This past Sunday was Charles Darwin’s birthday. He was born a little more than two hundred years ago on February 12, 1809. (Interestingly, Abraham Lincoln also has the same birthday and birth year.) In recent years, Darwin’s birthday has become known as International Darwin Day, an annual opportunity to celebrate the principles of “perpetual curiosity, scientific thinking, and hunger for truth” that guided his life. A tragedy of the ongoing “Creationism vs. Evolution” debate is that coming to terms with... Read more

The opening lines of the Roman Catholic Catechism affirm that, “The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God.” The First Principle of Unitarian Universalism makes an even more radical claim for “the inherent worth and dignity of every person,” irrespective of anything else. In 1961, when the American Unitarian Association consolidated with the Universalist Church of America to form the Unitarian Universalist Association, we originally had Six Principles that were... Read more

I first heard of Unitarian Universalism in college. Our UU student group was called the Channing Circle. But I had no idea who Channing was. Less transparently, I came to discover that some of the oldest and largest UU congregations also owe their names to Channing. All Souls Church Unitarian in Washington, D.C and the Unitarian Church of All Souls in New York City (both of which are close to a thousand members each) as well as the 1,800-member All Souls Unitarian... Read more

I was honored to speak tonight at the Frederick Islamic Center for the Solidarity with Our Muslim Neighbors rally. The following were my brief reflections: Thank you all for showing up to support our Muslim neighbors here in Frederick, Maryland. The normal everyday lives our world’s 1.6 billion Muslims is rarely seen on the news, film, or tv. Islamophobia, like homophobia, includes the word phobia because it is a fear that is exaggerated out of proportion to the reality of... Read more

  As dire as our political situation may be, as I heard a colleague say recently, it is vital to remember not only that we must pace ourselves for a marathon (not a sprint), but also that “this is a relay race.” We are in this struggle together, and we need to hand off the baton to maintain resistance and resilience for the long haul. To empower your discernment of what your part might be in understanding and responding to such a... Read more

Richard Linklater is the director of such contemporary cinema classics as Dazed and  Confused (about a last day of high school in the 1970s), School of Rock (about Jack Black inspiring a classroom of fourth graders to enter a Battle of the Bands), and the Before Trilogy (about the relationship over time between Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy). Of those films, the Before Trilogy (Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight) is where we first began to see Linklater’s willingness... Read more

For seven years, I had the privilege each summer of being a counselor at a two-week Summer Institute for incoming college freshmen. The title of the program was “You Bet Your Life: Theological Explorations of Vocation,” and our goal was to equip these young people with tools, frameworks, and experiences to begin discerning both their gifts and how they might best be able to change the world for the better. (We are “betting our life” with each choice that we... Read more

I would like to share some highlights from the conclusion of religion professor Jeffrey Kripal’s book Comparing Religions: Coming to Terms about where we find ourselves here in the early twenty-first century on the other side of the comparative process, having compared the world’s religions in light of both modern science and our own direct experience. In particular, I would like to focus on Kripal’s final chapter, “Reflexive Re-readings: Looking at the Looker.” To begin unpacking that title, there is a famous... Read more

In researching this post, I learned I have been mispronouncing Thoreau’s name for many years. Growing up, I heard the name pronounced with an emphasis on the second syllable: Thor-OH. But there are passages in the journals of both Thoreau’s aunt and his fellow Transcendentalist Bronson Alcott that the correct pronunciation sounds like “thorough” — as in being thorough in completing a task. And in Thoreau’s hometown of Concord, Massachusetts, school children are taught that, “Thoreau” rhymes with “furrow” — as... Read more

I was honored to speak this evening at a Multifaith Candlelight Vigil of Unity & Hope on Inauguration Week in Frederick, Maryland along with local colleagues and politicians. The following is the transcript of my closing words: In the coming days, my prayer for our country is that we find a path toward unity and a future with hope. When I consider how we might find our way toward such a path, I am reminded of the final blessing offered to my seminary... Read more