Looking again at that glass, we consider what it feels like to fill up our lives. What calls us to action? What brings us in touch with others? How do we come together at last?

We all know about looking at that glass and wondering if it’s half empty or half full. This week we reflect on the space we fill in our lives when we feel a little empty.

Aloha Friends,

This first video is the recording of Max Bruch’s Kol Nidrei by David Davis (cello) and Amy Mitsuda (piano). There follows the full text of the homily and the first ten minutes of the video of the homily. The camera inexplicably stopped working after that.

Oh, … read more.

Across many sacred traditions, we value, love, and sometimes bless those animals who co-create this world with us. On this special day all are invited to bring any animal or representation of that animal they’d like. How can the least among us bring out the … read more.

Are some things programmed into us at conception? Or does culture really teach us all we know? On this New Member Sunday, we’ll consider what we take and what we leave behind.

As they say, “Those who say, rarely know. Those who know, rarely say.” We’ll talk together this Sunday about how we learn our most important lessons if this is the case.

On this Labor Day, we will consider together how we construct a life of meaning from those ideas around us, including what is wise and what is not.

Many of us take breaks from our busy lives by spending time alone. This practice has roots in many of the world’s traditions and faiths. We will look together (and alone) at why that may be.

Our ancient ancestors in faith used the sabbath time, the time of rest, to remember. This Sunday we will consider what memory really means to a faith community and those in it.

What was your greatest adventure? Was it a trip? Was it a new way of living? What did it hold for you? We will explore some of these questions as we look together at some of the answers to the question: What is the greatest … read more.

No matter how far we go or how remote our adventure, the same thing is always with us. Together we will explore what it means to take ourselves—our whole selves—with us, wherever we go.

Some of us go on adventures all the time. Some of us prefer to keep to the familiar. But sometimes we end up on adventures we could never see coming. We will reflect together on what our adventures reveal to us.

So much of reverence in the history of faith has to do with where we worship. We will explore together how lives of faith are built and where best to place a faith foundation.

In this special service, we will ask questions and seek truth and meaning from the responses. Sometimes our lifelong search for truth and meaning is better with company.

In the end, after all the promise making and promise keeping, what’s really in it of us? What happens when we deliver on our promises to others and when they deliver on their promises to us?

 

So much of staying in relationship is keeping our word to others. On this Mother’s Day, we consider those nurturing relationships in our lives and how living up to our word can help to heal, and help to seal, our most important relationship.

 

It is an honor to offer others our care, our service, and our friendship. As we look together at the theme of covenant, we will explore an essential element of a covenant, an offer, and what it means to a community like our own.

One of my favorite books is one of those collections of essays by David Sedaris. I know, I know, so original Rev. T. J.—you and the rest of the world. But the collection I like the best is the one called Me Talk Pretty One … read more.