Quest Blog
Be Still
2014-11-03 My daughter is learning to nap. Again. Not on a shoulder or on a lap. But in her crib, with a stuffed wolf and a pacifier. To fall asleep on her own; To quiet her mind and her body and her mouth — practicing, practicing, ready to talk; To turn away for a few…
Read MoreSecurity
2014-09-11 I remember, in the days that followed the 9/11 attack, hearing the endless trope from news reporters, who declared that “nothing would be the same again.” And I confess that my reaction to that repeated phrase was pretty much one of annoyance. Terrible things happen over and over I thought, and people just get…
Read MoreRecipe
2014-09-16 Amidst the din of global news and professional things-to-do, one of my great joys and daily forms of calming-my-soul-and-mind the past several weeks has been the recipe. What a wonderful meditative act it is to read someone else’s orderly list of instructions, to follow them as closely as possible while personalizing them as appropriate…
Read MoreAn invitation to the party (haiku)
2014-09-16 Your experience Bound with collective vision Shapes our work today Courage, friends!
Read MoreA Touch of Nature Makes the Whole World Kin: So What’s Our Excuse? (A Humanist “Theology” of Radical Welcome)
2014-09-18 Mystical and Scientific The author of the Gospel of Matthew reports Jesus saying, “If you welcome your sisters and brothers only, what are you doing more than others? (5:47) Monk and mystic Thomas Merton wrote about one of his mystical experiences: “Yesterday, in Louisville, at the corner of 4th and Walnut, I suddenly realized…
Read MoreSunny Side Up with a Side of Racism
2014-09-22 Yesterday after church, my family and I stopped at a favorite cafe in Hartford. It’s a funky kind of place with a diverse clientele and a good Sunday brunch. I walked in while my spouse got the baby out of the car. I asked a white woman who was standing by the door whether…
Read MoreThe Open and Shut (?) Case on Religious Thinking and Cognitive Closure
2014-09-25 It isn’t news that there’s an inverse relation between religious piety and innovative thought. Religion is a handbrake—whether it stops humanity from going uphill or downhill is the real question. When a new study comes out telling us what we already know about secularity, my secular acquaintances do the I-told-you-so as the religious squint…
Read MoreGood Enough: 10 Tips for Sucking Less
2014-10-02 Recently Christine Organ (a blogger for this UU Collective) published a lovely post on “good enough” parenting in this competitive age. Frankly, as someone who feels like “good enough” parenting is pretty much the top of my game, I appreciated the reminder that plenty of other folks are perfectly fine parents without living up…
Read MoreBeliefs, A-Liefs, and Seeing the Way Things Are
2014-10-02 Tis education forms the common mind, Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined. Alexander Pope One of the major tourist attractions in Chicago is the Willis Tower, formerly the Sears Tower and also formerly the tallest building in the world. Upon reaching the 103rd floor, visitors have the opportunity to walk out…
Read MoreSurf
2014-10-06 Whoever it was that said grief comes in waves knew what it is to stand in my kitchen on a glorious late-September afternoon at the beginning of apple season. My hand spins the food mill round and round. Rich, warm sauce drips into the bowl. And I weep.
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