I’m still here – I didn’t crash and burn on last weekend’s trip to Tennessee. It went rather well, all things considered. I’ve just been extremely busy… and still rather distracted. I’m reading Karen Armstrong’s A History of God, subtitled “The 4,000-year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.” I’m about 2/3 through it – I’ll have much more to say about it when I’m finished. For now, I’ll just say that I’m very disappointed (though hardly surprised) that I spent... Read more

The Naked Theologian had a great post last week that I’m just now coming across, titled “Theology is to spirituality what honeycomb is to honey.” It discusses why we need both theology and spirituality, and why people who want to be “spiritual but not religious” are selling themselves short. Here’s the key quote: [This] analogy illustrates the fact that spirituality without theology is a puddle of sweet goo; it can’t be handed over (except in extremely messy form) to other... Read more

Along with Samhain, Beltane is my favorite Pagan holiday. They’re 180 degrees apart on the wheel of the year, the beginning of Summer and Summer’s End. The light and the dark. Birth and death. Alas – I’ll be in Tennessee, at a family wedding. I hope you’ll be there… Read more

When you get the same message over and over again from radically different sources, it probably means Somebody is trying to tell you something. Today’s service at DUUF was led by Megan Dalby-Jones, a candidate for UU ministry on leave from seminary while she supports her partner’s career (i.e. – she’s stuck in DFW for the time being). Her sermon was titled “Faith Beyond Belief,” a rather personal look at how our beliefs and our faith aren’t necessarily the same... Read more

I’m always a bit hesitant about the Morning Prayer. Like most UU churches, our congregation is a collection of Christians, Buddhists, Pagans, Humanists, and a lot of people who are difficult to classify and damned proud of it. These people have widely differing views on prayer and what (or if) it should be. I give Rev. Diana credit for showing that it is possible to pray in a way that is respectful of our many traditions and yet still expresses... Read more

Here’s this morning’s sermon, as written. Any speech or sermon loses a bit from the spoken word to the written – I think this one loses more than most. Still, I think the plain meaning of the words is pretty clear. After church, someone asked me if this was planned for this time, when the nominating committee is (as always) struggling to fill next year’s Board of Trustees. My answer was (and is) that the timing is coincidental, but the... Read more

At first glance, there might seem to be some conflicts and incongruities between this morning’s sermon (where I was challenging people to be heroes) and the posts of the past couple of weeks (where I’m coming to the realization that I can’t fix the world). I’ll freely admit that I was in a different state of mind when the sermon was conceived many months ago. But I don’t think there’s a conflict. We are called to be heroes – to... Read more

I’ll freely admit that one of my greatest fears is being irrelevant. And I worry about getting caught up in the mundane, materialistic world and living a life of pleasant distractions (as opposed to the unpleasant distractions I’ve been dealing with) while accomplishing little or nothing of ultimate importance. But the last blog entry and the PeaceBang essay that inspired it have got me thinking that I’m chasing the wrong thing. What if we really can’t change the world? What... Read more

UU minister and blogger Rev. Victoria “PeaceBang” Weinstein had a thought-provoking entry on her blog on Thursday. Though primarily directed at ministers, I think it applies to all of us who want to do and be spiritually more than we are. She begins by quoting writer Thomas Moore: In many different traditions the spiritual leader is not really called to fix the world. That’s not what he or she does. Rather that person is called to be a holy person... Read more

The End of Christian America is the cover story of this week’s Newsweek, by editor Jon Meacham. The article is bit long, but I highly recommend reading it. It’s an excellent assessment of the state of Christianity in 21st century America – Meacham tells us where we are and how we got here. I think his analysis is dead-on, and his predictions look both accurate and promising. The facts: “To the surprise of liberals who fear the advent of an... Read more