Here comes another bit of personal introspection that I feel the need to share. Please bear with me… Recently when I was working through a book on developing intuition, I found myself in the woods on the small farm where I grew up. At first, I interpreted the woods as a symbol of Nature and the Divine in nature, and later as a sanctuary. But as I dug deeper, it became apparent that in these images, the woods were a... Read more

One of the main tools of Japanese manufacturing is called “Five Whys.” If you have a problem, ask “why?” five times. By the time you get to the fifth level you should be past all the symptoms to the root cause, which you can then fix. I didn’t need an engineering degree to tell me that’s a good idea. My mother would tell you I was asking “why?” from a very early age. Some of that was challenging rules I... Read more

I hope those of you in the area will do your best to be there – it’s going to be awesome. Click on the image to see a larger version of the flyer. Read more

We’ll return to the regularly scheduled Samhain series shortly, but I want to repost a rant from the DMN Religion Blog. An evangelical Christian suggested that our current economic melt-down is a result of America’s “lack of obedience” and corrupt churches. You can read the whole exchange here if you like. I got a little wound up. Here’s my response: If the USA has fallen out of divine favor and our current situation is a national punishment, it is not... Read more

It’s October and Halloween will be here before you know it. Yes, I’m busy getting ready for Samhain (and I’ll have more to say about it later this month), but I also enjoy feeding the trick or treaters. First, if anyone reading this blog doesn’t know what Samhain is, or if you still think it’s pronounced “SAM-hane” (it’s a Gaelic word, pronounced “SOW-en,” here are a couple of links to better explanations than I can give. This one is a... Read more

Those of you who were part of my Second Dedication last year know that one of the things I’ve felt called to be is a priest. And for more than a year since then, I’ve struggled to figure out exactly what that means. I’m at a point where I feel like this needs to be my top spiritual priority. So what does it mean to be a Pagan priest? What have I signed up for? What do I need to... Read more

Today’s question for the “Texas Faith” panel of the Dallas Morning News’ Religion Blog is “What do you find in your faith tradition that helps you deal with or explain the reality of suffering?” I haven’t read much of anything on suffering from a Pagan perspective. Most Pagan theology and philosophy concentrates on what makes us different from mainstream Western monotheism and doesn’t say much about universal issues such as this. About all I’ve found talks about karma, though in... Read more

In a comment a couple weeks ago, Summer advised me to “give yourself over to God’s plan” and to “let go of your own plans of self import.” That’s certainly good advice. But it raises the more difficult question of how you figure out what that divine plan is. There are any number of religious leaders who will be happy to tell you exactly what God’s plan is – it usually involves giving them money and voting the way they... Read more

I’m sitting here watching Hurricane Ike get ready to demolish Galveston and there’s a voice in the back of my head that keeps saying stuff like “So you follow a nature religion, hmmm? So how are your gods (or your Goddess) any better than that desert god who went around smiting all those folks?” Hmmm??? Are the gods angry? Naturalists would say this is a case of assigning the wrong cause to an unpleasant affect… something humans have done for... Read more

The UUA is proposing a revision to our Principles and Purposes. At a high level, I think this is a good thing – all religions must be continually updated or they risk becoming stagnant and irrelevant. Unitarian Universalists recognize this better than most. Another good thing is that this wasn’t done by a few people making pronouncements from on high. The work was done by the Committee on Appraisal, a standing committee of both clergy and lay people, who are... Read more