Ranwa Hammamy's Page

When I first came to Philadelphia, the First Unitarian Church on Chestnut Street was impossible to miss. With its rainbow flags gently moving in the April breeze, it was forever etched in my memory as a place that I would need to visit when I officially moved to the city. Sure enough, less than four months later, I attended both my first young adult evening worship and a summer choir retreat, and knew that this place was indeed the home my spirit so desperately needed. Here I could lay down…

“God doesn’t need our prayers. We need our prayers.” It may seem like an obvious observation, but this statement from my one of my professors moved me to some further reflection. Who do we believe receives our prayers? How do we pray? What is the expected outcome of our prayers? Why do we pray?

The specific answers to these questions will be different for every single one of us. The rich diversity of belief within our tradition surrounding the nature of God or…

“What does resilience mean to you?” While helping to facilitate a youth worship in December, I had the opportunity to hear youth reflect on the relevance of resilience to their lives and the world. When it was my turn to share, I immediately thought of my seminary community.

At Union, we were in the thick of two major moments – finals and citywide protests. Many of our hearts had been broken again and again over news of black lives being claimed by the forces of institutional…

On August 9, 2014, Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, in broad daylight. Official autopsy reports indicate that Michael Brown was shot six times. On Monday November 24, prosecutor Robert McCulloch announced that a Missouri grand jury decided that there was no probable cause for criminal charges against Officer Wilson. This announcement came only a few days after 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot and killed by a police officer in…