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Sermon: June 7, 2026 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito I have a chicken coop with four chickens. They are all hens as the city of Oceanside does not allow roosters in backyard coops. Recently, however, one of my chickens has begun cock-a-doodle-doo-ing. We gave it a little bit of time, thinking it might just be a phase. When it became a parent that it was not, we sent this note to our neighbors: "Hello neighbors, we are writing to let you know that it is our

Sermon: May 31, 2026 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito As we age, we wear our experiences like clothing. That time I learned that patience is necessary is now a soft, well-worn cotton shirt that is starting to fray along the collar. That time I found out that a broken heart can heal has become the socks that make my shoes a little more comfortable. That time I discovered that you can’t control the actions of others now hangs on me like a protective winter co

Sermon: May 24, 2026 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito Tomorrow is Memorial Day, the day we honor those who gave their lives in service to our country. For some of us, this day can elicit conflicted feelings. Early in our country’s history, war efforts were well supported. Wars felt justifiable. Beginning during the Korean and Vietnam wars, citizen support for overseas war activity began to diminish. Now, it can be a challenge to emotionally separate the sup

Sermon: May 10, 2026 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito There is a family of owls living in an owl house about 20 feet from my house. The neighbors have a video camera set up inside the owl house so we can watch what’s happening in their busy home. We watched while the barn owl parents moved into the house, built a nest, laid eggs, and reared four babies. Every night for weeks I have heard baby owls screeching all night long as the parents bring them food and

Sermon: April 26, 2026 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito I don’t believe in the story of Adam and Eve. I believe in science and evolution. However, I understand that there has always been a need for the Biblical story of Creation. Long ago, when evolution wasn’t a readily understandable concept, humans naturally wondered where they had come from. Besides the Biblical origin story being an entertaining and clever answer to their questions, it also served a mu

Sermon: March 29, 2026 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito There is a popular phrase people toss around when concerned about their diet. “You are what you eat.” This phrase that became popular in America in the 1930’s had been floating around Europe since the 1820’s. And it makes perfect sense, the idea that if you eat healthily you will be healthy. This direct correlation is easy for people to understand and in our modern era, we have taken the concept beyond

Sermon: March 22, 2026 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito Can you remember the last time you experienced a transcendent moment or noticed the extraordinary? We all experience moments that move us, that exhibit cathartic emotions and define us as human, but what about moments that go beyond that? Some people have experiences they can’t explain, experiences that feel coincidental, touched by the divine, or even supernatural. Regardless of empirical evidence, th

Sermon: March 8, 2026 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito My best friend Richard turned 50 years old two weeks ago and his friends took him to Mexico to celebrate. They were in an Air BnB in Puerto Vallarta when bombs began to explode cars and buildings only one block from where they were staying. I asked him if it was scary and he said, “Well, you know me. I don’t get scared. I just start paying attention.” And I knew this to be true after having been best fr

Sermon: March 1, 2026 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito The father of American psychology, William James, believed that one’s existence is made up of only what one pays attention to, whether by choice or by default. I think it’s safe to say that the majority of us fall into a routine of letting our existences be made up of what we pay attention to by default. Most of us might say we “have to” pay attention to certain things, work, children, spouses, cleaning

Sermon: February 22, 2026 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito I love to garden. It is the spiritual practice that reminds me that I can heal. When the world is bleak and I’m faced with upsetting news, I go into my garden and watch the plants grow. Regardless of what is happening in the world, my plants continue to reach toward the light. They don’t give up. I have been known to take a particular plant into my care and nurture it as though it were a piece of my

Sermon: February 15, 2026 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito Our news feeds are full of stories and reports that we don’t want to accept. Like many of you, when I hear about what is happening in our country right now, I am appalled, saddened, afraid, and angry. All these emotions flood my system and make me want to reject what I’m hearing with a resounding “No.” Everything in me tells me that what’s happening is wrong and unconscionable. It’s not okay… When I

Sermon: February 1, 2026 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito I want you to imagine that there are three versions of yourself, your past self, your present self, and your future self. What kind of relationship do you have with those three versions of yourself? Let’s start with your present self. That should be the easiest since you are most familiar with who you are right now. How do you feel about yourself? Do you believe you are kind and helpful? Do you beli

Sermon: January 25, 2026 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito We gather together today to celebrate a wonderful homecoming after being displaced by construction for 25 weeks. We’re back on the familiar benches, under the umbrellas, in the open air, among friends who we care about. Not only is this our first service back in our beloved amphitheater, but our staff are now using our remodeled administration building, and our library is once again becoming a center

Poetry: November, 2025 Part I Death came into my father’s hospital room for a visit. He slinked into the room like a wisp of fog that snakes around rocks and hovers above the pond. His black eyes observed my father with watchful understanding and patience. His slender fingers floated through the air as if they themselves could sense my father’s readiness like a barometer predicts an incoming storm. He floated, intent on my father as though no one else was in the room, and we

Sermon: June 8, 2025 . Pilgrim United Church of Christ Many of you know that I grew up in this church. My father was the choir director and I sat in these pews Sunday after Sunday, listening to Pastor Jerry Stinson as he pushed boundaries by proclaiming that all people were welcome. Although I must have heard many of his sermons, I only remember one. It was a sermon about how to get to heaven and he essentially said that no religion was “wrong.” Religions were merely differe

Sermon: January 4, 2026 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito My father once told me a story about a time he and his twin brother were small and riding in the back seat of the family car. My grandfather, a Baptist minister, was driving. It was a normal day in the late 1950’s and they wound through the neighborhood streets of Alameda, a suburb of San Francisco. Suddenly, my grandfather pulled the car over to the side of the road and jumped out. There was a commot

Sermon: December 28, 2025 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito Many of you may have noticed that my email signature begins with “In Hope,” then there’s my name and contact info, and it ends with this quote from one of my favorite books, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery: “What makes the desert beautiful, is that somewhere it hides a well.” This idea, that even in the harshest of conditions, even in the most dire of circumstances, beauty exists beca

Sermon: December 21, 2025 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito Today is the Winter Solstice, the day the Northern Hemisphere experiences the least amount of light, thus the longest night of the year. Celebrations reach around the world on this day as cultures look toward the return of light, of warmth, and in many ways life itself as we wind our way toward spring and the rebirth of plants and animals that sustain us through the year. Many traditional celebratio

Sermon: November 30, 2025 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito "GRATITUDE IS A RIVER. If you live in it, your heart and, soul grow supple. You flow with life. If you leave gratitude’s river behind, everything you are grows hard, rigid, suffering. Your body, your spirit, your relations, your life. Stay in the river, Revolutionary. Especially as you work to heal and unpeel the countless layers of oppression that shape your life and the world. Identify your

Sermon: November 23, 2025 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito In recent years, we have been inundated with the message that perhaps we shouldn’t be happy on Thanksgiving. As we awaken to the realities and lasting effects of the colonization of the land the native people here lived on, we realize they were forever negatively affected by the actions of our white supremacist forefathers. The movement toward Thanksgiving enlightenment that started in the 1970’s ha