• The Life Tradition vs. the Death Tradition in Christianity (March 16, 2014)
• Chocolate for Lent (February 15, 2015)
• The Meaning of Christmas: Then & Now (December 26, 2016)
• Martin Luther & the Law of Unintended Consequences: Reflections on the 500th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation #Reformation500 (October 29, 2017)
• Jungian Reflections on Jesus from the “Second Half of Life” (March 11, 2018)

Christian Tradition (Christmas Eve Candlelight Service)

• We Are All Mothers of God (December 24, 2013)
• The Christmas Truce (December 24, 2014)
• Reflections on the 50th Anniversary of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Christmas Sermon on Peace” (December 24, 2017)
• The 200th Anniversary of Silent Night (December 24, 2018)
• “Joy to the World” at 300 (December 24, 2019)
• A Unitarian “O Holy Night” (December 24, 2020)
• How UUs Helped Invent Christmas (December 19, 2022)

Christian Tradition (Easter)

• Practicing Resurrection (March 31, 2013)
• "Easter, Earth Day, and Flower Communion: How Did Jesus Become God, and What Does Resurrection Mean Today?" (April 20, 2014)
• The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene (April 6, 2015)
• Remembering, Changing, Inventing: How Stories About Jesus Were Told (March 27, 2016)
• Easter: History Remembered or Prophecy Historicized? (April 16, 2017)
• The Exponential Growth of a Forbidden Religion: How Did Christianity Grow from 20 people to 30 million in 370 years? (April 1, 2018)
• Resurrecting Easter: The Communal Uprising We Need Today (April 21, 2019)
• What's Next?: A History of the Afterlife & What Happens If Everyone Matters? (April 12, 2020)
• “The Cross & the Lynching Tree”: The Life & Legacy of James Cone, Founder of Black Liberation Theology (April 4, 2021)
• How Do You Make Sense of Easter Today?: Progressive, Mystical, Humanist (April 17, 2022)
• How to be a Good Ancestor (April 24, 2022)

Christian Tradition (Non-canonical)

• Lost Christianities and Banned Books of the Bible (November 10, 2013)
• The Lost Way: Thomas, Mary, & Q (April 26, 2015)
• After Jesus, Before Christianity (December 5, 2021)

Jewish Tradition

• Protesting as Prayer & Life as a Work of Art: Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (January 19, 2014)
• When to Not Tolerate Intolerance? Insights from the Jewish Tradition (September 24, 2017)
• The Kabbalah for Today: Deeper into the Life You Already Have (September 16, 2018)
• Open, Direct, Mutual, Present, Spontaneous—without judgement or agenda: Martin Buber’s Life of Dialogue (September 29, 2019)

Jewish Tradition (Hebrew Bible / TANAKH)

• Eve Was Framed, the Serpent Was Right: Jeffrey Kripal and Gnostic Reflections on Religion (August 24, 2014)
• Aronofsky’s Noah: from “Hope in Heaven” to “Hope in Grandchildren” (April 6, 2014)
• Did the Exodus Happen? And What It Means Today (December 14, 2014)
• ”Did God Have a Wife?”: Asherah, Heavenly Mother, & Mother Earth (December 13, 2015)

5th Source: “Humanist teachings (Reason and Science)”

• Why Is There Something Instead of Nothing? (March 3, 2013)
• Poetically Dwelling on the Earth as a Mortal (April 28, 2013)
• Atheism for Lent: The Spiritual Practice of Doubt (February 16, 2014)
• “Do You Really Want to Know?” Copernicus, Darwin, and Marx (September 27, 2015)
• Are You A Faitheist? (December 6, 2015)
• The Spirituality of Doubt (February 7, 2016)
• Why We Should Choose both Religion and Science (June 12, 2016)
• Modern Uncertainty: “Meeting the Universe Halfway” (August 14, 2016)
• Spooky Action at a Distance (June 10, 2018)
• A Clock on the Floor Runs Slower than One on a Table—& Other Wild Truths about Time (March 3, 2019)
• This Life: Secular Faith & Spiritual Freedom (September 22, 2019)
• Earthrise, Big History, & Deep Time (October 20, 2019)
• What Is Natural? What Is Normal? (and How to Do Nothing?!) (July 19, 2020)
• “Myths, Mirages, & Measuring Time” (March 7, 2021)

Darwin Day

• Evolutionary Religion (February 9, 2014)
• Celebrating Darwin Day: “Perpetual Curiosity, Scientific Thinking, & Hunger for Truth” (February 14, 2016)
• What Does It Mean that We Are Sapiens? Reflections on Darwin Day (February 12, 2017)
• “The Evolution of Beauty”: Everything You Always Wanted(?) to Know about Duck Sex, But Were Afraid to Ask (February 18, 2018)
• How Darwin's Book Changed America--& how Unitiarians first read Darwin (February 10, 2019)
• The Tangled Tree of Life: Evolutionary Insights after Darwin (February 9, 2020)
• An Evolution of Thinking (March 7, 2021)
• The Evolving Story of Evolution (February 13, 2022)

6th Source: “Earth-centered traditions”

Native American Spirituality (also see "Indigenous Peoples' Day)"

• Native American Spirituality: Appreciating Diversity or Appropriation without Reciprocity? (September 23, 2012)
  

Paganism

• “Coming Out of the Broom Closet” #PaganPride (September 6, 2015)
  

Paganism (Spring Equinox / Ostara)

• The Spirituality of Spring: Creativity as Spiritual Practice (April 14, 2013)
  

Paganism (Winter Solstice / Yule)

• Can You Feel the Wheel of the Year Turning? The Spirituality of Winter (December 9, 2012)
• Winter Solstice Spirituality: “Learning to Walk in the Dark" (December 21, 2014)
• Why You Should See 2,700 (Not 12) Stars at Night: Reclaiming a Spirituality of Dark Skies (December 20, 2015)
• “What Is Saving Your Life Right Now?” Hygge, Walking, Nature (December 20, 2020)
  

Paganism (Halloween/Samhain)

• Scarred, Scared, Sacred: Celebrating Samhain (October 27, 2013)
• Vampires, Witches, and NPR: The Legacy of Margot Adler (October 25, 2015)
• "Witches of America" (October 30, 2016)
• What Do You Know to Be True Because It Happened to You? Spiritualism, Spookiness, & Universalism (October 25, 2020)

Sleep

• Why We Sleep & Why It Matters (December 22, 2019)

Stewardship/Generosity

• A Spirituality of Stability (September 29, 2013)
• The Generosity Path (March 1, 2015)

Social, Economic and Environmental Justice

("UU 1st Principle: The inherent worth and dignity of every person")
("UU 2nd Principle: Justice, equity and compassion in human relations")
("UU 6th Principle: The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all")
("UU 7th Principle: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.")

• The Hunger Games, the Zombie Apocalypse, and the Meaning of Myths, Then and Now (December 1, 2013)
• Selma, Seneca Falls, Stonewall: Claiming Our Social Justice Story (February 2, 2014)
• Building Your Own Ethics (January 11, 2015)
• Letting Go of Fear and Celebrating Differences: Insights from Intersectionality for Collective Liberation (August 9, 2015)
• Resisting the Greatest Threats to Beloved Community: The Poor People’s Campaign, Then & Now(May 27, 2018)
• Defense Against the Dark Arts: Harry Potter for Such a Time as This (October 27, 2019)
• "If You’re Not at the Table, You May Be on the Menu”: Principles of Social Justice (October 6, 2019)
• Four Pivots: Reimagining Justice, Reimagining Ourselves (August 21, 2022)

Animal Rights & Tree of Life

• “Unsanctifying Human Life”: Wrestling with Peter Singer’s Ethics (September 13, 2015)
• What Animals Think & Feel: The Deep Origins of Consciousness (August 12, 2017)
• The Hidden Life of Trees (December 23, 2018)
• Thoreau, Animal Emotions, & Us (August 9, 2020) (Chosen as the 2020 winner of the UU Animal Ministry's Albert Schweitzer sermon contest, awarded to the person who has delivered the best sermon on the topic of our responsibilities to nonhuman animals.)
• Living the Entangled Life: World-Changing Insights from Mushrooms & Mycelium (December 13, 2020)
• Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? And Beyond Intersectionality to Animality (October 3, 2021)
• Perceptual Worlds: Insights from Animals About the Hidden Realities Around Us (October 2, 2022)

Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

• Asian American History for Today (May 31, 2020)

Bullying

• We Are All Weird: What You Can Do To Stop Bullying (June 2, 2013)

Civil Resistance, Civl Disobedience, Nonviolent Activism

• Conscience, Civil Disobedience, and Holy Obedience (July 14, 2013)
• Resistance & Resilience: What Does (and Doesn’t) Work in Movements for Social Change (April 9, 2017)

Classism / Poverty / Economic Justice / Wealth Gap / Inequality

• You May Be Rich and Not Know It: A Jeffersonian Spirituality for Today (November 25, 2012)
• Why Peter Singer Hates on Guide Dogs & the Make-a-Wish Foundation: Reflections on “The Most Good You Can Do” (November 15, 2015)
• The Market as God (March 5, 2017)
• Sharpening Our Pitchforks: How to Decrease the Income Inequality Gap (September 9, 2018)
• Psychology, Poverty, & the American Dream (September 20, 2020)

Climate Justice

• Wendell Berry, Climate Change, and Earth Breathing (April 21, 2013)
• Betting on Earth's Future (April 19, 2015)
• “Dispatches from the Front Lines of Climate Justice” (April 17, 2016)
• Earth Day, the Earth Challenge, & the People’s #ClimateMarch (April 23, 2017)
• Will 10 Billion People Be the “New Norm?” (Or: How Many Earths Would It Take For Everyone To Live Your Lifestyle?) (April 22, 2018)
• Winter Is Coming: Wizards, Prophets, & Climate Change (April 14, 2019)
• “If the Climate Was a Bank, They Would Have Already Rescued It”: Recent History, the Human Game, & Eco-dharma (April 19, 2020)
• Climate Justice, Courage, & Hope (June 13, 2021)

Criminal Justice Reform

• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness (February 10, 2013)
• Just Mercy: "Each of Us Is More Than the Worst Thing We’ve Ever Done" (April 3, 2016)
• Another World Is Possible: What Does Prison Abolition Really Mean? (January 24, 2021)
• What Does #DefundThePolice Really Mean? Awakening Our Abolitionist Imaginations (May 23, 2021)

Death Penalty / Capital Punishment

• Another World Is Possible: Repealing the Death Penalty (February 24, 2013)

Disability Rights (Ableism)

• Equal Access: The Ongoing Struggle for Disability Rights (August 16, 2015)
• Being Heumann (October 18, 2020)

Dismantling Racism / White Supremacy Culture (Racial Justice)

("UU 8th Principle: Journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.")

• Building the Beloved Community: Anti-Racism and Multiculturalism in a Local Congregation (October 6, 2013)
• "The Selma Awakening: How the Civil Rights Movement Tested and Changed Unitarian Universalism" (March 8, 2015)
• What Ta-Nehisi Coates Taught Me About “People Who Believe They Are White” (September 20, 2015)
• "Whose Side Are You On?" The Legacy of Anne Braden for Today (September 18, 2016)
• What’s Fair? Who Decides? The Ethics of Privilege & Oppression (November 20, 2016)
• Spiritual Practices of Curiosity & Commitment #UUWhiteSupremacyTeachIn (April 30, 2017)
• The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery & the Making of American Capitalism (November 26, 2017)
• "The Color of Money”: Closing the Racial Wealth Gap & Reimagining Freedom (December 2, 2018)
• “A More Beautiful & Terrible History” (February 3, 2019)
• “The Opposite of ‘Racist’ Isn’t ‘Not Racist.” It's ‘Antiracist” (November 17, 2019)
• "Forgotten History & the Origins of Our Discontents" (November 1, 2020)
• The Stories We Tell Matter: On the 100th Anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre (May 30, 2021)
• An Afro-Indigenous History of the U.S.--Past, Present, & Future (February 20, 2022)
• Somatic Abolitionism (October 9, 2022)

Dismantling Racism (Centering Black Voices)

• Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom (February 19, 2016)
• Developing Double Consciousness: Beyoncé, Black Panthers, & W.E.B. Du Bois (February 21, 2016)
• James Baldwin (March 18, 2018)
• The Radiant & Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry (February 2, 2020)
• The Stories We Tell Matter: “An African-American and Latinx History of the United States” (February 23, 2020)
• A Black Women’s History of the U.S.— Past, Present, & Future (February 21, 2021)
• Odetta: “The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement” (February 28, 2021)
• “Dream a Little Before You Think”: Dorothy Pitman Hughes & the Ripple Effects of Activism (March 27, 2022)
• Rest Is Resistance (December 19, 2022)
• Fannie Lou Hamer's Enduring Message to America (March 5, 2023)

Dismantling Racism (MLK / The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

• Rosa Parks: The Rest of the Story (January 18, 2015)
• “The Radical Martin Luther King, Jr.”: Why We Need a Third Reconstruction in America (January 17, 2016)
• Dangerous Friendships, Golden Shadows, & the Legacy of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr (January 14, 2018)
• MLK’s Dreams & Legacies: Who Is Forming You? (January 20, 2019)
• The Last 31 Hours of a Contemporary Prophet (January 19, 2020
• “Martin & Malcolm & America” (January 10, 2021)
• Messages from the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin #WeWantVotingRights (January 16, 2022)
• Brothers in the Beloved Community: The Friendship of Thich Nhất Hạnh and Martin Luther King Jr. (January 15, 2023)

Eugenics

• Eugenics, Then & Now: Liberal Religion & Illiberal Progressives (March 26, 2017)

Gun Violence

• Politics of the Broken Hearted: Gun Rights and Gun Responsibilities (December 16, 2012)
• Preventing Gun Violence (March 10, 2013)

Human Rights

• How to Cultivate a Culture of Dignity (November 16, 2014)
• Why Human Rights Are Inalienable, But Not Inevitable (April 15, 2018)

Immigration

• En la Lucha: (Dis)covery, (Im)migration, and Social Justice (September 2, 2012)
• "Take Down These Walls": Immigrants Make America Great (October 15, 2017)
• "Imagine There's No Countries”: Interdependence Day & Immigration Justice (July 4, 2021)

Indigenous Peoples' Rights: Decolonization

• “An Indigenous People’s History of the United States”; or Why "Columbus Day" Should Be "Indigenous People's Day" (October 11, 2015)
• Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, & the Teachings of Plants (October 13, 2019)
• Decolonizing, Healing, Rebalancing (October 11, 2020)
• “Let the Earth Stabilize Your Postcolonial Insecure Jitters”: Re-imagining, Decolonizing—and Indigenous People’s Day (October 10, 2021)
• The Past, Present & Future of Thanksgiving (November 21, 2021)

Labor Rights (Labor Day / International Workers' Day)

• Why a 40-Hour Work Week? (It’s Decreased Before. It Could Again.) (June 14, 2015)
• People, Planet, Profit: Revitalizing the Labor Movement (September 4, 2016)
• Beyond $15: The Stable Floor of a Universal Basic Income #21stCenturyUniversalism (September 3, 2017)
• Alienated Labor, Bullshit Jobs, & the Dream of a 15-Hour Work Week (September 1, 2019)
• From Sacred Stories of Sacrilege to Imagining a Future with Hope (On the 50th Anniversary of the Kent State Massacre) (May 2, 2020)
• “Workers of the World Unite”: Wrestling with the Life & Legacy of Karl Marx (May 2, 2021)
• The Past, Present, & Future of Work (September 5, 2021)
• From the People Who Brought You the Weekend (September 4, 2022)

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender / Gender-Nonconforming Rights (LGBTQAI+)

• A Single Garment of Destiny: MLK and Savoring the Victories for the DREAM Act and Marriage Equality (January 20, 2013)
• Cisgender and Transgender (October 13, 2013)
• Identity and Inclusion: Transgender Liberation (August 21, 2016)
• “Being Gendered in the 21st Century” (September 30, 2018)
• The 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising:Riots, Rebellion, Liberation, & Pride (June 2, 2019)

Mental Health

• America’s First Mental Health Court: Moving from Stigma to Dignity (February 17, 2019)

Reproductive Justice

• Reproductive Justice: Did You Just Send That Woman to a Church to Get Help with An Abortion? (April 7, 2013)
• Trust Women: Bodies, Laws, & Reproductive Justice (June 21, 2020)
• “How Rights Went Wrong”: On the 50th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade (January 8, 2023)

Restaurant Worker Justice

• If You Eat at Restaurants, Look “Behind the Kitchen Door" (January 12, 2014)

Torture

• Zero Dark Thirty: Torture, Disavowal, and the Oscars (February 17, 2013)

Waging War and Waging Peace

• Becoming a Congregation Where All Bodies Count: Memorial Day, Fallen Soldiers, and Civilian Casualties (May 26, 2013)
• The Right of Conscience and the Crystallization of Conscience (May 4, 2014)
• Memory, Memorial Day, and Monument Wars (May 18, 2014)
• How to Love Your Enemies...In Buddhism, in Christianity, and in Real Life (June 8, 2014)
• The Secret Six: Violence and Nonviolence in Unitarian Universalism (August 3, 2014)
• Tectonic Shifts in the Global Religious Landscape: Looking Back on the 100th Anniversary of the Beginning of World War I (August 17, 2014)
• “God Bless America (and No Place Else?!)": The Uses & Abuses of Civil Religion (May 29, 2016)
• “You Say You Want a Revolution”: What Have We Learned on the 100th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution? (October 22, 2017)
• Doubts & Loves: Israel/Palestine, Perspectives, & Peace (August 8, 2021)

Women's Rights

• From the Waves of Feminism to “The Mother of the Hubble” (March 17, 2019)
• “Grandma Was a Suffragette”: Justice Across Generations (On the 100th Anniversary of Women’s Right to Vote) (August 16, 2020)
• Building a New Mythology (March 20, 2022)

Theology

• Do We Need a Moratorium on the Word 'God'? (October 7, 2012)
• Building Your Own Theology (September 8, 2013)
• Living the Questions: Further Reflections on Building Your Own Theology (November 17, 2013)
• “Evil: A Liberal Religious Investigation" (April 24, 2016)

Transitions

• "Fast Future: How the Millennial Generation Is Shaping Our World" (May 18, 2014)
• Seventh-Generation Thinking (May 17, 2015)
• How Do You Encourage Spiritual Growth? (May 15, 2022)

Unitarian Universalism

• Pluralism, Pragmatism, Progressivism: My Journey to Unitarian Universalism (July 22, 2012)
• The Stories We Choose to Tell Matter: Highlights from Unitarian Universalist History (January 13, 2013)
• What Is Our Conveyor Belt? Building the Beloved Community (March 17, 2013)
• Who's In Charge Here? The Dance between Shared Ministry and Authority (July 7, 2013)
• ‘Spiritual & Religious’ Is More Radical Than ‘Spiritual But Not Religious (August 25, 2013)
• Unitarian Universalism in 30 Seconds: Developing Your UU Elevator Speech (September 1, 2013)
• "Why Does Unitarian Universalism Have Such a Long Name?" (August 10, 2014)
• Deeds Not Creeds, Behavior Is Believable (September 7, 2014)
• Give Yourself Permission for Self-Care: Cautionary Tales from UU History (July 26, 2015)
• The Religion of Tomorrow: Waking up, Growing up, Cleaning up, Showing up (August 6, 2017)
• Growing Up Absorbed: Lifelong UU Religious Exploration (September 11, 2022)

Founding Mothers of Unitarian Universalism

• Margaret Fuller (May 11, 2014)
• The Peabody Sisters (May 10, 2015)
• Julia Ward Howe (May 8, 2016)
• Mary Moody Emerson: Ralph Waldo’s “First & Best Teacher” (May 14, 2017)
• The Story Behind Little Women: How the Life of Louisa May Alcott Is Interwoven with Transcendentalism (May 14, 2018)
• Olympia Brown (May 12, 2019)
• Lydia Maria Child (May 10, 2020)
• What Stars Are Made Of: The Life & Legacy of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (May 9, 2021)
• Founding Mothers of UU: The Doctors Blackwell & Reproductive Justice (May 8, 2022)

General Assembly

• What Would 3,500 Unitarian Universalists Do? (June 30, 2013)
• "Find Out How Much Love the World Can Hold": Reflections on General Assembly" (July 6, 2014)
• Building a New Way (July 12, 2015)
• “Becoming Wise”: The Practice of Generous Listening (July 10, 2016)

Unitarianism

• Why Unitarianism? (July 20, 2014)
• An Honest Heretic: Religion, Science, & Dr. Joseph Priestley (January 25, 2015)
• The Transient and the Permanent: Theodore Parker & Transcendentalism (March 15, 2015)
• The Great End of Religious Instruction: The Legacy of William Ellery Channing (February 1, 2015)
• Thoreau in Today's America (January 22, 2017)
• The Legacy of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. — for Today (March 29, 2017)
• “Mind on Fire”: The Life & Legacy of Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 6, 2018)
• Unitarianism, Then & Now: Why William Ellery Channing’s Most Famous Sermon Still Matters 200 Years Later (May 5, 2019)

Universalism

• Why Universalism? (July 27, 2014)
• Cultivating Empathy: The Worth and Dignity of Every Person — Without Exception (October 2, 2016)
• Lessons from the Life of Orestes Brownson, “An American Religious Weathervane” (October 1, 2017)
• The Greatest Showman: “P. T. Barnum, The Legend & the Man” (October 7, 2018)
• Universalism with the End in Mind: Reflections on Fauré’s Requiem (April 7, 2019)

Utopia

• What Do We Mean We When Say, "Building the Beloved Community?" (March 29, 2015)
• "We Are Already Saved from Perfection" (June 3, 2018)
• Utopia for Realists (September 6, 2020)

Water Communion

• A River Runs through It (September 9, 2012)
• This Is Water (September 15, 2013)
  

(The short link for this page is frederickuu.org/topical).

Last modified on Thursday, May 4, 2023 3:34pm