Sunday Service

What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.

~ Kurt Vonnegut

What do we live for if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?

~ George Eliot

We need to recover our right to ask for help in grief, otherwise it will continue to recycle perpetually. Grief has never been private; it has always been communal. Subconsciously, we are awaiting the presence of others, before we can feel safe enough to drop to our knees on the holy ground of sorrow.

~ Francis Weller

We are called to be persons who embody hope for one another.

~ Paul J. Wadell

When members of the Native American Blackfoot tribe meet each other, they don’t ask “How are you?” Instead, they ask “How are the connections?”

~ Jeremy Lent

If you want to go fast, go alone.

If you want to go far, go together.

~ African Proverb

(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2026 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Flourishing Together')

And if it’s true we are alone,

we are alone together,

the way blades of grass

are alone, but exist as a field.

Sometimes I feel it,

the green fuse that ignites us,

the wild thrum that unites us…

~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

I get by with a little help from my friends.

~ Paul McCartney and John Lennon

Douglas Steere, a Quaker teacher, says that the ancient question, “Who am I?” inevitably leads to a deeper one, “Whose am I?” – because there is no identity outside of relationship. You can’t be a person by yourself. To ask, “Whose am I?” is to extend the question far beyond the little self-absorbed self, and wonder, Who needs you? Who loves you? To whom are you accountable? To whom do you answer? Whose life is altered by your choices? With whose life, whose lives, is your own all bound up, inextricably, in obvious or invisible ways?

~ Victoria Stafford

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as l live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

~ George Bernard Shaw

A society grows great when the old plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.

~ Greek Proverb

Community and individuality are not an either/or choice,... they are the poles of another great paradox. A culture of isolated individualism produces mass conformity because people who think they must bear life all alone are too fearful to take the risks of selfhood. But people who know that they are embedded in an eternal community are both freed and empowered to become who they were born to be.

~ Parker J. Palmer

There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody. You built a factory out there--good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for... Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea--God bless! Keep a hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

~ Senator Elizabeth Warren

'Independence' … middle-class blasphemy! We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.

~ George Bernard Shaw

Hoarding won't save us… All flourishing is mutual.

~ Robin Wall Kimmerer

Nobody’s free until everybody’s free

~ Fannie Lou Hamer

(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2026 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Flourishing Together’)

June 4, 2026

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.” Or as we like to say, “Read over them until one of the questions picks you.”

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?

●       What might my inner wisdom be trying to say to me through this question?

●       How might this question be trying to wake me up or get me to realize something through this question?

●       How might Life or my inner wisdom be trying to offer me a word of comfort or challenge through this question?

1. What circle of care and support helped you discover your unique brand of flourishing? i.e. what circle helped you know yourself in a way you couldn’t have on your own?

2. You may have heard that we get by with a little help from our friends. What’s one thing you might do this month to keep your friendships flourishing?

3. What if the flourishing of your friend groups and family depends, not on you being strong, but being vulnerable instead? Not just you supporting them when they are hurting or scared, but you being brave enough to say I’m hurting or I’m scared?

4. Has your flourishing ever been made possible by a stranger?

5. Who taught you to trust in the kindness of strangers?

6. What do you need to do to regain your faith in a future where we will all flourish together?

7. Is avoiding a tough conversation causing one of your precious relationships to wither on the vine?

8. Is it possible that our culture has tricked you into trying to flourish alone without you realizing it? Where in your life are you building walls of independence without realizing it?

9. At what stage of life were you best at noticing others in need?

10. How has age caused you to change your mind about flourishing?

11. What if this year is the year of you paying it forward?

12. 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 2026 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Flourishing Together')

UU minister, Victoria Safford, speaks of curiosity using the metaphor of perception and sight. She writes:

“To see, simply to look and to see, is an ethical act and intentional choice; to see, with open eyes, is a spiritual practice and thus a risk, for it can open you to ways of knowing the world and loving it that will lead to inevitable consequences. The awakened [and curious] eye is a conscious eye, a willful eye, and brave, because to see things as they are, each in its own truth, will make you very vulnerable.”

Consequences. We rarely think of curiosity in terms of consequences. But Rev. Safford seems to have it right. There is a type of curiosity that is about enjoyment and adventure. This way of understanding curiosity invites us to experience life as a playground. But when we look closely at our lives we realize there’s another type of curiosity at play. This kind leads us, not to playgrounds, but into dark alleys and pathless woods. It demands, not just our attention, but our courage. It’s not interested in entertaining us with the wonders of the world. Instead, it wants to enlist us in the work of the world.

Just think of how we UUs talk about our dances with curiosity. We don’t just tell stories about peppering our poor Sunday School teachers with “Why?!” and “Who says?!”; we tell stories about how asking why got us kicked out of Sunday School. We don’t just talk about being open-minded; we talk about how our open-mindedness led us to leave home and family and walk a lonelier path than we wanted. And recently, many of us have leaned into the hard work of being curious about our role in upholding institutional racism and structures of white supremacy, which is clearly about more than learning new and interesting things about ourselves.

And here’s the important insight revealed by these stories: As hard as these paths of curiosity are, we are grateful for them! Which in turn suggests that there is a part of us that doesn’t want curiosity to just be fun or interesting. It wants curiosity to change us, to make us anew. This part of us wants to be altered, not just enriched. 

So, maybe we need to tweak this month’s theme a bit. Maybe, what we need to hear is not simply “Awaken your curiosity!” but “Awaken the kind of curiosity that comes with consequences!”

Friends, it is, of course, fine to be inquisitive for the fun of it. At the same time, we must remember that curiosity is not a game. Well, actually, maybe it’s the greatest game. The one that drives us to constantly become more, for our sakes and for the sake of others.

(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2026 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Flourishing Together')

Flourishing Together Through Stories

One of the most powerful - and often most underrecognized - sources of mutual flourishing is storytelling. Stories are the threads that weave us together. They are how we bond. The stories passed down and shared widely are the means by which we become “a people.” The stories we share with our children are the way they become, not just adults, but human. When others are brave enough to share their stories of pain, we discover that our suffering is not unique and our healing is not out of reach. When we feel empty, the stories of others fill us. When we feel weak or scared, the stories of others give us strength. One thing you can count on: Where you find flourishing, stories are sure to be close by.

To honor this, there’s only one spiritual exercise this month: We’re going to tell stories to each other!

This isn’t just about reconnecting with a powerful story from our life; it’s also a way of strengthening the bonds we’ve made as small groups. We don’t always think of our Soul Matters groups this way, but at their core they are all about flourishing together through storytelling. So as we end this church year and another chapter of our small group journey, we will gift each other with some stories, as a way of lifting up gratitude for the many lifesaving stories we’ve shared with each other this past year.

So how should you go about this? Well, for some of us, “Find a great story about flourishing together” is all the direction we need. But for most of us some prompts will help. A list of such prompts is below. If none of the prompts resonate with you, feel free to simply pick a story from your personal history that captures what life has taught you about flourishing together.

Flourishing Together Story Prompts

Tell a story about…

• The bedtime story that has stuck with you and continues to shape your values.

• Being rescued by the kindness of strangers.

• Finding community where you least expected it.

• Coming to believe that “no one is free until all of us are free.”

• Discovering that true community is “the place where the person you least want to live with always lives.”

• Being truly seen for the first time.

• Your church bringing you back to life.

• Being saved by your sibling.

• The bravest person you know (and how they enable you to be brave).

• How learning to be alone made your relationships better.

• Finding your “chosen family.”

• Learning to say, “I hurt” or “I need help.”

(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2026 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Flourishing Together')