Quest Blog
Invocation in a time of sorrow
2012-12-16 Tomorrow morning in the congregation I serve, we will open our worship for all ages with these words: There are a lot of good and beautiful things in our world. There are a lot of scary things in our world. Sometimes we feel great joy and a lot of hope. Sometimes we are brokenhearted…
Read MoreImpatiently Waiting to Patiently Wait
2012-12-09 It’s December 8 already; one third of the way through the Advent calendar that I still haven’t dug out of the basement closet and put up. We did manage to put up the tree, and even decorate it this year, Thanksgiving being so early and all. (Last year we opted for the naked look).…
Read MoreThe Day After Newtown: Finding Our Way
2012-12-15 And so we wake up the morning after, and it wasn’t a dream. The children are still dead, the teachers beside them. It is another day, a gray one, where people and animals must be fed and life will go on no matter how we feel. Many of us took the occasion, yesterday, to…
Read MoreReady for Christmas
2012-12-12 ‘Tis the season. The standard greeting these days seems to be, “So, are you ready for Christmas?” Frankly, this is a question that flummoxes me every time. Honestly, I really have not the faintest idea how one is supposed to answer. Am I ready for Christmas? What does that even mean? Have I decorated…
Read MoreYOU GOT PEOPLE
2012-12-14 You Got People This Public Service Announcement brought to you by a Unitarian Universalist minister who has just been creatively reminded by the universe of this important truth. Beloveds, in the crush of this season of holidays, remember that YOU GOT PEOPLE. Contrary to the images of loneliness and unworthiness being projected onto us…
Read MoreWhat Makes Us Safe
2012-12-19 It is only natural that in the wake of the horrific shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary, the world of social media is awash with solutions, things that we should have done to prevent this tragedy, things that we urgently need to do to prevent more such tragedies, things that will make us safe. Some…
Read MoreFor So the Children Come
2012-12-24 For each child that’s born A morning star rises and sings to the universe who we are On November 12th of this year, three congregations co-ordained me, giving me a new name – Reverend Deanna Vandiver. On the morning of December 21st, Katherine Grace was born and I received another name – Aunt De!…
Read MoreLove & Grief: Two Sides of the Same Coin
2012-12-28 One night as the on-call hospital chaplain, I witnessed the end of three marriages, each representing over 50 years of love and struggle, as death claimed the husbands. The depth of grief of each wife haunted me for days. Was this the price of great love? Such great pain? This is what I have to look…
Read MoreWhat a Day for a Daydream!
2012-12-30 It turns out I’m not as good at daydreaming as I used to be. When I was about nine, my mother would have to physically rouse me from my bed, not because I was sleeping, but because I was spending happy hours imagining my life as Mrs. Paul McCartney. My fantasies involved boats, castles,…
Read MoreWe Are All In This Together
2013-01-11 “If middle-class Americans do not feel threatened by the slow encroachment of the police state or the Patriot Act, it is because they live comfortably enough and exercise their liberties very lightly, never testing the boundaries. You never know you are in a prison unless you try the door.” ― Joe Bageant, Deer Hunting with…
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