Well, we made it.Our wise (if sardonic) head usher observed this could be taken as a test to see how many members of the congregation are crazy. Almost thirty people ended up showing up at Sunday worship. You may draw your own conclusions…At the heart of the service Catherine Senghas, our intern minister, reflected on the nature of Solstice. She made several points. One that particularly stuck in my mind was how while we often think of solstice as a… Read more

My goodness, the snow is falling, and falling, and falling…We’ve sent an email notice out to the congregation that the Religious Education program is canceled, although if people decide to sled in, the DRE & her assistant will provide an ad hoc program. Our intern minister has sworn she will be here to preach her second sermon – if to an empty house. Not a bad initiation into the vagaries of the ministerial life, I think. Our music director, coming… Read more

(The following was taken from a collection of Nyogen Senzaki Sensei’s lectures and writings which was published in Japan under the title ON ZEN MEDITATION in 1936 by the Rinzai priest Nanshin Okamoto. It describes the Zen teacher’s encounter with the Sufi master Inayat Khan. As both teachers inform my spirituality, I’m particularly taken that there was a direct connection between them at one point in their lives. I shamelessly stole this essay from the Sufi Ruhaniat International website. It… Read more

(Thank you, Danny!) Read more

The TextNow the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God say, “You shall not eat from any tree in the garden”?’ 2The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it,… Read more

I live profligately. Dispensebig words for free.Buy books for a single phraseand then return, like some oddfish, again and againto the the source. I am promiscuous.I leave books in my bed,fall asleep clutching storiesI’ve only just met.They wake me laterbut never remember my name.Mad women love this way,and thieves, giving everythingfor style, for the flashin the mind, the pullat the gut. Risking everything -old loves, old views,for the day’s perfect word,a phrase that caresses.Don’t mock me.There is a strange fidelityin… Read more

I think this is a very important article. Read more

What a day this is!According to my lovely handbook This Day in Unitarian Universalist History on this day in 1654 the British Parliament declared John Biddle’s unitarian Two-Fold Catechism heretical. All copies were to be collected and burned and Mr Biddle was thrown into prison.Also, on this day the wonderful Unitarian minister and theologian Frederick Henry Hedge was born in Cambridge, MA. He served our (now) UU congregations in Arlington and Brookline, MA, Bangor, ME & Providence, RI. He also… Read more

I am such a fan of Christine Robinson! Read more

Some say UU ministers meditating is just a story people tell. But here’s what appears to be photographic proof provided by Zen vagabond Victor Lapuszynski. Of course no one is sure who it is. Among the possible candidates are Meredith Garmon and Wayne Arnason, both of whom various people claim to have seen meditating in the Zen style. Others claim it’s James Ford. But everyone knows that while he talks a good game no one has actually ever seen him… Read more