Ten years ago today the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled that it was unconstitutional to deny same sex couples the right to marry. Jan & I lived in Massachusetts then and I was serving the UU church in Newton. My first wedding for same sex couples where I was able to say “By the authority granted me by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts” was a very private affair involving a colleague who wanted a larger church wedding later, but just... Read more

WAS JEFFERSON A UNITARIAN? And Other Questions Concerning the Influence of an Emergent Unitarianism on the Founding of the American Republic James Ishmael Ford 17 November 2013 First Unitarian Church Providence, Rhode Island Text When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of... Read more

“Washoe, one of the chimpanzees raised by Alan and Trixie Gardner from infancy using American Sign Language (ASL), learned to produce about 150 words. In some instances, she formed compound words to describe new events. ‘Water-bird’ was how she described a duck. In one documented instance, she extended the semantic referent of ‘dirty.’ Washoe, like other young Gardner chimpanzees, at first wore diapers. The word ‘dirty’ ws used to refer to her soiling herself. But when Roger Fouts, the graduate... Read more

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I only met the Reverend Eido Shimano once, in 2010, at a ceremony where he pronounced his senior student, the Reverend Roko Sherry Chayat as a roshi, or senior Zen teacher in the Rinzai line. In his mid-eighties, I was struck at the quality of his presence. The old roshi simply oozed charisma. And I was a bit wary. Okay, a bit more than a bit. His entire teaching career he had been shadowed by rumors of sexual improprieties. And... Read more

ON THE CURE OF SOULS A Meditation on the Liberal Ministry 10 November 2013 Delivered at the Installation of The Reverend Meredith Garmon As the 6th Minister of the Community Unitarian Church at White Plains, New York The Reverend James Ishmael Ford Senior Minister First Unitarian Church Providence, Rhode Island Text The pastor Of grief and dreams Guides his flock towards The next field With all his care Denise Levertov from A Cure of Souls Among the many delights in... Read more

Thanks to the ever interesting Patrick Murfin for pointing out that it was on this day in 1958 that Elvis Presley’s version of Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller’s Hound Dog, first an R&B hit sung by Big Mama Thornton, crossed three million copies sold, a record of record sales matched to that time only by Bing Crosby’s White Christmas and Gene Autry’s Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Nothing would be the same… Read more

I gather this clip is from a 1984 episode of the Today Show. Contains some timeless wisdom, if you ask me. Read more

This brief interview was conducted with the Reverend James Ishmael Ford by a student at a Catholic college for a World’s Religions course. It took place in the minister’s office at the First Unitarian Church of Providence. Part one Part two Read more

After a notorious career, outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are reportedly killed in San Vicente, Bolivia on this day in 1908. Reports of sightings after that have helped to perpetuate a half life in the imaginations of adolescents of all ages & with that a myth is born… (couldn’t find a suitable version of the concluding scene on Youtube, so this will have to do) Read more