Quest Blog
The Cost of Speaking
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…
Read MoreWorship as Emotive Experience
2012-08-30 This past Sunday, I became emotional in the pulpit… again. Ok, truth to be told, I’m always emotional in the pulpit. It’s part of why I never schedule anything for Sunday afternoon, because preaching a good UU sermon will wipe me out, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. I usually maintain enough reserves to make it…
Read MoreRun for Your Life!
2012-09-04 I have always been fairly athletic, and I enjoy playing a good game that gets my blood pumping. But I loathe exercise. I’ll run all day long if I’m on a court or a playing field, but ask me to run to get or stay in shape and I’ll kindly decline. I’ve tried several…
Read MorePro-Life
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…
Read MoreGrief and Atonement
2012-09-12 There are so many reasons to be filled with grief: the four diplomats whose lives were cut short and the families devastated by the amputation of a beloved person from their midst. The loss of trust between partners in the US and Libya working for peace and freedom. Our national sense of violation and…
Read MoreSavoring autumn days
2012-09-09 It’s beautiful these days, cool and no humidity in Minnesota, but the days are also somewhat sad in my household right now. Dawn is breaking later every day, and sunset coming earlier, putting a dent in the time I have for gardening. Most of my high schooler’s friends are heading out of state to…
Read MoreAll In This Together
2012-09-11 Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh teaches about something he calls interbeing. “If you are a poet,” he writes about a sheet of paper, “you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and…
Read MoreHope Springs: Vulnerability and Longing
2012-09-16 Last night I went to the movie, “Hope Springs.” For those who have not seen the previews, this is a movie about a couple (Tommy Lee Jones and Meryl Streep) in a 31 year marriage where the thrill, as they say, is gone. It is about their journey towards getting the juice back into…
Read MoreThe Noblest Deed
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…
Read MoreA Grandson’s Rage
2012-09-25 Politicians throw about plans for health care, Social Security, and Medicare as if they were stand-up comedians trying joke after joke to see what gets a rise out of their audience. To many of us, the effects of these plans are abstract and distant. We intellectually engage with them, thinking that our rational side…
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