Sermons-Robb-Series
Special Series of Talks: Our Current Global Challenge: The Long Dark, or Deep Time?
Rev. Jacquie Robb presents a series of five talks focusing on how to remain a positive influence in these difficult times. The first was given on August 3, 2025. The last was on December 7, 2025. They appear on this page in the order in which they were delivered.
Introduction to the series by Jacquie Robb:
We are at a junction point in our culture and our civilization. The old paradigms of political polarization, an economy of profit over care, our colonization of earth’s resources and environmental degradation are collapsing the structures holding them in place. This time we are entering has been called the Long Dark, the Great Unraveling, the Poly-Culmination or Meta-Consequence. It feels important to look clearly at what’s happening and to engage with it as deeply as we can.
Is it still possible, as futurist Manda Scott asserts, to create a world we would be proud to leave to our grandchildren? I honestly don’t know. But if there’s even a chance, I want to know how. What are skillful means to respond to the breakdown and our distress? How do we become beacons of light in this rough sea?
With this five service series, I want to look for different perspectives into how we might begin to see a way through this time with a clear mind, open heart and energetic resilience. We are looking at the inner work needed to evolve, as well as deepening our understanding and relationship with the human, other than human and more than human worlds.
Just as we UUers are tackling our inherent racism and finding ways to heal our colonizing past, I believe that facing the headwinds of our political, spiritual, and environmental polycrisis is a vital and necessary topic for all UUA congregations. We can’t do it alone. We need each other.
The books and other materials Rev. Robb referenced to develop this series of talks are:
- The Emerald podcast by Joshua Schrei
- Landing with the Land Differently – An Invitation, by Vanessa Andreotti – Download the Poem (PDF)
- Becoming Animal, by David Abram
- Steps to an Ecology of Mind, by Gregory Bateson
- Jane Goodall’s last interview – see the interview (video)
- Sacred Instructions, by Sherri Mitchell
1st in a Series - Meeting the Long Dark: Are We Experiencing the Tomb or the Womb?
Date: August 3, 2025
Speaker: Rev. Jacquie Robb
Length: 16:00
This Sunday, Rev. Jacquie begins a five-sermon series called: Our Current Global Challenge: The Long Dark or Deep Time? This first Sunday, we have an opportunity to contemplate what Susan Murphy Roshi calls “the koan of the earth.” How do we sift through the shards of our fragmented culture and not shy away from our trauma responses to the global polycrisis?
Can we come to live in the world in such a way that will create the world in which we want to live? There is no easy answer, but together, we have the safety to contemplate the hard questions and live into the possibility of transformation.
Rev. Jacquie Robb is an ordained multi-faith minister and retired chaplain. She lives in Belfast and is grateful to have returned to her "first spiritual relationship" with the land of Maine.
2nd in a Series - Meeting the Long Dark: In the Chrysalis
Date: September 7, 2025
Speaker: Rev. Jacquie Robb
Length: 15:05
Rudy de Waele wrote: "What does it take to stand in the fire of today’s turbulence - not turning away from collapse, not bypassing despair, but working with it as the raw material of transformation?" We continue to join the global conversation about this question. Many people are confronting this question from different backgrounds and practice, on different topics and using different language, but they all point in a similar direction. Meeting the Long Dark as raw material for transformation, they discuss the need for envisioning the future we want to live in, making conscious what is unconsciously holding us back, and seeking guidance from Divine Intelligence.
3rd in a Series - Meeting the Long Dark: The Interconnected Web of Being
Date: October 5, 2025
Speaker: Rev. Jacquie Robb
Length: 16:54
The interconnected web of being is a foundational UU principle. But what does it take to live from this understanding? Modern culture increasingly encroaches on wild spaces, both inner and outer. In the modern vision, these unknown spaces must be quantified, categorized and mapped as though we fear anything that exists beyond our control. How do we encourage ourselves and others to rethink our roles as active participants in a larger, earth-centered process of transformation? Together, we can find ways to notice the intimate relationships surrounding us whenever we step outside.
4th in a Series - Meeting the Long Dark: The Roots of Social Action
Date: October 12, 2025
Speaker: Rev. Jacquie Robb
Length: 16:28
In this fourth talk, we move from integrating our personal evolutionary work, becoming more attuned to our rightful place in the web of life, and begin to imagine how our wisdom might show up in our daily actions. There are many brilliant, highly motivated people with innovative ideas that use love and wisdom to call forth the world in which we want to live. What happens next is unknowable, but watching it happen - and participating in it - can be one of the most exciting things imaginable.
5th in a Series - Meeting the Long Dark: What’s Next?
Date: December 7, 2025
Speaker: Rev. Jacquie Robb, Reader: Bob Johansen
Length: 13:58