Within the United Nations building in New York City is a meditation room that contains a massive block of iron ore illuminated from above by a single beam of light. In the midst of the world’s Alpha City, this simple room is dedicated to silence and thoughtful introspection. The famed UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld … Continue reading The Altar of Iron and Light
Genuine sharing is vital to a healthy community, and the “Favorite Poem Service” celebrates sharing in deep and personal ways. This annual summer ritual is intimate, layered, and always surprising, structured on a format as simple as it is powerful: A person stands before the congregation, tells why a particular poem is important in their … Continue reading 2018 Annual Poetry Service
From Pinnochio’s growing nose to Plato’s shadowy cave, human beings have been contemplating what it means to be honest and truthful. In this age of alternative facts, fake news, and “truthiness,” what is an honest person to do? (Note: This sermon topic was provided by the highest bidder in a QUUF fundraising auction.)
Music: Evan Millman
A sharing of personal stories by Bruce Bode and Joseph Bednarik about their engagement with poets in their respective careers and their sense of the place of poetry in liberal religion and at QUUF.
Click here to listen to the two sermons.
Click here to read the two sermons.
What on earth is going on in our country? It appears that we’re bearing witness to the heartless and hapless slow-motion deconstruction of the sacred bonds in our societal web. Fear, hatred, and suspicion seem to be the currency of some “new normal”. This sermon tamps down our inner “oh we can’t talk candidly at … Continue reading Are We Trapped in a World Going Backwards?
Genuine sharing is vital to a healthy community, and the “Favorite Poem Service” celebrates our sharing in deep and personal ways. This annual summer ritual is intimate, layered, and always surprising. It is structured on a format as simple as it is powerful: A person stands before the congregation, tells why a particular poem is important in her or his life, and then reads or recites the poem. Tears, laughter, and awe guaranteed.
Helen Keller, one of the most inspirational human beings to live in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, shared a profound insight with the world: “I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.” This sermon celebrates Ms. Keller and her words, and sees how they might apply in our century.
In his poem “Commuting,” Clemens Starck writes: “My son, he’s ten, he wants to know what we’re here for.” During the poet’s commute home from a long day at work, he challenges himself to “figure out something,” and he has a twenty-mile drive to do it. We’ve all been where that little boy is: Profound wonderment about our place in the Universe. We’ve all been where that commuter is: Trying to figure out something. This sermon explores our own commute through life, the questions that arise, and the answers we may realize. Or not. Special guest Clemens Starck will interweave his poems throughout the sermon.
About Clemens Starck: Clemens left Princeton University in the late 1950s to read, write, and travel the world. He is the author of six books of poetry, and his resume of “day jobs” includes merchant seaman, journalist, ranch hand, union carpenter, and construction foreman. He now lives in rural Oregon with thousands of his favorite books.
“Time is the heart of existence,” writes Rabbi Abraham Heschel in his iconic book Sabbath. And God, in the Old Testament, commanded Moses, “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.” What is this gift of time and Sabbath, and how can we moderns practice Sabbath so as to sanctify the precious time at the very heart of our lives?
One of the most glorious and metaphorical places on Earth is a working compost pile: A steaming, teeming heap of life-bursting decay. This sermon explores multiple aspects of decay–that most necessary underpinning of our interconnected web of all existence.
