Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto Sermons and Reflections

This service is packed with funny stories and poignant moments. There are cows. There are lion attacks (but don't worry, everyone is okay). And there is the story of Rev. Fulgence's imprisonment, the movement to get him out, and the founding of Flaming Chalice International. ... read more.

9:30 am service: indoors and in-person11 am service: indoors and in-person, and online It’s that time of year! We tell the Christmas story in keeping with our Unitarian Universalist heritage and with everyone who wishes to join in becoming characters in the story. And for the ... read more.

9:30 am service: in-person11 am service: online We’ve had our holiday of thanks, and now we have the season of giving. Giving might seem simple–you like someone, so you give them something they’ll enjoy–but it’s anything but. Giving can be motivated by affection, duty, obligation, gratitude, ... read more.

9:30 am service: outdoors and in-person (weather permitting)11 am service: online In a series of services that explore the purpose and significance of different aspects of the service, we come today to our centering words, centering bell, and the silence that follows. As potters and dancers ... read more.

9:30 am service: outdoors and in-person only (weather permitting).11 am service: online only. There is one person each of us tends to dump on: we criticize them, withhold kindness and compassion because we don’t think they deserve them, and reach for the stick instead of the ... read more.

⏰ Turn your clocks back, or you’ll be very early to services! 9:30 am service: outdoors and in-person only (weather permitting).11 am service: online only. I’ve never preached on “followership” because it just seems so self-serving. I’m a leader, and every leader wants people to be good ... read more.

9:30 am service: outdoors and in-person only.11 am service: online only. A man named Itaru Sasaki missed his deceased cousin, so he set up a phone booth in his garden in Ōtsuchi, Japan. Although the phone was not connected to anything, he found it comforting to ... read more.

Awake, enlightened: they might sound as if they are much the same thing, or at least close kin. But in two movements of the 18th century, they represented a conflict: between the emotion-driven “Great Awakening” and the reason-saluting “Age of Enlightenment.” Unitarianism and Universalism grew ... read more.

Today’s service is the first in a series: Why do we do that in the service? Let’s consider Caring and Sharing, our name for what many congregations call “pastoral prayers” or “prayers of the people.” Why do we share our joys and sorrows? And ... read more.

Sometimes a single, simple change can illuminate a very big problem–and what we can do about it. UUCPA’s own single-use plastics policy, implemented for the first time last month, provides a case study in how to make lasting change. Let’s follow a piece of plastic ... read more.

Our annual, intergenerational Water Communion restores our sense of connection with all beings, as we pour our different waters into one vessel. Please do not think your water has to have come from “someplace special.” It is special because it comes from you and from ... read more.

September 23 is Bi Visibility Day, which by rights ought to be a Unitarian Universalist holiday. Why? Because no matter what your sexual orientation, the existence of bisexuality models both/and thinking, which is so important to our journeys as spiritual seekers ... read more.

Yesterday marked 20 years since the tragic events of September 11, 2001. The attack and its aftermath invited us into the stories of each others’ lives, often in heartbreaking ways. Let’s reflect together on how such sharing can bring us greater life and richer meaning. ... read more.

The pandemic has shaken the world of work. Many businesses are finding it impossible to bring back employees under their former conditions. In three months of this spring alone, 11.5 million U.S. workers quit their jobs, a wave called the Great Resignation that may still ... read more.

Last week we talked about time. This week the topic will be money, and the following week, the series will wrap up with a service on work. It’s said that you have to spend money to make money. We get that when it’s applied to, say, ... read more.

There’s just so much to do, and the 24 hours in a day never seem to be enough to catch up. Even retired folks find it hard to get to the end of their to-do list. And the stress seems to set in earlier and ... read more.

In what has become an annual tradition, Amy takes your questions and answers as many as she can in the time usually allotted to a sermon. The identities of the questioners will be confidential. And she has a question for you, too: “What question would ... read more.

Our guest speaker this morning is Leika Lewis-Cornwell (they/she pronouns) who is the President of the UUHA and a UU minister in formation. Over the course of a career as an organizational, policy, and cyber security consultant, Leika has helped public, private, and nonprofit organizations ... read more.

Today’s sermon will encourage reflection upon the history and sacred aspects of drag.  Sister Plush has been a fully professed member of the San Francisco Order of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence for seven years.  Her ministry focuses on Queer and Trans young adults, encouraging ... read more.

The dream of democracy in the United States has never been completely realized, but it remains as an ideal, prized most when we most fear that it could slip away. Today we celebrate the nation’s birthday by sharing some of the ways we can help ... read more.

Today's Fathers' Day sermon was inspired by recalling a book by George Lakoff called Don't Think of an Elephant that Steve read over two decades ago.  Although the examples are a bit dated, it's not hard to see that they still apply today, and have ... read more.

When it comes to personal and spiritual growth, what’s the right amount of challenge? As with exercise, it can’t be downright painful (at least not to the point of actual injury), and to be effective, it also can’t be too relaxed. We aim to do ... read more.

Both our political system and our religious tradition grew out of a highly individualistic philosophy. But our experiences tell us that we are, in fact, not only shaped by but inextricably intertwined with others: especially our families, but also friends, the wider community, and the ... read more.

As individuals, Unitarian Universalists aspire to keep questioning, growing, changing, and moving. The same is true of our denomination as a whole. Before and since the merger of the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America (60 years ago this week), the tradition ... read more.

Who gets written out of history, and whose stories have been lost to us until they are retold? Rev. Barnaby Feder tells us about two, Rev. Phebe Hanaford and Rev. Elizabeth Padgham, and we’ll even hear directly from them! Barnaby comes to us today from ... read more.

Over many decades, our congregation has helped countless people to get under a roof (oftentimes ours!) and to find transitional and permanent housing. Frustratingly, housing and homelessness are even more acute problems than ever. AND: no one is better situated than us to figure out ... read more.

“The opiate of the theologians” . . . “a threat to Christianity” . . . “a pernicious heresy”: What is this terrifying doctrine? Universalism. We celebrate it this morning in what is, by one reckoning, the 250th anniversary year of its blossoming on this continent. ... read more.

You can read the text of the sermon on Darcey’s blog: Stories Like Constellations We are constantly making up stories about why things happen and what those events mean. A good story can help us through hard times. A good story can help ... read more.

In this intergenerational service, we celebrate Easter with stories, very special music, and a traditional animal of the season: the cicada. Photo of cicada’s wings (c) Roger Smith, used by permission Worship leader: Rev. Amy Zucker Morgenstern Special Music: Karen Van Dyke, flute, and ... read more.

Invisible people roll past us, walk among us, even speak to us . . . and what’s even stranger, we are sometimes invisible to them. This isn’t a fantasy movie, but instead, a strange fact of our existence, one that Passover urges us to challenge ... read more.

*Note: Remember to put your clocks forward, or you will be very late to the service!* Today's service shares what we have experienced, learned, mourned, and hoped for during this past year, to give us inspiration for the last push.

So many of our mental models were created for and by men. The hero’s journey, for example, is a particular kind of journey for a particular kind of hero, suited more to typically male ways of being than female ones. When we re-imagine how such ... read more.

It can be very hard to be a latecomer to a point of view. As people like Rep. Liz Cheney have discovered, you not only anger the people with whom you used to agree, but you don’t get a lot of love from your new ... read more.

That’s what Valentine’s Day is really all about. At least, that’s the best anyone can figure out, since this holiday, now dedicated to made-for-TV movies and keeping florists in business, has very murky origins. But there is some real wisdom embedded in its stories, with ... read more.

No, I’m not going to tell you. You know what matters most to you — or, if you are still trying to figure that out, you are in the right place, because we support each other in discerning and living into our most profound values. ... read more.

You heard the reflection, now hear the sermon: on how disability rights activists in this country both influenced and inherited the movement for African-American civil rights, and led themselves and everyone to greater liberation. Amy was unable to be at the January 17 service and ... read more.

By highly unofficial survey, of the seven principles that we affirm and promote as a member congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Association, number four, “A free and responsible search for truth and meaning,” is the favorite. Today we delve into what ... read more.

Disability rights activists in this country are both precursors to and inheritors of the movement for African-American civil rights. In casting off the restraints of pity and protectiveness, people with disabilities have led themselves and others to greater liberation. We’ll hear a small piece of ... read more.

Our limitations don’t usually feel like a gift. But today we’ll hear some stories about surprising things that have happened in situations of difficult and unwanted constraints. Our guest preacher, Rev. Darcy Baxter, is in her seventh year of serving as the minister at the ... read more.

Such a wonderful invention: the opportunity to undo something we have done and suddenly regret. What’s past may be prologue to the future, but we still have the power to rewrite. What would you like to do a little differently in your own life? What ... read more.

The audio player above plays the audio podcast of the sermon only. The YouTube player below plays the video of the entire service with copyrighted and private information redacted. Follow along in the order of service: bit.ly/uucpa_oos_20201227 We know that we Unitarian Universalists are a church ... read more.

We welcome Christmas, live-streamed from our beloved sanctuary, with stories, carols and special music, and candles. Come sing the familiar songs that are always powerful, and experience the magic of candlelight in the darkness, as we receive the message of a love without limits or ... read more.

Join the service via Zoom: zoom.us/j/485021387. The password is available on UUCPA’s outgoing voicemail message, 650-494-0541 and is included in the weekly update emails. To watch services live on our Facebook page visit: facebook.com/uucpa/live. Follow along in the order of service: bit.ly/uucpa_oos_20201213. Holidays ... read more.

Whether we call ourselves believers or not, most of us have a god we don't believe in--what others believe (or we think they believe) that shapes our own attitudes. That can be quite restrictive, because in the abundance of gods we have imagined, we have addressed many different human needs. So today, we'll hear about different kinds of gods. Maybe some other god-ideas are knocking at the door of our hearts, offering a new way of seeing the world. Since it's Posadas season, maybe someone else will knock at the door as well.

Once a year, the high-school-age members of UUCPA lead a service and always have great insights into the world around us. Today they offer leadership on ways to manage during trying times.

Follow along in the order of service: bit.ly/uucpa_oos_20201122. To join the service via Zoom, use this link. The password is available on UUCPA’s outgoing voicemail message, 650-494-0541. To watch the service live on our Facebook page visit: facebook.com/uucpa/live. Our intergenerational Thanksgiving service ... read more.

Not only individuals, but families and communities, carry secrets within themselves. The secrets are protected by silence, and shame guards them like a fierce dog. But there are ways to pass safely into the vault and release the secrets, if we want to be free ... read more.

How do we move forward together as such a divided nation? How do we proceed “with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right,” in Abraham Lincoln’s words, while also striving for unity? The Braver Angels organization, which spins its name ... read more.

It is the time of All Souls and All Saints, and Rev. Millie Phillips returns to our pulpit to lead the service of memory for our beloved departed. We will lift up the names of the members of the UUCPA community who have died since ... read more.

We’ve heard the story of Epimetheus and Prometheus, and how Prometheus was punished by the gods for bringing the gift of fire to humanity. Well, in one version, that wasn’t enough for Zeus, who also sent one last punishment: Pandora. And she opened a ... read more.

Do we still have heroes? Do we still need heroes? When the people we venerate turn out to have flaws, we have some choices: we can give up our ideals, beat up our former idols–or grow up into a more complex view of them and ... read more.