Sermon Archive
To Live with Zeal
To Live with Zeal © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church January 9, 2022 On a summer day in 1845, Henry David Thoreau wrote these few words in his journal: “July 5. Saturday, Walden. Yesterday I came here to live.” And live there he did, for two years, two...
Cultural Humility
Kelly Knox Dec 12, 2021 Good Morning. It is so wonderful to be here, to see everyone. I have missed this community so very much. The idea for what has now morphed into nothing more than a conversation starter, was born of me telling Reverend Janet that I was chairing...
Giving Thanks for the Pizzazz
Giving Thanks for the Pizzazz © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church November 21, 2021 Yesterday afternoon the Gloucester Meetinghouse Foundation hosted a symposium on refugees and immigration right here in our sanctuary. There was so much information shared,...
Allowing Our Hearts to Break
Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester Unitarian Universalist Church November 7, 2021 Suddenly, it’s November. Like the trees, who spend autumn drawing nourishment back into their roots, we, too, find that our instincts begin to turn us inward, toward memory and...
What Graveyards Are
What Graveyards Are 1418 Words Karl Frank Oct 31, 2021 When asked if I would deliver a homily today, in a service where we would commemorate the dead, I knew I had some ideas about those things, more particularly about graveyards. I had recently read Robert...
Make Our Broken Pieces Whole
Make Our Broken Pieces Whole © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church October 24, 2021 I had a really positive experience the other day, that I enjoyed thoroughly – I got to sit with a couple of church members to air some conflict. I’ve said often that...
The ‘We’ Above the ‘I’
The ‘We’ Above the ‘I’ © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church October 10, 2021 Braiding Sweetgrass, a beautiful book about indigenous wisdom and what plants have to teach us, is full of stories. The author, Robin Wall Kimmerer, recounted that she once met a...
Good Neighbors
Good Neighbors © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church October 3, 2021 There is a hillside in Salem, that I discovered recently. It’s a small area, tucked between two ordinary houses on an ordinary street. It is a hillside known as Proctor’s Ledge, and there,...
The Guidance System
Led by Newt Fink, Aug 22, 2021 August 22, 2021 UU The guidance system In many examples from nature we see the workings of an apparent guidance system. A tiny bird, the Red Knot, migrates every year eight thousand miles without a map, without a device, through...
Flower Communion
Led by Lucille LePage July 18, 2021 So, what is a Flower Communion? And what is its significance? The story begins almost 100 years ago, in Czechoslovakia, with Dr. Norbert Capek and his wife Maja. Both were Unitarian ministers who started the Unitarian Church of...
New Beginnings
New Beginnings Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church July 11, 2021 I chose this reading this morning (from John O’Donohue’s To Bless the Space Between Us) because I think a great deal about how this time is a new beginning for us. It’s not a time we asked...
A Tale of Three Americas
A Tale of Three Americas © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church July 4, 2021 I was taken by surprise the other day while I was driving down Route 128. I was listening to an NPR interview with Keith Lockhart, the conductor of the Boston Pops, about plans for...
Upcoming Services
Gloucester UU joins Rockport and Essex for worship this Sunday at First Univ of Essex, or on Zoom.Sunday August 23rd 10 am Stronger Together with Rev. Tess BaumbergerJoin us for a service about how we can be stronger by working together, using the symbols of spinning threads and weaving tapestries. The service will include a simple ritual, poetry, and meditations on the power of collaboration.To join us via Zoom please visit uuessex.org and click on the Zoom link. If you’re coming in person, there is some street parking or you can use the municipal lot. Coming from Gloucester you would go past the church and take your first left onto Martin Street, then go left again on Shepherd Street. Please know the central spots in the lot are reserved for boat and trailer parking during the summer. If you go up the stairs at the end of the lot, you can cross the parking lot and make your way to the church.
Recent News
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...
Sunday April 5
Dying is the Opposite of Leaving, led by Reverend Janet Parsons, with Andrew Soll, organist, and the church choir. Join us for Easter Sunday, as we celebrate that Love has the last word. Everyone is welcome! At our church, community is more important than belief. So...
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...