The Associated Press reports from Birmingham, Alabama, that “The Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, who was bombed, beaten and repeatedly arrested in the fight for civil rights and hailed by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. for his courage and energy, has died.” The story continues here. May his memory live in all our hearts… Read more

The first official statement from the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Zuccotti Park, Liberty Square: As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies. As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race... Read more

I’m watching, studying, and thinking… Read more

On this day in 1836 Frederick Douglass, disguised as a sailor, escaped slavery. Later he would write of the coded songs that gave inspiration to many like him, who yearned for freedom… Read more

A LOVER’S QUARREL A Meditation on the Nature of the Unitarian Universalist Association James Ishmael Ford 2 October 2011 Association Sunday First Unitarian Church Providence, Rhode Island Text On the 23rd of April, 2010, our congregation voted its third covenant since first gathering in 1720. It reads We the members of the First Unitarian Church of Providence, with respect for the worth and dignity of each person, with wonder at the light we know by many names, and with gratitude... Read more

Have Willie “Big Eyes” Smith on my mind… Read more

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Thanks, Gail, for the pointer… Read more

Today is the feast of St Michael and All Angels. Now I have to admit I kind of feel Judaism began a long downward spiral once it lifted the idea of angels from the Zoroastrians. I much prefer the mashup of Judaism with the Stoics leading into the current of liberal Christianity, leading into Unitarian Universalism as the healthier focus. And, nonetheless, I kind of have a soft spot in my head if not my heart for the idea of... Read more

On this day in 1066, William the Bastard crossed the English channel. Among his army was a direct genetic ancestor of mine, father’s father’s father, etc… A shock when I learned this as genealogically, I’m Irish. Turns out, however, that the Irish peasant who fled to the American shores at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was genetically, if not legally, the son of a son of a son, etc of a powerful landowning family the next county... Read more