Every year, I tell the congregation not to worry about mistakes because there aren’t any; there is only us, telling an old story about love getting born into this aching world.

May I always remember that Tango, like life, is a dance of the people. It’s meant to be shared, not practiced in isolation.

Rain falls upon the surface of the earth, and pulled by gravity each drop begins to flow downhill. Drop merges with drop, flowing together, into a trickle, a streamlet, a creek, a mighty river, flowing onward. Some of the water seeps down into the earth itself, as groundwater, or deep aquifers,...

We can’t always predict which choices will wind up having a huge impact on us, whether it's bringing home a stuffed animal or taking a particular train to Oxford Circus.

We could see the main path to the swimming hole ahead, but we had to pick our way through sand spurs to get there. Behind us were rattlesnakes. What did the youth do? They started playing.

Our family prays at mealtime to practice gratitude in our lives. I love that my children are taking it as their own, finding their own meaning.

It's an impulse of the human self to be known fully, and that’s almost never possible unless we risk the conversations that help us see past our initial impressions.

In real life, we can only place the pieces, one by one, and see what kind of picture we create. Sometimes we turn out to have chosen the wrong piece. Sometimes the picture is wildly unexpected.

The chalice is the container— the space where the musicians and the listeners gather. The oil is the fuel— the hours of practice and the life experiences of everyone in the room. The wick is the instruments and vocal cords through which the music will flow. And the flame—the flame!— is the...

We carry bags with us throughout the week for many reasons. (If you have a bag with you, and you want to have it blessed, please bring it forward, send it forward with a helper, or lift up your bag when you hear me describe you.) Some of us take books and homework to school Some of us bring our...

The most important lesson pottery has taught me is to not be attached to the final product—the process matters more than the product.

May whatever gatherings or activities we engage in this Sunday afternoon help restore us — our connections to one another; our sense of hope, beauty, and fun in this world; our deep knowing that we have to take care of ourselves and each other with love and joy if we are to soulfully survive the...

To prepare, you'll need a few inflated balloons -- and to gird yourself for the improvisation required! Let’s play a game! Everyone knows how to play this game. All you have to do is get this balloon to the back of the room as fast as you can! Go!...

Six weeks into the church year, I have realized that I am the minister of a church where things usually go wrong. This morning the copy machine jams repeatedly. The bulletin describing the order of worship has been copied with the second page first and also upside down....

When I was a kid I liked to skip stones on lakes. If I threw a flat stone at the correct angle and with enough speed and energy it would kiss the surface and leap into the air again and again. If we have too much stuff in our lives, our attention skips from one object to another without really...

One of the potential spiritual lessons of sports comes in its ability to connect people—to each other as well as to a team of strangers. Not too long ago, I was in a workshop in which we were discussing “peak experiences,” those mystical, transcendent experiences of what Abraham Maslow would...

I want not dainty bone china-cupped, oh-so-polite, pinky-extended sips, but guzzle-by-the-gallon, drink-from-the-fire-hose- two-hundred-eighty-psi- Niagara-Falls volumes, and inch-thick slices of hearty multi-grain-hard-crusted- with-stick-in-your-teeth-seeds-bread (none of that bland supermarket...

To prepare for this Message for All Ages, you’ll need to do the following: remove a small white tea light from its aluminum casing make a fake candle out of a turnip or jicama: carefully peel and cut (adults only!) until your disc of turnip is the same size as the tea candle. (The aluminum case...

I vote we let the artists win the ones covered in paint from their last attempt to smuggle across the beauty of a bowl of fruit the 14-year-old rapper learning to spit throwing life's chaos on the rhythm wheel uncovering the shapes that live on after the next break I say we let the food bank...

As we begin to settle to a deeper more inward place; to be fully present right now in this place made for head and heart together; we might begin to feel how our own bodies are not only flesh and blood — but skeleton bones as well. No matter how old we are, no matter how we move from place to...