sermon — prayers + writings

Shaping Change

“All that you touch, you Change.
All that you Change, changes you.
The only lasting thing is Change, God is Change.”
These are the wise words of Octavia Butler - we’ll come back to them in a moment.

Finding Our Way In Chaos

And I needed to evacuate.
Maybe some of you have had a moment like this - maybe even more than one moment - the rise of unprecedented weather events touching more and more - and more - human lives in recent years.

My Apologies

This High Holy Day season reminds all who are listening - to pause - and to turn toward all the places within our lives that sit heavy in disrepair. But what really makes a good apology? And what exactly is forgiveness?

To Kill a Pig/Shaped by the Harvest

On one side the image of verdant and watery globe with the headline - “How we saved the world: an optimists guide to life on earth in 2070.” Flip the magazine over to see a dry, scorched earth with the words : “How We Lost the Earth: a pessimists guide to Life on Earth in 2070.”

sermonKristen PsakiApril 26, 2020life, death, climate grief, farming, pigs, Earth DayComment

Climate Grief

Climate grief can’t be fixed - it can only be felt.

And so perhaps its time that we remember how to grieve.
To not look away, but to move in closer.
To let the tears flow as long as they want to flow.
To find a place to yell.
To sing a song about the earth’s beauty with both joy and sadness.

sermonKristen PsakiFebruary 23, 2020grief, climate grief, despair work, dr bayo akomolafe, shauna janz, sacred grief, joann macy, emotions, ellen bass, love, nayyirah waheedComment

Drink in Beauty

When you take a bite of something warm and delicious cooked for you by someone who makes you laugh, when you share sticky fruit with another who you love, relationships of love and sex, based in trust and honest communication, the sound of the crunching forest underneath your feet, the smudge of paints.

sermonKristen PsakiMay 5, 2019Beauty, Pleasure, Desire, Eros, Adam and Eve, Bible, Audre Lorde, Erotic, adrienne maree brown, Freedom, SpringComment

The Wisdom of a Dandelion

sermonKristen PsakiApril 22, 2018Biomimicry, Darkling Beatles, Earth Day, Climate Change, Oppression, Love, Justice, Wisdom, Heart, Healing, white supremacy, racism, beauty, wisdom, Standing Rock, Water, Indigenous Leaders, Prayer

Another Year is Calling

This stone represents a piece of your hardened earth, something in your life preventing you from sinking into the deeper layers of your experience. Something that is no longer serving you.

sermonKristen PsakiDecember 31, 2017New Years Eve, Resolutions, Joanna Macy, Hope, Despair, Yehuda Amichai, Letting go, Ritual

Storied Selves

And for many of us, the stories we have about our religious pasts are some of these stuck stories. And as a tradition, the stories we have about Christianity are also a little stuck - in the sense of feeling charged and untouchable.

The Fire Inside

sermonKristen PsakiFebruary 12, 2017chaos, fake news, 2016 election, Love, Rilke, creativity

A Peek Into Buddhism

The Buddha lived sometime between the sixth and fourth centuries BCE. Since then hundreds of schools of Buddhism have emerged across the globe. This exploration will dive into one foundational piece found in most, if not all, schools of Buddhism: the teaching of “dependent co-arising,” or in the words of Thich Nhat Hanh, the teaching of “interbeing.”

sermonKristen PsakiJuly 17, 2016Thich Nhat Hanh, interbeing, Buddhism

Listen for Islam

I followed the women to a small room down a few carpeted steps. Thinking we were just going to sit quietly by a side wall while the women prayed, when they invited us to participate it was unexpected.