Sunday Service

It is never too late to be what you might have been.

~ Adelaide Anne Procter

I know some people crack their gifts open early. And others of us spent decades wondering around thinking we got skipped. But we didn’t. Some doors only open when we are ready to walk through them. Some magic only wakes up when we’ve lived enough to use it right. So don’t get down on yourself. We’re not forgotten. We’re just on a different clock!

~ Author Unknown

As the saying goes, it’s the silence in between the notes that makes the music. So if you’re in between projects or jobs—or even romantic relationships—resist the tendency to immediately fill the void with the next thing. Great new things are happening quietly inside of you. Give them the time they need to bloom.

~ Ozan Varol

Next comes winter, January and February. Boy! Are they ever cold! What comes next? Not spring. ‘Unlocking’ comes next. What else could cruel March and only slightly less cruel April be? March and April are not spring. They’re the season of Unlocking.

~ Kurt Vonnegut

It may be that when we no longer know what to do

we have come to our real work…

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

~ Wendell Berry

There is more to see in myself than just what I look for. There is more to see in my enemies than just what I look for. There is more to see in this country than just what I look for. I need this to be true.

~ Nadia Bolz-Weber

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,

don't hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty

of lives and whole towns destroyed or about

to be. We are not wise, and not very often

kind. And much can never be redeemed.

Still, life has some possibility left.

~ Mary Oliver

Hope [and possibility] locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act. When you recognize uncertainty, you recognize that you may be able to influence the outcome.

~ Rebecca Solnit

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

April 2, 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 book from your childhood convinced you that life was full of possibility? What would change in your life if that childhood sense of possibility returned to you today?

2. If you could go back in time and expand your family of origin’s sense of possibility in just one way, what would it be?

3. How would your life be different if you had trusted in possibility earlier in life?

4. If you believe that saving the world is no longer possible, might you still find hope in the work of creating islands of sanity - smaller circles of community dedicated to helping people stay sane and rooted in their values even as the world around them grows harsh and grim.

5. We all tell ourselves, “One day I will...” What “One day I will” sentence has been with you the longest? And what would need to change for you to start turning that dream into a reality? 

6. Who helped you find your way back to possibility when all the doors in front of you felt closed? If you were to thank them, what would you say now that you didn’t or couldn’t back then?

7. What have you learned about finding the possibilities that live on the other side of grief?

8. We’re told to live each day as if it were our last. But what if, instead, we lived each day as if it were our very first?

9. What if we’re built to have many lives in this lifetime of ours? What if we become fully human by pursuing and becoming many of our possible selves, rather than just one of them?

10. Are you sure it’s too late to do it, or become it?

11. 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 ‘Embracing Possibility')

Of all our themes this year, Embracing Possibility is arguably most central to our faith. It has distinguished Unitarian Universalists from our beginning. Historically, when others saw depravity and sin at the core of human identity, we saw potential. When many were preaching that this world is fallen, we fell in love with the possibility of heaven on earth. Theologically, you might say we were the people who believed that God hadn’t given up on us and so we shouldn’t give up on each other or this world. Psychologically, it’s led to us being a people of “why not?” Why not give people another chance? Why not fight what seems like a losing battle? Why not risk a little failure? Or forgiveness? Why not trust in the possibility of a new dawn?

So that’s our religion. But what about us personally? How open have you been recently to “Why not?” How’s your faith in possibility doing? As we honor our religion’s unwavering faith in what’s possible, we need to allow space for the reality that trusting possibility isn’t so easy for many of us. Here’s how one Soul Matters group member put the challenge:

“When I think of possibility, I think of all the people and opportunities I’ve closed the door on. I’ve let myself believe that I would never see eye to eye with my sister. I stayed way too long at a ho-hum job because I was scared about starting my own business. And I spent two very lonely years in a new town because I convinced myself that I could never find close friends like I had where I used to live.”

Who of us can’t relate? We all tell ourselves so many small stories about who we and others are. We all - at one time or another - have lived in tiny tales of what the world could be. Part of it has to do with real life defeats. But often a bigger part of it is about imagined fear and protecting ourselves. There’s comfort in convincing yourself that the effort is hopeless; that way you don’t have to try and risk failure, hurt or disappointment, yet again.

All of which is to say that maybe embracing possibility has more to do with being able to embrace vulnerability and courage than we’ve thought. The work isn’t just about believing in possibility. It’s about being willing to endure a few wounds along the way. It can hurt to be hopeful.

And if that’s true, then it seems that the core question this month isn’t simply “Are you ready to embrace possibility?” but “Who binds up your wounds and tends to your hurt when you risk possibility?” And a whole host of clarifying questions spill out from there, such as: Who have you gathered around you to pick you up and patch you up when the path of possibility gets bumpy and knocks you down? Whose faith can you lean on when yours grows dim? Have you placed yourself in the orbit of someone who consistently tells bigger stories than you? And maybe most important: Have you found a friend or partner that sees more possibility in you than you do yourself? 

The thread woven through all these questions is, of course, the fundamental truth that no one makes it down the road of possibility alone.

And perhaps that’s the real secret: remembering that “Why not?” is something we all have to say and sing together. It’s not a solo act. For “Why not?” to sink in - and better yet, take flight - it needs to be at least a duet. Of course a quartet is even better. And just imagine what we might pull off if we can gather a choir, all singing the tune of “Why not?!” at the top of our lungs!

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

Ask Them About Embracing Possibility

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 guide your conversation. 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.

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.

Possibility Questions:

●       What book from your childhood convinced you that life was full of possibility?

●       If you could go back in time and expand your family of origin’s sense of possibility in just one way, what would it be?

●       Has anyone ever made you feel that possibilities were closed for you? 

●       At what stage of life did you have the greatest sense of possibility?

●       We all tell ourselves, “One day I will...” What “One day I will” sentence has been with you the longest? 

●       Has your belief in the possibility of a better world grown or shrunk over the past couple of years? What event was a turning point for you?

●  What possible or unlived life do you think about the most?

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

What Needs Unlocked?

For many of us who live in a place with four seasons, March and April are mostly about disappointment. After suffering through the cold and darkness of winter, we expect spring to start springing in March and April. But it just doesn’t happen. We expect flowers and warmth and instead what we usually get is mud!

But what if we’ve got March and April all wrong? What if those two months are not about blooming, but noticing what wants to bloom? What if they are not about celebrating the flowers bursting through the soil, but about trying to support the seeds stirring beneath the surface?

According to the inimitable writer, Kurt Vonnegut, the answer to all of these questions is, yes! For him, March and April are not part of the season of spring, but a separate season nestled between winter and spring called “the unlocking season.” This new understanding of March and April is part of his argument that there are six seasons, not four: summer (July & August), fall (September & October), locking (November and December), winter (January & February), unlocking (March & April), spring (May & June). In short, Vonnegut is honoring how March and April are all about the moment when the ice of winter loosens its grip just enough for whatever has been trapped underground to begin to stir.

So, with this in mind, this exercise asks you to set aside some time this month to notice where “the ice” in your life is "loosening its grip.”

Start by focusing on these three questions:

●       What is awakening in my life?

●       What in me wants to unfold?

●       What needs “unlocked” in my life so possibility can emerge?

Then move on to how you can support this seed that longs to emerge, asking yourself:

“Where do I need to loosen, soften, or crack open a closed door so that what is stirring inside me has room to grow?

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

When you pay attention to something you don't especially value, it's not an exaggeration to say that you're paying with your life.

~ Oliver Burkeman

When we cede control of our attention, we cede more than what we are looking at now. We cede, to some degree, control over what we will care about tomorrow.

~ Ezra Klein

Tell me what you pay attention to and I will tell you who you are.

~ José Ortega y Gasset

Your attention is like a combination spotlight and vacuum cleaner: It highlights what it lands on and then sucks it into your brain—for better or worse.

~ Dr. Rick Hanson

I once had a garden filled with flowers that grew only on dark thoughts but they needed constant attention and one day I decided I had better things to do.

~ StoryPeople

Shake the scales from your imagination. Reach. Stretch. Rise. There is no more time for pretending that everything can be all right without your care, without your attention.

~ Rev. Julián Jamaica Soto

All winter long I overlooked three uninhabited nests… What else is there in this world that my hustling and bustling have barred me from sensing and seeing?... My guess is that it is not only delights, such as these nests but violence, too, that’s within perception’s range, if only I gave it my true attention. Acts of exclusion, discrimination, and the impacts of systemic oppression are all there, right before me… I have been taught to not see them—but they are there.

~ Rev. Karen G. Johnston

If we want to support each other’s inner lives, we must remember a simple truth: the human soul does not want to be fixed, it wants simply to be seen and heard.                                       

~ Parker J. Palmer

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.

~ Simone Weil

You cannot love something or someone you do not truly see.

~ Ben Sternke

In any moment, on any given day, I can measure my wellness by this question: Is my attention on loving,

or is my attention on who isn't loving me?

~ Andrea Gibson

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.

~ Alice Walker

The world is full of magic things, waiting for our senses to grow sharper.

~ Eden Phillpotts

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