This I Believe

This I Believe: David Wells (2025)

My wife and two children have been coming to WBUUC for just over one year now, and I would like to say before anything else, that coming to this place, even if just for one hour most weeks, has done more for me and my spiritual journey than any of my first 20 years growing up in the Catholic church, as well as any of my next 20 years intentionally stepping away from organized religion. This year has felt like both a return to something familiar but also the birth of something brand new. I have found it difficult to put my finger on what it is exactly, but I know that I feel an immediate...

This I Believe: Eric Bassett (2025)

Good morning, my name is Eric Bassett, I use he/him pronouns, and I’ve been a member of the WBUUC since 2016. Thank you for allowing me to share some of what I believe with this congregation. When I joined a gay men’s rugby club, I was in a dark place mentally. I had just graduated from college and taken a position near Chicago away from my friends in Michigan where I had lived for a decade. This new job kept me working 60-70 hours a week in a challenging setting. It had taken me two college degrees to land in the right career, so why was I so unhappy? On an October day in 2005, my...

This I Believe: Bjørn Peterson (2025)

When I consider what I might claim as a belief, I ask myself, on the most basic level, what it is that I believe to be experiencing? What do I understand to be going on around me? How can I arrive at the statement of “this I believe”? So much of my experience in life has felt as though the world was turned up to a volume far beyond comfort. I am among the many people who have wondered whether life was worth living. And when the onslaught of life’s stimulations threaten to drown me, I can become quickly overwhelmed. Then I remember the words Annie Dillard used to open her meditations on what...

This I Believe: Cheryl Riley (2025)

Thank you for being here…and to those listening at home! Who? What? When? Where? Why? These are the questions drilled into a journalist when trying to report a story. At least that is what I was taught in journalism school more than 50 years ago. Good questions, right? But behind those or any questions must be a curiosity…a desire to know and to understand your subject. Did you know a 4-year-old is reported to ask 300 to 400 questions a day? This inquisitiveness is important to their understanding of the world. I was this kind of inquisitive kid. My parents divorced when I was four and I...

This I Believe: David Radtke (2024)

Good morning. My name is David Radtke – he/him – and I’m a member of this congregation. *** We are a story-telling species. And we use metaphors – English major here. A search for truth is actually a search for a story – a metaphor – that rings true for us, that helps us deal with life as it happens. *** When I was a freshman in college I took a course in Ancient Philosophy. The course primarily covered Plato and Aristotle, but we spent a few days talking about the philosophers that came before Plato. Thales of Miletus is the earliest of these. Thales and the rest of the pre-Socratic...

This I Believe: Rachel Blair-Paladino (2024)

Good morning. My name is Rachel Blair-Paladino and my pronouns are she/her. When Rev. Jack asked me to share my This I Believe, my instinct was to say no. Unlike my husband Jordan, who has spoken in front of you all several times, public speaking does not come easy to me. But the timing of Jack’s request was impeccable. This year Jordan and I will celebrate 10 years of partnership. They have been the best years of my life. Somehow each year is better than the last. We are incredibly lucky to have found a love like ours. Jordan and I have always known that we wanted a family. We love kids...

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