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. …
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…
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…
Solstice Signs
The huge full moon, the amazingly colorful solstice morning, and Christmas all came together in a beautiful way that seemed to portend a beautiful upcoming year. I hope so. 2021 was a bit of a dreary, frustrating challenge. We're all worn by social, political, and medical worries. I hope and pray we regain a healthy community. Here's the sky on solstice: Solstice Sky Same solstice sky, another view I appreciate those few of you who came here to read what I post. However, it was…
America Can Go to Hell
I don’t want it to. Nor do I believe in some hell in an alleged afterlife. The hell America could go to is an actual one, fires and torment galore! I use this provocative title deliberately in a prophetic way. Prophesies are if/then warnings. If we keep fostering hateful division at home and new enemies to war against abroad, then we could create hell here worse than the Civil War, worse than WWII, worse than we want to think. Besides all the anger and domestic…
Don’t Read This
Don't read this unless you'd like to peer into many of the comments I made online these last two months. I'm a bit of a Don Quixote, tilting at various windmills, throwing my opinion into various forums, tweets, and emails. I'm probably a bit ADD too, easily distracted by a variety of topics. I've rearranged the chronological order and omitted some, but tried to group them for your perusal. I used to have appreciative congregations to hear and understand. Now I scatter my interests into…