Here is last week’s service from the Unitarian church in Cambridge, England:

Facts not fear. Clean hands. Open hearts.—An Epicurean/Lucretian meditation on how to respond to the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic

Rather, the people who are the most happy the most often are those who are pursuing a sense of meaning in their lives, and the author unpacks that experience as having four main pillars. The first of these is a sense of belonging, and I’ll come back to that in a moment, in the light of some other research I want to tell you about. The second pillar is purpose; the third is transcendence, and the fourth is story-telling, or what I would call narrative coherence. Each one of these four pillars is at the heart of what any competent church is meant to do; these are the functions that religious community ought to be providing for its members, regardless of what theology it represents. This is why church is good for you, because it is helpful to have a committed purpose, a practice of transcendence, a framing narrative, and a sense of belonging in community.

A sermon (text here) by Rev. Kendyl Gibbons, All Souls Kansas City

What do you need right now dear ones? How are we going to get through this?

Maybe you’re in shock. Maybe you’re pissed as hell. Maybe you’re weeping. Maybe you’re numb and trying to do all the normal things. Maybe you’re hiding in bed.

All of these reactions are totally normal. There is nothing that makes this ok, because hate is not ok and greed is not ok and violence are not ok. Electing a president who is overtly racist, sexist, violent and endlessly greedy is not an ok thing to do. We all know these next four years won’t be ok.

Blue Boat » What do you need right now?
http://blueboat.blogs.uua.org/2016/11/09/what-do-you-need-right-now/

Later in her article, Wilcox describes her little daughter proclaiming, “‘People who believe in God are crazy,’ to which Scott nodded approval.”

Oh, boy. I’m so sorry. I really am. Whatever they did to this man as a kid, it was sick and soul-damaging and wrong. I am so sorry that whatever happened to him hardened into a conviction that anyone who believes in God must be crazy. I am really, really tired of hearing ministers use the line, “I’m sure I don’t believe in that God, either,” because it insults the author’s husband and my intelligence and diminishes the profundity of both our experiences.

http://www.peacebang.com/2016/08/27/contagious-theism-and-reason-to-rejoice/

More on last week’s service topic.

Why does a book that loves knowledge make its villain a brain?

As a disembodied brain, IT is a symbol of pure rationality, of the idea that all questions and problems can be solved with logic.

Rereading A Wrinkle in Time: what’s up with that giant evil brain?