LOVE YOUR MOTHER A Meditation on Life & Death, Intoxication, Sobering Up, and Saving the World 23 March 2014 James Ishmael Ford First Unitarian Church Providence, Rhode Island Text I am circling around God, around the ancient tower, and I have been circling for a thousand years, and I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm, or a great song. Ranier Maria Rilke Not long ago Meredith Garman, an old friend and colleague currently serving as... Read more

Another cover of Leonard Cohen’s mystic treatise, this one by Hannah Trigwell… Read more

On this day in 1556, Thomas Cranmer, onetime henchman to Henry VIII, principal editor of two astonishingly beautiful books of liturgy in the vernacular, hesitant Protestant, and archbishop of Canterbury, died, burned at the stake. I’m endlessly fascinated by this complex man, who brought profound flaws and deep heart into terrible times. A less ambiguous person probably could not have laid the ground that a few years later would become with the Elizabethan settlement, the complicated, messy, and perhaps best... Read more

On this day in 1918, a gathering of drunkards, petty criminals and other forms of low life gathered and voted to inaugurate daylight savings. This was the brain child of George Vernon Hudson, an etymologist and astronomer, and other than this single lapse, a person I am positive of sterling character. But the lapse was enormous. It seems the main selling point is that it is good for business. In fact it unnecessarily complicates human life, ranging from endangering drivers... Read more

Today is my spouse Jan Seymour-Ford’s sixty-third birthday. In June we’ll have been married thirty-three years. I understand that men tend to get the better deal in marriage. I’m sure that’s true in my case. I consider finding Jan a minor evidence of either a benevolent deity or good karma from a previous lifetime, as pretty much everyone who knows us is happy to point out I sure didn’t deserve the deal I’ve gotten. Whatever, I am grateful. And, I... Read more

Big day, today… I know many are awash in green beer, one of the more interesting ways one can observe a Roman Catholic holy day. But, in addition to remembering the good Mr Patrick, lots more is going on. For instance it is the eve of my spouse’s birthday. So ’tis a day I start scurrying around looking for that small token suitable to the occasion. It’s also the feast of Joseph of Arimathea, who took the young Jesus on... Read more

Karma is one of those words that have launched into our English language with a vengeance. Mostly people take it in a new age sense, as cosmic payback. I suspect the majority of us use the word, when we use it, in that sense, where there is some cosmic zero sum and where if you do good, good will come to you, and if you do bad, well, what’s coming is your fault. It’s summed up nicely in the phrase... Read more

In 1910 the Girl Guides were established in the United Kingdom by Robert Baden-Powell. (A friend has pointed out that in fact they organized themselves as girl scouts the year before Baden-Powell attempted to tame them as guides. A point worthy of noting…) And then on this day in 1912 the Girl Guides were formed in the United States. The Guides were patterned on the Boy Scouts, but were always a bit different. Eventually they would rename themselves the Girl... Read more

Turns out that on this day in 1702 Queen Anne vetoed, or, as the jargon went, withheld “royal assent” for a bill passed by Parliament. Never ever after. ) Read more

I, for one, am looking forward to Neil deGrasse Tyson’s new series Cosmos, inspired by Carl Sagan’s wonderful series from 1980. These are perilous times. Half of America doesn’t believe in basic science. On our American right denial of climate change is hamstringing any hope of mitigating much less stopping the relentless consequences of human recklessness and shortsightedness. They further endanger us by trying to cut evolution out of schools. Our American left is only slightly better, where the anti-scientific... Read more