Kenneth Rexroth, one of the greats, was born on this day in 1905… “Cross-country hitchhiker, spiritual seeker in monasteries, Parisian ex-pat, Wobbly supporter, translator of Asian poetry, Greenwich Village bohemian, forest ranger in the Pacific Northwest, sexual adventurer: if you mashed up the life experiences of Kerouac, Brother Antonious, Ginsberg, and Gary Snyder you’d get something that looked like Kenneth Rexroth’s (1905-82) bio. He just did it all fifteen years earlier.” David Smay Read more

Maybe the next version of the song will include the Buddhists… Happy Solstice to all and to all a Happy Solstice! Read more

Living Nativity Service  First Unitarian Church Of Providence in Rhode Island 19 December 2010 This service is based upon an original produced by the First Parish, Unitarian Universalist in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It has undergone serious revision over the ensuing years. The principal authors of the revisions are Noreen Kimball and James Ishmael Ford, but diverse hands have had their input… (Holy family, star, wise people all gather early to the “front” of the church. One stage manager should go down... Read more

I’m a big fan of critical thinking. I believe it has a central place in religion, as well as in all other aspects of our lives. Looking hard, being just a little suspicious of truth claims, and whenever anything is asserted about the phenomenal universe, doubling down on the critical thinking thing has been a big help for me along the way. Just one example is how it saves one from breatharians and others who deny the reality of the... Read more

Perhaps we’ve found it… If you find yourself in Providence, come see if this was it. If that’s too far, here are other locations… Read more

Wishing all and sundry a Blessed Saturnalia… Read more

In Zen there’s a basic assertion that among many other things we human beings (and the whole blessed rest of things from atoms to galaxies and all in between) have two faces, kind of like the god of January and of gates, the divine Janus. One face, aspect, dimension is how we are who and what we are, you and me as discrete and real and precious, and, oh yes, passing. And, then, at the very, very same time, we... Read more

On this day in 1791 when the Virgina General Assembly ratified the first ten amendments to the American Constitution, the Bill of Rights was born. I find it interesting that this foundational aspect to the republic almost certainly could not get passed today. It does seem success and failure really are all about timing… Read more

Those who follow the way of the dark heart might do well to notice this is the feast of our elder brother St John of the Cross… Read more

I see that on this day in 1294 Pietro de Morrone, Pope Celestine V, citing his “desire for humility, for a purer life, for a stainless conscience, the deficiencies of his own physical strength, his ignorance, the perverseness of the people, his longing for the tranquility of his former life,” resigned the office of pope. He had served for a fraction over five months. Among his handful of accomplishments was asserting with papal authority that a pope can resign. His... Read more