Yesterday Jan & I stopped everything important and went to an afternoon baseball game with two old friends. And I don’t mean that overpriced extravaganza at Fenway (consider an appropriate genuflection taking place with the mention of the holy name here, but only a small one…). No, I mean a delightful afternoon at McCoy Stadium in our new home town Pawtucket. The Sox steamrolled over the Leigh Valley’s Iron Pigs (what can be better than a league that includes teams... Read more

Sunday had a bittersweet quality to it. For me, at least, and I suspect for a few more, as well… Lynn Johnson ended her long running comic “For Better or for Worse.” This has been flat out one of my favorite newspaper comic strips. And I say this as a serious fan of newspaper comics. Originally she planned on this past Saturday and the Sunday epilogue being “it.” The end. But life is a mysterious thing, as perhaps you’ve noted,... Read more

Lecil Travis Martin, better known a Boxcar Willie, master of American hobo music, was born on this day in 1931. Read more

Last evening Jan & I attended a potluck reception for the Pru Comm (the delightfully archaic name for the First Unitarian Church’s board of trustees). We munched and sipped and arranged ourselves in various small groups to talk of this and that, then rearranged and talked of that and this. It was a sweet evening. Among our choices of subject for conversation was the new production of Hair being produced in Manhattan’s Central Park. Two of us had been there... Read more

A major problem for American Unitarian Universalists (and perhaps Canadian UUs, as well) is how we tend to be overwhelmingly liberal politically. I find this coincidence of liberal religion and liberal politics quite congenial. But, it does create the sense we are the (left wing of the) Democratic party at prayer. Both to outsiders and to many of us. This would be fine if we were a contemplative working group of the Democratic party. But we’re not. We are a... Read more

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Writing at ten twenty in the morning on Friday it appears the McCain campaign has successfully created a fog of uncertainty around the imminent announcement of the senator’s running mate. It seems false rumors have been floated and then denied within hours for most of the day. But the name that is increasingly being touted is that of the governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin. Whatever else may be true if this turns out to be the senator’s selection it is... Read more

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives. Attributed to Henry David Thoreau One of the blogs I regularly visit is Brad Warner’s Hardcore Zen. Brad presents as Zen’s bad boy,... Read more

Well, push came to shove, and both Senator and President Clinton stepped up and acted with grace and passion in their enthusiastic endorsements of Senator Barack Obama’s bid for the presidency. And now for the first time in our American history a major political party has nominated a black man for that highest office… There are many difficulties ahead of us. Mr Obama is, like all people, flawed. And this campaign has already shown itself to be bitter fought, and... Read more

Near the end of her wonderful book, Waking Up To What You Do, Diane Rizzetto quotes the Dalai Lama. There is only one important point you must keep in your mind and let it be your guide. No matter what people call you, you are just who you are. Keep to this truth. You must ask yourself how is it you want to live your life. We live and we die, this is the truth that we can only face... Read more