Category: Pastoral

5 Reasons to Visit the UUCSJ Booth at GA

June 15, 2018 | Heather Vickery | General Assembly, Pastoral, Program Leader

Are you going to Kansas City for the UUA’s General Assembly 2018? UUCSJ is and we would love to have you stop by our booth to say hello. If you need some convincing, here are the top 5 reasons YOU should visit us at GA! Get this year’s button! Every year, we at UUCSJ pick […]

Lenten Reflection, Honduras

February 21, 2018 | Heather Vickery | Pastoral, Religious Professionals, Sanctuary and Solidarity

Praying the “stations of the cross” is a longstanding Lenten tradition all over the Christian world, during which believers are reminded of the last moments Jesus lived through as he carried his own cross to the crucifixion. Throughout Latin America, the Way of the Cross, or Via Crucis, is often an elaborate procession, during which […]

Answering the Call for Solidarity and Action in Honduras

January 24, 2018 | Heather Vickery | Immigration, Pastoral, Religious Professionals, Sanctuary and Solidarity

In early January I received an email that began with these words: We are writing you on behalf of Padre Melo, the Jesuit priest who has accompanied the Honduran people for more than 20 years. He is appealing to the international community for an emergency delegation: “We need you to organize people who will accompany […]

Reflections for Martin Luther King Day

January 15, 2018 | Heather Vickery | Economic Justice, Pastoral, Racial Justice

Today we remember the leadership of Martin Luther King in his own chapter of the struggle for racial justice. But we’re living through our own chapter of that struggle today, in which the rise of overt white supremacy and the support it receives from the White House shows us just how far we still have […]

A New Year’s Message

December 31, 2017 | Heather Vickery | Pastoral

As a new year dawns, everything is the same – The world bound into its history and struggles, as we ourselves are bound. Yet it’s also true that we stand at a threshold, the new year not yet shaped, leaving a great forming power in our hands: what shall we do with this great gift […]

The Momentary Awareness Brought By Gratitude

November 22, 2017 | Heather Vickery | Pastoral

UUCSJ’s Director, Rev. Kathleen McTigue, reflects on gratitude and hardship. In the midst of the devastating hurricane season this fall, the Boston area (where I live) was warned to brace for a possible hit from Hurricane Nate, before it spun off further east and out into the Atlantic. Folks in our area breathed a sigh […]

Buena suerte to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Lake Chapala and vaya bien

January 31, 2017 | Heather Vickery | Pastoral, Religious Professionals

Reverend Gary Kowalski, Minister, Unitarian Congregation of Taos, NM embarked on a sabbatical leave to Lake Chapala, Mexico with the help of a UUCSJ sabbatical grant. Thirty miles south of Guadalajara, the small town of Ajijic rests on the northern shore of Mexico’s largest body of fresh water, Lake Chapala. Flanked by high mountains, pelicans […]

Let’s Get Ready – to March, to Resist, to Declare Our Conscience!

January 19, 2017 | Heather Vickery | Economic Justice, Environmental Justice, First Nations, Immigration, Pastoral, Sanctuary and Solidarity

by Angela Kelly Ready or not, here we are, on the eve of an Inauguration so many of us are dreading. We are painfully aware of the threats posed by the incoming President to the rights, safety, and dignity of so many, to the future of our planet, and to values we cherish deep in […]

Let’s Get Ready: Finding Our Way Through Our Fear

January 6, 2017 | Heather Vickery | Pastoral, Sanctuary and Solidarity

by Rev. Kathleen McTigue As we move into the new year in this fraught political moment, many of us are coping with new levels of anxiety. There is a lot to worry about, as each day the headlines seem to hammer us with more bad news. It can feel like we’re in the midst of […]

Let’s Get Ready: Resources for Finding Our Way Forward

December 16, 2016 | Heather Vickery | Economic Justice, Environmental Justice, First Nations, Immigration, Pastoral, Racial Justice, Sanctuary and Solidarity

by Chris Casuccio and Angela Kelly We’re a month in and a month out. It’s been a little over a month since the election, and we have a little more than a month to go before the inauguration. As we attempt to find our bearings and head towards the first 100 days of the new […]