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Farewell |
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Living in the Neutral Zone ...This is part of living in the neutral zone: finding a stillness, a moment of peace that one may feel when experiencing a loss by circumstance or choice. A freedom, a sense of being and self much deeper than one’s attachment to the object of the loss: yes, I’ve lost these things, this endeavor, this relationship, this dream. And yes, I’ll survive – and maybe even better than that. Perhaps in these losses is a new beginning, a new self emerging. |
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Harry Potter: Facing Your Heritage ...Harry is ready to take the plunge into the shadow side of his father’s character because he is almost ready to see those parts of himself. Preparing to meet real, present-time, external challenges, Harry can ill afford to be burdened by an unexamined dark side, particularly as it pertains to the use of power. Harry’s learning to see his father in a more holistic way will help him become a person less shocked and angry at hurts in general, in Milosz’ words, at the sharpness of rocks against his feet. He will also be more able to see the ways his own words and actions can, like sharp rocks, cut and hurt others... |
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The Promise of Easter Death threatens us not only at the end of our lives but at every moment, the thousand little deaths of the spirit, the grievances we carry with us, the discouragements and sorrows that weigh us down, the sense of frustration or futility that darken our days and drear our nights. Easter is the promise that we can be reborn; it is the promise of new life. It is the assurance that in the midst of death we are in life. The Easter faith can be expressed in two words: life wins. |
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Bound for a Place Called Earth If you doubt the power of myth to shape reality, or the power of |
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Renewing Faith Amid the Rubble We have a section in our hymnal, “In Time to Come,” with a handful of hymns with titles like “Wonders Still the World Shall Witness” and “Hail the Glorious Golden City.” This is part of our “onward and upward” orientation in liberal religion, one that can energize and brighten our spirits, but it can also seem strikingly discordant with reality during violent times. This section seems to me the most outdated in our hymnal. We don’t yet have a “finding faith amid the ruins” section in our hymnal. |
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Faith Without Certainty ...we needn’t – and shouldn’t – be paralyzed by our self-questioning. It is precisely because of the human capacity for self-delusion that we are wary of faith with certainty. It is precisely because of the human capacity for self-delusion that we are called to live with a flawed faith nonetheless, for to eschew faith and conviction is to live as unwitting and easy prey for the many invisible gods of our culture. We all worship something, have no doubt about that. We can either choose the ways of being we worship, that which we put at the center of our life, or allow larger forces to choose for us. In our culture, individualism and consumerism are waiting to guide the lives of those who, in the spirit of doubt and openness and freedom, choose nothing with which to orient and guide their lives. |
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2009
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2007-2008
Generation to Generation
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Water Communion: The Soft Power of Water
...Soft power is the power of nonviolence, the power of listening and creating relationship. Where hard power uses coercion, soft power uses persuasion. Where hard power seeks to control and stamp out dissent and difference, soft power celebrates diversity, seeking not uniformity but unity. Soft power says, when each of us becomes ourselves more fully, the community is blessed. |
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To God or Not To God My religious perspectives have changed over time. As a child, I experienced what I now call God most strongly in nature, particularly in a field in the woods where I lived in Pennsylvania. God was something open, quiet, and peaceful in a place of life – it was something I felt most often alone or with a close friend. After several years I came to call it God because of a feeling of connection I experienced: with myself, with my companion or companions when I had them, and with this “other” that was the field – and the trees and the stream and the sky beyond. I know many who have had similar experiences without naming it God. |
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Trust Our decision to trust should not ignore our feelings or other information. Our personal safety depends on our willingness to pay attention to our feelings and information about others. Please don’t hear me as recommending that our trustful or mistrustful feelings be ignored. They are part of the information available to us and they have their place. As Berry says, let us keep a place for our information but know also that trusting is ultimately a decision, among the most creative we can make. |
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Beginnings There may be no time in life in which mindfulness and care are not valuable. Yet during transitions the quality of our conduct is especially important. I strongly believe that transitioning well in any area of your life helps you transition in other areas, including the last transition, death. Transitioning well applies to all three stages: ending, neutral zone, beginning. |
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Growing Our Faith - Now is the Time
.. ...It was a blessing that you were born. |
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Equal Marriage - What's God Got to Do with It?
I have begun to talk about God, publicly... Some of you may squirm in your seats at the thought of my doing this. Some others of you may think, “Well, he’s the minister, he’s supposed to do that. But not me!” Some of you, I hope, will, after careful reflection, begin to speak about God not as if you knew everything, but as if you knew something – because you do. Consider how this current political issue relates to that which is sacred to you and to our faith. Practice articulating it. Dare to speak of your experience of the sacred, because each of us has a piece of the truth about God. |
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Day of the Dead
If we could embrace death, dance with it, laugh with it, we would perhaps stop living in fear of death. We would be more at home with ourselves, living in respect for the natural limitations of life. It is interesting to me that El Dia De Los Muertos seems at first glance to be superstitious, full of magic and other-worldliness. And yet its effects are so practical. It helps people come to terms with death, with the death of others and ultimately our own death. It reconnects people with their family, both the living and the dead. It honors the past. It teaches people that they will become part of an honored past, and that they will be remembered as individuals, when they pass on. |
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Inherent Worth and Dignity - Living Our First Principle Our first Principle is a call to make the time and effort to get to know people in their particularities – especially those people from unfamiliar backgrounds. A religious community covenanted to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person is gently yet continuously stretching itself – noticing who is missing, actively seeking out those whose lives seem foreign, building relationships with and spreading the stories of those whose worth and dignity are jeopardized – and doing our best to help them be restored to a place of worth and dignity. |
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The Second Mile - Loving One's Enemies [Consider that] Jesus is saying: don’t fall into any of the standard roles in the drama of violence. Don’t be the victim, the avenger, the champion, the perpetrator, the collaborator, or the bystander. Disrupt the cycle of violence with something so unexpected it’s almost comical. Introduce a new role for which the other has no label. Surprise the abuser. Look him in the eye. Get him to see you not as a victim or object but as a human being, an individual who has just made a choice. Invite him to become not a perpetrator but a free person who can respond to your choice. |
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