We don’t have to be Zen masters or devout monks to be good at personal spiritual practice. Together, we will try out a variety of spiritual practices that we can use to achieve a sense of wholeness and satisfaction, deepen our faith, and make meaning in these uncertain times.
Great for anyone seeking to explore or deepen spiritual practice
Five-contact hours for a workshop or retreat
In person
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What happens when familiar stories of the Bible meet familiar Broadway tunes? We’ll look at some new and refreshing interpretations through the workhorses of musical theater.
Great for anyone seeking a new approach to the Bible
Worship service, Keynote address, or workshop
Online or in person
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Refresh your spirit and your soul! One, two, or three day retreats will be filled with creative worship, space to learn and make art, and art-full meditations.
Great for congregational retreats, chapter or cluster retreats, study groups, etc.
1-3 days
In person
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George Bernard Shaw once said, “Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.” Together, we’ll explore what it means to live a life filled with art and tap into art’s power to lead us to truth, possibility, and compassion.
Great for introducing process theology and creativity
Worship service or Keynote address
Online or in person
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Unitarian Universalists are called to draw the circle of welcome ever wider, knowing (as UUA president Susan Frederick-Gray has said) “No one is outside the circle of love.” But how welcoming is our worship to people of color, LGBTQ folk, those with disabilities? Together, we will examine the presumptions of sameness our very Protestant worship makes and begin the work of expansiveness and inclusiveness in the precious hour we spend together each week.
Great for congregations who want to be more expansive and welcoming
Keynote or workshop
Online or in person
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It’s easy to get stuck doing the same things when it comes to our social justice work. Give your public witness a jump start by thinking creatively about art-full events and services. This two-hour workshop will get the creative juices flowing.
Great for congregations and social justice teams who want to be more creative
2-hour workshop
Online or in person
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An assessment of your physical space, with tips for better aesthetics, usability, and flow.
Great for ministers and worship teams
1-2 hours
In-person
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Using music, improv, storytelling, and visual arts, we will engage the congregation/leaders in shifting their narratives/work processes/stories of crisis and trauma. This may result in a congregational art project (a mosaic, mural, quilt, etc.), building art-focused covenant groups, or other solutions. The work begins with a two-session consultation with the minister to understand the underlying issues and to begin planning a solution. Solutions may be as short as a service and talkback or as involved as a multi-part creative project.
Great for congregations in need of a narrative/process shift
1-hour initial consultation; remaining to be determined based on scope
Online and in-person
Contact me for more information:
It’s rare to find a congregation that doesn’t love the arts, but it’s often those same art-loving congregations that have no meaningful art happening inside their walls or in their social justice work.
This workshop will help your congregation and your public witness come alive with visual art, performances, classes, and art-inspired justice work.
Great for congregations in need of an arts infusion
1-hour initial consultation, 2-hour exploration; remaining to be determined based on scope
Online and in-person
Contact me for more information:
On Sunday morning, someone in one of my Facebook groups exclaimed the awesomeness of “so many pics of red shoes” in her newsfeed. I then looked through mine; no red shoes and no other mention of them. So I went back to the group and asked what it was about, and I got a one-word response: “PENTECOST!!!”
And I was still baffled.
The respondent had to show me the liturgical colors explanation from the United Church of Christ for me to even come close to understanding that not only is red the color of this Christian holy day, but that women (and maybe men too?) wear red shoes. I’m still not sure I get the shoe thing…but what I do know is that I felt out of the loop.
It feels strange to not understand Christian practices, as someone who grew up in late 20th century America. It’s one thing to not understand Muslim practices, or Hindu practices, for example, as I didn’t grow up in communities where those religions surrounded me. But I know – or thought I knew – at least the basics of Christianity. In order to get a good religious education in a town too far from a Unitarian Universalist congregation, our folks sent us to the local Methodist church. Studies of English and American history and literature requires a knowledge of Christianity. And heck, our own denomination springs from two Christian denominations.
So why don’t I understand red shoes on Pentecost? Or why Protestants get all into the Lent/Holy week thing, when they didn’t when I was a kid? Or any number of other things that everyone else seems to know and considers basic, but I don’t?
I feel out of the loop – but also that I’m missing something. Other people are off singing and dancing in their new red shoes, and I’m sitting here surrounded by flower communions and final services and just random everyday UU services, filled with people who have no clue this is a special day in the religion from whence we sprang.
And honestly, it makes me sad. Not because I think we should be like other Christians – one look at Channing’s Baltimore Sermon scratches that off the list. And not because we should adopt the Christian liturgical calendar and do all the things they do. We have too many other sources whose wisdom and traditions we also want to celebrate.
But are we missing something by only celebrating our Christian sources on Easter and Christmas? Or are we honoring what we have become? Is it really okay that we have our own liturgical calendar, with special holy days that are just ours (flower communion, ingathering, etc.) with just hints of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, pagan, and other holy days? Is it okay to feel out of the loop?
I admit to feeling a bit heartsick that I don’t have a tradition of wearing red shoes on Pentecost or feeling the agony and ecstasy of Holy Week, or observing the fullness of Passover, or marking all the sabbats with glorious circles and spiral dances.
And so I sit, longing for a kind of belonging I will never have as long as Unitarian Universalism is what makes my heart sing. It’s not a bad thing… just something to ponder.
THE ART OF MEANING 