“Beyond the Zero-Sum Game” excerpted from Nathan C. Walker (2014) Exorcising Preaching: Crafting Intellectually Honest Worship. St. Louis: Chalice Press. For centuries, insiders have been democratizing their religions. Incremental moments of institutional reform have led to a new era of...

Keeper of our journeys, Today we mark and celebrate a significant moment in the lives of these young people Who this year assume the responsibility of becoming licensed drivers. We ask that they might be gifted with wisdom to make good choices as they navigate the roads ahead....

We ask blessings on this, our church home. May this building be a tool to continue the good work of our helping hands, our loving hearts, and open minds. May this home be safe harbor for all who sail upon the sea of Life, and a beacon of hope to those on rough waters....

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.

We gather this day to seek in the midst of our fragmented selves the unity which enfolds us all; to summon in the midst of the everyday that secret taste of danger, that peace which beckons beyond the trifles and deepens the human heart; to open our self-righteous selves to that judgment which we...

(This was written for the opening worship at a district board retreat....

Gadgets: The downfall of a free society, electric litter paving an inexorable path to our culture’s moral, intellectual, spiritual, and inevitable destruction. If you are an American living in the 21st century, you likely have fretted over this topic, or some variation on it. You might even have...

We create a web of life. This is finally the time to let go of that crazy notion that we can live separate and aloof from one another We create a web of life. This is the time at last that we can come home to each other, to our mutual belonging. We create a web of life....

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...

Let us be in the spirit of prayer. In this precious moment in which we set apart and ordain a woman to our ministry, we pause to give thanks for this religious community of free spirits of which we are a part....

The first step is to notice the mountain. It is there. And it belongs to a range of mountains. There’s no going around it. The next step is to reach the kind of acceptance that has us praying in our hearts: "Lord, I don’t ask you to move the mountain, just give me the strength to climb." The...

God of all oppressed persons, remind us of your presence in voices of protest; shatter our self-complacent faith in liberty freely given; and remind us of the cost of hard-won freedom. Let the pain of strangled dreams return us to a knowledge of our own triumphs in the struggle to be free....

Let us be united in the spirit of aspiration and thanksgiving: Eternal light, toward whose quickening dawn all generations yearn, we lift our hearts in thanksgiving for all true ministry, for those of every time and place who take upon themselves all suffering along the way, who are quick to sear...

Eternal God, Source of All Creation, we would give substance to our thankfulness by resolving to make right use of the gifts we have received from thy bounty. With thy gift of the senses we would fashion and preserve a world of beauty for all....

Please join with me in the spirit of meditation and prayer.We have returned again to the time of Atonement, the time to look back over our lives this past year and face the realities of when we have fallen short of the aims set forth in "Moments of high resolve."We have the opportunity, if we cho...

An Austrian millionaire was in the news this month for giving away all of his fortune. Why? "For a long time I believed that more wealth and luxury automatically meant more happiness," he said....

It was in Alaska, right before the first Gulf War, that I first realized how music can “teach us how to hear the world differently,” as jazz critic Jed Rasula once said. I was in the Air Force “Gateway to the West” jazz band and my unit was temporarily deployed to Alaska, waiting anxiously...