Speaking to the young graduates of Harvard’s Divinity School in 1838, Emerson said this of Jesus: “One man was true to what is in you and me.” However, he also lamented that because Jesus was seen as the Christ, one of the three persons of the Trinity, his portrait grew to be as “the vulgar draw it.” He wanted the young graduates to themselves come alive fully as persons. “Always the seer is a sayer,” he said, and that, “only he [or she] can give…
My usual rant against conservatives needs corrective balance. I do for them here what I wish they would do for us – understand. Why? Our country has grown dangerously divisive, though we are and must be a single society. In our society and in our liberal congregations, conservatives deserve support both as persons and for their useful perspectives. Finally, we are more whole by knowing both ways in our being. Over two decades ago, when I read Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “The Conservative,” his appreciation…
Was it happenstance or deliberate that the date of the attack would be our code for emergencies? Who would that emergency call be to? What synchronistic meaning should we see? Out of the clear blue sky, our own airplanes allegedly commandeered by Islamic militant terrorists, smashed into the twin trade towers in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, and into a field in Pennsylvania. While Americans may have had a somewhat disdainful attitude towards those two boxy towers above the Manhattan skyline, both for their…
America the Beautiful Because of Liberals and Conservatives An eagle soars high only on two wings. If such a grand bird were to use one of its wings against the other, it would be only crippled and crazy. America is a bird divided against itself. Instead of having a higher view, it flops and flounders on the ground. Such a bird needs psychiatric help or prophetic warning. That is my intent here today: I want to help America soar again. I see my beloved…