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March 2015

March 31, 2015

What Do We Mean We When Say, “Building the Beloved Community”?

In progressive religious circles, you will often hear calls to “build the Beloved Community,” but I’m...

June 2014

June 18, 2014

Margaret Fuller: The Stories We Tell Matter

The stories we tell matter. The stories that we choose to tell can be used...

June 16, 2014

“Feminist Masculinity and Father’s Day” #EachEveryWoman #AllMenCan

Three weeks ago, devastating news began to break about a mass shooting in Isla Vista,...

March 2014

March 31, 2014

Religious Mystic & Rational Humanist: The Mystical Humanism of Jeffrey Kripal

For days, I had been participating in the annual Bengali celebration of the goddess Kali...

January 2014

January 27, 2014

Why Jung Threw the Yijing (or I Ching) and Why Might You?

This year the Chinese New Year will begin on what we call January 31st on...

October 2013

October 29, 2013

Scarred, Scared, and Sacred: Spiritual Practices for the Fall Triduum of Halloween, Samhain, and All Souls Day

Can you feel the Wheel of the Year turning? Can you feel fall in the...

October 15, 2013

Cisgender and Transgender

Most people are more familiar with the term transgender than with the term cisgender. The...

October 12, 2013

Building the Beloved Community: Anti-racism and Multiculturalism in a Local Congregation

Blackmail, blacklist, black mark. Black Monday, black mood, black-hearted. Black plague, black mass, black market...

October 01, 2013

A Spirituality of Stability

The congregation where I serve as minister recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of our building...

September 2013

September 30, 2013

Interspirituality: Experiencing the Heart of the World’s Religions

I believe the future of religion is a spirituality that is interfaith at its core........

September 10, 2013

Building Your Own Theology

My last post on "Unitarian Universalism in 30 Seconds: Developing Your UU Elevator Speech" ended...

September 09, 2013

Unitarian Universalism in 30 Seconds: Developing Your UU Elevator Speech

What is Unitarian Universalism? What do UUs believe? Those are questions that most Unitarian Universalists...

August 2013

August 26, 2013

Why “Spiritual And Religious” Is More Radical Than “Spiritual But Not Religious”

Almost two years ago Lillian Daniel, the Senior Minister of First Congregational Church of Glen Ellyn,...

July 2013

July 28, 2013

Embracing Pluralism, Building Bridges, and “Common Action for the Common Good”

“I am large, I contain multitudes.” (Walt Whitman) “Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah.”...

July 15, 2013

Conscience, Civil Disobedience, and Holy Obedience

In 1973, Gene Sharp, who is now in his 80s, published a trilogy of books...

July 11, 2013

“Who’s In Charge Here?”: The Dance between Shared Ministry and Authority

Unitarian Universalists are heirs to a proud tradition of heretics bucking unjust authority. As in...

June 2013

June 18, 2013

The Sacred Masculine

Most of us, irrespective of our biological sex, have some masculine aspects of ourselves, as...

June 03, 2013

We Are All Weird: What You Can Do To Stop Bullying

My kids are thirteen and ten, and I'm never sure I'm getting any of this...

May 2013

May 26, 2013

All Bodies Count: Memorial Day, Fallen Soldiers & Civilian Casualties

My father who fought in WWII, he tried to tell me that, “War is not...

May 09, 2013

Poetically Dwelling on the Earth as a Mortal

I am a religious skeptic. I don’t believe in Yahweh, Allah, Krishna, or Ogun; nor...

May 06, 2013

Pragmatic Buddhism, Westernized Dharma, 21st-century Sangha

When I was about fifteen years old, I accidentally ran into some of the classic...

April 2013

April 22, 2013

Wendell Berry, Climate Change, and Earth Breathing

Wendell Berry is the author of more than fifty books of poetry, fiction, and essays,...

April 14, 2013

Creativity as Spiritual Practice: A Spirituality of Spring

i thank You God for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits...

April 08, 2013

Did You Just Send That Woman To a Church To Get Help with an Abortion?

Today, in the year 2013, when we reflect on what it means to talk about...

April 01, 2013

Practice Resurrection

There’s a man I’d like to tell you about — a man named Hermann Gunkel....

March 2013

March 21, 2013

What Is Our Conveyer Belt? Stages of Faith

This post's title (“What Is Our Conveyer Belt?”) is a reference to a chapter in...

March 11, 2013

Preventing Gun Violence

Consider the following sampling of gun violence in the U.S., drawn only from the weekend...

March 04, 2013

Why Is There Something Instead of Nothing?

Does the universe have a purpose? I am not sure. Anyone who expresses a more...

March 01, 2013

Another World Is Possible: Repealing the Death Penalty

Inconsistency: Since 1978, less than 1% of Maryland’s 13,000+ murders resulted in a death sentence....

February 2013

February 19, 2013

Zero Dark Thirty: Torture, Disavowal, and the Oscars

This is what should be done by those who are skilled in goodness, and who...