Our parish theme for the month is “Wonder.” Wonder is embedded in our response to the natural world in two senses of the word – “amazement” and “curiosity” as to how it came to be and how it works. These responses have generated both our religious narratives and our science-based understandings of Nature. I will describe what is called a religious naturalist orientation (RN) wherein these science-based understandings are adopted and explored for

their religious potential – existential, spiritual, and moral. Several UUSMV members are self-described religious naturalists, and others may be religious naturalists without yet knowing it.  RN is becoming adopted, incrementally, by UUs around the world as a meaningful and joyous dwelling place for their minds and hearts.

Ursula Goodenough is a retired Washington University biology professor, a mother and grandmother, a member of UUSMV, a resident of the Wampanoag/Chilmark lands, and author of The Sacred Depths of Nature (OUP), soon to be published in a second edition.