Name: Rev. Justin Almeida - "The Wisdom of Emotions: Quieting the Mind and Listening to the Body" by Evergreen UU
Duration: 28 min 47 s
Description: Recent neuroscience has found that human consciousness has less to do with our “rational brains” and more to do with our bodies and intuition. Spiritual traditions have always found wisdom in listening to the “still small voice” of conscience. In this sermon, we explore how our emotions can be our source of healing and growth.

This Sunday, you’re invited into the living story of Canoe Journey, as JW Wenzel and family share their visual story of this ancestral Coast Salish tradition, as one canoe among many.  Together, we’ll open space to listen for the ways cultural, covenantal, and communal memory inform and sustain one another.

Unfortunately, the audio for this sermon is below our usual standards. Apologies!!

Wenzel Family - "Canoe Journey"

Recent neuroscience has found that human consciousness has less to do with our “rational brains” and more to do with our bodies and intuition. Spiritual traditions have always found wisdom in listening to the “still small voice” of conscience. In this sermon, we explore how our emotions can be our source of healing and growth.

Rev. Justin Almeida - "The Wisdom of Emotions: Quieting the Mind and Listening to the Body"

At Christmas many of us traditionally celebrate the birth of Jesus, a story of loving prophecy and wonder told for centuries. But what happens when we place that familiar manger scene alongside other birth stories from the world’s religions? Join us as we listen for what several holidays might be bringing to light for us this December.

Rev. Joe Rettenmaier - "What Child Is This?"

Explore Goddess’ sacred space acknowledging the Solstice, the Great Mother and the Reindeer Mother.  Noticing that the loss of women’s power is compensate with the failure to remember and honor them, the triple goddess – Maiden, Mother, Crone – reaches back through the Solstice and the Reindeer Mother to find meaning in our time. Suzanna McCarthy, Nancy Miller and Chris Martinez will embody the archetypes of Mother, Maiden, and Crone.

Chris Martinez,  Suzanna McCarthy, and Nancy Miller - "Reindeer, the Solstice, and the Divine Feminine"

The audio of this track is a touch garbled - we apologize!

This coming Sunday we’ll gather together in a new year -- a new year many of us will try to fill with resolutions in hopes of finally living our best life. What if the new year isn’t about resolving to become someone new or better, but simply to begin again in love?

Rev. Joe Rettenmaier - "A New Year of Love Being Enough"

What does it mean to be a good neighbor? How far does our neighborhood stretch? How do our theological roots of Universalism guide us toward being a good neighbor? And what does the prophet Mister Rogers have to say about this? Join special guest Rev Martha Durkee-Neuman for an exploration of Radical Neighborliness.

Rev Martha Durkee-Neuman -  Radical Neighborliness

As generative AI increasingly becomes part of our daily lives, we’re invited into deeper questions than we might expect: not just what these tools can do, but what kind of spirit they carry — and what they reveal about us in return. Every technology has a spirit, discovered only through relationship with it: through curiosity and resistance, wonder and critique, engagement and restraint. And our deepest stories quietly shape us — stories about what will save us, what will end us, and what it means to be human in the first place.

So what does it mean to stay human in an age when our tools can sound so very… human? When does easing the path support learning, and when does growth still ask us to wrestle? Some traditions teach that we learn through friction; others point us toward wu-wei — effortless effort, alignment rather than strain. Meanwhile, we’re encouraged to be vulnerable, even as we’re rarely taught how to do that with dignity, safety, and agency. AI (as Trickster?) has entered this already complicated terrain, offering both new possibilities for connection and revelation as well as new risks of confusion and conflation.
How can our technologies reveal us to ourselves? With courage, care, and shared responsibility, we’ll ask how to engage these tools not with fear or naïveté, but with discernment, perhaps learning ourselves more deeply along the way.

Mari Budlong - "AI & Knowing with Machines"

So many people around the world are asking “How will we weather through all this?” Join us Sunday morning as we gather to do just that – weather through it all – one faithful step at a time.

Rev. Joe Rettenmaier - "Steady Faith for Tumultuous Times"

Our UU brains and even bigger UU hearts keep pulling us back into the work of liberation, compassion, and beloved community whether we meant to volunteer for it all or not. Let’s consider how thinking leads to caring, caring leads to acting, and acting leads to… well… covenants and values we can’t seem to live without.

Rev. Joe Rettenmaier - "We Think, Therefore We Care"

We live in a world with many competing forces fighting for our attention. We know that what we pay attention to, grows. So how do we stay disciplined with keeping our attention grounded and centered on what matters to us? Join Rev Martha for an exploration of the spiritual practice of paying attention. 

Rev. Martha Durkee-Neuman "What We Pay Attention To, Grows"

Our mission is to WELCOME a diverse fellowship, INSPIRE personal & spiritual growth, and ADVOCATE for our values, including social justice.

Rev. Justin Almeida - "The Wisdom of Emotions: Quieting the Mind and Listening to the Body"

Evergreen UU

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