Now don’t get me wrong. I admire the always erudite Lutheran minister and academic Martin Marty. Still, I have to admit I found his recent article about the apparent growth in membership in Unitarian Universalism annoying. He correctly noted how church membership reporting is notoriously unreliable. For example, as I understand it, the Roman Catholic Church simply reports everyone baptized. Their numbers seem to be wildly inflated. But we UUs are asked to pay membership dues to our center and... Read more

Journeys on the Silk Road Joyce Morgan & Conrad Walters 2011, 2012, Lyons Press, Guilford Thus shall you think of this fleeting world: A star at dawn, a bubble on a stream, A flash of lightning in a summer cloud, A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream. Diamond Sutra Dharani I read Journeys on the Silk Road (provided to me by the publisher) while flying from Providence to Portland, Oregon, on my way to the bi-annual conference of the... Read more

On this day in 1962 James Meredith integrated Ole Miss. Not the end. But, and while the struggle continues, this was a major, major breakthrough. And it should not be forgotten… Read more

SPIRITUALITY, SPIRITUAL PRACTICE & SPIRITUAL DIRECTION A Sermon James Ishmael Ford 30 September 2012 First Unitarian Church Providence, Rhode Island Text Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi or Zen. Not any religion or cultural system. I am not from East or West, not out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all. I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or the next,... Read more

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It’s Jerry Lee Lewis‘ birthday! Read more

I opened my Facebook page to be treated with a quote attributed to the new age guru Eckhart Tolle, “Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.” I thought, my goodness, I guess, okay if you’re addressing a middle class person in the First world. Sure, it can be invaluable to take... Read more

One by one those ubiquitous figures from my childhood are dying. The Buddha was right, all things composed of parts will come apart… Good night, Andy. Thanks for the music… Read more

In a letter to Edward Carrington in 1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote “The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the later. But I mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.” I... Read more

A FEW WORDS IN FAVOR OF IDLENESS A Meditation on the Holy Land & How to Find It James Ishmael Ford 23 September 2012 First Unitarian Church Providence, Rhode Island Text Hui Tzu said to Chuang, “I have a big tree, the kind they call a “stinktree.” The trunk is so distorted, so full of knots, no one can get a straight plank out of it. The branches are so crooked you cannot cut them up in any way that... Read more