Sermon Archive

In my last sermon as your half-time minister, I’ll tell a Father’s Day story and reflect on just what it is that I’ve been trying to help us all build at Wy’east for the past six years.  

Multi-Platform Worship Sunday at 10:30:

This service will be offered as both a virtual and an in-person service.

Click here to join the virtual service on Zoom

Meeting ID:  275 194 110

Phone In:  (669) 900-6833

Click here to RSVP for the in-person service at the Community for Positive Aging (1820 NE 40th Ave). You must RSVP to attend in person

Democracy, Alive!

Governance, often and unfortunately used interchangeably with democracy, is a vibrant, multidimensional practice of how communities make decisions about their communities. Governance practices and structures can tell someone  about a community's agreements, values, boundaries and goals. In this worshipful space, let's imagine systems of governance that echo equity, care and imagination. 

Sara Green here—your youth and young adults program manager. I am a southern, cis/queer/poly, Black femme minister living near Nashville, TN. I imagine liberation/salvation/beloved community as communities that have the ability to eat good food together, experience pleasure in our bodies and regularly put their hands in soil—all the while free from fear and violence by way of all of the cultural and legal changes that must happen in order for this world to exist. I understand myself as part of a legacy of cultural workers, healers, maroons and creoles, southern queer freedom fighters and artists trying to shape god. And I feel so blessed to be doing this work now. Learn more about Sara and her work on her website: https://www.theosophiapodcast.com/

Click here to join the virtual service on Zoom

Meeting ID:  275 194 110

Phone In:  (669) 900-6833

Rev. Moro will share that secret with you this morning, to the best of his ability. But he’ll also have the help of both the philosopher Plutarch and a famous comic-book “guru” from the 1960’s and 70’s. Please be sure to share this secret later with anyone who misses out today!

Multi-Platform Worship Sunday at 10:30:

This service will be offered as both a virtual and an in-person service.

Click here to join the virtual service on Zoom

Meeting ID:  275 194 110

Phone In:  (669) 900-6833

Click here to RSVP for the in-person service at the Community for Positive Aging (1820 NE 40th Ave). You must RSVP to attend in person

We will travel virtually to the Mid-Columbia UU congregation in Hood River this Sunday for a collaborative service exploring our faith’s complicated relationship with Memorial Day. This lay-led service will feature live music from Nancy & Ray Brungard of CUUC (Pasco) and contributions from members of Wy’east, Eastrose and Mid-Columbia. Please note the special zoom link for this service.

Virtual Worship Sunday at 10:30 - hosted by Mid-Columbia UU in Hood River

This service will have a special zoom link: Click Here to Join

To join by telephone, dial (253) 215-8782 and enter the meeting code
767376780 followed by the pound sign

(this service is hosted by Mid-Columbia UU Fellowship, therefore a recording will not be available)

Wy’east UU is a “Welcoming Congregation” and our commitment to this program calls on us to put this promise into action.  One of the five practices of renewing our pledge to this program is to dedicate worship services that uplift themes of LGBTQ+ / TGQNB* welcome and inclusion. Wy’east members and a special guest will explore the connections between action and environment when it comes to being welcoming.

In addition, we will be holding our annual special collection for our Sustained Partnership with the Q Center.  Ian Morton, Executive Director of the Q Center, will give us an update on the Q Center's current work and operations.  

*TGQNB stands for Transgender, Genderqueer, and Non-Binary

Listen to the Service

The special guest at this service was the showing of a short documentary film created by two Franklin High School Seniors named Finn Zelinsky and Avi Israel-Davis. This film was not captured as part of our recording of the sermon, but is available for viewing here:  https://youtu.be/AI6jT0HmnGM

Over the years I’ve had many confidential discussions with folks who are frustrated with their fellow churchgoers, and also with themselves.  The conversations take many turns but always end at the same place, where I share certain thoughts of mine in confidence.  It’s time to break that confidence and share them with you now.  Along the way I’ll have a go at integrating some of the key concepts of science and religion.  Not too ambitious for one Sunday, is it? Sermon by Rev. Craig Moro

Listen to the Sermon

The beloved Unitarian Universalist ritual of Flower Communion welcomes Spring. You are invited to bring a flower (physical, photographs, or art) or a memory of spring. What kind of beautiful virtual bouquet can we make? Service led by Wy’east members.

In addition, Mathias Quackenbush is collecting contributions of flower photography for this service. Please send photos by Friday, May 6th for inclusion in a special digital bouquet. (mathiasquackenbush@gmail.com)

Virtual Worship Sunday at 10:30

Click here to join the virtual service on Zoom

Meeting ID:  275 194 110

Phone In:  (669) 900-6833

Using money, power, threats and “lobbying” to get your way at church—does that sound like the UU way of doing things?  Sometimes we learn a lot about how to “do religion right” when someone does it wrong!  Sermon by Rev. Craig Moro.

Multi-Platform Worship Sunday at 10:30:

This service will be offered as both a virtual and an in-person service.

Click here to join the virtual service on Zoom

Meeting ID:  275 194 110

Phone In:  (669) 900-6833

Click here to RSVP for the in-person service at the Community for Positive Aging (1820 NE 40th Ave). You must RSVP to attend in person

The landscape does not have a human tongue. How does the body of the human talk to the body of the earth? What does the rock have to say to us? What does the memory of the water know?  And how do we change in response?  In this profoundly transformative moment in our history, how do we unbecome all that we have known in order to live into what we are? 

Sarah-Luella Baker is a multi-disciplinary artist and healer living in Portland, Oregon. Sarah-Lu uses her body, vocalization, instrumentation, video, paper, ink, natural dyes, salt, and water to invoke textural, symbolic, and ritual works of art. 

Sarah-Lu’s work evolves as a partnership between her physical body and the subtler energies of spirit. Personal meaning-making blends with the wisdom of unseen beings in order to create supportive undercurrents of change toward collective liberation. 

Sarah-Lu has an MFA from UC Davis, and has developed and shown her art in Portland, Oregon, the Bay Area, the Salt Lake Valley, and at festivals and workshops in NYC and Vancouver, BC. In 2019 Sarah-Lu was chosen for a six-month choreographic residency at New Expressive Works in Portland. Her visual work is currently being shown at a solo show in Portland. 

From 2010-2020, Sarah-Lu founded and owned a school for young children focusing on the arts, nature and anti-bias education. She considers the work of conceiving, birthing, and mothering to be in direct relationship to the work of creating art- viewing both as embodied and creative practices of presence and direct relationship. Currently, Sarah-Lu is the founder and owner of Heart Marrow, a healing arts practice living at the confluence of astrology, art, and the body.

Listen to the sermon

Jalal ud-Din Rumi, born in the year 1207 and America’s favorite poet since 2007, will be our guide this morning.  He will show us how to cope when people seem to willfully misunderstand (and misrepresent) our words.  We will also contemplate the “righteous”outrage sparked by three books that appeared in the years 610, 1989, and 2019 respectively : The Qur’an, The Satanic Verses, and The Gadfly Papers.