On this day after the Election, I want to invite us to reflect on the state of our democracy. Democracy, after all, is a valuable method for governance, but it’s not a guarantee of good outcomes (Gershberg and Illing, Paradox of Democracy, 2). In a democracy, the people are free to choose, and sometimes their choices are out of alignment with progressive values.  And we need to be honest that globally today, there are a number of corrupt authoritarians in... Read more

A congregant said to me recently, “Many of us would like to love our neighbors without exception, but we know there are people who regularly deal in bad faith.” And with election denial continuing as Election Day rapidly approaches on Tuesday, November 8, it can be especially consequential when anti-democratic, authoritarian politicians act in bad faith. So let me submit for your consideration that one significant antidote to bad faith is raising people’s awareness that bad faith actors exist, and... Read more

I suspect we could all make a long list of the major problems facing us today—from threats to democracy at home, to global climate change, and so much more. As the author and activist Grace Lee Boggs used to say, “Another world is necessary.” But she didn’t stop there. She would add, “Another world is possible.” Then she would go one step further: “Another world is happening.”  What do you think about that three-part claim? Is a better world not... Read more

I first came to Woody Guthrie (1912-1967) by way of Bob Dylan (1941-). Regarding Guthrie’s influence on him, Dylan said, “You could listen to his songs and actually learn how to live” (Seymour, 21).  The two singer-songwriters only met once. In 1961, when Dylan was 19 years old, he visited Guthrie in the hospital. Guthrie was 48 years old and receiving treatment for the neurodegenerative condition of Huntington’s Disease, which he inherited from his mother (Edington 79). Two years later... Read more

I started making plans for this post almost a year ago, when I saw that Beacon Press had published a book titled With Her Fist Raised: Dorothy Pitman Hughes and the Transformative Power of Black Community Activism. Dorothy is how she prefers to be called, and her story felt like both an appropriate topic for Women’s History Month, and a bridge linking back to Black History Month.  The book cover caught my eye first, because it features the famous photo... Read more

In the early twentieth century, a tradition began of celebrating March 8th as International Women’s Day—an annual invitation to celebrate women’s contributions to events in history and contemporary society. In the early 1980s, this tradition expanded within the U.S. to Women’s History Week, and a few years later, to all of March as Women’s History Month. Relatedly one of my core convictions is that the stories we tell matter. Too often, our collective cultural history and stories have been told... Read more

The stories we tell matter. And each telling of history—all the varied stories of our human pasts—are invariably biased. No matter how informed, well-intentioned and open the historian, their perspectives are always constrained by their understanding and experience. History is never neutral. All stories, including all histories, are unavoidably told from some particular person’s—or group’s—point of view, a truth too rarely acknowledged, recognized, and even apparent.  The Haitian American anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot (1949-2012) wrote about this dynamic in his book... Read more

Have you been watching the Station Eleven tv series on HBO? Or did you read the novel Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel? I read the book when it was published in 2014 because so many people were recommending it. And the tv series, which is a little over halfway through at this point, is arguably one of those rare cases where the television version is even better than the book.  To avoid any spoilers, I will limit myself... Read more

The following are the top ten best books I’ve read since this time last year–in alphabetical order by the author’s last name because agonizing over a precise order would take all the fun out of remembering these books: 1. One Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race by Yaba Blay 2. Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience by Brené Brown 3. Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman (Also helpful on... Read more

Prior to becoming a Unitarian Universalist minister in 2012, I served as a pastor in Progressive Christian congregations for nine years. Since I am now starting my tenth year of service at the UU Congregation of Frederick, Maryland, it occurred to me recently that I have now been a Unitarian Universalist minister slightly longer than I was a Christian pastor.  That means my turn toward the dark side is now complete! More seriously, I am grateful for both the years... Read more