Sermon: Creation Day 5: Birds and Fish
You could say, if you wanted to, because it’s Valentine’s Day, that the Biblical fifth day of creation marks the birth of love. And it wouldn’t even be that much of a stretch. Because on this day in...
View ArticleSermon: Living the Present
Justin’s words resonate with me because I also have young twins, a boy and a girl. I also used to live a fun, artsy, happily self-centered life – in my case, I was trying to become a rock star in San...
View ArticleIntangible Spiritual Benefits
Back in the day, church buildings like this one in the winter were cold. This was before central heating and before the benefits of global warming that we’re enjoying today. If a church had a furnace...
View ArticleSermon: Creation Series, Day 6, Pt. 1: Land Animals & Humans
Creation Series Day 6 – Land Animals Ana Levy-Lyons March 13, 2016 First Unitarian, Brooklyn Creation stories, religious and scientific, invite us into a headspace of humility. They call us to zoom...
View ArticleSermon: Walking Into The Storm
If each of us gets fifteen minutes of fame, Jesus got his on Palm Sunday. You could say that he’s had two thousand years of fame; that, contrary to what John Lennon said, he’s bigger than the Beatles....
View ArticleSermon: The Living Daylight
The Living Daylight Rev. Ana Levy-Lyons March 27, 2016 Every month about 43,000 men go out and buy a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck. They buy it despite the fact that it’s expensive, gets poor gas...
View ArticleSermon: Creation Series Day 6, Part 2 – Land Animals and Humans
If you’re like me, which, being humans, you are, you’re probably especially interested in the sixth day of the Genesis creation story. On this day, God makes an earthling. The Hebrew word for it is...
View ArticleSermon: Wake Up One Morning
At the Republican debate in Detroit last month the candidates were discussing Flint – specifically, what to make of the coincidence that the thousands of children and adults whose drinking water was...
View ArticleSermon: The Seventh Day Of Creation
I love computer programmer Derek Sivers’ idea for hacking the consumer system. He writes, “I’d like to get 100 parrots and teach them to say, “It won’t make you happy!” – then let them loose in...
View ArticleSermon: Practical Ethics
“Every night and every morn, some to misery are born; every morn and every night, some are born to sweet delight.” These are the words by William Blake that we just sang. They describe so crisply one...
View ArticleSermon: Lessons From Microsoft Word
Until just now, there was really no natural and obvious way for me to introduce the topic of how Microsoft Word relates to the First Principle of Unitarian Universalism. There was no nice segue that I...
View ArticleSermon: Commencement For Caterpillars
An hour before my husband Jeff’s high school graduation, he was nowhere to be found. He had left the house that morning, informing his parents that he would not be going to his graduation. He had just...
View ArticleSermon: Going On All The Rides
When I’m trying to get my kids to taste a new food, I often give them the following speech: “Life is like Coney Island. There are all different kinds of rides. Big rides, small rides, fast rides, slow...
View ArticleSermon: Flow, Part 1, by Rev. Ana Levy-Lyons
Who here likes mosquitoes? Anybody? I don’t either. If there’s any mosquito within a mile, it’s going to find me and bite me. Most people don’t like them. But most people can’t do anything about them....
View ArticleSermon: Flow, Part 2
Jack Kramer is a welder. He works in a South Chicago plant where they assemble railroad cars. He’s in his sixties and he works with about 200 other people in a room full of noisy machines raising and...
View ArticleSermon: The Best Of All Possible Worlds
Astrophysicists these days like to say that there is not just one universe, but many. That’s if by “universe” you mean everything you could possibly see, reach, know about, get to, or that could...
View ArticleSermon: Stories of Humans and the Earth: Noah’s Ark
Those of you who went to Sunday school or Hebrew school when you were kids may have happy images in your head of Noah and the Ark – the smiling giraffes and cows and lions going, two by two up the ramp...
View ArticleSermon: Beginners Luck
When I was pregnant with our twins, my husband Jeff and I decided to not find out the sex of the babies. Relatives and friends, even progressives, found this bizarre. “How are you going to prepare...
View ArticleSermon – Preparing to Be Deployed By, Rev. Ana Levy-Lyons
Rev. Ana’s Post-Election Sermon (Trump) 11-13-2016 Preparing To Be Deployed Ana Levy-Lyons November 13, 2016 First Unitarian, Brooklyn If you’ve been looking at your Facebook feeds or Twitter or...
View ArticleSermon: Downstream of Everything
When we click on the word “Thanksgiving” in our minds, it links to a million different things. For some of us it’s the comfort of family. For others it’s the discomfort of family, especially now. For...
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