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April 2016

April 12, 2016

A spiritual responsibility for a moral tomorrow

In case the not so subtle nuances and coded language around race and class that are...

April 07, 2016

Humanist Humility

One of the most persistent cliches about humanists is that we are human-o-centric and egotistical....

March 2016

March 31, 2016

What’s the Beef with Purple Cows? On Logos and Mythos

What's the difference between a poem and a mathematical equation? Say, between Einstein’s E=MC2 and...

March 24, 2016

Cutting Some Slack for Integrity

Reformers. Protestants. Heretics. Loudmouths. William Tyndale’s (1494-1536) crime was translating the bible into English. Tyndale said,...

March 17, 2016

Cheap Grace and Humanist Ritual, Part II

God must be replaced with a symbol capable of generating a different and more productive...

March 15, 2016

The Grace of Learning

In life, there are many things we can learn from other people. And there are...

March 10, 2016

Humanist Ritual, Part One

God must be replaced with a symbol capable of generating a different and more productive...

March 03, 2016

#Humanism: Who We Are; What We Do; Why It Matters

I. Who We Are Religions and philosophies serve as heuristic devices for life, providing shape...

February 2016

February 25, 2016

Humanist Jesus

The changing religious landscape in the US is a bit hard to get one's head...

February 18, 2016

To Whom It May Concern: the Humanist/Theist Split in Unitarian Universalism

Since I’m an out-there Humanist, I get asked fairly often how Unitarian Universalists might go...

February 16, 2016

The heartwork of coming alive

“Under all the harsh noise of the world coming in on us, this is how...

February 11, 2016

On Prayer

Emily Dickinson wrote, Of Course I prayed And did God Care? He cared as much...

February 04, 2016

Love Thy Neighbor As . . .

There’s an old Buddhist story that goes like this: Once a mother found her baby...

January 2016

January 28, 2016

A Shared Life in a Shared World: #Humanist Economics

Grim Numbers Rising economic inequality. We live in a world in which sixty two human...

January 21, 2016

Relax: #Humanism Is Not Mack the Knife

Small Humanist groups are popping up and organizing around the US, some as independent groups,...

January 14, 2016

Some Accumulated Wisdom for Seminarians

One of the best aspects of being a senior minister is working with ministers-in-training. I...

January 07, 2016

#Apatheism

This year First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis is celebrating a century of humanism. Rev. John...

December 2015

December 31, 2015

Redefining #Religion: You Might Be a Religious Naturalist

The Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion defines religion this way: From the Latin relegare...

December 17, 2015

Why Would Anyone Want to be a Minister?

My mother says I was born serious. Could be. For example, I remember that when...

December 10, 2015

Do Your Religion a Favor: Live Up to Its Principles

I meet monthly with the Downtown Senior Clergy of Minneapolis. This week we listened to...

December 01, 2015

Giving TUUesday

While many people in this country go to work and get paid, social change workers...

November 2015

November 26, 2015

Grace for the Rest of Us

Grace. Some say it before meals. Some have it for a name. Grace-ful people have...

November 19, 2015

#Terrorism: Religion and Nationalism Aren’t Fixing It

Nothing like a crisis to clarify values. If the terrorist attacks in Paris have clarified...

November 11, 2015

The “Trinsics”: Where are You Coming From?

Psychologist Gordon Allport argued that there are two types of religious experience—the extrinsic and the...

November 05, 2015

Congregational Humanist Liturgy: Creating a Religion-Neutral Zone

The Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi (370-287 BCE) told this story: Once three friends were discussing life....

October 2015

October 22, 2015

Why Does a Super-Nice Word Like “Spiritual” Make Humanists All Itchy?

Here is what Plato had to say about the body and the soul: Does not...

October 21, 2015

Things that get in the way

I often tell the story of the time my Chaplain Supervisor told me, “Deanna, I...

October 15, 2015

Death of the Curate

Art museums are currently going through a sea change, and that sea change is about...

October 08, 2015

Putting First Things First: Congregations of Philosophers

In 1931 the Humanist Unitarian minister Curtis Reese looked into his crystal ball and wrote...

October 01, 2015

Looking For #Happiness, Epicurean Style

Who doesn’t want to be happy? Everybody wants to be happy. The trouble starts when...