The I Am UU project has always been a lay ministry; a grassroots effort not tied directly to any one congregation, not overseen by the UUA, not even curated by an ordained minister. That much is very unlikely to change. Something exciting has changed, though. The UUA is moving to recognize ministry as something more […]
Unitarian Universalism is dedicated to a world that is just, compassionate, and equitable. That has never come about by accident. People fight their whole lives to see the world get better on any one of those points. They come together and build movements and organizations to do the work better. They knew that if we […]
My name is Thomas Earthman. The I Am UU project is my ministry. I am not an ordained minister. I am not trained to do the work of a parish minister. I do have, as the UUA puts it, “gifts to share with [my] faith community and the wider world.” Coming into this project […]
The Universe is a tapestry woven of all the matter and energy and the patterns they exist in and create. You are a complex and vital pattern, part of a bigger pattern of all humanity that is then woven into the greater fabric. The Universe would not be complete without you. And it is just […]
We have posted many times here and on our Facebook page affirming James Luther Adams holy sense of optimism. He wrote that “the resources (divine and human) that are available for the achievement of meaningful change justify an attitude of ultimate optimism.” The course of human history has been a long, stuttering progression of greater […]
Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote those words, and the truth of them has not faded. Being enthusiastic about the task in front of you makes it not only easier to set your will to doing it, but to doing it well and thoroughly. The human mind […]
A couple of years ago, I read Wicked. I was inspired by a friend who had just gone to see the Broadway show; she raved about how good it was, so I checked the book out from the library. First, she was right. It was amazing. I really love all these retellings of old stories […]
More so than anything that has come out of a General Assembly or the UUA offices in Boston, my personal ministry, the I Am UU project, has been shaped by James Luther Adams and his “5 Smooth Stones of Liberal Religion”. I firmly believe that they are part of the theological foundation of my religion, […]
5 years ago, though it seems like much more, I started a project called I Am UU. This wasn’t my attempt to claim the mantle, as a few very misguided souls have accused me of, but an effort to build a community of people who were proud to tell the world “I am UU”. Others […]
If we value liberal religion and want it to be vibrant and powerful in the world, we need to look at ministry in new ways. There are so many ways that more fundamentalist ideas are spread, from preachers on a soap box on the local college campus to the blogs and YouTube channels of Islamic […]
Wearing a t-shirt or drinking from a mug with a flaming chalice on it is a very low-pressure way to invite questions and conversation about liberal religion.
