Frank Schulman’s delightful This Day in Unitarian Universalist History mentions Paul Best for today in 1645 – although it doesn’t actually say why this day in this year. Doesn’t matter to me. Best is a worthy person to note, most any day… Born somewhere in the neighborhood of 1590, Best was educated at Cambridge, fought in Europe as a mercenary and later with Cromwell’s Parliamentary Army. In his travels he encountered the Polish Brethren and embraced Socinianism, holding for the... Read more

GOD IS ONE Francis David, Reformation Unitarianism & Some of Its Significance for Contemporary Unitarian Universalists A Sermon 27 January 2013 James Ishmael Ford First Unitarian Church Providence, Rhode Island Text In this world there have always been many opinions about faith and salvation. You need not think alike to love alike. There must be knowledge in faith also. Sanctified reason is the lantern of faith. Religious reform can never be all at once, but gradually step by step. If... Read more

It can be argued that today in 1564, when the Council of Trent published its conclusions, the Roman Catholic Church found its counter reformation stance and took on the basic forms and theological stances we recognize as that church today. There wouldn’t be another general council for some three hundred years, when they would tidy up some loose ends by proclaiming the pope’s infallibility when speaking ex cathedra.. When I was a child I was told Catholics weren’t actually Christians,... Read more

Yesterday afternoon a number of us from First Unitarian joined with others to witness the historic moment at the State House, where after some two and a half hours the House voted to approve marriage equality in Rhode Island. A long time coming. And, of course, an uphill battle even yet to get through the senate, where the senate president has long opposed marriage equality. Still, the governor has stated he will sign the bill should it reach his desk,... Read more

One of the things I love about Wikipedia’s calendar is that it marks anniversaries for events I have to admit I can’t quite figure out how they are able to mark out to a specific day in our contemporary calendar. It’s so arbitrary and sufficiently unlikely that the assertion emerges like a mermaid from a children’s wading pool. Totally unlikely. Totally unexpected. Okay, that said, according to that increasingly venerable resource Wikipedia, today is the day in the year 41... Read more

Wikipedia tells me that today marks the three thousand, one hundred & second year of the Kali Yuga, the age of dissolution or discord, that last of the great cycles of time in the Hindu traditions. (As a footnote I just learned the “kali” of Kali Yuga & the divine Kali are two different and unrelated words. Learn something every day, my mom liked to say…) The Buddhist Lotus Sutra also has a cyclic map, and, sure enough, we’re in... Read more

Arthur Tooth, a priest of the Church of England, was part of that movement within the mid-nineteenth century to revive Catholic rituals within the CofE. As the Anglican church in England is a state religion, it is governed in many ways by law, and in reaction to the rise of ritualism, in 1874 a Public Worship Regulation Act was passed by Parliament. Mr Tooth was in regular violation of the act for use of vestments, incense, etc. He was charged... Read more

LIVING THE DREAM INTO THE WORLD A Call into the Great Healing James Ishmael Ford 20 January 2013 First Unitarian Church Providence, Rhode Island Text We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Martin Luther King, Jr I’ve mentioned before how when Dr Martin Luther King, Jr was assassinated, after the police and FBI arrived, during all the confusion, people running around, agents trying to get a handle on what had happened,... Read more

Edgar Allan Poe was born on this day in Boston in 1809. Among the East Coast cities where he spent time was Providence. On occasion as I walk around the church standing in the most historic area of the city, I see among the walking tours with small bands of tourists gawking at the lovely this and thats we have in the neighborhood, is the Poe tour. Our city’s little claim to Poe fame is that his work brought him... Read more

I’m a fan of Justin Whitaker, a young Buddhist scholar who blogs as an American (in England) Buddhist Perspective. In his most recent posting he ruminated on the nature of good and evil in Buddhism using categories introduced from the Western Philosophical tradition, and particularly referencing Kant and a contemporary interpreter of Kant, Stephen Palmquist. I enjoy this sort of thing as it is highly unlikely I’ll ever delve more deeply into Kant than I had in a college survey... Read more