Sunday Service

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’)

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?

1. What have you trusted since childhood and never lost faith in?

2. Have you ever been made trustworthy by someone who risked putting their trust in you?

3. 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?

4. When did trust in the Divine leave your life? Do you ever feel a longing for it to return?

5. When broken trust left you broken-hearted, what voice in your head or word from a friend helped you pick up the pieces?

6. Has it ever been hard to trust that your children will find their way?

7. 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? 

8. Is it time to start trusting yourself again?

9. Do you have doubts that deserve to be more deeply trusted? 

10. Have you done more battling with your body than trusting it?

11. What would happen if you trusted life enough to let go?

12. What has your life partner taught you about trust?

13. Are you upset because you were lied to or because, from now on, you can’t believe the one who lied?

14. Do you regret the time you were too scared to trust the unknown and take that leap of faith?

15. How would your life change if you stopped believing that people can’t be trusted?

16. What have you learned about trusting grief, rather than resisting it?

17. 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’)

In religious circles, talk of trust most often revolves around having faith that life will look after us. For instance, our Christian friends sing hymns about God “watching over us” and keeping “an eye on the sparrow.” Our Jewish friends lift up the Exodus story to encourage faith that God will help us make our way even when things look bleak. Likewise, prayer practice for our Muslim friends is all about reminding oneself that you are in Allah’s safe hands. We UUs voice similar sentiments through the language of trusting “a Love that will not let us go.” 

This call to trust Life comes to us as a gift. After all, it can be quite easy to convince ourselves that life is a foe. So we need our faith communities to restore our faith that life is ultimately a friend. We need the reassurance that when we fall, we can count on being picked up. 

But what about being pushed? Don’t we need to count on that too? A Love that won’t let us go is essential, but isn’t it just as important to have faith in a Love that won’t let us get too comfortable? Especially as March asks us to honor women’s history, the anniversary of the Selma–Montgomery March and Transgender Day of Visibility, we certainly don’t want to forget about a Love that disturbs. We need a Love that keeps us “creatively maladjusted” to the inhumane and unjust parts of our society. We need a Love that exposes privilege and unsettles those of us who have it. We definitely need a Love that tells those of us who are marginalized and tired, “I won’t let your pain be ignored.”

And just when that type of trust seems the one we all should place at the center of our hearts, another voice adds itself to the mix. This one reminding us to trust that it’s not all up to us. That sometimes it’s ok to rest. A voice that doesn’t disturb and push but instead assures us that we can let go. That tells us to trust that we can - for a while - put the work down because others are ready to pick it up, knowing that we will be there to pick it up when rest calls to them.

So, friends, where does that leave us? What is it? 

Trust life to pick us up?

Trust life to push and poke us?

Trust that it’s ok to put the work down for a while?

It is all of them, of course. And more.

But maybe it’s mostly about trusting that we’ll know which call is right for us. Maybe it’s about having faith in ourselves and not letting anyone tell us what we need to trust in the most.

Another way to put this is to say that we need to make room for everyone’s uniquely broken heart. We all experience a loss of faith in our own way. The trust you need to repair is likely different from mine. But what we both long for is safe space. Space to say how hard that work of repair is. Space to say how much our experience of broken trust hurts. 

So, how about it friends? This month, let’s prove to each other that we can be trusted to offer safe and wide-open space for each other’s broken hearts.

(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2025 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Trust')

Ask Them About Trust

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 you quizzing them.

Come to your group ready to share what surprised you about the conversation and what gift or insight it gave you. As always, keep a lookout for how your inner voice is trying to send you a message of comfort or challenge through these conversions with others.

Trust Questions:

• What have you trusted since childhood and never lost faith in?

• Has trusting people gotten easier or harder as you’ve grown older?

• At what stage in your life were you most trustworthy? At what stage were you the least trustworthy?

• Have you ever been made trustworthy by someone who risked putting their trust in you?

• Do you regret the time you were too scared to trust the unknown and take that leap of faith?

• Have you done more battling with your body than trusting it?

• What would happen if you trusted life enough to let go?

• Do you think your future self will be better or worse at trusting life and people than you are now?

(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2025 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Trust’)

Three Objects of Trust

Identifying where trust resides in our lives is most often a mental exercise of examining our thoughts and memories. But this route can end up masking how much trust is embodied in the physical objects surrounding us. 

For instance, our favorite garden gloves represent our faith in the living processes of life, not to mention our trust that being close to the earth and burying our hands in the soil will bring us back to life too. That heirloom necklace we wear represents the trust our family members put in us to hand it - and family stories - down to future generations. Lotions, bath fragrances and silk sheets capture how much we trust our bodies to tell us what they need. For those horse riders among us, our bridles and saddles contain the story of how much we trust these magnificent creatures and how much they trust us. Our old typewriter or new keyboard represents how much we trust ourselves and the creative muses within to generate meaningful words. 

So now let’s turn to you? What objects sing your special relationship with trust? This month, honor them by going on a treasure hunt to find three objects that represent three important or under-recognized sources of trust for you.

If possible, bring one or two of them to your group and be ready to share what they say about your unique relationship to and journey with trust.

(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2025 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Trust')

It’s okay to distance yourself from spaces that demand a version of you that no longer is true. Belonging shouldn’t depend on an illusion.

~ Cole Arthur Riley

They want thinking you’re bad at being a girl Instead of thinking you’re great at being yourself... They want you to blend in,

like you’ve never seen a blender...

~ Andrea Gibson

Inclusion isn’t better just because it’s kinder. We should bring disabled perspectives to the center because these perspectives create a world that is more imaginative, more flexible, more sustainable, more dynamic and vibrant for everyone who lives in a body.

~ Rebekah Taussig

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch... and her name Mother of Exiles... cries she, with silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free... Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me...

~ Emma Lazarus

If justice is what love looks like in public, then inclusion is what love looks like among groups.

~ Rev. Matthew Johnson

This is almost always the by-product of expanding the table: God is right-sized. Rarely, if ever, do you do the work of hospitality, authenticity, diversity, and agenda-free relationships and encounter a smaller, more selective God.

~ John Pavlovitz

Put the mantle of your protection

Around the bodies of

The young and defenseless...

Take the hand of the despised

And diseased and walk proudly with them In the high street.

Some might see you and

Be encouraged to do likewise

~ Maya Angelou

(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2025 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Inclusion')

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 & Needlework

https://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)