October – From the Minister
The THEMES we choose each month for Sunday services (carried into discussion groups and classes) seek to reclaim a powerful spiritual vocabulary from the dusty dungeons of outworn theologies. Some strong old words still carry useful power, even if we’ve left behind the religions where first we learned them. To me, COVENANT is such a word. Someone (one of you, a member here) said to me not long ago, “Covenant is a promise I keep to myself, about the kind of person I want to be, the kind of life I mean to lead, together with all kinds of other people, and with all other living things.” When we...
Read MoreSeptember – From the Minister
Gathered here in the mystery of the hour, gathered here in one strong body Gathered here in the struggle and the power—Spirit, draw near. This has been a summer of great struggle, in our country, in our world, from the massacre at the Pulse night club in June to the killing of Philando Castile in July, and so many beautiful others, in Dallas, in Milwaukee and elsewhere, to the human catastrophes in Syria and Palestine to the seemingly more distant catastrophe of climate change—a summer of sorrows and struggle. We come to church to hold all this, which is hard when the summer theme is “JOY”...
Read MoreFebruary – From the Minister
A philosopher has said, the line between good and evil goes through the center of each human heart. Martin Luther said it just slightly differently—simul Justus et peccator. Simul—simultaneously, Justus—justified, et peccator—and yet a sinner. At one moment we are entirely whole in our beauty and brokenness – the tradition of our ancestors reminds us of our humanity – fully beautiful, fully broken; imperfect and yet proclaimed: beloved of earth, of sky, of God. Sin is an edgy topic—especially for religious liberals. The practice this month, of turning, comes from traditional understandings...
Read MoreJanuary – From the Minister
I am running into a new year and the old years blow back like a wind that i catch in my hair like strong fingers like all my old promises and it will be hard to let go of what i said to myself about myself when i was sixteen and twentysix and thirtysix …but i am running into a new year and i beg what i love and i leave to forgive me – Lucille Clifton I am writing on a snow-drifted morning, on the very threshold between one year and the next. Looking back, even just a week behind, I am filled with gratitude for the dozens and dozens, literally hundreds, of members and friends who helped...
Read MoreNovember – From the Minister
love to walk in graveyards at this time of year. In an old one that I know, there was a little marker for a child, with a lamb made of stone lying on the top—a familiar motif in the early 19th century. The engraving read OUR LITTLE FRANK with the day of his birth and his death—one single day. Next to it was another little stone, and it, too, said FRANK. Their second son, born a year after the first, and given the same name, lived only to age three. And next to them their parents, and the stones of other children who lived on to adulthood, and the children’s children, and there they are now...
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