LOVE IS AS STRONG AS DEATH An Easter Meditation James Ishmael Ford Text Set me as a seal upon thine heart,
as a seal upon thine arm:
for love is strong as death;
jealousy is cruel as the grave:
the coals thereof are coals of fire,
which hath a most vehement flame. Song of Solomon Last Sunday in my reflection on Passover I stated that the story has no basis in history, but how ultimately, that didn’t matter, because it told something profoundly true about... Read more

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A SONG OF INTERDEPENDENCE A Celebration of Communion for Unitarian Universalists Preface For nearly three hundred years it has been the continuous tradition of the First Unitarian Church of Providence to observe several times a year the ancient rite of Communion. A number of liturgies have been employed over the years. This Unitarian Universalist communion service was compiled and edited by the Reverend James Ishmael Ford, 17th minister of the congregation. The sources upon which this service is based are... Read more

Terence Alan Milligan, better known to many as Spike, was born on this day in 1918. A founding member of the Goon Show, he is generally credited as central influence on the young men who would create Monty Python’s Flying Circus. And, so, thank you, Spike! and if you have a little more time… Read more

No, this is not a holiday I invented for me… Among the ancient Romans, as I understand, the whole month of April was dedicated to the celebration of female deities in a season generally focused on fecundity… And Fordicidia, observed on the 15th of April, was among the oldest of these many rites of spring observed in Rome. It did include an unfortunate rite of sacrificing a pregnant cow to our Mother, the Earth. The Wikipedia article draws our attention... Read more

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was born on this day in 1891 Read more

SHAKING OFF OUR CHAINS A Passover Sermon James Ishmael Ford 13 April 2014 First Unitarian Church Providence, Rhode Island Text
 They thought they were safe
 that spring night; when they daubed
 the doorways with sacrificial blood.
 To be sure, the angel of death
 passed them over, but for what? Forty years in the desert
 without a home, without a bed,
 following new laws to an unknown land.
 Easier to have died in Egypt
or stayed there a slave, pretending there was... Read more

Thank you for asking. I claim, with a tip of the hat to Erasmus, a physiology of faith. My brain is Buddhist, my heart is Christian, and my stomach is Humanist. It all comes together and makes me a Unitarian Universalist. I am convinced in large part of the Buddha’s basic analysis of the human heart, that we are profoundly wounded by our delusion that we and those we love are permanent and our grasping at what is constantly changing... Read more

Today is Luther Johnson‘s birthday. Everyone should listen to some blues in his honor… Read more

Among followers of the Mahayana, the Great Way school of Buddhism, of which the Zen schools are a part, the Buddha’s birth is traditionally celebrated on the eighth day of the fourth month of the Chinese lunar calendar. The Japanese adopted April 8th in the Gregorian calendar in 1873 as a good enough alternative, and this date, today, has become the day most convert Buddhists in the West pause to note the birth of the great physician. Among scholars there... Read more