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Select a Month August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

February 2016

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 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 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...

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...

October 2015

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...

September 2015

September 03, 2015

Integrity and the Big Hole in Wholeness

You’ve heard it; you’ve thought it; perhaps you’ve even said it: “She is SO together!”...

August 2015

August 20, 2015

How Secular is “Religious”?

We don’t know how the ready access to information will ultimately change the human condition,...

August 06, 2015

On the Right to Take Up Space

(homily for a prayer vigil for those murdered at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Charleston,...

April 2015

April 02, 2015

#RFRA, Soapy Cilantro, and Tasty Gods

(Or: A Little Demonstration of What Religious Freedom Looks Like) POLARIZATION Cilantro. It’s a polarizing...

March 2015

March 19, 2015

The Transient, the Permanent, and the Stitching Horse: What Remains True in Religions

When I was a kid, I loved wandering in the barn on my grandfather’s farm....

February 2015

February 19, 2015

Apocalypse: What Death Cults Really Want

The recent Atlantic article by Graeme Wood, “What Isis Really Wants,” examines the Isis phenomenon...

January 2015

January 29, 2015

The Bigness of our Littleness: Humanism and Individualism

Late in his life the philosopher Richard Rorty—well known to be an atheist—was asked...

January 08, 2015

Covenant: Broken Promises, Dumb Ideas, and Ways Forward

Captain, We're Out of Beer! When those adventurers we now call the Pilgrims realized they...

November 2014

November 13, 2014

Blinding and Beheading: One Path, Many Mountains

"I have been Don Quixote, always creating a world of my own." ~Anais Nin...

September 2014

September 18, 2014

A Touch of Nature Makes the Whole World Kin: So What’s Our Excuse? (A Humanist “Theology” of Radical Welcome)

Mystical and Scientific The author of the Gospel of Matthew reports Jesus saying, “If you...

September 04, 2014

Moses, Jesus, Paul and Sacred Soundbites

What ‘Ol Abe Saw Moses, Jesus, Paul, et. al. as motivator. Their words as marching...

July 2014

July 10, 2014

Eleanor Rigby’s Selfie

We learned from the Beatles that Eleanor Rigby “keeps her face in a jar by...

July 03, 2014

Way to Go, Supreme Court: Another #facepalm

A Primo #Facepalm Moment To be a citizen of the United States is to experience...

June 2014

June 26, 2014

Roadmaps for the Soul (or: Hunting, Gathering, Singing)

In “Tombstone Blues,” a song released in 1965, Bob Dylan sang, “The National Bank at...

June 19, 2014

Making Sense of Life (or: Three Decorating Ideas for the Mind)

Wallace Stevens once said, “How full of trifles everything is! It is only one’s thoughts...

June 12, 2014

The Proof’s in the Pudding (or What’s Churchy about Church?)

Imagine I’m sometimes asked how humanists can have “church” without invoking god. Here’s how I...

May 2014

May 29, 2014

Spiritual But Not . . . Keep Talking

Literary critic Terry Eagleton said, “The din of conversation is as much meaning as we...

April 2014

April 17, 2014

Pagans, Cheasters, and Nones: Easter and Open-Source Religion

This coming Easter morning, many people will rise and look east. Some will go to...

March 2014

March 27, 2014

Seriously—Who Said We Can Choose Our Own Mysteries?

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible. ~Oscar Wilde There...

March 20, 2014

Fallen Angels, Rising Apes, and the Knowledge of the Serpent

I. In addition to the Unitarian Universalist Seven Principles, the congregation that I serve as...

March 13, 2014

Sin Isn’t Very Original: Dostoyevsky and the Freedom to Really Mess Things Up

I have a terrible confession: almost all of the calories I consume in a day,...

February 2014

February 20, 2014

How Unitarian Universalists Do Church

I suppose everybody has a favorite founding document for a religion or a nation. Mine...

February 06, 2014

Apocalypse Never (and what we can do about it)

I grew up in the Pentecostal church. When I was ten, I knew just how...

January 2014

January 21, 2014

Epiphany (Continues)

[More king cakes than you can imagine and only two weeks into Epiphany, I am...