Sesshin ended at noon on Sunday. Jan & I stopped and gobbled a sandwich, then started a mad dash to Roxbury and the installation of the new senior minister and executive director of the Benevolent Fraternity of Unitarian Universalist Churches, the UU Urban Ministry, the, near as I can tell, oldest social service agency in the country. The new senior minister is an old Zen hand and a member of our sangha. The installation preacher said how spiritual engagement and... Read more

This afternoon Jan & I are off to sesshin, leaving auntie & the cats in charge of the homestead. This means it is unlikely there will be any additional posts before Sunday evening… In the meantime here’s something to chew on… Nothing Nothing sings in our bodies like breath in a flute. It dwells in the drum. I hear it now that slow beat like when a voice said to the dark, let there be light, let there be ocean and blue fish born of nothing and they were there. I... Read more

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On this day in 1965 James Reeb lay in an Alabama hospital, his life slipping away. Read more

I was driving into church this morning when I heard the most fascinating, compelling and lovely story about the WASPs during the Second World war, women who flew military aircraft in a variety of capacities back here in the States, freeing up men to go into combat. If you have eight minutes and fifty nine seconds to listen to it, I heartily recommend you do. There’s a print text as well. Go here for both. As one might expect if... Read more

A friend just forwarded me a story that recounts how television talking head Glenn Beck decries churches that call for social justice, revealing how such are either covert Communists or Nazis. He really is a nutjob. My ongoing concern is that he appears to have a very large following. I wonder if people believe this stuff and bother, or just find him entertaining in a creepy sort of way. I fear some take him seriously. And what a sad universe... Read more

thank you, Will! Read more

THIS SECOND DAY OF JULY ANNO DOMINI 1722, IN THE EIGHTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF OUR SOVERIGN LORD GEORGE… Reflections on the History of the First Unitarian Church of Providence Cyrus O’Neil & James Ishmael Ford 7 March 2010 First Unitarian Church Providence, Rhode Island Text This Second Day of July Anno Domini 1722, in the eigth year of the Reign of our Soverign Lord George of Greate Britain etc. King. To all people to whom these presents shall... Read more

Couple ordained as Zen priests Sensei Melissa ‘Myozen’ Blacker, center, ordains Karen ‘Do’on’ Weik, left, and Jay ‘Rinsen’ Weik, right, during a Zen Buddhism ceremony at Lourdes College on Sunday. Seventeen of the Weiks’ students received the Zen precepts in a Jukai ceremony. Zoom | Photo Reprints By David YonkeBLADE RELIGION EDITOR  toledoblade.com — The Blade ~ Toledo Ohio In what may have been the first ceremony of its kind in the Toledo area, two local Zen Buddhist teachers were... Read more

Today, in 1770, in one of those events that would spark the American revolution, British soldiers fired upon a crowd, perhaps a mob, of Americans in Boston, killing five. The British captain and five of his soldiers were arrested and tried. John Adams, as most know, led the defense team. They were acquitted. The Wikipedia article quotes what Adams wrote about the event in his diary. It is an important document revealing both the mind of the man who would... Read more