Reaching Deeper

A sermon is an event in a particular time and place, with a particular preacher and congregation. With the exception of one essay and one sermon preached in a larger context, the place was The First Unitarian Church of Dallas, Texas-a church firmly in the Bible Belt, with a people seeking open-minded and open-hearted wisdom for life, clarity of purpose, and the nourishment of worshipping together in the music, silence, prayer and preaching of a specific Unitarian Universalist Church. These sermons are an inadequate representation of what happened when they were preached. And, in turn, they are an inadequate effort by the preacher, who after all, is human. They were preached each week whether the preacher was ready or not. They have been slightly edited for clarity, but remain largely as a text for preaching. That is to say the sentences are often incomplete and the text sometimes follows a circuitous path to make a point. That said, this selection of sermons, taken as a whole, represents the deepening of a congregation and minister, over time and should be read with the grace and forgiveness that was present when they were delivered.