Psychiatrist D. W. Winnicott writes that we often go about our lives with an attitude of compliance, as though the world is something to be fitted in with, demanding adaptation. The attitude of compliance tells us to put our dreams away in the back of the bottom drawer of the chest of drawers. But our dreams are part of creative living, Winnicott says, which makes life worthwhile. On this Sunday, we stand up for the world of dreams and for pulling dreams through into reality as a source of creativity, aliveness, and self-actualization.

Rev. Dr. Jeanne Foster grew up in New Orleans. She received her Master of Divinity degree from Starr King, was ordained by the Monterey Peninsula UU Church, and served as minister of the UU Fellowship in Modesto. She earned her Ph.D. from the Graduate Theological Union in the interdisciplinary area of Religion, Literature, and the Arts. She is currently Professor Emerita at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga. A published poet, her work has appeared in numerous journals. Her poetry book, A Blessing of Safe Travel, won the Quarterly Review of Literature Poetry Award. Among her other books are Appetite: Food as Metaphor, an anthology of poems by women, and a critical work, A Music of Grace: the Sacred in Contemporary American Poetry, which asks the question, Is there still sacred ground to stand on? Her latest book of poems, Goodbye, Silver Sister, was released by Northwestern University Press (2015). She is co-translator of The Living Theatre: Selected Poems of Bianca Tarozzi, (BOA 2017). Her passions are ballroom dancing and Tuscany and, in particular, ballroom dancing in Tuscany.

Topics: Standard Sunday Service