Church of the Larger Fellowship UU Worship

On my desk is a picture of my maternal great-grandparents, who died years before I was born. I often think about what it would be like to have a conversation with them. As my people are asked to celebrate someone problematic to whom I am not connected, I would like to celebrate the people whose life and labor, to use a phrase from Maya Angelou, paid for my existence.

The logic of Empire seeks to convince us that the status quo is fixed, and inevitable. Furthermore, this logic conditions us to fear and resist change. However, our Living Tradition encourages us to embody acts of LOVE as a  pathway to personal and social transformation. Join us this week at CLF as we continue our contemplation on Transformation. Additional resources suggested: Sisters of the Yam...

In many Pagan and Earth-based traditions, the Autumn Equinox (Mabon) represents gratitude, balance, and letting go. Many see it as a threshold moment, acknowledging what has been harvested and preparing for renewal through darker months. What are you experiencing in this Change of Season? What opportunities for transformation does the Equinox provide us? Join us this week as we honor Mabon (Autumn...

What is a mistake? Something gone wrong? A decision you regret? Part of transformation is learning from our mistakes, this week we will explore how to have grace for ourselves and others when mistakes are made.

Relationships require a lot of work. Growth requires a lot of work. As we celebrate Labor Day weekend in the United States, we will honor the emotional labor that we are each asked to do as part of our commitment to transformation (and recognize that emotional labor is not distributed equitably in our society).

We have spent the past month exploring all the ways we need rest to replenish our bodies and spirits. On our last day of the month, we will lean into the transition from rest to rising and what comes next on our journey toward collective liberation. And we will honor Dolly, the woman who showed us how to live generously and with love for humanity.

Many times we are told to put things down, disengage, take a vacation or a media fast as ways to rest. Those are definitely ways to rest. And. Sometimes the rest comes in choosing presence, moving closer, picking up threads whose disconnected dangling was wearing us out. There must be at least a thousand ways to rest. Come practice a few together on our faithful journey towards collective liberati...

Our culture tells us that productivity is worth, that stillness is wasted time. This service pushes back — drawing on Tricia Hersey and The Nap Ministry's teaching that rest is not a reward to be earned but a birthright, and that reclaiming rest is an act of resistance against systems built on exhaustion. We'll explore what rest can actually look like — not just sleep, but the many forms stillness...

Have you ever just needed a nap? Capitalist grind culture makes it nearly impossible for all but a privileged few to do this. Perhaps we can normalize napping when we need it.

Global extractive capitalism manufactures scarcity and inflation for the masses by hoarding resources for a few elites. Then, Empire and it’s agents coerce us to trade our sacred bodies (labor) for very trivial amounts of money (a thing that literally has no inherent value). Many of us are so busy on the hamster wheel of capitalism that rest feels like a luxury we cannot afford; but what if, REST...

Robin Wall Kimmerer takes us on a journey illustrating how nature teaches us the lessons of abundance and reciprocity. We will explore her book The Serviceberry, and lean into the ways we can show up for each other and build a better world.

Description Centering folks with lived experiences of oppression creates greater equity, more people getting needs met, a safer society, and draws on gifts that are otherwise ignored. Pip discusses this orientation to disability justice, prison abolition and restorative justice, and antiracism with a UU lens of placing love at the center. Bio Pip Paris is a trans man (he/him/his) living in Chicago...

Violence is a tool used by empire to keep people subjugated. It is expressed through all systems of oppression in different ways--white supremacy, patriarchy, heterosexism, and ableism all require violence to sustain themselves. How do we maintain the inherent dignity of all people when violence is the dominant political narrative?

This July 4th weekend, the United States of America will be celebrating 250 years. It is hard to fully celebrate in light of the current political climate, and yet I think there is plenty of reason for hope and celebration in spite of the ways this country has been the gold standard for oppression.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu taught that we become human through one another. In a culture that often values independence more than connection, this service explores the everyday practices that help us build communities where everyone can flourish. From the unseen work that sustains our lives to the relationships that shape who we become, we'll reflect on what it means not only to recognize our interde...

What do our faith, shared values and covenant call us to do about the Prison industrial Complex? The ministers, staff, and incarcerated members of the Church of the Larger Fellowship will invite us to embody our Universalism as we unlearn theologies of punishment and embrace one of inherent worthiness.

250 years ago, a group of privileged colonizer men declared the United States an independent nation. What might it mean to understand instead a world community of interdependence? Who gets to declare that?

Interconnectedness is a central tenet of Buddhist teaching. We will explore the ways Buddhist teachings illustrate the ways we cannot escape the ways what we do impacts each other.

For a few brief days, the world got to experience collective wonder and exhilaration through the crew of the Artemis II spacecraft as they circled the moon and came back to Earth. “Moon joy” has awakened in me a curiosity about what it really means to thrive, and how we can make such a thing available to everyone.

Why do we expect justice from imperial systems that are designed to perpetuate injustice? When you live at the margins, like Alice in Wonderland, we must learn to navigate the world differently;  our vision and pursuit of justice must be reimagined.

Justice has always been contextual. It is a hard truth and one that we must understand as we work to dismantle systems of oppression. As an abolitionist, I am called to understand what justice looks like when we dismantle the idea of locking people away.

We are called to create communities where all people can thrive. For this to happen, we need to be able to bring our whole selves, unapologetically. Our identities, our backgrounds, and our accomplishments, and also our struggles, our mistakes, and our places of brokenness. Unitarian Universalist theology creates a space for this to happen. Will we make it possible?

What do we owe each other? Not in theory. Right now, in this country, in this moment — when people are being taken from their children, their homes, their languages, and placed behind walls designed to make the rest of us forget they exist. This sermon is about the covenant that follows us into the wilderness. Bio (feel free to edit): Rev. JeKaren Bell (she/her) is an ordained and fellowshipped Un...

It has been 63 years since Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. handwrote one of the most famous letters in United States history. We will read excerpts from the letter and consider how far we have and have not come as a country.

In the West, we are socialized by the logic of empire to understand identity as a static or fixed self. However, as embodied beings, we change and grow from every lived experience, emotion, and life lesson.  What happens when we pay close attention to the various selves we have been and are becoming?