Rosemary Bray McNatt

Letter from a hoped-for future

December 15, 2034 Dear Sierra, Thanks for the phone call, sweetie; your dad gave me a heads-up about your Coming of Age assignment. It’s a good question you asked—how being Unitarian Universalist is different now than it was for your dad or your…

Get Down

Get Down When I was growing up in Chicago, there was no rowdier time in our house than Friday night, when my mother, my three siblings and I stayed up to watch “Red Hot and Blues” on Channel 26, Chicago’s first UHF station. Part advertisement and…

The Cancer Monologue

Eve Ensler is an activist, playwright and author with a reputation as a fearless champion of women — attesting to their pain and their joys, but most of all celebrating their stories. Ensler’s signature play, “The Vagina Monologues,” is a series of…

The threat of fundamentalism

We could do so much more to renew our faith tradition for this new age. Above all, we could recall our reason for being a free religious community—to reorient ourselves toward the Holy, to be a beacon of hope and courage at a time of despair and…

We must change

My sons are third-generation Unitarian Universalists. After his beautiful and moving Coming of Age ceremony at our congregation, my older son, Allen, asked me whether I would be offended if he joined another religion when he grew up. Now, as his…

Waiting for a great novel about UU ministry

Looking for a sure-fire party buzzkill? Confess to the people around you that you’re a minister. What was once a free-flowing, even outrageous conversation will come to a screeching halt, complete with apologies and a quick mental review by all…

Watching the evidence change

In the hours and days after November 4, a saying made its way across the Internet that speaks cogently to the stream of history in which we now stand: “Rosa sat so that Martin could walk. Martin walked so that Obama could run. Obama ran so that our…

Louisa May Alcott's Unitarian legacy

For a long time I imagined that I had been lured into Unitarian Universalism through marriage to a cradle UU, but lately I find I might have been mistaken. Rather, some of the seeds of my own progressive and activist faith might very well have been…

Do UUs have theological common ground?

At the 2003 General Assembly in Boston, I encountered a non-UU friend who regards herself as a fellow traveler in liberal faith. Having heard conversations among delegates galvanized by the “language of reverence” debate raging among Unitarian…

Power, religious faith, and social change

Noncreedal though Unitarian Universalists are, we tend to embrace the UUA's Seven Principles as part of our personal faith. More a compass for our choices than a statement of doctrine, the Principles set the course for our religious movement, and…

To pray without apology

This article appeared in the November/December 2002 edition of UU World. Several years ago, in the middle of my seminary education, my literary agent called with an intriguing proposition. Would I be willing to be considered as co-writer of Coretta…

An urgent encounter with Islam

Even though Islam is this country's fastest growing religious community, few of us were curious about it before September 11. Now that our need to know is urgent, the bookstore shelves are overflowing with histories, biographies, and reportage about…

A Heart Aflame

See the article in its original context from December 11, 1994, Section 7, Page 27Buy Reprints View on timesmachine TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an…

Please Mr. E-Man

See the article in its original context from View on timesmachine TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the…

IN SHORT: NONFICTION

See the article in its original context from December 26, 1993, Section 7, Page 15Buy Reprints View on timesmachine TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an…

A Black Panther's Long Journey

See the article in its original context from January 31, 1993, Section 6, Page 21Buy Reprints View on timesmachine TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an…

Curiouser and Curiouser

See the article in its original context from November 8, 1992, Section 7, Page 56Buy Reprints View on timesmachine TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an…

'So How Did I Get Here?'

See the article in its original context from November 8, 1992, Section 6, Page 35Buy Reprints View on timesmachine TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an…

Taking Sides Against Ourselves

See the article in its original context from November 17, 1991, Section 6, Page 56Buy Reprints View on timesmachine TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an…

No Feminist Is an Island

See the article in its original context from May 5, 1991, Section 7, Page 12Buy Reprints View on timesmachine TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article…