ON HERDING CATS A Meditation on Unitarian Universalist Spiritual Community James Ishmael Ford 7 June 2015 Text How wonderful it is to live in harmony with all people: like stepping out of the bath, your whole body fresh and vibrant; like a morning dew, glistening on the tiniest blade of grass./ It is God’s infinite blessing, a taste of eternal life. 133 Psalm (translated by Stephen Mitchell) Last week I was shaking hands at the end of the service when... Read more
Forty-seven years ago this evening as he walked through the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, Senator Robert F Kennedy was assassinated. He had just won the California primary, and was likely on his way to winning the Democratic nomination for president. I was in fact a supporter of another senator, Eugene McCarthy, whom he had just defeated. I found Bobbie a bit too much an opportunist. I was much purer in those days. But, even then, as... Read more
When I do a wedding, the template I provide for the couple includes a sample of a good non-scriptural text. It was written by the remarkable Unitarian divine, Arthur Powell Davies, better known as A. Powell Davies. One of the relatively few contemporary UU clergy to warrant a substantial article at Wikipedia. The Reverend Mr Davies was born on this day in 1902, just outside of Liverpool. Raised and then ordained a Methodist, he came to Unitarianism when serving a... Read more
It was on this day in 1989 that the brief and beautiful and peaceful uprising of those students and many workers in Tiananmen Square was brutally suppressed by the “People’s Liberation” army. At least two hundred, forty people were killed, likely more. And some are still languishing in prison. Remember. Read more
“What I Did on My Summer Vacation by William Ellery Channing, Age 10” A project of the Sixth and Seventh Grade Class of the Unitarian Society of New Haven, May 2015. Read more
The incomparable Ellas Otha Bates, better known to most of us as Bo Diddley, died on this day seven years ago. A loss for us all… Read more
A lovely brief video from Sotoshu, the Japanese Soto Zen denomination, introducing zazen or “seated Zen,” the basic meditation practice of all schools of Zen. A small addendum: In addition to sitting in a chair, the full lotus, and the half lotus addressed in the video, two other postures are often used in Zen meditation, a “quarter-lotus, where the foot rests on the calf, and “Burmese” where the foot is placed on the ground in front of the other, both... Read more
ON READING THE KORAN And Other Encounters With the Sacred James Ishmael Ford 31 May 2015 First Unitarian Church Providence, Rhode Island Text In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Praise belongs to God, the Lord of all Being, the All-merciful, the All-compassionate, the Master of the Day of Doom. Thee only we serve; to Thee alone we pray for succor. Guide us in the straight path, the path of those whom Thou hast blessed… From the opening... Read more
Leslie Townes Hope, better known to my parents and my generation as Bob Hope would have been one hundred and twelve today. Read more
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