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How to be evangelist
2012-06-04 First, let me introduce myself, as this is my first post at Quest for Meaning. I am Rev. Dr. Matt Tittle, minister of Central Unitarian Church in Paramus, NJ. I have been blogging since 2006, most prominently at the Houston Chronicle from 2006-2010. I am delighted to begin blogging here, where I will post…
Read MorePaying Attention
2012-06-09 “We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake. . . .Only that day dawns to which we are awake.” Henry David Thoreau A couple of months ago, I took the Union of Concerned Scientists online quiz (http://www.coolersmarter.org/) designed to tell me how to reduce my carbon footprint. It was called 20 days, 20…
Read MoreA Personal Relationship with God
2012-06-07 The aspect of my personal faith that seems to bring about the most confusion in friends and colleagues is that I believe I have a deep and abiding personal relationship with a God that is incapable of knowing that I even exist. I find that the confusion about this theological point rests not only…
Read MoreA Wild Patience
2012-05-09 Rev. Dr. Michael Tino A wild patience has taken me this far/as if I had to bring to shore/a boat with a spasmodic outboard motor/old sweaters, nets, spray-mottled books/tossed in the prow/some kind of sun burning my shoulder-blades. -Adrienne Rich, Integrity Patience is a spiritual virtue worth cultivating, and yet it is something in short…
Read MoreWhatever You Decide Is Perfect
2012-05-17 One of the things about being a parish minister is that your schedule is constantly being changed by people’s needs and crises. You can be on your way out the door when you get a phone call: someone needs to talk, so you talk. It could be a church leader who just wants to review an agenda,…
Read MoreHoly Curiosity
2012-05-18 In the story of the Little Prince, there is a compelling scene in which he arrives on a new planet and encounters a businessman. We know it’s a businessman because he is counting he is too busy counting to lift his head in response to the Little Prince’s greeting. He is behind his…
Read MorePaying Tribute
2012-05-22 In her best-selling Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins imagines a world of the future—a dystopian reality in which North American society has been replaced with a world where workers toil for the good of a small elite, threatened with the use of force, and given hope only by the small chance of winning a…
Read MoreWhat Kind of a Parent is God?
2012-05-23 Women’s studies classes in college introduced me to the idea of feminine images of God/goddess. Frankly, I hadn’t really much thought about it up to that point. God was simply not an idea that I much related to, since God seemed to be distant, vague, and to alternate unpredictably between benevolent and judgmental.…
Read MoreThe Meaning of Memorial Day
2012-05-24 I thought I understood the meaning of Memorial Day. I thought the military uniform hanging in my closet taught me the meaning of Memorial Day. I thought that growing up the child of a soldier, and the grandchild of a sailor taught me the meaning of Memorial Day. But I was wrong. I sensed…
Read MoreSex and War: Thoughts on Memorial Day Weekend
2012-05-26 For Sunday, May 27th, I titled the worship service at the Church of the Restoration, “Sex and War: Love and Hope.” My title mostly came from a 2008 book by Malcolm Potts and Tom Hayden, Sex and War: How Biology Explains Warfare and Terrorism and Offers a Path to a Safer World. It’s a…
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