I preach three Sundays a month at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Studio City. We worship every Sunday at 10am.

Spring Theme: Interim Tasks: Making Connections for Support Beyond the Congregation:

May 19, 2024 OFF

May 26, 2024, “Near and Far”
How far away feels the goal of our UU sixth principle, “world community.” How distant feel the troubles elsewhere and how near our country’s own problems. On this weekend when we honor the dead who gave their lives in war, we ask what we, who are not world leaders or influential much beyond our own family or neighborhood, can do, to help create a world of “peace, liberty, and justice for all.”
Call to Worship: 602
Opening Hymn: 134
Closing Hymn: 133
Benediction: 457

June 2, 2024, “U Fabulous U”
Flower Communion
The events of Pride month honor the inherent worth and dignity of every person. So too, does the UU ritual of flower communion, which we will celebrate today. Bring a flower to church that represents the colorful, wonderful, unique blossom you are, and, as we parade our individuality down the center aisle to our shared altar be prepared to lose yourself in a bouquet of beautiful community.
Blessing of the Flowers: 724
Call to Worship: 614
Opening Hymn: 305
Closing Prayer: 723
Closing Hymn: 323
Benediction: 529

June 9, 2024 Music and Technology Sunday
Our annual celebration of our UUCSC music program

June 16, 2024 RE Sunday
Our annual celebration of our UUCSC religious education program.

Summer Theme: Letting Go and Beginning Again

June 23, 2024 OFF

June 30, 2024, “Up and Out”
Volunteer Recognition. The service will be followed by our Congregational Meeting.
The sun has reached the highest point in the sky, and though the heat of summer still awaits, every day, now, will be a little shorter, the nights a little longer. So too, our church year continues through the end of August, but the end of June signals the end of our program year. We close the active part of our church year and turn now to needed rest. We recognize, we bless, and we release.
Call to Worship: 481
Opening Hymn: 204
Closing Hymn: 15
Benediction: 697

July 7, 2024, OFF

July 14, 2024, OFF

July 21 2024, OFF

July 28, 2024, “Space Available”
Before the invention of perspective in art, an artist was limited in their composition to the surface plane of the wall or the canvas. With perspective, though, an artist could seem to place images deep inside the picture as well as on the foreground. The spiritual need of vacation is to open up the flat surface of our regular lives to make space within ourselves in which new creation can occur.
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August 4, 2024, “A Growth Year”
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August 11, 2024, OFF

August 18, 2024, “A Search Year”
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August 25, 2024, “A Faith Year”
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September 1, 2024 OFF

Final Thoughts: A year of contemplating the foundational issues of spirituality and, as I approach the end of my ministry, some personal conclusions.

September 8, 2024, “Beloved Community”
Ingathering, Water Communion
Our identity as individuals stands in tension with our identity as members of communities. Likewise, our membership in a single community, like a church, stands in tension with our aspiration to be connected to all others. The American Philosopher Josiah Royce gave the name “Beloved Community” to this ideal community of all persons of good will. Martin Luther King later borrowed the phrase. Jesus might have called it, “The Kingdom of God.”
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September 15, 2024, “Free and Responsible”
Our spiritual development encourages us to become more fully who we are, and to work to remove barriers so that others may fully express their true selves as well. But without limits, a radically free individual can damage a shared community. The responsible individual voluntarily curtails their freedom, creating the defined self who may actually be the true self the healthy spirit seeks.
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September 22, 2024, “Enough”
My elevator speech for Unitarian Universalism is that “UUs believe that human beings are good enough, smart enough, and strong enough to create lives of health and joy for ourselves, for each other, and for the world we share.” It is my faith that while we aren’t everything, we are enough.
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September 29, 2024 OFF

October 6, 2024, “Sin and Forgiveness”
High Holy Days
The language of sin is foreign to the positive and encouraging faith of Unitarian Universalism. But the High Holy Days remind us that we all stray occasionally from the ideal selves we can imagine and hope to be. Denying our transgressions would be only yet one more transgression against the ideal. Instead, the healthy spiritual path is to recognize where we and others fall short, and, admitting our imperfection, ask for and offer forgiveness.
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October 13, 2024, “Past and Future”
Founder’s Day
As we mark our congregation’s 81st year and the beginning of our 82nd, I wonder what we owe the past? With a present full of excitement and action, and a future open to whatever our vision calls us to be, is the past simply over, or do our founders and members from decades ago still have a claim on us? Perhaps the answer appears when we consider how we hope the future church will speak of us when we are “past” ourselves?
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October 20, 2024 OFF

October 27, 2024, “Is This It?”
Halloween
Whether this mortal life is all there is of us or if our personal experience continues in some fashion after our physical death is one of the central mysteries of existence. The play of Halloween and the celebration of Dia de Los Muertos, release our anxiety about the mystery of death but don’t resolve it. Neither do the certainties of the religious answers satisfy. And so we live, and in choosing how we live, imply our answer.
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November 3, 2024, “For Better or Worse”
Election Day
Without exaggeration, this Tuesday’s election may be the most significant any of us will ever participate in. The consequences come next year will be great. But it’s also true that whichever way the results come out, we will remain a nation divided with our democracy in peril. Whichever man takes the oath of office on January 20, our task will be the same: to remember we are citizens of the United States.
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November 10, 2024, “Some Gave All”
Veteran’s Day
Spiritual health asks us to put aside self-interest for the good of others. That others are persons of worth as much as we are is a principle of our faith. Self-sacrifice, though, can sometimes ask us to value the lives of others more than we value ourselves, or put abstractions like honor or nation above actual human lives. Our Veteran’s deserve more than thanks, they deserve a careful calibration of the mark where virtue turns to tragedy.
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November 17, 2024 OFF

November 24, 2024, “Enough is as Good as a Feast”
Thanksgiving
The earth’s abundance is the glory of Autumn. Materialism advertises its delights, tempting us with more, more, more, but never satisfying our desire. Spiritual health recognizes not only the limits of the planet to give, but our own limits to receive with equanimity.
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December 1, 2024, “Compassion”
World AIDS Day, Bodhi Day
Buddhism’s First Noble Truth declares the truth of suffering. Buddha’s enlightenment revealed an eight-fold path that we can follow to end our suffering, our own suffering, that is, but not the suffering of others. Everyone must do the work for themselves. And so, as suffering persists, for others and ourselves as well, we are called to compassion.
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December 8, 2024 OFF

December 15, 2024, “Joy to the World”
Winter Solstice
Merry. Happy. Glad tidings. Comfort and joy. The words of the season, speak to the aspect of the spiritual life that should be filled with fun and pleasure. As the darkness turns to light with the solstice, may our spirits also turn to that which should be the goal of life in every season: joy.
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December 22, 2024, “The Christmas Story”
Christmas
Of course it’s just a story: no star, no manger, no trip to Bethlehem, no angel. But the magic and meaning isn’t lost by calling it what it is: a story. Rather, the story communicates something the truth never could. Christmas isn’t less because it’s a story; if it weren’t a good story, it wouldn’t be Christmas.
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December 24, 2024 Christmas Eve Service, 5pm

December 29, 2024, “Faithfully Flexible”
Hanukkah
The history of Hanukkah tells of people so committed to their faith that they went to battle rather than bend. Their choice is inspiring. But often we do choose to let go of cherished commitments. And sometimes letting go is the better, and even the more religiously principled, choice.
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January 5, 2024, “Who Am I, Really”
Epiphany
It’s easier toward the end of life to see that what we call the self is widely changeable. I’m not the person I was as a child, or teen, or young adult. My self becomes more stable as I age, but perhaps I’ve just given up exploring and experimenting out of laziness, or accepted a version of myself grown comfortable by habit. How, if I found him, would I recognize the me I was born to be?
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January 12, 2025 OFF

January 19, 2025, “The Ability to Achieve Purpose”
MLK’s Birthday
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January 26, 2025, “Courage, Friends”
Courage, Bravery
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February 2, 2025, “An Optimistic Faith”
Candlemas and offering blessing for the coming year
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February 9, 2025, OFF

February 16, 2025, “Flawed Leaders for Flawed People”
President’s Day. Our responsibility to hold our leader’s accountable.
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February 23, 2025, <Auction Sermon>
Stewardship Sunday. I hold this space available for the person that places the highest bid for my sermon during the Fall Fundraiser.
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March 2, 2025 OFF

March 9, 2025, “Starting with Me”
Ash Wednesday, Lent. The work of faith begins with honest self-examination.
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March 16, 2025, “Keeping it Real”
A reality-based religion.
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March 23, 2025 OFF

March 30, 2025, “For the Beauty”
Spring equinox. Beauty as goal of life, the thing that we are living for
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April 6, 2025, OFF

April 13, 2025, “Let Me Flower, Help Me Flower”
Passover, liberation
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April 20, 2025
Easter,
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April 27, 2025 OFF

May 4, 2025 OFF

May 11, 2025, “Continuous Creation”
Mother’s Day
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May 18, 2025,
Loyalty
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May 25, 2025,
Memorial Day
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June 1, 2025 OFF

June 8, 2025,
Music and Tech Sunday

June 15, 2025,
RE Sunday

June 22, 2025,
Volunteer Recognition, Flower Communion
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Closing Hymn:
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June 29, 2025, “The Last Word”
Retirement
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