We Are the Dwelling Place © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church December 24, 2022   The photo was posted on social media, among many photos of the flooding and the angry surf over the past two days. The photographer, Jay Albert, managed to capture the moment...

Who Makes Much of a Miracle? © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church December 4, 2022   “As for me, I know of nothing else but miracles,” wrote Walt Whitman.   We have entered the season of miracles, of enduring stories, tales of events that we cannot explain,...

Living Free From Hunger © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church November 20, 2022   You can tell when Thanksgiving is approaching in my extended family. Conversation on the family WhatsApp group starts to heat up, with queries about the head count, and food...

So That Fresh, Green Leaves Might GrowReverend Janet ParsonsGloucester UU Church  November 13, 2022“The moon changes, the atmosphere changes,And yet this is all somehow a constant,Something solid to count on, Constantly in motion.”        (Mary Wellemeyer, Constantly...

Jeremy Taylor Melvin Reflection - All Souls’ Day Given at: Gloucester UU Church October 30th, 2022   I went to Ipswich yesterday.  I grew up there, but go there infrequently.  Or at least not much to the part of town I grew up in.  And when I do, I am usually driving,...

Rising to Change © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church November 6, 2022   It seems that there is an election in a couple of days. I’m sure that you might have noticed. Quite some time ago, in a fit of anger over some of the actions, or inactions, of the...

    Courage Confronting Racism Dick Prouty. 10.23.202     Fifty years ago this month, Doris and I were in bed @ 10:30PM in our new house in Lanesville, just up from the Cove, on a chilly evening.  Suddenly, we heard a lot of commotion in the front yard and looked out...

Reading                               from A Larger Hope, by Russell Miller                    Pat   Our first reading is excerpted from an account of the early years of John Murray and the Universalists here in Gloucester.   “In February, 1777, 16 members of the...

The Flow of Abundance © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church October 16, 2022   These days, when I meditate, I most often find myself envisioning water; sunlight filtering down through water, the gentle waves rocking underwater plants and sand to and fro, the...

Truth Alone is Strong  © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church October 9, 2022     If you are like me, perhaps you felt your eyebrows raise at the mention of Abraham Lincoln in our reading, ordering the execution of 38 Dakota warriors on the day after Christmas...

The Courage to Search the Heart© Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church October 2, 2022     It was 25 years ago now:  one of the earliest school shootings that I remember hearing of, at Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky. This was even before the...

To Transcend Ourselves Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester Unitarian Universalist Church September 18, 2022     She was an unsuccessful author, and was drinking more and more, and struggling to stay afloat. On weekends she would sometimes visit a flea market near her...