I recently realized that I feel safer in cars that look like I can afford them. How I realized this was that I had to rent a car. I had a coupon that enabled me to get a compact for the same price as an economy and I jumped on it. But, when I got […]
You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress such a one, for you were sojourners in the Land of Egypt. Exodus 22:20 This verse is read in synagogues this week, as part of the annual re-reading of the Torah. It is part of a weekly portion called Mishpatim – “rules” or “laws” – and comes […]
As a Unitarian Universalist minister, so many times my congregants come in to talk to me and ask what they can do to positively impact this crazy world we find ourselves in. I usually end up giving them all the same answer. We change the world by stepping into the best of who we are. And […]
This month we have marked Hanukkah… and in the days ahead…Christmas, each built around LIGHT…candles…star… …may we, in these busy days… with each step we take…with each breath we breathe… focus on the light that lives in us and through us… and take that light into our days in the human darkness that is all around … “Go out! For need […]
Somehow I made it this far in life without knowing about Stanislav Petrov, the man who may have saved the world from nuclear annihilation. Petrov was a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Air Defense Forces in 1983, when he received a warning from the computerized Soviet early warning system of an imminent nuclear attack from […]
This past Sunday I was sharing with my congregation the story of Elijah in 1st Kings. Many of you know the story. He’d stood up for God, he’d stood up to the king, and he was on the run. He went to Mt. Horeb, and he waited. And then in chapter 19, verses 11-13, it […]
We don’t have to buy into the enmity that we see in so much of our national discourse. We don’t have to allow others to mold our feelings and opinions. John Philip Newell, the poet, peacemaker, minister and scholar, offers us a different vision, an alternative vision, a vision that may seem wildly at odds […]
“Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It […]
The divine union of love and power “is strong enough to take on systems and not just individuals. It gives love the audacity to seek justice swiftly and not merely incrementally [and] it allows power to be informed by love and disrupt all that stands in the way of freedom. Our power, your power, my power is […]
We have an obligation to ourselves and our communities to be bigger than the moment. This moment is breaking my heart. Watching the dehumanizing behavior of my government, even from afar, brings feelings of anger and despair. I know this is not something new, and that makes the heartbreak even deeper. Our country’s long history […]
