Spirit of Life and Love, Justice and Peace, The spectacle of foolish pride is ever before us in these times. Indeed, pride has seldom looked so foolish in our lifetimes. So many people in positions of public trust and responsibility have lost their authority and our confidence spectacularly. And...

Outside of the meditation hall, we plan for the future and think of the past. But so often we replay past regrets and worry about future events to the point where we’re no longer present in the present.

Spirit of Life that goes by so many names… Spirit of Love that has taken so many shapes on our earth over the millennia of human habitation here… we open our hearts to make room for you. With the innocence and imagination of a child, help us to hear the beauty and the magic in the Christmas...

America has not yet faced our history of slavery, nor the malicious colonization and oppression of the Indigenous peoples.

Once I quit drinking, my inner voice and I began the harder work: that of creating a life from which I do not need or want to escape.

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.

If a friend were in my situation, I would have seen their failings as human. So why hold someone to an unforgiving standard just because that someone is me?

I give thanks for all it takes to be a healing presence, and also how simple it is. I confess that I want to be seen as (especially) good (especially) right (especially) useful. I confess that I'm still learning an artful skill....

Leaders must learn to model how to de-center the culture of the congregation from White identity and culture.

We need Thoreau’s ‘tonic of wildness’ to confront climate change. As he explained, ‘We need to witness our own limits transgressed.’

In the moment that I switched to “teacher mode,” I recalled moments in which I had inadvertently said ungracious things. I was fortunate enough to have professors, ministers, and friends illuminate my clumsiness for me. They did so in a way that was gracious enough that it increased my appreciation and respect for them, and clear enough that I will never forget the teaching.

Asking and giving what people need, even if it may not seem to be the most important thing, can be the greatest gift of all.

I long for progressive religious communities that are confessing communities—places where we admit our wrongdoings, are held accountable, and called back into covenant.

“Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.” —Alice Walker I had finally begun to relax—a bit. We were en route to Pennsylvania. My friend, a formal part of our “framily,” was visiting. We decided a visit to a crayon factory was the perfect winter outing for toddlers. The day was clear...

On this sacred day of choosing—with gratitude to those who entrusted us with this honored task, who struggled and suffered that we might have the power to choose—may we choose well. May we choose love over fear, wisdom over cleverness, courage over cowardice, life over death, kindness over...

Holy God, we admit to you that all is not right — in our hearts and in our world, We look to the darkness and not to the light. We look for what is broken, and not at what is being mended. We look to criticize and not to praise. We look at ourselves and not to you. Turn us around so that we look...

Calling to Unburden Our play is marked by merriment, but beneath that looms the Other: our worry; our sorrow; our shame, our guilt, our grief. Let us surrender all that to the One who loves us beyond measure, the One who heals us, the One who makes us whole. Silent Prayer Prayer I have failed. I...

"I remove my shoes because this is hallowed ground," the guide says. "A holy place, not an everyday life place." The guide tells us how we know—or think we know—it was the one and not the other for those people millennia ago. But aren’t the places where we live holy ground? Don’t our very...

He's not where he is supposed to be. He should be practicing sprints in the desert sun with all the other aspiring Marines, but instead he is here, retreating into the quiet shade of the chaplain's office, the one person who won’t yell at him. Since he was seven years old, he wanted to be a...

No hot house flowers, these, bred for perfection, dyed and trimmed, and arranged to order, clothed in ribbons and bows. Not these. No, these are hardy, raw and wild. Grown under the sky, they’ve weathered the wind and the rain and the heat. These drew nutrients from the neighborhood soil and...