For the past twenty years, this Sunday just before Memorial Day has been a chance for me to reflect on the lives and accomplishments of some of the public figures who have died in the previous twelve months.
I always get a big hand from Polly Oliver, our Music Director, who tracks down pieces written [...]
Today I begin an event I would like to repeat annually. I will preach on one famous Unitarian or Universalist woman a year. It’s a not simple mater to be a woman minister and choose to speak on women. There are those who think it stereotypical of a woman to speak on woman. There are [...]
This is (most of it) a sermon I have given before, more than once. But only once here so far, back in 1986, so it qualified for my yearly oldie sermon. This is part of a deal I struck with a newcomers’ class a few years back. The members reasoned that I must have conducted [...]
Reading:
Many a rock is pushed from the entrance of many a tomb by the force of the human spirit.
The rock is pushed away from the tomb of silence by the courage to speak when others hold their tongues and lose their conscience.
The stone of superstition and delusion is split in two by the clear thought [...]
As Christmas approaches, the odds get better that I will preach about Jesus of Nazareth, his life and ministry. In similar fashion, with Passover less than two weeks away, I remembered that a number of reviewers, including one of you, had recommended a book by Thomas Cahill called The Gifts of the Jews: How a [...]
If David Letterman can make a living at it surely I can steal his idea and at least make a Sunday at it. My top ten list for families has been brewing in my mind for a while. Families and what makes them strong has been one of my interests for years. There are just [...]
As individuals, as a church, as a town, as a religious movement, as a country, we have come a long way in these last decades in recognizing and starting to overcome the privilege that comes unjustly to some of us because of such accidents of our birth as our sex, color, ethnic background, sexual [...]
Making the internet rounds these days is a list of “Things You Never Hear in Church,” author unknown. It includes statements like, “Hey! It’s my turn to sit in the front pew!” “I was so enthralled, I never noticed that the sermon went 25 minutes over time.” “I love it when we sing hymns [...]
This morning’s sermon is the second in our series on finding responsible ways to live. The ideas I present this morning are a radical shift in our thinking, acting, and being that one person, Daniel Quinn, sees as the a way to preserve humanity.
Two years ago I stumbled on the book entitled Ishmael, by [...]
This is the first Sunday in March, and the first
of four consecutive Sundays built around a single theme. The theme is how
we may discern and live out ways of being that are sustainable, responsible,
and healthy. On successive weeks, the theme will be considered personally,
globally, congregationally, and culturally — first personally, in the
way we spend our [...]
Before I came to First Parish as a ministerial intern, I worked for one and a half years as a receptionist and newsletter editor for Congregation Beth Israel-Judea in San Francisco. I joined the High Holyday choir and was officially proclaimed by the rabbi, in front of 600 people, as an “honorary Jew.”
I remember the [...]
It is gratifying that so many of you, having noticed my sermon topics announced in the last church newsletter, have made the special effort to be here for my remarks on Friedrich Schiller. I figured it would be quite the draw, although I have to confess, I have reason to believe that mine is the [...]