What started as a silly exclamation after drinking at the pub one night turned into two major projects that I undertook at seminary. The exclamation – interjected as a group of us at Union Theological Seminary discovered a mutual love of musical theater – was “we should do a Broadway Revue!” A few months later, we …
I love words. I love their power to evoke emotions, actions, ideas, images. I love how a carefully crafted phrase can roll gracefully and deliciously like a warm cinnamon bun, or jar us like an unexpectedly bitter orange. And more, I love that as Unitarian Universalists, we delight in words, and all that they can …
Let’s imagine together. It is a cold night as you bundle up in a winter coat, or maybe a thick comforter, with layers of socks under your shoes, and mittens on your hands. You may be alone, or you may be with someone else; let’s imagine your favorite person is also bundling up like you …
Listen here. In my first semester of seminary, I took a course in systematic theology from Dr. James Cone, known as the father of black liberation theology. Dr. Cone is a force of nature – a slight black man from the backwoods of Arkansas, with incredible passion and intellect, and who at age 73 can …
Listen here. Last week, we started cobbling together our own universal translators. Unlike the Star Trek universe that Gene Roddenberry created, we aren’t equipped to automatically understand the many different languages of many cultures, and even if we were, we wouldn’t always know what people really meant. What we know is that real communication relies …
Listen here. Many things would be a lot easier if we lived in the Star Trek universe. You see, in the Star Trek universe, it is important to be able to communicate with sentient beings from other planets and galaxies – in English, of course – and thus, Gene Roddenberry created a universe where everyone …
As a Unitarian Universalist, “Holy Week” doesn’t hold anywhere near the significance, meaning, or panic as it does for my Christian colleagues. In many of our congregations, a Seder may be held, but otherwise our only big event is an Easter service largely centered around the metaphor of resurrection and its placement during spring and …
Today, I read an essay by Aurelia Isabel Henry Reinhardt entitled “Worship: Its Fundamental Place in Liberal Religion.” Reinhardt explores briefly the history of worship with an eye to what we have inherited; that we have always sought public religion to unify us “in the common search for the Ultimate Good” and that we aren’t …
At the end of the Friday morning worship at General Assembly, one of my fellow offsite delegates typed into the chat box, that was a moving service. Worship is my least favorite part of being a UU. As someone whose probable program focus will be preaching and worship, I was floored. Isn’t that kinda the …
It was amazing. The joint service, I mean. I’m exhausted…but thrilled. And I feel invigorated. Rev. Scott Alexander, lately of the Vero Beach congregation, shared a message of hope, excitement, and invigoration. He woke me up when he said that there are more people who believe they were abducted by aliens than are Unitarian Universalist. …