In ancient Rome Feronia’s festival was celebrated on the Ides of November, which in all likelihood was originally the day of the full moon, but eventually was settled on November 13th, or to be slightly more accurate in the Roman versions of November 13th. Close enough, I figure… Here we get one of the profusion of our annual harvest festivals. Feronia was a goddess in central Italy absorbed in time into the Roman pantheon. She was mostly honored in hopes... Read more

Yesterday Richard McDaniel’s Cypress Trees in the Garden appeared in our mailbox. I immediately went to the chapter about me. What can I say? And, now that I’ve read it I want to categorically deny that I ever said, as reported on page 192, “Heaven’s-t’-Betsy.” Although I am moderately confident I did say the “Fuck you” reported on the same page… Cypress Trees in the Garden is a romp through the garden of our contemporary North American Zen scene. He... Read more

A lot of years ago when Jan & I first moved to New England’s rocky soil, Jan wanted to go to the Cambridge cemetery to put a rose on Henry James’ grave. I was more than happy to join her as I wanted to put a flower on William’s grave. We bought a small bouquet of roses and drove out to the cemetery which turns out to be just east of the more famous Mt Auburn cemetery. With good directions... Read more

John McCrae’s In Flanders Fields recited by Leonard Cohen Read more

This past Sunday after church Jan and I saw Trumbo. My goodness, Brian Cranston has come a long way from playing dad on Malcolm in the Middle! He really is one of the most interesting actors of our day. And, he was given a pretty meaty role, playing a central figure back when the great Red Scare moved to Hollywood. Biopics are always problematic endeavors. And making a movie about controversial figures at the center of political maelstroms when at... Read more

Leonard Cohen says he spent a couple of years working on what would become his masterwork Hallelujah. He estimates he wrote about eighty verses, while trying to find the right ones. The song was originally released on the album Various Positions, and he publicly performed it first as part of the 1985 tour in support of that album. However, within three years he was singing a different version with almost no overlap in the verses. It appears there wasn’t a... Read more

BENEATH THE SILENT STARS A Call to an Ecological Consciousness 8 November 2015 James Ishmael Ford Pacific Unitarian Church Rancho Palos Verdes, California Some time ago I was sitting with Meredith Garman, an old friend and colleague currently serving as minister of our congregation in White Plains, New York. We found our conversation drifting to extraterrestrial life, flying saucer claims, and the SETI project. What can I say? Conversations just go like that, every once in a while. I particularly... Read more

While some would so much rather it were otherwise, on this day one hundred and seven years ago, the outlaws Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid were killed in a shootout with soldiers just outside of San Vicente in southern Bolivia. It is possible one shot his mortally wounded colleague and then killed himself. I find myself wondering about our collective romance with the outlaws of our American frontier days. Largely thugs and murderers and worse. Something to do with... Read more

And, of course, there’s the other thing, that good things happening to bad people thing. Sort of like the rain falling on the good and the evil alike. I get that. But then it seems to me those who believe in a deity running the show have something to answer for. With this dualism introduced, where there is the natural world, but also a god who brings along choices and values like good and evil, well… In theological circles they... Read more

As it turns out the Anglican communion, or at least some parts of it, observe today as a feast for William Temple, onetime Archbishop of Canterbury. I like that. George Bernard Shaw, no friend of the church called Temple “a realized impossibility.” He was born in 1881, and died in 1944. Between those times, he married, although had no children, served as a parish priest, for a time as a headmaster, and eventually went into the bishop business, serving as... Read more