Returning from the Brink

Returning from the Brink © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church April 12, 2026     First Reflection: At the Brink   It has been, perhaps, the most frightening week of recent memory. To find the equivalent, I found myself going back to September...

Dying is the Opposite of Leaving

Dying is the Opposite of Leaving © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church Easter Sunday April 5, 2026   Today is a day of stories. We enter into this day, that we call Easter Sunday, thinking we know the story. But there are many stories, many layers, many...

To Speak Out Against Kings

To Speak Out Against Kings © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church March 29, 2026     By 1980, El Salvador was overrun with paramilitary groups: death squads, who roamed the country assassinating people in the name of “traditional values”, and “law and...

Making the World Come Alive

Making the World Come Alive © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church March 15, 2026     Most years I dread the month of March. It’s not really winter, and not quite spring. The clean brightness of the snow recedes and leaves mud and dead leaves and gray...

The Beginning of Devotion

The Beginning of Devotion © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church March 8, 2026     In one of his most famous passages explaining his decision to live alone in the Concord woods for two years, Henry David Thoreau wrote, “I went to the woods because I...

To Live Like a River Flows

To Live Like a River Flows © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church February 22, 2026     People often wonder how a minister creates a sermon. Frankly, the minister often wonders this herself. But people tend to be curious about the process: how we find...