HeyJaredbelles-lettres
mother, Unitarian Universalist preacher, and a northerner learning to live in the South
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 5
- Latest publication
- Aug 17, 2026
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- Earliest in this view
- Jul 4, 2026
Latest issues
We Dare Not Fence the Spirit (opens the original)
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Ours is a non-creedal church not because we have no beliefs but because we will not be restrained in our beliefs…we dare not fence the spirit.I can’t be one hundred percent certain because it was a long time ago, but I think those may be the first words of our faith I ever memorized. Not intentionally, but subconsciously and as a kind of touchstone, because here at last were words that helped me as a young teenager make sense of what Unitarian Universalism was really all about.In Sunday school I
This Is the World (opens the original)
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During my vacation last month, I spent an afternoon with my mom, my daughter, my niece, and two of my three nephews along with one of their wives, making peach cream pies according to my grandmother’s closely guarded recipe. The third nephew was missing because he is in the southwest fighting wildfires. For a while it looked like his crew would be sent to northern Minnesota to battle the fires there.belles-lettres is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and
Some Vast and Future Country (opens the original)
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Happy Indepe…I remember 1976…Two-hundred and fifty…What is there to say this fifth of July, 2026, from a progressive pulpit in one of the thirteen original colonies? I mean, Becca and I had an awful time even choosing music for this service. Sure, it was easy to eliminate Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA, but after that? Did we want celebratory? Patriotic but not too-patriotic? Nostalgic but not militaristic or dripping with exceptionalism? Spot-on but mournful like Rufus Wainwright? Equally sp
So That Our Days May Be Long (opens the original)
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In the mysterious way these things sometimes work, when I began more than a month ago to think about a sermon for Father’s Day, the fifth commandment came unexpectedly to my mind. This may be the first time in preaching career that a sermon has focused even tangentially on the Ten Commandments. The fifth exhorts believers of the Jewish and Christian faiths to honor their fathers and mothers, their parents.belles-lettres is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts
Open Your Hands (opens the original)
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Where the Red Fern Grows is the story of a young boy and his relationship with two coonhounds, as he comes of age in the Ozarks. At one point early in the story, Billy needs to trap a coon, in order to use the skin to train the hounds. His grandfather tells him to drill a hole in a fallen log, put something shiny at the bottom of the hole, and drive two nails slantwise into the wood near the top of the holebelles-lettres is a reader-supported publication. To
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