Singing Our Way to Hope Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church March 15, 2020   A period of time spent wandering in the wilderness is one of the oldest and most common themes in storytelling. It is the idea of a quest: a journey into uncharted territory,...

Today we are drawing on some wisdom that was written over 700 years ago. Imagine your writings surviving for over 700 years. Not merely surviving, but becoming known more and more around the world, translated into new languages, spread by technologies that the author...

Hagia Sophia: The Feminine Face of God Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church March 1, 2020 In the sixth century of the Common Era, a church was built in Constantinople by the order of the Roman Emperor Justinian and the Empress Theodosia. The church was the...

To Rise, To Reach a Little Deeper Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church February 16, 2020 “It is that time and place to remember those who came through the long night to witness another sunrise.” (Qiyamah Rahman, in Voices from the Margins, p. 14-16.) This is...

Sermon: 32407 + 34902 by Rev. Julie Lombard Flashing back to a solidarity march for immigration that happened in August for families being separated at our borders and caged children, at a time when some parents were dropping off a kid at college where they will live...

More Cautious Than Courageous Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church January 19, 2020 “I felt we would be supported by the white church,” lamented Martin Luther King Jr. in his 1963 Letter from a Birmingham Jail. He thought white clergy would rise up in support...

The Land That Never Has Been Yet Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church January 12, 2020   “Let America be America again, the land that never has been yet.” (Langston Hughes, Let America be America Again) Truly, it feels as though this is an extraordinarily...

Forgotten Wholeness Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church January 5, 2020 “Wholeness is never lost, it is only forgotten.” (Rachel Naomi Remen, in Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal, New York, Riverhead Books, 1996: p. 108.) Maybe it’s impossible to...

Joy, Anyway Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church December 24, 2019   “Joy to the World!” The song, and its generous, lavish, wish for joy for all people, is 300 years old this year. It has come to us across times of famine and plenty, of war and peace,...

My Heart Shall Sing Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church December 15, 2019   This past Wednesday one of the very first things I saw after I woke up was that Time Magazine’s 2019 Person of the Year had been announced. The award was given to Greta Thunberg,...

First There is Awe© Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church December 8, 2019   Early in my seminary days, I had a conversation with a fellow student about how we experienced the divine, the numinous, the ineffable, or whatever name you might want to give that...

Opening to Love Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church November 17, 2019   There was a great turnout on Wednesday evening at Jalapenos Restaurant down the street. It was World Kindness Day, and our local Kindness Project, conceived and spearheaded by our...