Staff Blog

“New occasions teach new duties.” — James Russell Lowell, The Present Crisis, 1844 Beloved Companions, There is an ancient Greek myth that relates an otherwise mute swan trumpeting just before its death. From that tale we get the phrase “swan song” to denote the closing notes of...

This is written for those of us on the sidelines of Harvey, not those of you struggling with the effects. To those of you struggling, we send love and support. The devastating flooding in Texas and Louisiana has sparked a lot of conversation and speculation from those not...

The violent events coming out of the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville two weekends ago have the country on edge. The dangerous rise of white supremacy was on full display as men with tiki torches marched on the campus the night of August 11 and clashed with anti-fascist...

Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it. - Buddha Siddhartha had been raised in privilege and opulence. He had been pampered and protected from the horrors of the world. When he found himself in the real world, where there was death,...

At General Assembly this past year in New Orleans, I was very honored to be asked by Dr. Mark A. Hicks, the Director of the Fahs Collaborative at Meadville Lombard Theological School to be a part of a their experiential workshop on Beloved Conversations. Several of us were asked...

I love getting emails from the Church of the Larger Fellowship. They start off with “Our faith alive in the world!” That phrase makes me smile every time I see it. I’ve been concerned about the health and life of our faith and Association in the last few months. Since the US...

"Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.” — John Lennon According to evolutionary theory, life, as we know it, is the result of unfathomable numbers of small changes taking place over eons of time. An intriguing element of the theory is that if you...

“The only thing that is constant is change” Heraclitus My, my, my, but have we been surrounded with change?! If change is truly the only constant, then we had better get comfortable with it. We are swirling around in it. It is so, that currently, if someone asks me how I am...

Several years ago, while I was living in Boston, my primary care physician recommended I begin taking a daily pill to counteract hypertension. While it wasn't dangerously high, it was elevated enough to cause concern. I resisted for a while, but then after a few more visits with...

It's been quite a while since I last joined a mosh pit. No, I am not speaking metaphorically (yet). For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, a mosh pit is an area, usually near the stage at a live concert, where people engage in some pretty full-contact dancing – bodies...

Hey, all you “Lovers of Leaving!” Yeah, you. You know I’m talking to you. We’ve all done it. Maybe we’ve done it a few times. And if we haven’t actually DONE it, then we’ve all certainly THOUGHT about it. Leaving, I mean. When things get rough, we tend to split. Check-out. Take...

“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness.” ― Dr. Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead After the presidential...

I have come to realize in the last few weeks that, in many ways, we as a nation are grieving. As liberal religious people, we are grieving. We are seeing many of our values and the ideals of our democracy challenged in ways we might never have imagined happening in our lifetime...

For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places . —Ephesians 6:12 Through thinning ozone, Waves fall on wrinkled...

The other day, when thanking my spouse for handling some mundane household chore, I burst into tears. Out of nowhere. Today, I find myself unable to focus – my attention is being demanded by one crisis after another. Friends, I am tired. I am tired, and I am scared. I am angry...

“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. … Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. … This may well be mankind’s (sic) last chance to choose between chaos or community.” ---...

If we start fighting amongst ourselves, we are doomed. - Remus Lupin (Order of the Phoenix, JK Rowling) I will add that if we keep fighting amongst ourselves, we are doomed. If we cannot get clear on the big picture and stop fighting over the irrelevant and the petty, we are...

The mission of the Southern Region Field Staff is, “More Hope, More Love, More Courage, More Justice, More Joy. Now.” In every program, consultation, and coaching call we have with a congregation or emerging ministry, your staff judges its work upon that standard: does this...

A week or so before the presidential election, an elder of our faith added me to Pantsuit Nation, a secret Facebook group with 3.8 million members, most of whom supported Secretary Clinton for President. What a resource! The stories! The hope! I can’t estimate how much time I’ve...

For the last couple of years, I have been going around the Southern Region talking about culture. As I work with congregations which are doing mission and vision work or are in transition with their professional staff, I explain that before you can think about the future, it is...