Quest Blog
Naming the Ultimate, Part One
2013-08-15 I suspect that we think about the ultimate because we can’t manage to see ourselves as ultimate. Or infinite. Or eternal. Or all-knowing. And that hurts! It hurts to be a too, too solid, limited, fragile creature. So, we think about the Spirit of Life. God. The gods. The Ultimate Concern. Search the internet…
Read MoreNaming the Ultimate, Part Two
2013-08-22 A quick peek at www.godchecker.com gives some indication of the sheer number of times humanity has attempted to name The Ultimate. At this point philosophers–and even most theologians–have given up on a proof of god and left the battlefield. For some, a god or gods is there, for others, not so much. We can…
Read MoreWelcome To This Broken World, Sweetheart (2013)
2013-08-17 Amid the commotion of our family’s ordinary daily lives, I do pay some attention to the news. The violence in Egypt this week is particularly heartbreaking to observe. The rows of bodies — mostly young men — waiting and waiting in the Cairo heat for a proper burial…that image, along with the one of…
Read MoreToday
2013-08-24 Today I am going to try and live into the simplicity and struggle of this covenant (co-created by junior high UU youth at camp this summer): Respect, Kindness, Forgiveness, Focus. Today I am going to aspire to be the human being I wish others would be to me and my neighbors. Maybe tomorrow too. So…
Read MoreHeroes
2013-08-21 Perhaps you have heard about Antoinette Tuff, who this week single-handedly prevented a massacre at an elementary school outside of Atlanta. When a man bearing an AK-47 and a variety of other weapons came into the school where Ms. Tuff works as a clerk she did not pull out a gun and shoot him,…
Read MoreDancing The Real
2013-08-29 You danced once, there, in those rocks. It meant something. It all did—you, your love, the beautiful stones. You danced there, happy. It meant something. Those things, they were as real as the cotton in the threads of your scarf. You danced there again, there, in those rocks. Many things meant…
Read MoreSeptember = Back to….
2013-08-30 It’s September, pretty much, and all-the-sudden. I feel the lure of “back-to-school” as surely as the tide pulls the sea back towards the glimmering moon. But I am not going back-to-school, I haven’t gone back-to-school in September for years. Isn’t it amazing, how integrated into our systems is the seasonal rhythm of our lives…
Read MoreA Month of Weddings
2013-09-01 Yesterday closed out August, the first month of marriage equality in Minnesota. Fittingly, I saw it out just as I entered it in: officiating at a lesbian wedding. As I have stood before dozens of couples this month, and as I have sat in the chairs weeping for friends, I have a couple of…
Read MoreNone of the Above
2013-09-04 As I write, the President and Congress are discussing how to respond to the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Not surprisingly, the blogosphere is full of strong opinions: that we must respond to the wanton abuse of citizens with chemical weapons, that bombing Syria would be a huge mistake, that force is the…
Read MoreBombing Again? But It’ll Work This Time!
2013-09-05 There’s really no need to refer to specifics. When you’ve been a citizen of the United States as long as I have, you’ve heard it all before: national security; stopping this or that madman; ending drugs or terror or Communism; honor. Whatever. The point is always the same: now, in this situation, violence will…
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