May’s Ministry Theme is Imagination
Join us in-person and online on Sundays at 10:30 am. All are welcome! We as Unitarian Universalists in Santa Monica look forward to being with you.
Masks are optional, but always acceptable and welcome. If you or someone in your household is not feeling well or has tested positive for COVID, please stay home; you can still join us via our Facebook or YouTube live-stream worship.
Parking at the UCLA parking structure at 1311 16th St. is available to people attending Sunday services. The entrance is from 16th St. between Santa Monica Blvd. and Arizona Ave., on the SE corner of Arizona and 16th; ask the attendant for a UUSM parking permit to place on your dashboard. For those with a handicap parking tag, several spaces are also available onsite, via the alley west of 18th St., as well as in the UCLA structure.
Worship Online: We livestream our service from the sanctuary. Join us by clicking the WATCH NOW button above where the video is live every week beginning at 10:20 am, or watch on YouTube or Facebook. You don’t need to have a YouTube or Facebook account, or be logged in, to watch the service. You do have to be logged in to comment and chat with other members of the congregation.
Explore past services on our Sermons page, available 24/7. Tune in anytime to catch up and worship with your community. We encourage you to light a chalice or candle at home, meditate, and sing along.
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Sunday Worship: Imagination!
Sanctuary 1260 18th Street, Santa Monica, CA, United StatesWorship ServicesThe Rev. Jeremiah Lal Shahbaz Kalendae, preaching; Dr. Susan Hendricks, worship associate. Living Love through the practice of Imagination is our congregation's ministry theme for May. Imagination can be a source of great power and transformation in our lives and in the world. Join in-person or online us as we enter the realm of creativity and spirit this Sunday!
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Sunday Worship: Holistic Care for the Soul
Sanctuary 1260 18th Street, Santa Monica, CA, United StatesWorship ServicesThe Rev. Jeremiah Lal Shahbaz Kalendae, preaching; John Hart, worship associate. How can we best care for our spirits in challenging times? It is written in sacred texts that if one finds a "pearl of great price" they should pursue it to truly live a spiritual life. Join us as we explore the PUURL model of Practicing a Unitarian Universalist Religious Life to foster empowerment, resiliency, and holistic well-being. Join us in-person or online.
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Sunday Worship: Spiritual Discernment
Sanctuary 1260 18th Street, Santa Monica, CA, United StatesWorship ServicesThe Rev. Jeremiah Lal Shahbaz Kalendae, preaching; Rebecca Haggerty, worship associate. What makes spiritual discernment different from other kinds of decision making? How is it similar? How do we practice this art? Over the next congregational year, we will enter into a period of spiritual discernment as we prepare to transition into settled ministry. Come learn more about the search process, professional ministry, and help us welcome our newest members with our special New Member Ceremony. Voting members: please plan to remain after the service for a (hopefully brief) Special Meeting of the Congregation to elect our Ministerial Search Committee!
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Sunday Worship: The Only Limitation
Sanctuary 1260 18th Street, Santa Monica, CA, United StatesWorship ServicesThe Rev. Dr. Kikanza Nuri-Robins, preaching; John Hart, worship associate. You are only limited by what you can imagine. But what if your brain doesn't work well with a blank page and no lines? When we fall short of our own expectations, we can look to the ancients, and lean in to our community. Join us in-person or online.
May Generous Congregation Recipient: Homeboy Industries
Our practice here at UUSM is to dedicate half of our non-pledge Sunday offerings to support the life of our church and the other 50% to organizations doing work in the world that advances our Unitarian Universalist principles. This month we’ll share our Sunday Offering with Homeboy Industries.
“We imagine a world without prisons, and then we try to create that world.” ~ Father Greg Boyle, Founder
Homeboy Industries provides hope, training, and support to formerly gang-involved and previously incarcerated men and women, allowing them to redirect their lives and become contributing members of our community. Founded in 1988, this dynamic organization offers a continuum of free services and re-entry programs to aid over 10,000 people coming through their doors each year.
Perhaps you’ve purchased some Homeboy chips, salsa, or bread at a farmer’s market — or could visit Homegirl Cafe in downtown LA for breakfast or lunch? Or you heard Father Boyle when we invited him back to give the 2011 Ernie Pipes Lecture? Or you’ve read one of his books of compelling stories about Homeboy’s people and mission?
Thank you for your generous support of our beloved community and Homeboy Industries. To give $10 right now, text “$10 GCC” (or another amount) to 844-982-0209. (One-time-only credit card registration required.) Or visit uusm.org/donate.
May 2025 Theme: Imagination
Our theme this month invites us to consider our world, our communities, and our lives in the light of the Practice of Imagination.
Black rage in an anti-Black world is a spiritual virtue. Rage shakes us out of our illusion that the world as it is, is what God wants. ~ Danté Stewart
Despair, when not the response to absolute physical and moral defeat, is, like war, the failure of imagination. ~ Adrienne Rich, On the Political Power of Poetry and Its Role in the Immigrant Experience
It’s easier for us to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. ~ Frederic Jameson, The World According to Mark Fisher
Live out of your imagination, not your history. ~ Stephen R. Covey, Sara Maude of Free Your Mind
Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere. Albert Einstein, Walter Isaacson and Lex Fridman: Albert Einstein was rejected from university
The goal of oppressors is to limit your imagination about what is possible without them, so you never imagine more for yourself and the world you live in. ~ Ashley C. Ford, Imagination Is a Creative Superpower
The imagination is committed to the justice of wholeness. It will not choose one side in an inner conflict and repress or banish the other; it will endeavor to initiate a profound conversation between them in order that something original can be born. ~ John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
The only war that matters is the war against the imagination. all other wars are subsumed in it. the ultimate famine is the starvation of the imagination. it is death to be sure. ~ Diane di Prima (more), You cannot write a single line without cosmology, laid out, before all eyes
They are ill discoverers that think there is no land when they see nothing but sea. ~ Francis Bacon. English statesman and philosopher (1561 – 1626)
We are in an imagination battle. Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown and Renisha McBride and so many others are dead because, in some white imagination, they were dangerous… I often feel I am trapped inside someone else’s capability. I often feel I am trapped inside someone else’s imagination, and I must engage my own imagination in order to break free. ~ adrienne maree brown, What It Means to Truly “Think Outside the Box”
We suffer more in our imagination more often than in reality. ~ Seneca, Ryan Holiday on Stoicism
We think we understand the rules when we become adults but what we really experience is a narrowing of the imagination. ~ David Lynch, This Happens In The Unseen World
You can either think that the world is getting better or that the future will be much better than it is now, or you can think that the world is getting worse. But that continuum isn’t as important to me as this idea of, do you think you have agency in this world? ~ Angela Oguntala, How Do We Achieve the Future We Imagine?
Our service in the world continues.
