FINDING ONE’S PLACE The Existential Crisis, Margaret Fuller’s Path, & Our Own A Sermon James Ishmael Ford 14 October 2012 First Unitarian Church Providence, Rhode Island Text Silent friend of many distances, feel how your breath enlarges all of space. Let your presence ring out like a bell into the night. What feeds upon your face. grows mighty from the nourishment thus offered. Move through transformation, out and in. What is the deepest loss that you have suffered? If drinking... Read more

I see at Wikipedia that by someone’s calculation today is the day in the year 54 that the Emperor Claudius died, poisoned under mysterious circumstances. He would be succeeded by his nephew Nero. This leads me to recall the mid nineteen seventies when the BBC series based upon Robert Graves’ novel I, Claudius came to America. I couldn’t get my hands on a copy of the novel quickly enough so, somewhat grumpily I turned to the primary source for Graves,... Read more

On the Zen way when we encounter disruptions of the natural, when the strange, weird, miraculous happen, we’re warned. Don’t worry, it will pass. Don’t cling. Don’t make it into a religion. You meet the Buddha on the road… I would expand on this just a bit… On the great way, of course, we’re going to find reality distorted. What we think is normal, isn’t. Or, rather, is a very small part of a very big picture. We sit and... Read more

Aleister Crowley was born on this day in 1875. Read more

Though we find clear waters ranging to the vast blue sky in autumn, how an it compare with the hazy moon on a spring night! Most people want to have it pure white, but sweep as you will, you cannot empty the mind Keizan Jokin Those of us who engage the way of koan introspection are gifted with having our noses rubbed in various aspects of reality. Usually we start off well acquainted with differentiation. I’m pretty clear that I’m... Read more

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

 Read more