John Bale, most of all a controversialist of the first water, hence the nickname “Bilious Bale,” but also variously a Carmelite friar, an Anglican bishop, literary antiquarian, poet, and playwright, was born on this day in 1495. While his penchant for bile, scandalous parody, and outright denunciation spewed on the page threatens to overtake most everything else about him, the good bishop also wrote two editions of a catalog of the writers of Great Britain that are essential to the... Read more

I have over the years been blessed with several friends who are transgendered. Among the many wonderful things in our relationships has been that invitation for me to see ever more truly the fulness of our humanity, and the complexity of our sexuality. A good thing. An unmixed good thing. And, I’ve seen how people are so afraid of the fact who we are as human beings is more mutable and messy than people sometime, often want. Too often with... Read more

Last Sunday I preached atthe Pacific Unitarian Church on pilgrimage as a spiritual practice. I mentioned that pilgrimage is an ancient human thing that is not only overtly religious but can be found in other aspects of our many cultures. As an illustration of a non-religious sort of pilgrimage I cited my recent visit with my spouse to Washington D.C. For Jan, as a librarian, I think our tour of the Library of Congress had spiritual elements. And for both... Read more

It was on this day in 1865 that Samuel Clemens leapt onto the world stage when the New York Saturday Press published Mark Twain’s Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog. There are now a couple of versions floating around. Here’s one. The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County Mr. A. Ward, Dear Sir: — Well, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and inquired after your friend, Leonidas W. Smiley, as you requested me to do, and I hereunto... Read more

While the story goes back a very long ways, in the middle of the sixteenth century a “new” version added in the critical detail how it was on this day in 1307 that William Tell aimed that famous crossbow at the apple and shot it off of his son’s head. Thought you should know… Read more

Today is set as a feast in honor of Hilda of Whitby. She counts among my favorite Christian saints. Her feast is observed in the Roman, the Orthodox, and Anglican communions. She lived in the seventh century, and was the abbess of several monastic communities, most notably Whitby. Hilda was a singular figure who led a mixed community of women and men. Among her charges was Caedmon, not originally a monk, but rather a shepherd whom she recognized as having... Read more

Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet of Rolleston, was born on this day in 1896. He was a British politician most notable as leader of the British Fascist Union during the Great Depression and the run up to the Second World War. A figure of only marginal interest to me, except for two reasons that I share here. First, in 1980, when he died after living many years in self-imposed exile the television program Not the Nine O’Clock News lampooned... Read more

THE WAY OF A PILGRIM Or, How to Save Ourselves and the World James Ishmael Ford 15 November 2015 Pacific Unitarian Church Rancho Palos Verdes, California Beirut, Baghdad, and Paris. Hundreds dead. Confusion reigns. People are demanding action. And here we are, gathered once again within this sanctuary. I suggest in order to engage our lives in the world, to make our actions, and right now our reactions more useful than harmful, we need to have a moral compass, a... Read more

About 1960, a year earlier, perhaps a year later, one Sunday Jan’s family decided to go to Olvera Street for lunch following church. There are a lot of options for Mexican food on Olvera Street, ranging from pretty upscale right down to the most modest. The family was not known for being extravagant with a dollar, and so picked one of the more modest restaurants, really a cafe, with one side totally open to the shopping plaza. It was Juanita’s... Read more

I was saddened to learn that Rita Gross, who had suffered a debilitating stroke in October, suffered another and succumbed on the 11th of November. The Lion’s Roar quoted Judith Simmer-Brown: “Rita Gross died peacefully today at her home in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Following the instructions of her teacher, Ven. Khandro Rinpoche, her body has been washed and perfumed with saffron in the traditional Tibetan manner and her Wisconsin friends will sit with the corpse for the specified three days... Read more