This trip was conceived when I asked Cynthia for a recommendation for an ancient site to visit in the United States. She made several recommendations, but Mesa Verde was her first, and it fit in well with other things to see and do on a trip that was part R&R; and part pilgrimage.This is Mesa Verde as seen from US highway 160.Far View House, one of the earlier structures, built before the famous cliff dwellings. This is a distant view… Read more

There could be nothing remotely spiritual about a mining town, right? Or about a coal-fired smoke-spewing steam train? Maybe if you’re into country music?Let’s start with the train. As a feat of engineering, the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad is just as impressive as the brick structures built by the ancestral Puebloans. No earthmoving equipment, no helicopters, just men and mules and dynamite.Here’s Silverton. Yeah, it’s turned from a mining town into a cheesy tourist town, but it’s still… Read more

We’re back from vacation, a trip to Durango, Colorado and the Four Corners region. It was a mostly good trip with a few small negatives, like getting lost on the way back and a broken windshield on the rental car. Over the next couple of days I’ll post some pictures and some thoughts I had on the trip.I’ll start with our first destination, Hovenweep National Monument in southeastern Utah. It was built by the ancestral Puebloans, who lived there from… Read more

A DMN blogger posted a link to an event titled “WHAT YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO KNOW ABOUT 9/11” and followed it with the question:”Does this strike you as a legitimate event or a way to exploit a tragedy to make money?”My answer is “neither.” It’s an event by and for people who mistrust and/or hate government so much they prefer to believe an elaborate, implausible conspiracy rather than some pretty straightforward evidence.Others simply can’t deal with the insecurity and… Read more

My favorite UU blogger is Rev. Victoria Weinstein, aka PeaceBang. Yesterday she posted a long essay that started on the recent UUA Presidential election and quickly moved into the state of Unitarian Universalism. While it’s not all gloom and doom, she raises enough issues – and enough issues that hit home with me as a local lay leader – to make me wonder about the future of our religion / denomination / movement.In particular, I have to wonder if any… Read more

I have rabbits, or at least, a rabbit, living in my back yard… most likely in the overgrown section of the herb garden. I managed to get close enough for a cell phone picture. Read more

From this morning’s President’s welcome:Rev. Diana told us that Easter is the most difficult day for a UU minister. If that’s true – and I have no doubt it is – then I think perhaps the Fourth of July is the most difficult day for a UU lay person. We grow up bathed in patriotism: we’re taught to salute the flag and say the pledge of allegiance, to sing The Star Spangled Banner and God Bless America, to wave flags… Read more

Jeff Weiss from the Dallas Morning News was on hand for yesterday’s Summer SolstiCelebration and this article ran in today’s paper. Jeff’s a good guy (I got to know him via e-mail when the DMN Religion Blog was in full swing) and I talked to him for several minutes before we started. He asked some good questions about what we were doing and why – I like the one exchange he used in the article:How authentic is the invocation of… Read more

photo from The Daily Mail The Times reports that there were 36,500 people at Stonehenge for yesterday morning’s Summer Solstice Sunrise. Sadly, the sun remained hidden behind the clouds.Here’s another report from The Daily Mail, with more and bigger pictures.As much as I’d like to see a Solstice sunrise at Stonehenge, with those crowds I’m not sorry I wasn’t there! Read more