Midweek Message December 12, 2025

This past Sunday’s service has stayed with me in an unexpectedly gentle way. During the Time for All Ages, as Rev. Jennifer invited us into quiet candle-lit meditations, I was moved by how simple and meaningful it was. Later, Rev. Charlotte led us through the Buddha’s story: the prince surrounded by luxury, the ascetic starving himself in pursuit of purity, and finally the realization that neither extreme could lead to enlightenment. It was the middle path that opened the way.

I keep thinking about that.

Not because I identify as Buddhist or Christian or Pagan or anything in particular, but because, as a Unitarian Universalist, I often find the deepest truths in the spaces where traditions overlap. The Middle Way, the turning of the year, the quiet expectancy of Advent, all of these speak, in their own language, to the same human longing:

How do we live with intention in the midst of a complicated world?

Advent, especially, has been on my mind, not as a call to return to a tradition I no longer claim, but as a metaphor for the spiritual posture of this season. Advent is the practice of waiting with hope. It asks us to pause, to prepare, to soften our expectations, and to look for the light that has not yet arrived. It is anticipation as a spiritual discipline.

And this week, as we turn toward a sermon on Humanism, I can’t help noticing how all of these threads begin to weave together.

Humanism teaches that meaning is not handed down from outside ourselves, it is shaped through our choices, our relationships, our shared commitment to compassion and reason. It invites us to trust that the light we are waiting for is something we help create through the way we live.

As we move through December, I am finding comfort in the idea that we don’t have to rush toward answers. We can dwell in the middle space, in the candlelight, the breath, the waiting, the work of becoming.

And perhaps that is the gift of this season: not certainty, but openness. Not perfection, but presence. Not a single tradition, but a shared human longing for wisdom, compassion, and renewed hope.

May the light you’re waiting for begin, in small ways, to grow. And may we continue shaping that light together.

With love and gratitude,