This I Believe

This I Believe: Lisa Sem (2016)

I’d like to start by saying that, if I had another year to prepare for this talk it might be very different. With another year I may have been able to write a few more drafts, explain things from a few different angles, challenge myself to divulge more, and to find a way to say everything I wanted to. Maybe. As it stands, there is only so much time. So there is much more to this story, which will remain untold. Today I’ll start by sharing a little of my religious history… I grew up Catholic. The parish I was raised in, on St. Paul’s West Side, was pretty diverse ethnically and...

This I Believe: Jon North (2016)

I’m a Unitarian – and the reason I know I’m a Unitarian – is that for the last ten years, I’ve driven a Prius. However – in the words of our friend Bradley Bush – I have an “unapologetically heavy foot”. Which isn’t very Unitarian because driving fast lowers your fuel efficiency, and metaphorically it means I’m rushing through life and not relishing the journey. . But I believe my heavy foot is very Unitarian. That it represents my belief in radical justice, that I won’t be slowed by conventional doctrine until social justice is achieved. But that analogy and many...

This I Believe: Dick Ottman (2016)

Introduction I want to first thank the Worship Committee for inviting me to speak. In 1993, 23 years ago, I gave a “This I Believe” to this church where I presented two major themes. I am an environmentalist and a believer in the lump sum method of teaching children money management. As an environmentalist I brought a sample of the effluent from the wastewater treatment plant where I worked. The lump sum method involved giving each of our children a fixed sum of money when they graduated from high school to attend college. Both daughters spent six years in college obtaining...

This I Believe: Mary Hauser (2013)

REFLECTIONS ON LIFE My introduction to religious practice in my youth was limited to one year of Sunday School at Macalester Presbyterian Church in St. Paul when I was eleven years old. My parents enrolled me there, I think, to give me the same experience as the other kids at school had…to fit in. I am not sure why they picked that particular denomination, but was very convenient, only 2 or 3 blocks from home. Mother and Dad did not attend that church, or any church for that matter. I have a dim recollection of sitting in the church school room, but no recollection of the lesson. ...

This I Believe: Peg Guilfoyle (2013)

Intro: Peg Guilfoyle has been a member of this community for more than twenty years and has worked in the arts, and particularly in the theater, for longer than that. She is the author of regional history books on the Guthrie Theater and the Basilica of Saint Mary and many commentaries. This I Believe I have struggled with this. I have avoided it like poison. Like the plague. I agreed to do it almost a year ago, when it was safely distant and I remember thinking ‘ it’s your turn, Peg’. I am very big on taking my turn. So I spent January in a light state of dread and...

This I Believe: Kathleen Keating (2012)

Right now, in an endeavor to “Grow my Soul” I’m in the midst of a chaplaincy internship at a large local hospital. Shortly after that internship began, I was telling my husband, Dick, about the qualms I had about being a UU and serving a huge population with diverse spiritual and theological backgrounds. Dick mildly observed that it would be interesting if I wrote a “This I Believe” and then looked at it when I complete the internship, to see if there would be any changes. Within a week of that conversation, I received the invitation to speak here today, and thought, “OK, I’ll...

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