LOVE REACHES OUT A Sermon for Dr Martin Luther King, Jr and the Rest of Us James Ishmael Ford 19 January, 2014 First Unitarian Church Providence, Rhode Island Text Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confused life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it. Martin Luther King, Jr. The other day Cathy went off to one of those denominational offerings that she and I attend now and again hoping to keep up with the current wisdom on... Read more

One of the less pleasant aspects of becoming a public person, for me public person means being a Unitarian Universalist parish minister, a Zen Buddhist priest & meditation teacher, as well as something of a social activist, and a writer reflecting on these things from my pulpit and in other public venues, in books and on social media, is that people not only have opinions about me, but they say them out loud. And not just about what I think,... Read more

On one of the various listservs to which I belong someone asked for prayers on behalf of people in a particularly stressful moment. What surprised me was how several people responded expressing their opinion that such things are of no use, and offered suggestions for what the person should do. I was, frankly, shocked. This is putatively a group of people with a bit better than average insight into the human condition. Silly me… And it set me to thinking,... Read more

In the Roman calendar today is the feast of Macarius of Egypt. In the Eastern churches his feast is a couple of days later on the 19th. While a Copt, he is celebrated as a saint throughout the various branches of the Christian Church. Macarius is a significant figure in the establishment of the monastic tradition within Christianity and a signal figure among the Desert Fathers. He was famed for his kindness and generosity to others, including non-believers (although he... Read more

Turns out in Medieval Europe today was celebrated as the Feast of the Ass. Mostly a French thing, related to the Feast of Fools, a turning of authority, where the low are raised up and the high brought down. There appear to be some connections here to earlier “pagan” festivals like the Saturnalia and Carl Jung likes to suggest, the festival of Cervula, adding in a trickster element to the deal. I’ve always been partial to those figures like the... Read more

George Fox died on this day in 1691. The English mystic and preacher is generally credited as founding the Religious Society of Friends, although I join with those who believe that Margaret Fell is the person who held the anarchic the Children of Light or Friends of the Truth together, and so, really should always have her name mentioned, when George’s is… Walt Whitman wrote of Fox, “George Fox stands for something too—a thought—the thought that wakes in silent hours—perhaps... Read more

A STRANGE UNIVERSALISM Finding the Spiritual in a Murder Mystery James Ishmael Ford 12 January 2014 First Unitarian Church Providence, Rhode Island Text There is a strange universalism in the Agatha Christie novels I have just started reading. Pretty much all the characters are considered “likely suspects” at the beginning. Everyone has a motive. Everyone has a secret. No one is as they appear to be. As Miss Marple explains in The Murder at the Vicarage, “Normal people do such... Read more

When heaven is someplace out there it becomes whatever you want it to be. But, there is something else we can do, another direction to travel. The other day I was at a Unitarian Universalist clergy event. At some point we were invited to turn to someone and pronounce a blessing upon that person. It’s what we do these days. My companion wishes me good things. I wished him the deep. Perhaps not the kindest of wishes, but I meant... Read more

When Jan and I first moved to New England she decided she wanted to go and put a rose on Henry James’ grave. I went along taking my own rose for William James. (As a special bonus, when we arrived at the James family gravesite in the Cambridge graveyard, we discovered only a few feet away the marker for the (perhaps last) great Unitarian Universalist theologian James Luther Adams) They said of the James boys that one wrote like a... Read more

This morning, as per usual, I drove Jan from the house up to the train station for her daily ride up to Watertown and her work as research librarian at the Perkins School for the Blind. It was snowing. Not really bad, but certainly enough to slow us and most everyone else down a bit. Then on the way back to the house as I was proceeding in the middle lane of Interstate 95, the SUV in the fast lane... Read more