Busy day ahead, but mainly reading… My installation is next Sunday and it is amazing how much time that sucks up. (By the bye, if you’re going to be within driving distance of Providence on Sunday the 8th of February, we are going to have a major shindig at the church at three o’clock. Please consider yourself invited. Some very interesting people will be holding forth and I know for a fact some serious treats will be up for eating... Read more

On this day in 1661 the body of the late Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Oliver Cromwell which had been exhumed, was ritually executed for the regicide of Charles the First on the twelfth anniversary of the king’s beheading. Now I love Anglicanism, it is my favorite of the Christian churches, a little bit Protestant, a little bit Catholic, a call to a middle way. However one of the shadows of that church is directly connected to these... Read more

Thank you Ed! Read more

Below, I’ve copied the text of the final draft Unitarian Universalist Principles & Purposes from Steve Caldwell’s Liberal Faith Development. He adds some commentary worth reading and I encourage a visit. My principal concern with the document was the notorious misappropriation language which appeared in the first draft, was modified by the Commission itself following a time for responses and now further modified by the Board before they authorized it to come before the General Assembly this June. As far... Read more

Robert Frost26 March 1874 – 29 January 1963 Read more

Well it’s over. This morning the Reverend Frater Jan Knost did the morning wake up going to and fro reciting verse. I opened my door and threw my roommate’s shoe at him (not in the Muslim insult sort of way, but rather in the yowling cat sort of way…) We ate another lovely heavy breakfast, then gathered back in the old kitchen for a communion service conducted by the Reverend Frater Carlton Smith, after which we left to the four... Read more

The smoke billowing from the chimney at Sudbury’s Wayside Inn is white. At today’s one hundredth seventh business meeting of the Fraters of the Wayside Inn, we increased our active number to our traditional twenty-one with the election of the Reverend Frater Carolyn Patierno (all fraters are fraters – what can I say?) minister of the All Souls Unitarian Universalist Congregation in New London, Connecticut. Congrats Frater Patierno. For those unfamiliar with the arcane habits of the fraters, there are... Read more

Well, here I am, once again, in Sudbury, at the renowned Wayside Inn, for the one hundred and seventh (I believe as I type this out) gathering of the Fraters of the Wayside Inn. We straggled in yesterday and last night, at least most of us. A few are not here because of illness or the illness of a spouse. One is away on sabbatical. Some fresh or refreshed, some bedraggled (me, with my back acting up in unpleasant ways),... Read more

LIKE SOMEONE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT REACHING BEHIND HER HEAD FOR THE PILLOW What Buddhism Teaches Me About Being a Unitarian Universalist Minister A Sermon by James Ishmael Ford 25 January 2009 First Unitarian ChurchProvidence, Rhode Island Text Yunyan asked Daowu, ‘How does the Bodhisattva Guanyin use those many hands and eyes?’ Daowu answered, ‘It is like someone in the middle of the night reaching behind her head for the pillow.’ Yunyan said, ‘I understand.’ Daowu asked, ‘How... Read more

Beliefnet.com – New YorkFriday January 23, 2009 Lama Surya Das passed on this fascinating bit. Richard Blum, who is the husband of California Senator Diane Feinstein, also happens to be a major supporter of Buddhism. He was up on the platform during the swearing in. Beforehand, he told Barack Obama that he had with him a white khata — a silk Tibetan scarf — given him by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Blum described what happened next in a letter... Read more