a prophetic voice-

Even as some sisters & brothers in Alabama are rejoicing over the passage of the "most comprehensive immigration law" in these United states, I have been immersed in a thought-provoking book entitled Healing the Heart of Democracy  by Parker Palmer, a Quaker educator, writer, and founder of the Center for Courage & Renewal. Even as my heart is breaking open over the zenophobia which seems to be sweeping over parts of our nation, I find myself taking heart from what Palmer calls Five Habits of the Heart which he feels we American citizens need in response to twenty-first-century conditions...five interlocking habits which he feels will be crucial to sustaining our democracy. We must understand that we are all in this together. This means embracing the simple fact that we are dependent on and accountable to one another. We must develop an appreciation of the value of "otherness", welcoming and including the "other" with an awareness that the stran...

For many in churches in the liturgical tradition, this time after Pentecost is known as "Ordinary Time"...paraments remain firmly green, the season unbroken by high holy days, and a certain sameness pervades the readings from scripture, as week after week we seem to focus on the same topics. Someone remarked to me last Sunday that it is getting kind of boring...like most of life, I think, where a sameness pervades daily existence and we have trouble seeing beyond it, often struggling to find some meaning in the daily chores and commitments, the trials and tasks which mark the sun's rising and setting. And yet...isn't that what a great deal of the spiritual journey is about? Relishing, reveling in the ordinary, the everyday? It is, after all, where we lives our lives- most of the time... and how much we let slip through our fingers if we can only enjoy and appreciate the highs, the mountaintop experiences. Life is lived mostly in the valleys and on the plains...and eve...

And so another Sabbath dawns... the earth around me blessed by the rains of the past two days... greens once again green and the patina of dust washed away for the time being. A morning of giving thanks...a morning of opening myself to the presence of the Holy...a morning of being exactly where I am at this moment and feeling gratitude for this time and place, even as I prepare to lead worship at the lovely little church south of Lexington, NC. Faith and the spiritual journey has long been the subject of reflection for me, aware that my own journey has taken and continues on a long and ciruitous path, a path which has moved from the Sunday school understandings of my youth to the wide-open embrace of the value of traditions not my own, to what they can teach me, to the light they bring to my own enlightenment. And so, I share with you, dear ones, some of my writings about faith from the past year, hoping they will perhaps shed some light upon your own path, since in reality we are wa...