Fire, like our connection to the divine, needs to be nurtured, needs to be maintained, if it is to continue. This is a helpful lesson to remember during these difficult days. For it prompts the question: In these times when it can feel like the fires of our spirits flag, what shall we do to maintain them?
The United States needs to establish a National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation if it is to ever address systematic racism, rural poverty, and white supremacy.
Next Monday, November 16th, at 6:30 p.m. Central, I will be giving an online lecture at Rice University on “Varieties of Populism in the United States.”
Over the years, I have tried to follow the injunction, attributed to Karl Barth but probably apocryphal, to preach with “the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.” Not being a Christian, I have never taken the injunction literally. Rather I have understood it to mean, root yourself in your tradition, ground yourself in the goodness of the Earth, and from that foundation offer up what...
On October 6, 2020, I was part of a panel discussion organized by Move to Amend on The Immorality of the Climate Crisis and Corporate Rule. The moderator was Greg Coleridge other panel participants were Shannon Biggs (Movement Rights), Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap (Move to Amend), and Casey Camp Horinek (Ponca Nation of Oklahoma). Here are my remarks:
Kamala Harris’s selection as the Democratic Party’s Vice Presidential candidate is historic. She is the first woman of color to be nominated for the position. In today’s New York Times, the columnist Frank Bruni captured much of the excitement about Harris claiming, “She represents an America that’s evolving, fitfully, toward equal opportunity and equal justice.” In the same column, Bruni also...
This past Friday the Washington Post journalist Robert Samuels put out a simple eleven-word tweet. Over an image of the Post, he wrote, “Have mercy. Every story in this front page made m[e] gasp.” The articles offered a litany of woes: “Trump suggests delaying election;” “U.S. economy contracts at record rate;” “Mail backlog raises fears of delays in ballot delivery;” “DHS gathers ‘intelligence’...
as preached for the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston’s online worship service, April 26, 2020 The theme of today’s service is renewal and regeneration. And in this sermon I invite us to consider the most pressing question immediately before us: What comes next? The Governor of Texas has begun the process of re-opening the state. He has appointed a task force to get non...
The question is one that a lot of religious people and leaders are asking themselves right now. The global health pandemic means that responsible congregations throughout the world have shuttered their doors to physical services for the foreseeable future. Some are continuing to use their sanctuaries to film online services, others are producing online services directly from the homes of clergy...
as preached online for the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston, April 12, 2020 You might remember that our theme for worship for April is renewal. This is our Easter service. I am scheduled to be talking with you about renewal and rebirth. And in this sermon, we are going to be focusing on something that might be called the resurrection of the living. The inspiration for it comes from...