After the words, a quiet; after the songs, a silence; after the crowd only the memory recalls the gathering. Peace and justice have need of you after the words, the music, and the gathering. God grant you the depth for dedication to justice. God grant you the will to be an apostle of peace. Amen.

My friend Marcy and her boyfriend Brian recently ate dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. As they enjoyed a plate of lo mein, engrossed in conversation, a hand reached down and ushered away their platter of noodles....

Spirit of life and love, your prophet Isaiah called us to worship you by freeing the oppressed, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and housing the homeless. Your follower St. Francis cried out, "Make me an instrument of Thy peace." Jesus instructed us to love our neighbors—and our enemies—as...

I do not like the "I hate it" feeling, but I have it....

Once upon a time, a thief snuck into the room of a sleeping Buddhist monk. As the burglar rummaged about, the monk awoke. The startled thief ran into the snowy streets with the monk racing after him, "Please stop!" the monk called, and the man finally did, realizing that his pursuer was no threat.

We summon ourselves from the demands and delights of the daily round: from the dirty dishes and unwaxed floors; from unmowed grass, and untrimmed bushes; from all incompletenesses and not-yet-startednesses; from the unholy and the unresolved....

We have come together to share our deepest concerns, speaking and singing words of inspiration and hope. We have committed ourselves to do what we can to ease the burdens of those who suffer, to stand for decency and compassion....

We shall overcome. When we can truly celebrate the diversity of contributions and talents offered by all people, we shall overcome hatred and prejudice and oppression. When we can truly extend our hands to one another in loving acceptance, we shall overcome the past that haunts us now. Living in...

Spirit of life, come to us to break down barriers; to widen horizons; to make us less judgmental. Help us to see the larger picture and the kinder conclusion; to love and let live; to embrace and forgive; to sustain and care....

Mindful of our highest aspirations, Bound by common faith and purpose, And, yet, beginning with ourselves as we are, Let us take one more step, together, in our unending quest for dignity, justice and love. Amen.

May we never rest until every child of earth in every generation is free from all prisons of the mind and of the body and of the spirit; until the earth and the hills and the seas shall dance, and the universe itself resound with the joyful cry: "Behold! I am!"...

Let us go forth into the world through a door of hope for the future, remembering these words by Martin Luther: "Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree." So may it be with us.

"It was still dark that morning in 1942 when the Gestapo rousted from bed the Jews of Bobawa, a Polish village. In the confusion, twelve-year-old Samuel Oliner slipped away and hid on a roof, still in his pajamas. The next afternoon, when he dared to look around, the ghetto was silent....

How clearly I remember it. My husband, Dan, and our daughter, Sarah, had spent the night in Taos, New Mexico. The next morning we set out for the pueblo, an ancient village inhabited by indigenous people known as the Pueblo. Clearly tourists, easily identified as European Americans, we were...

The storm outside echoes the storm raging within my soul. So many people in need… so much pain, so much grief. Too many causes and campaigns fill my mailboxes, sap my energy, beg for my money. Three things I must do...only three things? You've got to be kidding—which three do I choose? Books and...

One day I was sitting in a coffee shop downtown when I noticed a couple of street corner evangelists setting up shop across the street—an older and a younger man (possibly his son?), wearing dark suits and ties and wielding King James Version bibles. They commenced taking turns preaching the...