Quotes from John Buehrens

I can believe a miracle because I can raise my own arm. I can believe a miracle because I can remember. I can believe it because I can speak and be understood by you. —Ralph Waldo Emerson, Unitarian minister and essayist

In the horizontal dimension, worship needs to have breadth to be inclusive.

Occasionally, we may even use something special, like the Gustav Holst Hymns from the Rig Veda.

This realization is the first of many awakenings that have shaped my understanding of what religion means: Religion is our human response to the dual reality of being alive and having to die.

WE ONLY KNOW two things for certain: "I am," and "I will die.

The second certainty is associated with spirit, as in Pasternak's novel, Dr. Zhivago, when the physician says to a young woman dying of cancer, "Your spirit will live on, you know. Your spirit is you in others, others in you.

Over the years, I have been disappointed at times, but more often it has been my low expectations of people that have been upset.

Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit.

The lure of the various isms, though hardly unknown to religious people, may be even more intense for those who avoid religion.

Parts of the first chapter are adapted from my 1980 lectures, Born Again Unitarian Universalism, which happily this introduction to our faith will now supplant.

The living tradition we share draws from many sources …

Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life.

We have arrived where we are because of all that lies behind us. Finally, effective worship asks us to stretch forward. It has a dimension of aspiration.

Good worship will strive for height.

Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves.

But authentic worship also has depth.