People certainly do not all mean the same thing when they use the word “God” – whether they capitalize it or not, whether they think in singulars or plurals or weirder mysteries, whether or not they worship the essence that, for them, the word signifies, or the functional society formed in response to what is … Continue reading Possibility
A Sermon by the Rev. Paul Oakley Sunday, December 12, 2021 By now we are well into the annual fiction that is the War on Christmas. Each year a certain variety of political right winger, often self-identified as evangelical protestant Christians, whip up a frenzy among those who listen to them, claiming that the political … Continue reading The Unitarian Heritage of Christmas
ACCOUNTABLY DISMANTLING RACISM AND OTHER OPPRESSIONS a sermon by the Reverend Paul Oakley 10:30 AM, Sunday, August 15, 2021 When I was preparing for the Christmas Eve service back in 2015, I asked Virginia Edwards if she would accompany me on piano as I sang the well-known Christmas carol “O Holy Night.” So at our … Continue reading Accountably Dismantling Racism and Other Oppressions
A WELCOMING CONGREGATION (CAPITAL W, CAPITAL C) a sermon by the Reverend Paul Oakley 10:30 AM, Sunday, August 8, 2021 I became a Unitarian Universalist at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Mt. Vernon, rural southern Illinois city of about 15,000 people, surrounded by farms and coal mines. It was a small, emerging congregation. We were … Continue reading A Welcoming Congregation (capital W, capital C)
PERSONALLY SIGNIFICANT COMMITMENTS a sermon by the Rev. Paul Oakley 10:30 AM, Sunday, August 1, 2021 Recently, I’ve been in a bit of a genealogical mode, looking back at as many of the branches of my ancestry as I can. None of my ancestors were rich, as far as I can tell. So none of … Continue reading Personally Significant Commitments
Some members of our community have been thinking conscientiously and humanely about school nondiscrimination policies while others refuse to bring logic, compassion, or humanity into their response. Some vocally use their religious beliefs to demand discrimination be enforced, while others use religion to argue that the only holy way forward is to honor all God’s … Continue reading News Virginian, July 25, 2021
SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT a sermon by the Rev. Paul Oakley 10:30 AM, Sunday, July 25, 2021 A required part of every Unitarian Universalist minister’s training for ministry is Clinical Pastoral Education (abbreviated as CPE), chaplaincy training and practice, most often offered in a hospital setting. In my CPE experience, I served and learned in two St. … Continue reading Spiritual Development
STEWARDSHIP OF OUR PLANET a sermon by the Reverend Paul Oakley 10:30 AM, Sunday, July 18, 2021 Yesterday evening, I drove through the winding mountain roads between Lynchburg and Buena Vista in a thunderstorm. I’d just officiated at the wedding of our own Haley Thompson to Davis Spurlin in a lovely antebellum estate in Forest, … Continue reading Stewardship of Our Planet
A Prayer by the Rev. Paul Oakley North, South, East, and West, Perhaps an angel, visible, ahead of me, Angels hidden by forests around me, And everywhere God, if that’s how your heart experiences the world… Everywhere value and worth. Angels created by our ingenuity, desire, and prayers, Angels imagined in concrete absence, And a … Continue reading To Be the Angel
CONSISTENTLY COURAGEOUS ACTION a sermon by the Reverend Paul Oakley 10:30 AM, Sunday, July 11, 2021 In January 2010, I was in Chicago for an intensive month at my seminary. I lived for that month in a condo on the Chicago River with just two buildings between me and Lake Michigan. I was right downtown, … Continue reading Consistently Courageous Action
