Today is our American Thanksgiving. And thanks to the way different holidays are marked out, in the case of Thanksgiving falling as it does on the fourth Thursday in November, this year also happens to be my favorite religious holiday. The 27th of November in the calendar of the Roman Catholic church as well as for those of the Eastern Churches who follow the revised Julian calendar, this is the feast of Sts Barlaam and Josaphat. The Orthodox who continue... Read more

I was mildly surprised and more than a little pleased to see that the American Episcopal church celebrates today as a feast for Isaac Watts. Looking a bit deeper I found he is also acknowledged, although a day earlier in both the Church of England and the Lutheran churches. He is known in many different circles for various achievements, logician, theologian, and hymnodist, sometimes even called the “father of English hymnody.” But, he wasn’t an Anglican. He was a nonconformist,... Read more

The Episcopal church honors the Reverend James Otis Sargent Huntington with a feast on this day. The good father was the founder of the Order of the Holy Cross, an independent Anglican monastic order that eventually aligned with the Benedictine rule. A fascinating figure by himself, but if you include his father and his grandfather you get a remarkable spiritual lineage. His father, the Reverend Frederick Dan Huntington, was a Unitarian minister who converted to Anglicanism and ended up as... Read more

It was on this day in 1859, some one hundred and fifty-five years ago, that Charles Darwin’s revolutionary book On the Origin of Species was published. While the great observation is probably Darwin Day, marking Charles Darwin’s birth on the 12th of February, some mark this out as Evolutionary Day, a time of celebration, singing, dancing, and, I hope, eating a bit too much. Read more

He died today fifty-one years ago. I don’t need to see that bit of film showing his being murdered. This is what I find myself thinking of today… Read more

Dick Smothers turns eighty-four today. He & his brother Tom were pretty important cultural figures in the great uproar that became the “nineteen sixties.” Their brief two-year run “Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” poked the authorities in a time when that was not done on television and pointed viewers in important directions. I have a vivid memory of the show where Pete Seeger showed up and sang “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy.” Everyone knew who he was singing about. It... Read more

I’ve been a fan of Hilda of Whitby for, well, just about forever. She’s one of those singular figures that stand at pivot points in history and by their actions tilt the direction of whole cultures… She was the daughter of Anglo Saxon nobility, born in 614 and raised in the court of King Edwin. When she was thirteen the court converted to Christianity, and with it Hilda. While perhaps not the most auspicious way to enter a religion she... Read more

JUST FRIENDS A Meditation on Friendship as Spiritual Practice 16 November 2014 James Ishmael Ford First Unitarian Church Providence, Rhode Island Text One day while walking quietly together, out of the silence the Buddha’s attendant Ananda declared, “Teacher, to have companions and comrades on the great way is so amazing! I have come to realize that friendship is fully half of an authentic spiritual life. They proceeded along quietly for a while more, before out of that silence the Holy... Read more

William Edward John, better known by his stage name Little Willie John, one of those shooting stars who burned too bright and died too quickly, was born on this day in 1937. Actually… Maybe not a shooting star. Perhaps a fever… Read more

I see that it was on this day in 1525 that Martin Luther still technically a Roman Catholic priest married the former nun Katharina von Bora. Apparently that part of their lives went swimmingly. I’ve been thinking a bit about celibacy and spirituality recently, and this sort of allows me to stop and in honor of Martin and Katharina, to reflect just a moment on the subject. First, celibacy has been a part of spirituality for, well, just about forever.... Read more