Sunday Service
Multi-Platform in-person and online services at 10:30 am on Sunday mornings.
Upcoming Services
Thematic Thoughts
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It’s easy to get tricked,
taken for a ride,
convinced that joy
is a possession.
Something to be caught, contained and controlled
just by us.
As if it’s a birthday present,
waiting for us to unwrap it
and keep forever and ever.
And who can blame us,
with pain seeming so powerfully prevalent, and permanent.
If sadness can stay for so long,
why can’t joy?
But maybe it’s elusive
for a reason.
Maybe it’s slippery
in order to help us understand
that it was put here to fly.
Or better yet:
To be flung!
To be passed, not possessed.
To be spread
between you and me,
between the ones who receive its gift
and the ones that have been looking for its treasure
for a very long time.
Maybe it’s a beautiful and elegant contagion,
over which we just might have more control than we think.
If only we share it.
If only we notice that joy is not ours to keep,
but ours to give.
Maybe joy is a gift that opens us
as much as we open to it.
Maybe that’s the way light leaks into our weary world.
(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2025 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Joy')
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Schedule Your Joy
Our daily calendars are full of work tasks and personal errands. They are dedicated to the things we have to do, not want to do. So why not throw a wrinkle into that and schedule in a daily dose of joy? We’re being literal here: actually sit down at the start of a week and write in a joyful activity on each day of your calendar for that week. Don’t pressure yourself to come up with “big” things. They can be as simple as “Call mom” on Tuesday at 7:30pm or “Walk in the sun” on Thursday at 2pm or “Eat dessert for dinner” on Sunday at 6pm. The key is to do one a day and put them in at a specific time. And to keep yourself accountable to joy, move your “joy appointment” to the next day if you don’t get to it as scheduled. Do not cross it off entirely. Maybe even schedule an entire “joy catch up day” if you need to.
(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2025 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Joy’)
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Ask Them About Joy
One of the best ways to explore our monthly themes is to have conversations about them with people who are close to you. It’s also a great way to deepen our relationships! Below is a list of questions to help you on your way. Be sure to let your conversation partner know in advance that this won’t be a typical conversation. Telling them a bit about Soul Matters will help set the stage. Remember to also answer the questions yourself as they are meant to support a conversation, not just a time of quizzing them.
Joy Questions:
What do you find joyful that few others do?
What is your third favorite way to welcome in joy?
Did you grow up in a “happy family”?
Has choosing joy ever been an act of survival for you? Or an act of defiance?
When was the last time you sought out joy for your body?
What joyful memory has been with you the longest, showing up regularly like a long-time friend?
What’s something you know now about joy that you didn’t know when you were younger?
(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2025 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Joy')
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I don't trust people who are alive and paying attention and don't feel pain about what's happening
~ adrienne maree brown
You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don’t trust enough.
~ Frank Crane
Trust is the easiest thing in the world to lose, and the hardest thing in the world to get back.
~ R. M. Williams
I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.
~ Author unclear
The same voices that cannot be trusted with our histories, certainly cannot be trusted with a story unfolding. When you don’t know who to trust, listen first to the one who’s still bleeding.
~ Cole Arthur Riley
If your wounds are still open, trust
they are doors to an answer and walk through.
You don’t have to be healed to be whole.
You don’t have to know where you’re going
to stop doubting what you’re made of.
~ Andrea Gibson
Trust in what you love, continue to do it, and it will take you where you need to go.
~ Natalie Goldberg
I don't trust anyone who doesn't laugh.
~ Maya Angelou
Trust in trust.
Trust in the fact that
trusting won’t always take you
where you want to go.
But not trusting
never will.
~ Jeremy Lent
(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2025 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Trust')
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Trust is a confident engagement with the unknown.
~ Rachel Botsman
Trust is choosing to risk making something you value vulnerable to another person’s actions. Distrust [is when] what is important to me is not safe with a person in this situation or in any situation.
~ Charles Feltman
To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.
Alan Watts
I’ve come to trust not that events will always unfold exactly as I want, but that I will be fine either way.
~ Marianne Williamson
It’s a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet, and what is sand.
~ Madeleine L’Engle
Daughter, believe me,
when you tire on the long thrash
to your island, lie up, and survive.
As you float now, where I held you
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.
~ Philip Booth
A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because her trust is not in the branch but in her own wings.
~ Charlie Wardle
As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In relationships, trust isn’t a promise to never hurt each other. It’s acceptance of the risk that we will hurt each other and the confidence that, if we do, we will come together to heal.
~ Esther Perel
Our mistrust of the future makes it hard to give up the past.
~ Chuck Palahniuk
(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2025 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Trust’)
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March 6, 2025
This list of questions is an aid for deep reflection. How you answer them is often less important than the journey they take you on. So, read through the list of questions 2-3 times until one question sticks out for you and captures your attention, or as some faith traditions say, until one of the questions “shimmers.”
Then reflect on that question using one or all of these questions:
What is going on in my life right now that makes this question so pronounced for me?
How might my inner voice be trying to speak to me through it?
How might Life or my inner voice be trying to offer me a word of comfort or challenge through this question?
What have you trusted since childhood and never lost faith in?
Have you ever been made trustworthy by someone who risked putting their trust in you?
When did trust in the Divine show up in your life? Is there anything about that moment that might help you navigate your life right now?
When did trust in the Divine leave your life? Do you ever feel a longing for it to return?
When broken trust left you broken-hearted, what voice in your head or word from a friend helped you pick up the pieces?
Has it ever been hard to trust that your children will find their way?
It’s been said that trust is choosing to risk making something you value vulnerable to another person’s actions. Does this make you see yourself or any of your relationships in a new light?
Is it time to start trusting yourself again?
Do you have doubts that deserve to be more deeply trusted?
Have you done more battling with your body than trusting it?
What would happen if you trusted life enough to let go?
What has your life partner taught you about trust?
Are you upset because you were lied to or because, from now on, you can’t believe the one who lied?
Do you regret the time you were too scared to trust the unknown and take that leap of faith?
How would your life change if you stopped believing that people can’t be trusted?
What have you learned about trusting grief, rather than resisting it?
What’s your question? Your question may not be listed above. As always, if the above questions don't include what life is asking from you, spend the month listening to your days to find it.
(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2025 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Trust’)
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Videos & Podcasts
Nick Cave on Loss, Yearning & Transcendence
https://onbeing.org/programs/nick-cave-loss-yearning-transcendence/
Be Kind (On small acts of repair that mean so much!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eKoOoOTvgk&t=16s
These Three Natural Things Can Repair You...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXPLbcsDOJQ
The Museum of Broken Relationships
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMNdTZhQ1TU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6Q731asMtg
How Trauma Lodges in the Body
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnKxZqObIWk
Related Video HERE
Related book HERE
Repair & Needleworkhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EITLA0fvx0I
On how mending and stitching the clothes outside us repairs what is torn inside us.
Visible Mending
https://psyche.co/films/a-whimsical-ode-to-the-reparative-power-of-knitting-rendered-in-wool
Two more needleworkers and knitters testify to creativity’s power to help us repair and heal.
Stitching Our Wounds, Andrea Gibson
https://www.tiktok.com/@andreagibsonpoetry/video/7242840039527386414
Articles
A Slower Urgency
https://www.bayoakomolafe.net/post/a-slower-urgency
“In ‘hurrying up’ all the time, we often lose sight of the abundance of resources that might help us meet today’s most challenging crises…”
Grief is Healing in Motion
https://toko-pa.com/2019/07/24/grief-is-healing-in-motion/
“Grief plays an essential role in our coming undone from previous attachments. It is the necessary current we need to carry us into our next becoming…”
The Sounds of Grief
https://mariandrew.substack.com/p/the-sounds-of-grief
Might repairing from grief be more about the sounds of grief than the famous five stages?
Want to Fix Your Mind? Let Your Body Talk
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/18/magazine/somatic-therapy.html
(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2024 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Repair)
Music
Are you feeling musical this month? Enjoy a wonderful YouTube playlist inspired by this month’s theme, Resistance.
Past Services
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The Compass Within
March 23, 2025 at 10:30 am
Before we can authentically trust others, we must learn to trust ourselves. This Sunday we will discuss the spiritual practice of self-trust—learning to honour our intuition, respect our boundaries, and believe in our capacity for growth. As Sharon Salzberg writes, "to offer our hearts in faith means recognizing that our hearts are worth something." Join us as we consider how our spiritual practices and community can strengthen our relationship with ourselves, enabling us to move through the world with greater confidence and authenticity.(Rev. Beckett Coppola Speaking)
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Faith in an Uncertain World
March 16, 2025 at 10:30 am
What does it mean to have faith in an uncertain world? This Sunday we will explore the relationship between trust and religious faith, exploring how various religious traditions, including Unitarian Universalism, approach trust as a spiritual practice and how we might cultivate a grounded faith that sustains us through life's uncertainties.(Rev. Beckett Coppola Speaking)
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The Western Lens
March 9, 2025 at 10:30 am
The conception of "religion" in the West has profoundly Christian biases that unfortunately distort our ability to see other religions clearly. In this talk, we will explore how this lens developed, the blindspots it fosters, and how being aware of this lens may allow us to see other traditions and peoples more fully. Join us this week for our special guest speaker who will be joining us virtually from Toronto. (Speaker: Brian Carwana via Zoom)Brian Carwana is the Executive Director of Encounter World Religions, a charity that promotes religious literacy and understanding. He has a PhD in religion and has spent 25 years taking thousands of people to various religious communities to meet leaders, share meals, and observe ritual. The highlight of his year is Encounter's annual Discovery Week where 50 people spend a week in Toronto exploring 11 religions through classes and almost 20 site visits in a rich and rewarding experience.
(Guest Speaker: Brian Carwana, Executive Director of Encounter World Religions)
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The Delicate Dance of Trust
March 2, 2025 at 10:30 am
Trust is not static. It ebbs and flows throughout our lives. And it requires our vulnerability—opening ourselves to the possibility of being hurt in order to experience the dance of life. How might we explore the tension between self-protection and openness? the delicate balance between caution and trust? And how can we begin to do this in life, in faith, and even in times of repair?(Rev. Beckett Coppola Speaking)
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Active Hope
February 23, 2025 at 10:30 am
The journey ahead of us is uncertain and may be difficult. Can we find and sustain hope in these challenging times? We will explore this gently as we worship together.(Guest Speaker: Rev. George Buchanan)
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Love & the Kindness of Strangers
February 16, 2025 at 10:30 am
In this special service we will hear a sermon from Rev. Beckett’s colleague Rev. Audette Fulbright while Rev. Beckett stays home and keeps her laryngitis to herself. The message is titled Love, with the subtitle The Kindness of Strangers. Rev. Fulbright wrote, “It is a great spiritual practice, to be a kind stranger, and to offer trust in a world that focuses most of all on all the reasons not to trust.” Let’s join together, continue the conversation we began last week, and meet the wholeness in one another anew.
(Guest Speaker: Allan Hammond, reading Rev. Audette Fulbright)