Posts Tagged ‘patheos blog’

2012-11-17 For months, we were barraged with a national narrative of a “razor tight” presidential race. (What kind of mixed metaphor is “razor tight” anyway?) But it turned out to be not so close after all. Indeed, some paid attention to voices that were saying all along it would be close, but not so very…

2012-10-06 “The manner in which one endures what must be endured is more important than the thing that must be endured.” Dean Acheson (attrib.)   We are accustomed to regard a person’s circumstances when we consider his or her level of suffering. Certainly certain conditions are more conducive to despair than others. Inmates in a…

2012-10-20 “Love is the spirit of this church, and service is its law.” So begins a well-beloved passage adapted from the words of the Rev. James Vila Blake, a Unitarian Universalist minister in Evanston, Illinois. These words are often spoken in the life of our faith. Several of the congregations I’ve served spoke them communally…

2012-10-31 Masks   What will you wear for Halloween? The trees are changing faces, and the rough chins of chestnut burrs grimace and break to show their sleek brown centers.  The hills have lost their mask of green and grain, settled into a firmer geometry of uncolored line and curve.   Which face will you…

2012-11-03 Religious faith consists of our most deeply held values. It is the summation of what is of greatest importance to us, our ultimate commitments. But those commitments are expressed in many different ways, through many different aspects of our lives; they have to be if those commitments really are ultimate commitments. So of course,…

2012-11-15 In a way, it feels like a magnified version of Christmas – the election, I mean. All of that lead-up, all the wishes and hopes for what you might get this year, all of that investment in trying to get just the right outcome…and then it’s done. The big reveal is complete. And we…

2012-08-22 I was going to write a post very much like the one that Peter Friedrichs shared yesterday. One in which I bemoaned the barrage of outrage from all sides of the political spectrum: “President Obama thinks that small business owners don’t actually accomplish anything by their own hands!” “Republican lawmakers swam naked in the…

2012-08-29 I try to be a nice person. Really I do. OK, it doesn’t always work, but I deeply believe in the practice of civility and respect toward all people. So I was genuinely sorry when a Facebook friend wrote to say that I had deeply offended her by questioning her integrity, and that we…

2012-09-05 The moral and ethical questions surrounding abortion are complex, and although I have my own firm opinions, I know that good people disagree with me for good reasons. I have no intention of arguing the question here. No, what I’m wondering about at the moment is just what it means to be “pro-life.” After…

2012-09-22 One hundred and fifty years ago today, President Lincoln issued a Preliminary Proclamation that mandated the emancipation of all slaves in Confederate territory that did not return to the Union by January 1 of the following year. It was the beginning of the end of one of the greatest blots upon the face of…