Category Archives: People

March 12, 2013 · 5:06 pm

Stand by This Faith

Here’s a short piece I shared this past weekend in honor of Women’s History Month about Olympia Brown, one of my heroes. Enjoy!

***

Stand by this faith. Work for it and sacrifice for it.
Do not demand immediate results
but rejoice that you are strong enough to work for a great true principle
without counting the costs.

Words spoken by a lifelong Universalist who loved her faith
and believed in the great message that all people are precious.
A Universalist who loved her faith so much
that she was willing to fight obstacle after obstacle
to become an ordained minister—
the first woman in the United States
to be fully ordained by a denomination, in fact.
A minister and a tireless worker for the right of women to vote
for over fifty years.
This was Olympia Brown.
She spoke these words in 1920,
just one year after women had finally won the right to vote.
She was 85 years old. Continue reading →

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Filed under Olympia Brown, Unitarian Universalism, universal salvation, Women's history

February 12, 2013 · 3:58 pm

Pour It Out

The reading for this sermon comes from the Gospel of Mark, 14:3-9:

While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head.

But some were there who said to one another in anger, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her.

But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”

***

Do you know the story of Babette’s Feast?
It’s a strange story, very beautiful, by the Danish writer Isak Dinesen.
Two sisters live in a small town in rural Norway
in the latter years of the 19th century.
They are the daughters of a clergyman, the founder of a small sect
whose members, we are told,

renounced the pleasures of this world, for the earth and all that it held to them was but a kind of illusion, and the true reality was the New Jerusalem toward which they were longing.[1]

For many years the sisters have devoted their lives
to caring for their neighbors in need.
They dress in somber gray or black.
Their food is plain fish and plain bread.
Every penny they can spare, they give to the poor.
For many years it has been so. Continue reading →

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Filed under Christian Scriptures, Generosity, Isak Dinesen, Literature & arts, love, Unitarian Universalism

December 9, 2012 · 10:44 am

A Winter Story of Justice and Joy

Here’s this weekend’s sermon based on one of my favorite carols, “Good King Wenceslas.” Happy and blessed holidays, everyone!

–Rev. Laura

***

A Winter Story of Justice and Joy

Choose to bless the world.
That’s what Rebecca Parker says in our reading—
I hope that’s what we say, one way or another,
every week in this beloved place:
Choose to bless the world.
Choose to “feed the hungry,
Bind up wounds,
Welcome the stranger,
Praise what is sacred,
Do the work of justice
Or offer love.”[1]

In that spirit I want to share and savor with you
the stories of three good and brave people who chose to bless the world.
These stories may be a little bigger and more adventurous
than our own daily lives—larger than life, or everyday life at least—
but I am convinced those are just the kind of stories we need
to inspire us to do the right thing in our own lives,
in ways both large and small.

The first story belongs to Good King Wenceslas,
the king who looked out and gave from his heart. Continue reading →

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Filed under André Trocmé, Christmas, St. Agnes of Bohemia, St. Wenceslas, Unitarian Universalism

August 26, 2012 · 12:24 pm

Radical Unknowing: An Imaginary Conversation between a Mystic and a “New Atheist”

Our congregation has a tradition of “auction sermons,” in which the ministers invite people to bid at our annual fundraising auction on the right to choose a sermon topic. I love it–the topics always stretch and challenge me to learn new things and think outside my familiar comfort zones. Here’s this year’s auction sermon, imagining the “New Atheism” and mysticism in dialogue–enjoy.

Peace,
Rev. Laura

***

I know I’m not the only one struggling to make sense
of the violence we’ve seen around the country this summer.
You remember three weeks ago
a man involved with white-supremacist, neo-Nazi groups
killed six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin.
He didn’t even know them, but he had made up his mind
that they were—what?—somehow a threat to him
because they looked different from him,
because they came from a different culture
and followed a different religious path?
How is it that we are so threatened by difference?

And just a few days ago, almost in our own back yard,
an activist who claimed to be defending LGBT rights shot a security guard
at the conservative Family Research Council in downtown DC
because, as he said, “I don’t like your politics.”
Thank goodness the guard survived and it looks like he’ll be OK.
I want to lift up the sorrow and confusion and frustration
that I think many of us are feeling about this.
I don’t like the Family Research Council’s politics either,
but I know this is not the way.
Mercifully this guy, this kind of violent behavior,
is the extreme exception, not the norm.
But we have to wonder, how is it that even one person makes the leap
from political disagreement to violent assault? Continue reading →

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Filed under Atheism, Christopher Hitchens, Karen Armstrong, Mysticism, Uncategorized, Unitarian Universalism

March 5, 2012 · 10:32 am

A Hidden Wholeness

This month the worship theme in our congregation is wholeness. I loved this chance to talk about Parker Palmer’s teachings on wholeness as integrity, when inner truth guides outer behavior, and some of the world scriptures that have spoken to me deeply over the years. Enjoy.

Peace,

Rev. Laura

***

The scriptures of every major religion teach it,
and our hearts confirm it:
we are one, we are whole.
We are all, every one of us, part of the miraculous whole,
emerging from one infinite mystery
that contains within it all beings and all things.

You are that, the Hindu scriptures tell us.
You are that. You are made of Being itself, the source of all. You are that.

The great scientists of our own day feel it too,
the mystery of the world in all its living, breathing, pulsing reality,
and we too a part of it, connected to the whole of the earth
and the universe itself. We are that.

But we forget.
We have to teach ourselves again and again.
We sing, how could anyone ever tell you
you were anything less than beautiful,
less than whole,
less than the miracle you are?
We have to sing it to remind ourselves of the truth
because we are in such danger of forgetting and hurting each other.

It happens all the time.
So many ways we fail to see each other’s wholeness.
So many ways we fail to know our own.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Continue reading →

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Filed under Black Elk, Parker Palmer, Uncategorized, Unitarian Universalism, Upanishads, Wholeness, World religions

October 4, 2011 · 4:11 pm

Forgiving Ourselves and Each Other

To all our Jewish sisters and brothers observing Yom Kippur this Saturday–peace.

–Rev. Laura

Forgiving Ourselves and Each Other

What does it take to forgive
when something unspeakably bad has happened?
What does it take to forgive?

I want to tell you a story about forgiveness in South Africa.
It begins in 1989.
Four black anti-apartheid activists had been killed.
A group of three black policemen were threatening to expose
some of their white colleagues for being involved in the murders.
Their boss, who was white, went to a man
named Eugene De Kock, a white South African
who led a secret government-authorized hit squad. Continue reading →

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Filed under Forgiveness, Judaism, Santideva, Unitarian Universalism, Yom Kippur

April 24, 2011 · 3:41 pm

Living with the Texts: “O Death, Where Is Thy Sting?”

Happy Easter, everyone! Today’s sermon was on a text that is pretty far outside the comfort zone of most Unitarian Universalists–Paul’s prediction that the dead will be raised at the Last Judgment. What are we skeptics to make of this?

Spring blessings,

Rev. Laura

***

Readings:

1 Corinthians 15: 12–14, 32b, 51–55 (NRSV)

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain….

If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”…

Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. Continue reading →

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Filed under 1 Corinthians, Christian Scriptures, Judeo-Christian tradition, Paul

March 7, 2011 · 2:41 pm

Risking Hope

Here’s yesterday’s sermon, reflecting on the current national political climate through the lens of Ignatian spirituality. Enjoy!

Peace,

Rev. Laura

***

Risking Hope

The Rev. Laura Horton-Ludwig, Minister
First Unitarian Universalist Church of Stockton
March 6, 2011

Hope.
Hope is what we need today.
I’m not talking about foolish hope, a hope that doesn’t face facts.
I’m not talking about passive hope, a hope that sits on its hands
and waits for a miracle.
No, we need an active hope
that looks around and sees the world clearly,
good and bad,
joys and struggles,
and says, I am not giving up.
I believe in the future.
I believe there is a way forward
and we are going to find it.

That’s the kind of hope we need today.
We need it in our families,
we need it in our church community,
we sure need it in our cities and our country and our world.
But it’s a strange thing—
when we need hope the most
may be exactly when it’s hardest to find. Continue reading →

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Filed under hope, Ignatius of Loyola, Unitarian Universalism

January 16, 2011 · 2:37 pm

Living with the Texts: “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”

This was today’s sermon for Martin Luther King, Jr. Sunday. Peace to all and to our nation.

–Rev. Laura

***

Living with the Texts: “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”
The Rev. Laura Horton-Ludwig, Minister
First Unitarian Universalist Church of Stockton
January 16, 2011

Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell a strange story
about something that happened
very shortly before Jesus was arrested and killed.
For three years now Jesus has been preaching and teaching
in small villages and communities.
He preaches love and compassion and healing
to anyone who will listen.
Now he is getting ready to go to Jerusalem.
And his disciples are worried,
because he’s started to talk a little bit wild.
He’s started to talk like he thinks he’s going to die soon,
like he thinks it’s his destiny to be killed,
and he gets mad at them when they tell him to cut it out.
It’s scary.
They don’t know what to think.
Continue reading →

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Filed under Gospels, Hebrew Bible, lectio divina, Martin Luther King Jr., Unitarian Universalism

December 6, 2010 · 2:21 pm

Gifts of the Spirit

Happy holidays, everyone!

Peace,

Rev. Laura

***

Gifts of the Spirit

The Rev. Laura Horton-Ludwig, Minister
First Unitarian Universalist Church of Stockton
December 5, 2010

Once upon a time, in a faraway country,
there was a people who lived as herders, ranchers of cattle.
Their whole world revolved around caring for the cattle,
raising the young calves,
milking the milk-cows,
pasturing the herds in the lush green grass.
The cattle gave them food, wealth, status, everything.
They told stories of their god coming down
from his home above the mountains
to promise them the right to farm the cattle for always and forever.
This was their way of life, their destiny,
their past and their future…
until the drought came.
The rain that had fallen so freely began to disappear,
not for a year or two but for an entire generation.
The grass dried up.
And the cattle began to die. Continue reading →

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Filed under gifts, giving, Maasai, Unitarian Universalism