So, there I was, at the culmination of the whole trip, my former intern Chris Bell’s installation as minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Santa Rosa, the congregation I was a member of when I went off to seminary. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge in the ensuing twenty years. Among other things they sold the old building and have purchased a movie theatre right in the middle of thedowntown – a courageous act considering our Western… Read more

But I’m sure it has nothing to do with what he’s said about our president… for the story Read more

Dear Diary, I flew into Oakland on Thursday and drove to Berkeley via International Blvd, which I knew once upon a time as East 14th. While we moved much too much in my childhood to actually have a place I can call “home,” we lived several times not very far from the juncture of East 14th & 98th Avenues, so I thought that drive could be nostalgic. And in a vague sort of way it was. International goes through various… Read more

It’s hard to believe this is my one hundred posting to this blog. I started it as a way to keep in touch with the congregation as I took off on my sabbatical at the beginning of this church year (which in the Unitarian Universalist world means September). I rather got into the habit and have continued it since my return to the parish in January.I’ve tried to maintain a discipline of posting something at least weekly, although it’s now… Read more

“This is our choice in every moment. Do we relate to our circumstances with bitterness or with openness? That is why it can be said that whatever occurs can be regarded as the path and that all things, not just some things, are workable. This teaching is a fearless proclamation of what’s possible for ordinary people like you and me.” Pema Chodron Read more

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Awareness is like the open sky, and its contents are like clouds – ever changing and never as substantial as they appear.Ezra Bayda with Josh Bartok Saying Yes to Life (Even the Hard Parts) Read more

“I’m like a friend of mine who went to visit Chartres Cathedral and started levitating in front of one of the stained-glass windows, until he remembered that he wasn’t a mystic and returned to earth.” Luis Fernando Verissimo in Borges and the Eternal Orang-Utans Read more

When I was a kid and the world was a very narrow place it was Science Fiction that gave me a hint the world, first might not actually be the way it was being sold to me, and second I had some possibilities of change in my own hands. My first writers were the likes of Robert Heinlein and Issac Asimov. However, when I discovered Kurt Vonnegut, that’s when things really got weird. Years later when I learned he was… Read more

Harumi Setouchi, famed in Japan for her modern Japanese translation of the Tale of Genji, as well as notorious for her erotic life detailed in her novels is now a Tendai Buddhist nun, the Venerable Jakucho Setouchi. For details of her life and career, go here. Read more