Blessed Are the Makers © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester Unitarian Universalist Church May 7, 2023   Today is a day of many blessings. We feel the blessing of the warm sun after what has felt like a prolonged cold and wet spell. But on a day like today, we can...

Sacred Fire © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church April 23, 2023     “Every bush is a burning bush…”.  (John Muir)   It’s always fascinating, to look back at someone’s life, and try to understand how they were able to become who they were intended to be. Time...

Now Let Us Rise Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church April 9, 2023     “…maybe we are not so different than the leaves. …maybe we are also always being reborn to be something more then we once were. …maybe that’s what waking up each morning is.”  (For the...

Spiritual Resistance © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church April 2, 2023     Introduction   Typically when we think of the word ‘resistance’, it’s not at all in a spiritual context. Resistance usually implies an active response – pushing back at something or...

The Key of Longing © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church March 26, 2023     “Bring your broken hallelujah here... We all bring some broken things, songs and dreams, and long lost hopes…”   There was a civil war, in the 1990’s, in Bosnia, in Eastern Europe. The...

The Privilege of Vulnerability © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church March 12, 2023     They haven’t caught the vandal or vandals that spray-painted hate messages on 16 businesses and the local synagogue in Portsmouth, New Hampshire late in February. But the...

To Be Alive is to Be Vulnerable © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church March 5, 2023     We have learned a lot these past three years. We’ve learned some science, and some medicine. We’ve learned a lot about our economy, and how dependent we are on the global...

General Assembly, 1969 Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church February 19, 2023     “I’m not saying that a demonstration is going to solve the problems…It’s going to take something much more than a demonstration, but at least the demonstration calls attention to...

To Call Yourself Beloved Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church February 14, 2023     “And did you get whatyou wanted from this life, even so?I did.And what did you want?To call myself beloved, to feel myselfbeloved on the earth.”                       ~~ Raymond...

The Crucible © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church February 5, 2023     I took time yesterday to stand and watch the sea smoke rising and blowing. At times it was so thick that the water was completely covered with a layer of swirling white. Huge puffy clouds...

Those in the Shadows © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church January 15, 2023     Those “honor-driven activists.” We ‘find memory beneath their doors, and taste the blessings of their midwifery.’  (Sonia Sanchez, “Progress Report”)   Today we pause and look...

A Dual Hunger © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church January 8, 2023     There is a moment, when we are watching the swinging of a pendulum, when there’s a slowing, a pause, before the pendulum begins to move back in the other direction. Picture this with me...