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Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt
September 14, 2025
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

When we work towards justice, we are building a world of belonging. But what does that look like in our community, and what do we need to do? Rev. Carrie explores how we might build belonging and how our religious roots can help us.

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Chalice Lighting

This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth that we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.

Call to Worship

IN TROUBLED TIMES
by Reverend Stephen Schick

From the loneliness of troubled times we come,
to discover that we are not alone.

Into the dwelling place of togetherness we come,
to collect remnants of hope.

From fear that all is lost we come,
to discover what will save us.

Into the comfort of each others arms we come,
to build a strength that is not yet vanished.

From darkness we come,
to wait until our eyes begin to see.

Into the refuge of fading dreams we come,
to remove illusions and focus new visions.

From despair that walks alone we come,
to travel together.

Into the dwelling place of generations we come,
to pledge allegiance to being peace and doing justice.

Affirming Our Mission

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

Reading

 

EVERYTHING IS STILL ON FIRE
by Reverend Julian Jamaica Soto

Everything is still on fire, despite your best efforts. In addition to living, it is clear that fire or not, you must level up in what it means to thrive. Right now, that means wrestling with the truth and the fact that everything is not all your fault.

I am sorry that everything is still on fire. Once hate catches the winds of “not my problem” blow, and the blaze is hard to stop. But hard is not impossible. Not yet is different than never.

You and community have an answer. You have a response to systems of power and control and to the cost of suffering. You and your community together are the answer.

You are not only a people of flame, but also a people of cold, clear truth. You know both where you fall short and where you flourish and where you still reach. Everything is still on fire but all is not lost.

You remain more nimble than steadfast, more unshakable than swayed by the latest rage. You are here to put out the ravenous flames and heal the world. Enough is enough.

Sermon

NOTE: This is an edited ai generated transcript.
Please forgive any omissions or errors.

So we’re gonna go back to the 19th century for a few moments. In the 19th century Universalist minister Hosea Ballou was out riding the circuit in New Hampshire. Now the circuit was when ministers would go from town-to-town preaching at different churches, on horseback, of course.

On this occasion he’s riding with the Baptist minister. And of course, they’re debating theology. And at one point, the Baptist says, “Brother Balllou.”

Now, I don’t know New Hampshire accent, so we’re just going to imagine New Hampshire’s in the South.

“Brother Balllou, if I were a universalist and feared not the fires of hell, I could hit you over the head, steal your horse, and saddle, and ride away, and I’d still go to heaven, because I believe it.”

Ballou looks over at him and says, “If you were a Universalist that idea would have never occurred to you.”

I love that story because it’s funny and it’s witty and I can just imagine the Baptist minister getting turning red and like having no response at all. And, let’s be honest, as a Unitarian Universalist that scratches my ego quite a bit.

But what does that mean? Does my religious affiliation really mean that I wouldn’t have such a violent thought? And if that’s true, is it a chicken or the egg situation? Is it that peaceful and kind people are drawn to this religion? People who would never think about stealing someone’s horse. Are those the ones that show up at this church? Or is that the teachings of this religion lead us to be people who would get all those horrible ideas just right out of our head?

I think a case could be made for both. We definitely are a self-selecting people. When I decided to come back to Texas, Austin was my non-negotiable. But there’s also something to be said about how our communities, religious, or others shape us and our actions.

For example, growing up, I had a front row seat to what we now, or what we called at the time the religious right movement, and I saw how it played out in people’s lives. I experienced people who loved their kid, they expressed levels of empathy for other people’s suffering and other people’s kids, and they would consistently vote for candidates who would vote against free and reduced lunch and vote against gun reform and vote against systems of support for parents.

But those candidates also promised to do away with Roe versus Wade. And as we know now years and years of those candidates getting the support of those single issue voters has led us to where we are now.

Now I can’t speak for those people who did that. I am sure that at least some of them, had they had their way, would not have wanted to the slow erosion of policies that protected children. Or maybe not. I can’t speak for them.

But what I do know is that often these kind and empathetic people were voting with the belief that the ends justifies the means. Yes, this person goes against everything I say I believe, but they said the magic words. And so I’m gonna vote for him.

And the fruits of those ends have not worked out for most anyone, but especially those in our society who are most vulnerable and are less likely to fit into the controllable blocks of white supremacy hetero-patriarchy, those that have been and continue to be marginalized.

The outcome of the religious right, backed by the ends justify the means, has resulted in who belongs in this country and who belongs in power getting narrower and narrower by the day. This week’s Supreme Court recent ruling in favor of racial profiling is a prime example of that.

Now many books have been written about how the religious right movement used those single issue voters for nefarious ends. We know that Jerry Falwell and others were upset that their tax exempt status was going to be taken away unless they integrated their white-only academies. They wanted a world that existed before the civil rights movement, and so they used an issue they thought would motivate people. They used abortion to get what they wanted. They grew their desires for a pre-civil rights America right into the Christian nationalist movement that we are living in today.

Now, I simplified that a lot, but I use that example because it’s a good one. We are in a place in our history where we can see this fully, we can see how this philosophy has played out, but mostly I brought it up because it has a lot of rich lessons for us right now.

And while I don’t mind exposing what’s happening, and I think it’s really good to take a historical look to see how we got where we are. I’m more concerned about what we’re going to do about it than anything else.

So one thing I want us to take away from this example is that the purpose and the impact of Christian nationalism is to narrow down belonging. They want and are making great headway in having a protective in-group and a vulnerable out-group.

Which means our call as a justice-loving and justice-seeking people is to do whatever we can to push against laws that have this at their heart. Like the bathroom bill that was recently passed here in Texas that is a blatant attempt to remove and erase trans and non-binary people. Or the Supreme Court ruling and all the ICE raids that are trying to further instill this idea that to be American, to deserve protection, is to be white. Or the many many attacks on reproductive rights that seek to control people’s body and put cis men in authority over everyone else.

Now of course this isn’t anything new. White supremacy heteropatriarchy has always existed in this country and has always shaped legislation. It has always been protected. There’s always been an in-group and there’s always been out-groups, but right now we find ourselves in a time when a concerted effort is underway to roll back all progress that has been made. And not just that, it’s a time when racism and sexism and homophobia and transphobia are celebrated.

So the good news is this isn’t new, right? This isn’t new, we know what to do. But we have to be louder than we have been and we have to fight harder against the normalization of it. We have to condemn it when we talk to our friends and our family, we have to condemn it. When we talk to the city councilors or school board members or the legislature or any person in any position of power, we have to condemn it with consistency and frequency pointing out what is happening and say wholeheartedly that we condemn it.

When we do this, when we use our voice and when we take actions, we plant seeds for a more just world. For the beloved community that we’re always talking about. And we do it with the sort of stamina that comes from knowing we are not going to see the fruits of our labor. At least not most of us.

What we are seeking to do external to this community is a long game, and we keep doing it. But here in this building, in this community, we act to see those fruits now. We do the work of growing ourselves and making sure to see where we see our own barriers of belonging, and we dismantle them now because while the work of building the beloved community will take generations, the work of building belonging in our community won’t.

And this is where we get back to Reverend Ballou. In order to be a community where we are building belonging, a community that honors and respects and supports the full expression of humanity, We must also be a people to do the work. The work that will make sure we aren’t the guy who would hit the other guy over the head and take his horse. To do the work to understand that the means, they don’t justify the end, they condition the end.

What we pour into ourselves, what we pour into our community, and what we pour into the people around us will shape what happens and will shape the ends. And this comes from the work of educating ourselves and then doing the spiritual work of taking what we learned from head knowledge to heart knowledge so that we live it. This is the spiritual practice of anti-racism, anti-oppression, and multiculturalism. It doesn’t just stay in books we read, we must embody it. We have to let what we learn be embodied so that we and the way we operate is fundamentally changed.

For those of us who are white, this means examining the way that white supremacy has shaped our world-view, how it has shaped how we view the global majority, what actions we take to uphold the systems, because systems cannot work unless we comply. And then we do the hard and the very sacred work of dismantling white supremacy in ourselves.

For those of us who are cis, we need to do the hard work of seeing how patriarchy has shaped our notion of gender, and how we comply, How possibly we weaponize it and then we do the hard and the sacred work of dismantling it in ourselves.

For those of us who are straight or able-bodied or have citizenship status or who have class privilege, those of us who hold any privileges, we must examine how we are complying to these systems that hold up so much oppression. We must examine the ways that we uphold those structures that seek to narrow belonging, because that’s what they are doing. And then we do the hard and very difficult work of dismantling them in ourselves and in our community. Because we just don’t become the person who wouldn’t knock someone off their horse. We have to work to be those people.

Reverend Ballou said,

“It is well known and will be acknowledged by every candid person that the human heart is capable of becoming soft or hard, kind or unkind, merciful or unmerciful, by education and habit.”

It takes work. It takes education and action. It takes learning from books, yes, and learning from each other. It takes empathy and risk and failure. It takes stepping outside of our comfort zone and growing ourselves. It takes education and habit.

 

This type of growth of spiritual practice and transformation is embedded into our religious tradition. Both Unitarians and Universalists believed it was important to work on personal growth. Of course, sometimes they missed the mark, especially the Unitarians, okay? They were often more individualistic than was helpful at times.

But the idea that we can learn and we can grow and we can be different from the larger system around us. That’s inherent to our faith. Our religious foundation is about finding that third way, not ping-ponging back and forth, not just doing the opposite of what those causing harm are doing, but breaking out of the paradigm of oppression altogether and doing things differently so that we can have more meaningful, more beautiful, and more inclusive outcomes.

I believe that justice, real justice, where everyone has a place, where everyone is protected, where everyone is represented, happens because those working to justice have worked to transform themselves. Have worked to dismantle systems of supremacy in their own heart. Have allowed themselves to break from the larger system. And that’s the liberation that flows into the community so that we can be a place of belonging. A place where our whole selves and where everyone’s whole self can come and find belonging.

And that work toward personal and collective liberation will imbue our work. It will create beautiful and fertile soil to nourish what will be born out of our work and the fruits of which will be expansive and beautiful and it will happen in the here and then now, all the work we do, all the movement towards widening our circle in this community, when we stretch our notion of belonging will benefit us all in this community, in the here and now, all of us, all of us, in the here and the now.

May it always be so.

Extinguishing the Chalice

We extinguish this flame, but not the light of truth, the warmth of community, or the fire of commitment. These we hold in our hearts until we are together again.

Benediction

As you leave this place and return to the normal rhythms of life May you feel held. May you feel held by this community and may you feel held by love. May you know belonging, and may you be the reason that someone else feels that they belong. Go in love.

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SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 25 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link above to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

PODCASTS

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link above or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt
August 31, 2025
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Every generation in our church brings something beautiful and unique to our living tradition. This Sunday, we will explore how the youth have helped shape our faith and how those of us who are older can encourage and provide space for them to grow and contribute.

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Chalice Lighting

This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth that we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.

Call to Worship

By Elandria Williams

We are the children of freedom fighters, visionaries, and radical liberal theologians.

We are the phoenix rising out of the ashes of the McCarthy era and the civil rights, women’s, and queer liberation movements.

We are the survivors and beneficiaries of youth-led and youth-focused beliefs and programming that encouraged us to be change makers, boundary pushers, and institutionalists at the same time.

We are and will be the ministers, religious educators, congregational presidents, organizers, and social change leaders our faith has led us to be.

We wear our faith as tattoos on our bodies and in our hearts as testaments to the blood, tears, dreams, and inspirations of our community ancestors and elders.

Affirming Our Mission

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

Reading

Connie Goodbread

“Faith development is all we do. Unitarian Universalism is the faith we teach. The congregation is the curriculum.”

Sermon

Who loves Unitarian Universalism? Raise your hand or make some noise.

Me too!

Now who loves the chalice? So do I. It’s just such a beautiful and rich symbol, isn’t it.

So here is the thing, we don’t have Unitarian Universalism and we don’t light the chalice if we hadn’t listened to our youth.

Unitarian and Universalist way back in the 19th century kept looking at each other and saying …should we be friends. Should we make it official?

Maybe they kept running into each other at the same protest or annoying all the same people.

So the adults would get together and work towards merger but something would come up and they would say “we aren’t ready yet” or “maybe it not a good idea.”

Not to digress too much but one of the best pieces I found that might explain the reluctance to merge was found in a paper by John Cummins… he writes…

“One Back Bay matron was heard to sniff that Universalists were ‘nothing but Baptists who could read.'”

Universalists complained that Unitarians didn’t feel they’d had a good sermon unless they didn’t quite understand it themselves.

You got to love church history!

So the adults are struggling to make this coming together work.

But the youth of those groups said, we will do our own thing then and in 1935 they essentially merged. Now the Universalist General Convention voted that down but…

Well that did not deter them

And by 1949 their religious educators took their lead and formed the Liberal Religious Educators Association or, because its still around, you might hear it called LREDA.

The youth merger was motivating. And soon the adults started to take on lots and lots of merger work and finally in 1961 the Unitarians and the Universalists merged and became Unitarian Universalism!

Now I told that story the way I did, not to demean the really hard work and the millions of hours that must have gone into this really important decision, after all there were real theological differences between the groups. There were questions of polity and asset management.

Having set in my fair share of board meetings, I know those people did the phenomenal work for our faith.

But I wonder, would we still be debating merger or if one side would have died out completely … if our youth hadn’t motivated us.

To me This story highlights how vital our kids and your youth are to the heaith of our congregation. They bring a perspective that those of us who have to think about things like Polity and merger or assets don’t have. They can nudge us to move more quickly.

It doesn’t mean that youth were better than those adults or us adults, it just means that have a different lens.

I am a big believer that we need all sorts of lens… all sorts of perspectives… in order to live out our values. In order to keep our living-tradition living and evolving into something more beautiful and more encompassing of the vastness of creation.

Their perspective, their clarity of seeing how these two groups could and should work together was powerful. And I am so grateful that those adults took their lead.

Now onto the chalice.

The image of the flamming chalice was created for the Unitarian Service Committee in the 1930s so they could have an officially looking image to stamp documents they needed to get jews and unitarians away from the Nazis.

But for about almost 50 years, the chalice was just an image. It did get an update after merger, when the two circles around the chalice were added. But it wasn’t until the kids get involved that we get this very tangible symboi of our faith. In the 1970s the kids in religious education along with their religious education teachers would talk about the chalice, and explore the meaning, and then they would craft their own. Susan Richie writes that we think the chalice first made its way to the sanctuary when the kids would have their service each year.

Isn’t that beautiful?

I just imagine sweet little kids, like the kids in our church, bringing in their homemade chalice and lighting them as part of their worship service.

And from there some adults must have said, I like that, thats a good idea. And fast forward to today. Sunday morning chalices are lit in churches from Austin to Australia.

What a gift those kids brought into our lives.

Our kids and the youth in this church – with their different perspectives, with their own curiosity and ideas, their different ways of worshipping, have so much to offer us.

Maybe even the next chalice.

But here is the other part of the story… those kids and those youth were able to do what they did, merge two religions and give us our richest and most consistent religious symbol – because they had adults who created the structure for them.

They had adults who volunteered in religious education, they had adults who listened to them, and maybe even helped them take their ideas and make them into realities. They had adults who said, what you brought to our sacred space is meaningful and we will follow your lead.

And that is what I want to nurture and nourish at this church while I have the honor of serving you.

I want us all to to embody what Connie Goodbread said in the reading. That the “congregation is the curriculum.”

I want that for us adults and I want that for our kids and youth.

So here what I am asking of you.

First,lets get experimental.

My favorite theological idea is praxis. It comes from liberation theology and its the idea that we reflect on our beliefs, our values, and then we act based on them and then we reflect actions and then act, reflect… you get it.

This requires creativity This requires energy This requires flexibility And it might even require some failure.

Sol and I ask for your input and your energy. Because our kids have experienced a lot in those early days of the COVID pandemic. And they are experiencing a lot right now. We all are. But could you imagine being 5 or 10, or 17 years old living through what we are living through?

Our kids need us to pour into them. And while I think we have been doing a really good job, I think we can reimagine things to meet the moment for these kids.

So how do you help with this? Well one we want your ideas. We want your thoughts and we want to hear what you are observing.

Secondly, be flexible. It is my desire to welcome all that come into this space with the best hospitality, and that goes for our kids. If “the congregation is the curriculum” then how we worship when we have all ages services, or how we treat kids (and their people) when they are in the sanctuary is all a lesson, it is all faith development.

Let’s make those lessons good and fun and loving.

And I get that what I am asking is a lot for some of you. I am asking you to sit with two important values and prioritize one.

We have a value of being a radically welcoming space. We say we want to embody the beloved community.

And some of us have a value that church be comfortable. That services be consistent and not deviate from the way things usually are. And I get that, and I do not want to deem that as a value. I am so proud that this church can be such a nourishing space for so many.

But when we have two opposing values like that.

The desire to embody the beloved community and the desire to have our services always be what we want, we have to decide which one takes priority. Which one helps us to live more into our values.

I know which one I am rooting for.

And that leads nicely to my next point, I may disappoint you in this role and you may disappoint me. Let me disappoint you. I rather try something new to nourish our community and disappoint someone, than to do nothing and leave people out.

Finally, I need your energy. You time and talent. We have a consistent set of volunteers for religious education but we need more people especially for our youth group.

We need you.

Even those of you who think that you aren’t good with kids or you have no desire to teach kids, that okay. We have lots of ways you can help out and never have to read curriculum at all.

But I need you to volunteer and not… just because the kids and youth need you, which they do.

No, I need you to volunteer because I care about your spiritual development.

Whether it is Chalice Circles or 5th to 8th grade religious education – being a part of religious education grows you spiritually and in connection to others.

But you don’t have to take my word for you it, I recently asked some of our consistent religious education volunteers for their thoughts. From Melanie “It is a joy to volunteer with our amazing children. I learn as much from them as they do from me.”

Paul wrote that volunteering for 5th through 8th grade led [him] to the conclusion that one of our most significant UU tenets is community.

Arywn said “Watching the kids grow, learn, and play has been a huge expression of my UU faith, and has been genuinely transformative for me.”

Volunteering for religious education, any religious education, is not a sacrifice, it is a profound spiritual experience.

So please volunteer… Orientation is going to be on September 6th.

I feel very strongly about our religious education, and how it can transform lives for the whole lifespan of a person.

I feel strongly about our responsibility to our kids and our youth and the importance of a strong religious education program to grow our church.

My own husband has a story like many of you. He wasn’t particularly a church guy but when I found this place he felt strongly that it would be a good place for our kids. And he was right. Our kids have grown in this church.

They have made connections. They have grown in their values and in the creation of their own belief system which is something that is deeply needed in a world where the Christian nationalist agenda is encroaching into the classroom.

And because they have grown, we have grown. There have been times that they were the ones dragging us here. Because we were here we were experiencing our own growth and transformation.

If we want to transform lives, a strong religious education program is the way to do it.

But, given the week we just had at the capitol and in Minnesota I almost didn’t preach it. I thought about doing something else… something more justice oriented.

But then I realized this is a justice issue.

That the assault on trans people. The assault on reproductive health care. The school shooting. Are all apart of the larger narrative that our kids face in this political climate.

Our political system is screaming at them that it does not care. It does not care for them. That it doesn’t care if they are safe in school. It does not care if they have food or shelter or health care. It doesn’t care if they are safe in their body. It doesn’t care if their belief system is respected. It does not care about them.

But this is a place.

In this church we affirm loudly through our words and our actions that We care for them.

We see them. Who they are matters. Who they are is respected. And what they bring to this community is valued. May our actions speak this. And may we be a loving and soft place for all those who come through those doors.

May it always be so

Extinguishing the Chalice

We extinguish this flame, but not the light of truth, the warmth of community, or the fire of commitment. These we hold in our hearts until we are together again.

Benediction

As we leave this place and go back to the natural rhythms of our life May you feel, the warmth of your faith. May you feel by ALL empowered in this community.

And May you feel held by love.

Go in peace

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SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 25 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link above to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

PODCASTS

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link above or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt
August 3, 2025
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Pride was a riot ….and pride was a party. Pride is also liberation, self-actualization, and so, so much more. Let’s celebrate Pride in community as members of our congregation share the ways they experience pride in their own lives.

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Chalice Lighting

This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth that we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.

NOTE: This is an edited ai generated transcript.
Please forgive any omissions or errors.

Call to Worship

MY FIRST PRIDE
Bis Thornton

The crisp desert sun is shining on us out of an infinite sky, and it’s my first pride because we didn’t have that where I grew up.

I’m sitting on a trailer being pulled by my friend’s truck. The trailer isn’t decorated or I should say it’s decorated by us and nothing else. It’s a simple thing made of old wood and black metal and we’re shouting and waving flags and holding each other. If we weren’t all wearing boots we would have splinters. I see my friend hanging one arm out of her big white pickup and all is right in the world.

We go down this big street in the middle of town and pass by all my favorite restaurants, and I’m holding all my favorite people, and it’s one million degrees, and I don’t care.

What I do care about is the way we’re starting to become surrounded by people with yellow signs who start shouting at us. They tell us we don’t have to submit to the bondage of sin. We could be free of the lifestyle that has trapped us. They say worse things than that.

A lot of them are smiling and I find it unsettling, but I feel safe in the rickety trailer because all of my friends are here. Finally someone starts shouting Bible verses at us I remember feeling surprised that it took so long, but I can’t remember which ones they were saying.

What I remember is the way one of my friends climbed on top of the white pickup They stand defiantly the wind in their eyelashes their heart as big as the sky which frames them in impossible bright blue.

The miracle, in the miracle way of trans voices, they shout and they sound like a golden trumpet, like the cry of the wind itself. In Christ there is no male or female. I had never heard anything like it.

When I remember that day, I hear the whipping of pride flags in the wind, the creaking of dry wood beneath our stomping feet and the proclamation ringing out from my friend on top of the pickup truck. I see the sky carrying it to our ancestors and our descendants. I feel defiance and triumph and love. This was my first pride.

Affirming Our Mission

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

Reading

PRIDE IS A BECOMING
E Ciszek

So I’ll share a little bit of my thoughts here as I stand in front of you in my late 30s and reflect on what Pride is for me at this juncture in my life.

Pride is a becoming. It is a journey and a destination. It is aspirational.

Sometimes, pride is a ‘Fake It Till You Make It’ kind of strategy. It’s the bricks I try to lay on the road ahead.

Pride is showing up to work. It’s standing at the podium of my classroom, and feeling the impact my visibility has on hundreds of students. I’m a professor.

Pride is remembering the teachers that showed up for me as a young person.

Pride is also wearing my unapologetically queer t-shirt to the gym.

Pride is volunteering in my children’s class and fielding questions From my son’s kindergarten classmates like: Are you a boy or a girl?

Pride is unlearning the miseducation of sex that is baked into heteronormativity and white supremacy culture.

Pride is learning and accepting that identity and desire and passion and attraction are fluid and relational – not static.

Pride is something I’m trying to embed in my anatomy.

Pride is something I carry in my bones.

Sermon

Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt

So today we are in it for a real treat because I’m not going to be preaching. We’re going to have two wonderful members of our community, L.B. and Tomas, preach for us.

They’re going to share what pride means to them. L.B.

L.B. Lomeli

Good morning, all of you beautiful flowers. My name is L.B. Lomeli. I would like to start with a question I was asked at a pride event some years ago here in Austin.

What does pride mean to you? Feel free to chime in with your own beautiful responses? Freedom. Pride. Respect for yourself and others, that one’s beautiful. – Pride. – Yeah. Belonging, also beautiful.

My personal answer is honoring your inner monologue. A quote I read in Nikita Gill’s book The Girl and the Goddess Stories and Poems of Divine Wisdom in regards to the narrators bisexuality. “There is a secret sapling in me that I refuse to water and still it persists,” And still, it persists.

I have known my whole life I was queer, not necessarily in words that I understood how to express, but in that spirit of a sapling inside of me. And despite some denials I may have come along the way, I saw how everyone in my life had known. I saw this by how I was constantly questioned in ways that I had grown to resent, questioned about the letters in my name, questioned about the clothing that I put on my body, questioned about the makeup I choose to decorate my face, questioned about the choices I make regarding the hair given to this humanly body. I grew to resent that these questions needed to define my queerness when I know my queerness is simply just my existence.

Now though, I have been learning to let that little sapling grow. Come to find out when I stopped pruning it I got to see the flowers that could come with it. I got to see the strength it could stand with and with every flower and every leaf I like grow within me. I learned to care for myself when I learned to listen to myself that inner self, that inner monologue, I learned to grow for myself. I learned to honor myself.

I don’t need to explain those choices anymore. I know now everything I do is queer because I am queer. And I’m so thankful because with all this growth came an ecosystem, a community, a community I feed into, a community that feeds into me. I’m notorious for crying so please don’t be concerned. A community that is bright and colorful and strong, it stands so strong and resilient. I never thought this was going to be about falling in love with the intricacies of a flower. But what a wonderful way to be.

I leave you with the words of 1950s sapphic cabaret dancer Francis Fay. Gay, gay, is there another way?

Tomas Medina

Good morning My name is Tomas Medina and You know what I’ve never introduced myself up here. So I feel a little nervous about this part and I was hoping I’ll be wouldn’t so that I wouldn’t feel the need to do it but I am a middle-aged Latin man with a shaved or bald head and I’m wearing a too tight t-shirt that says resist in the colors of the trans flag and I’m going to speak on the transforming power of pride.

When I think of the power of pride The first image that comes to mind is the trans women of color who took part in the Stonewall Riots, one of their earliest though not the first queer resistance movements. I feel like I owe my very existence as a gay man to these early brave resistors. I’m not only filled with gratitude to these ancestors, I’m filled with pride to be part of their legacy, part of their family,

But, I wasn’t always proud. I was raised Catholic, and when I was a kid, I very much wanted to grow up to be a saint. Every day, I prayed that God would give me stigmata. I wanted to wake up with bloody palms from the nails of the cross. But as I got older, instead of bloody palms, I became attracted to other boys. So I changed my prayers. I prayed that if I couldn’t be a saint, maybe, just maybe, I could be not gay. I thought who I was was a sin and that I was broken.

But then when I was 17, I went to my first gay disco and life began to change for the better. I came out to my best friend, who then came out to me. I met other gay, lesbian, and trans folks. I joined a support group at my college. I began slowly to feel more comfortable in my own skin. When I came out to my parents that same year, they sent me to a therapist.

That therapist, truly useless, told me that to deal with my homosexuality, I should have avoid looking at other young men wearing shorts on my college campus. And I was 17. I mean, come on.

After a few sessions, I’d had enough and I quit. I told my parents if they had a problem with my being gay, they should see a therapist.

As I began to take pride in who I was, something else shifted. I started celebrating and making space for others who live out their full authentic selves. And not just members of the queer community, but anyone who says loudly and vulnerably, “I am who I am. And if you don’t like it, you can just eff off.”

I’ll admit sometimes I envy those people, but more than envy. I feel off. I’m moved. I’m inspired by their willingness to show up fully, proudly and sometimes imperfectly their pride fuels my pride. Over time I’ve come to realize that pride isn’t just about pride in ourselves. It’s also about pride in our communities.

When I was 24, my parents took me and my niece, who had just turned 15, to Spain. It was all of our first time in Europe. What most impressed me during that trip was our visit to the Prado Museum in Madrid. We saw masterpieces of the Spanish Renaissance, Valesquez, Goya, El Greco. I remember thinking, “Why have I never heard of these artists before?”

In that moment, something shifted in me. For the first time, I felt pride in my Latino heritage. Up to that point, I often wished I’d come from a family like the ones I saw on TV – white, suburban, upper middle class.

But, standing in that museum surrounded by brilliance and beauty from my own culture, I began to feel something new. I belonged to something worth celebrating. And now I take pride in being part of the Latino community and in being part of many communities, the queer community, the greater UU community, and this church.

Having pride in myself and others and my community is a lifelong journey. Every day, some part of me still wonders if I’m doing this “being human” thing all wrong. Am I working the wrong job, living in the wrong city, being a bad friend, the list goes on. But I know I’m not alone. I know there are others who carry these same doubts, maybe even some of the same people who inspire me. And yet, we go on.

Even with our doubts, we keep showing up. We live our most authentic lives the best we can. For me, pride isn’t about having it all figured out. It’s about choosing to live out-loud anyway.

And all of this, this journey, this defiance, this celebration feels especially urgent today. It’s a time when queer and trans lives are under renewed attack. When books are banned, rights are rolled back, and identities are politicized.

Living out-loud isn’t just personal. It’s political. It’s resistance. It’s our pride, our Part one, deeply rooted pride that gives us strength to resist, to keep going even when the world would rather we shrink or disappear.

Now more than ever, pride means choosing to be visible, choosing to be vulnerable, and choosing to show up for ourselves and for each other. That, to me, is the transforming power of pride.

Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt

I feel super blessed. Thank you, thank you. Which is a good thing because I’m going to give you all a blessing now. Actually, Sol and I are going to give you a blessing.

Today is our glitter blessing, and today is the day that we remember as Reverend Chris wrote, “Pride is not just about rainbows and parades, though those things are wonderful. It is an unapologetic declaration that not only is who I am not sinful or unnatural or any of the many other claims that would deny my very soul, who I am is a beautiful expression of God’s creativity and love that refuses to be defiled or denied.” And so, we offer this glitter blessing, a recognition of the sacred beauty inherent in every single person in this room and online.

Glitter is resilient and tenacious, if you’ve ever found it in your carpet. Glitter shines bright when it sits by the sun, and it can pierce the dreariest of spaces.

This glitter that we share with each other today is a reminder of each of us, the beauty of our sacred imperfection, our ever-changing selves, and our glorious plurality.

As the music plays, I’d like you to come up. Sol and I will be on either side of the stage here, and you can tell us where you like your glitter.

Extinguishing the Chalice

We extinguish this flame, but not the light of truth, the warmth of community, or the fire of commitment. These we hold in our hearts until we are together again.

Benediction

Our benediction today in part comes from our congregant Sparkle.

Pride means an opportunity to live my life to the fullest. Pride means an opportunity for others to live their life to the fullest. Pride means an opportunity to squeeze that last ounce of joy out of this relatively short time that we are blessed to live on this planet. May we all queer or straight endeavor to squeeze that last ounce of joy out of this life.

Amen and Blessed be.

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