Summer is a great time for stories. This Sunday, we will hear a few stories- some for all ages, some for adults - about change, our role in making it happen, and how we deal with it. Rev Joan VanBecelaere is a member of the Storytellers of Central Ohio and has a background in theatre that informs her story telling work.

What names are used to define us are crucial to our well-being. How we are known may be different from how we know or think about ourselves. Let us take time to reflect on why we want to be named as we choose. And consider the power of names in a time when names the define us and name calling have become a way of life.

Can we ever believe that all is well with the world and we can sit back and relax? I once thought it was possible. Age tells me otherwise.

The recent Supreme Court ruling about abortion was a serious blow to the freedoms and rights of pregnant people. But this ruling, along with rulings about prayer, guns, the environment, statements about the future of LGBTQ rights and an assortment of restrictive state policies have signaled a major eroding of the wall between church and state in the U.S. A very narrow interpretation of religious values is now trying to remake our social reality. Do we understand the dimensions of this situation? What can we do to raise up our liberating UU values in the face of this attempt to institute a modern American theocracy?"