Thanks to the good folk at the First Baptist Church of Marble Falls for this gem. Read more

Over at the website Fivethirtyeight.com, political (and sports) prognosticator supreme Nate Silver and his associates have a little fun speculating about the “horse race” in the two parties, even as they freely acknowledge this is well ahead of having any substantive data they can really work with. At the same time these guys aren’t your average neighbor on the barstool at the local watering hole. The panel, includes Nate Silver himself, as well as the site’s data lab editor Micah... Read more

Walter Frederick Morrison was born on this day in 1920. An inventor, it was in 1937 he found himself quite taken with what he could do throwing a popcorn can lid. Several disadvantages ended when he switched to cake pans. He and his wife then marketed them as Flyin’ Cake Pans on the beach in Santa Monica. Later he switched to plastic and tried for a larger market. As it happens it was also on this day, in 1957 he... Read more

SHELTER FOR THE BIRDS OF HEAVEN A Meditation on Race, Class, and the Way of Liberal Religion James Ishmael Ford 18 January 2015 First Unitarian Church Providence, Rhode Island Text Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn’t matter. Ours is no caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a hundred times. Come, yet again, come, come. Jalaladdin Rumi When I first arrived here in Providence nearly seven years ago, race was... Read more

Betty White was born on this day in 1922. Read more

Today, the 14th of January was celebrated throughout the Middle Ages as the Feast of the Ass. It is generally seen as related to the ever popular Feast of Fools, but in this variation celebrating all sorts of variations on donkey stories, attached specifically to the story of the holy family going to Egypt, and the donkey they rode on… Some, particularly Carl Jung think it derives from a pagan holiday Cervulus which was observed on the first of January.... Read more

It was on this day in 1968 that Johnny Cash played live at Folsom State Prison. He was well received… Read more

Earlier today I was rummaging through a little pile of sermons delivered by my predecessor as minister of the church I serve, the First Unitarian Church of Providence, the Reverend Dr Augustus Mendon Lord (the picture shown here is from his portrait which hangs in one of our church’s parlors), who served here in Providence between 1890 and 1931. I’ve often wondered about someone with the name Augustus Lord, and what that must have meant in his life. Given that... Read more

THE JESUS SUTRAS Some Early Morning Thoughts on What Might Have Been and Perhaps What Could Yet Be James Ishmael Ford 11 January 2015 First Unitarian Church Providence, Rhode Island Text Compassionate Father, Radiant Son, Pure Wind King – three in one. Supreme King, Will of Ages, Compassionate joyous lamb Loving all who suffer Fearless as you strive for us Free us of the karma of our lives Bring us back to our original nature Delivered from all danger. Great... Read more

I stumbled on this while researching for this coming Sunday’s sermon on the so-called Jesus Sutras, early Chinese Nestorian Christian texts. Turns out that in 782 an Indian Buddhist monk named Prajna came to the Chinese imperial capital Chang’an. He carried with him a collection of Sanskrit Buddhist texts. He found an unlikely collaborator in doing his translations in the person of a Nestorian bishop, Adam. The two embarked on a twenty year long project. The results of their efforts... Read more