Honoring our Ancestors
Ode to Our Troglodyte A Ritual Homage Presented at the foot of the Caveman Statue, Grants Pass, Oregon By Reverend Brad Carrier Minister for the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Grants Pass September 3rd, 1995 The following is the script for a fun but sincere ritual gathering of a few members of the UUFGP at the Caveman Statue. (Can't find the photo of us gathered there.) Oh, great troglodyte totem, Thou art larger than life. Thou art an image of our ancestors. Thou hast prevailed And…
BBC Says – Even if only a few read it
There I go again - tilting at windmills. (Well, promoting the electricity-generating ones.) Only a few read my tweets and online comments, but maybe there's a reader or two here who might appreciate my comments on Elon Musk, advice to Democrats, Adam Kinzinger, night lighting, electric boats, utilities that exploit their users, the trucker convoy, Dr. Bronner's Soap brothers, Bill McKibbon, taxing all pipelines, Meet the Press staging, changing "You Must Stop" to "Stop When you Must," most Republicans as RINOs, gun control, Steve Martin…
Emeritus at UUGP
What a wonderful gathering! We’re here to celebrate the life of this lovely, friendly fellowship, the ministers you’ve had thus far, and this honor in my career. It has been a great opportunity and satisfaction in my life to tend small Unitarian Universalist congregations. Over half of our UU congregations are small fellowships like this one. That’s been my realm, not the mega-churches. Primarily I have been a preacher. I like conducting services and having something to say that open-minded, intelligent, caring congregants find thoughtful…
Be in It
Dr. Arvind Vasavada, my guru and friend, my gentle, generous mentor from my seminary days, used to advise me and his analysands (counseling clients), “Be in it.” (Here he is pictured between my friends and colleagues, the Reverend Doctors Bart Gould and Vern Barnet, at my ordination in Saint Joseph, Michigan, in 1972.) Imagine my good fortune upon entering seminary at the University of Chicago in 1969 to meet a man who embodied the two main interests I had – Jungian psychology and Eastern religions. …
Freethinkers: Paine, Emerson, Ingersol
Introductory Comments Let’s take a few moments to remind ourselves America is not only a Christian nation and never has been. Freethinkers are foundational to what we are and could become. I hope this skimpy foray into a few of our freethinking founders helps reassure and orient us. During my Unitarian Universalist seminary years at the University of Chicago, I was fortunate enough to also attend training for humanist leaders. Conducted by the Humanist Institute, held mostly in New York City at the Ethical Culture…
Earth’s Eden: Love it or Lose it
Readings prior to the sermon: “Managing environmental resources sustainably has always been difficult, ever since Homo sapiens developed modern inventiveness, efficiency, and hunting skills by around 50,000 years ago… [E]very human colonization of a land mass formerly lacking humans – whether of Australia, North America, South America, Madagascar, the Mediterranean islands, or Hawaii and New Zealand and dozens of other Pacific islands – has been followed by a wave of extinction of large animals that had evolved without fear of humans and were easy to…
Simple Days and Splendid Ways – Saint Patrick’s and Other Days
Welcome to Saint Patrick’s Day! May your shamrock not fall in your green beer, and if it does, drink it! Even if this day isn’t what we might have thought it was, it is our excuse to wear green and party, even if none of this makes historical sense. I don’t want to ruin it for you, for in these dismal political times we need excuses to party, but even so, the legends of the day need some deconstructing. Saint Patrick wasn’t Irish; perhaps he…
Good ‘n Gettin’ Better
Don't let the devil sell you what you already have. Good and getting better is a tag line for an impending song extolling our condition. What? Wait! Aren't we weary of Covid, worried about armed crazies, tired of Texas and taxes? Yes, and we're stuck in a dangerously warming planet that the fossil fuel media and lobbyists would have us "don't look up." I would counter that we should look up, not just at the comet of planetary fever increasingly upon us, but at all…