The Spirited Life
keynote address at the "Conversations Towards a Better World" workshop at the Eno River UU FellowshipOctober 3, 2009The text of the address is here.Several months ago I was looking for a phrase to sum...
View ArticleThe DIY Spiritual Practice
My latest UUWorld.org column is up. It describes a spiritual discipline my wife and I have cobbled together and practiced for the last 21 years. This would be a good place to comment on it.
View ArticleApocrypha: The Book of Corporation
Chapter 11. And the Lord God formed the Eden Corporation, and gave into its holding the Tree of Life, that it and all its offspring might be immortal. 2. But the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil...
View ArticleShould Humanists Become UUs?
I want to call your attention to an article I just wrote for "The New Humanism." It's called "A Church That Would Have You as a Member" and it discusses how a Unitarian Universalist congregation might...
View ArticleThe Theology of "The Family"
Jeff Sharlet's book The Family has been out for a couple of years and the main aspects of it have been covered elsewhere: He was recruited into the lower levels of a secretive religious organization...
View ArticleAn Honest Commencement Address
For a while there I heard a commencement address every year or two. I was graduating from something or my sister was or a friend. High school. College. I listened to a lot of them.And then none for a...
View ArticleSpirituality and the Humanist
This is the text of a sermon I gave at my home church, First Parish in Bedford, Massachusetts, on August 15.This talk comes out of a lunch I had with one of our congregation's more outspoken Humanists...
View ArticleSomething different in UU World
I just googled the combination "UU World" and "megazord". It gets no hits.That's going to change after the winter issue gets posted.
View ArticleSudden Death
I wanted to call your attention to my latest column for UU World. It's called "Sudden Death" and is a meditation on aging and decline.I used to post links to my columns on this blog so that people...
View ArticleThe Current UU World: Superheroes and Generational Change
Depending on where you live, you may or may not have received the winter issue of UU World. The articles have been on the web site for about a week, and your copy may still be in the mail.My cover...
View ArticleMy Bah-Humbug Thanksgiving
I don't know what the Thanksgiving equivalent of Scrooge is, but I find myself sliding in that direction. I've got nothing against gratitude, or a holiday in which an agrarian culture gives thanks for...
View ArticlePride? Gaggle? Finding a collective noun for UUs
Bananas come in bunches, wolves in packs, locusts in swarms, but what do you call a collection of Unitarian Universalists?Some obvious collective nouns are too easy and not specific enough: A...
View ArticleThe Humanism of the Sun
a talk given to the Concord Area Humanists at Wright Tavern in Concord, MA December 6, 2010 1. Hope and/or RationalityI'm going to begin by reviewing a few facts about people who believe in the...
View ArticleAt My Mother's Funeral ...
… I learned that you never really know a person. Not completely.You may have a life-long relationship, more than half a century, but you still only see one facet of the whole. Someone else remembers a...
View ArticleThe Story of Our Deaths
a service given at the Unitarian Church of Quincy, IllinoisApril 3, 2011SummaryWe live not just as physical bodies, but also as characters inside countless stories that motivate our actions and make...
View ArticleMy Volo Credere
This year, random fluctuations got my church's Coming of Age class down to one student. (It's usually five or six.) I was the young man's mentor, so my role in the Coming of Age Sunday service was to...
View ArticleLet Us Pray?
a service given at the Unitarian Church of Quincy, IllinoisSeptember 18, 2011Readingsfrom The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoein the Middle of all my Labours it happen'd, that rumaging my...
View ArticleMy Halloween Column
My Halloween column A Candy Bar for Death appeared today on the UU World web site. If you've been reading this blog, you recognize some of the ideas from The Story of Our Deaths.I'm reading the...
View ArticleAt my mother's funeral
My quarterly column is up at the UU World web site. If you read this blog regularly, you'll suddenly understand where the ideas in May's My Volo Credere post came from. More and more, I'm seeing UUism...
View ArticleJoin the Losers: Shame, Pride, and the 99%
a talk given January 29, 2012 at First Parish in Billerica, MA[earlier versions were presented at the Unitarian Church of Quincy, IL and First Parish Unitarian in Athol, MA]Opening Words:"If you are...
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