In this week's Pagan Community Notes, remembrances announced ahead of TDoR, Maori request use of Haka cease in vaccine protests, update on Oak Flats, and more news. Continue reading Pagan Community Notes: Week of November 15, 2021 at The Wild Hunt.

    “The Build Back Better Act provides a historic opportunity to move toward an economy that works for all of us, not just the wealthy and corporations.” — Americans for Tax Fairness     The Build Back Better plan will make historic investments in healthcare, childcare, and education by making billionaires and corporations pay their fair share in taxes. With a vote expected this week, we’re fighting to make sure this legislation passes—and we’re almost there! Please consider contacting read more... The post Action Alert: 1 Way You Can Support The Build Back Better Plan appeared first on Promise the Children.

    Guest post by Janice Russell with Parenting Disasters. Image via Unsplash.     All parents want the best for their kids. This includes wanting your child to know how to make good choices. One day your children will no longer live at home; when that day comes, you do not want to worry about whether they are making smart decisions for their mental and physical wellbeing. Here are three ways you as a parent can encourage your kids read more... The post Guest Post: 3 Ways to Encourage Your Kids to Make Good Choices appeared first on Promise the Children.

  Martha Sharp; her son Waitstill, Jr.; husband Rev. Waitstill Sharp; and daughter Martha after their return from Nazi occupied Europe.  In 1939 the Unitarian minister and his wife left their church and children to aid and rescue Jews and intellectuals in Prague, Czechoslovakia in a daring mission under the noses of the Nazis.  They returned to Europe to rescue Jews from occupied France. Photo from Two Who Dared: The Sharps Story. Two Who Dared: The Sharps Story , a documentary film about the Unitarian couple who rescued Jews in Prague and France during World War II will be shown on Zoom this Thursday, November 18 at 6:30 pm by the Tree of Life Unitarian Universalist Congregation in McHenry, Illinois.  The film will be introduced by ...

The world’s leading scientific expert on gratitude, Robert Emmon, has done research that demonstrates that practicing gratitude has a number of significant physical and mental health benefits. His studies show that people who practice gratitude have fewer health complaints, more energy and determination, greater satisfaction with life, as well as more optimism and resilience.  He knows this as a scientific reality, I know it as a sacred principle. Elite athletes use gratitude practices to help them win and stay mentally prepared to compete at the highest levels. In the summer of 2018, tennis star, Novak Djokovic wrote an open letter to fans after […] The post Gratitude: A Winning Strategy For Life appeared first on BeyondBelief.

      Some days its not possible to hate the world. For instance, the other day one of my favorite people whom I do not know but thanks to Facebook feel I do, Seraphim Sigrist, offered a small reflection on a Krazy Kat cartoon. This tickled me for many reasons, but four principally. First, […]

Feeling rooted in my body is so important to finding my center. Whiteness/white supremacy is a culture of disembodiment, and re-learning how to fully inhabit my body is a lifelong process. Feel your body today. Notice it’s strengths and its aches. Be gentle with your body today.

                                                 TURNING TOWARD THE MORNING Rev. Kit Ketcham, Nov. 14, 2021, PUUF             I remember discovering this song that we’ve just heard at a fairly bleak time of my life. It was late fall in Colorado, the golden aspen groves on the mountain slopes were now starkly bare of their leaves, we’d had two feet of snow on Halloween, my marriage was over, my son was struggling, my paycheck barely lasted from month to month, and I was dreading the cold Rocky Mountain winter ahead.             One of my great pleasures in life then was attending the monthly acoustic music jams of the Denver Friends of Folk Music. And one Saturday night, a fellow fo...

Editor-in-chief Manny Tejeda-Moreno reviews two significant attacks on freedom of religion - the first from former Trump official Michael Flynn, and the latter from the U.S. Supreme Court. Continue reading Editorial: “One religion, one god” is dangerous rhetoric – and a worrying tendency in the Supreme Court at The Wild Hunt.

"Self-care" is rapidly turning into a commodity, with businesses large and small seeking to sell your soul-feeding back to you. This week, some thoughts on tapping into an abundance of the spirit without tapping your wallet dry.

This is the third in a series of essays about the COVID-19 pandemic as it relates to UU congregations and religious exploration. “The Church has Left the Building” – May 2020 “On Reopening and the Least of These” – July 2021 “Brave is a hand-me-down suit from terrified as hell.“ Andrea Gibson (they/them), American Poet … Continue reading "As We Knew It: A Challenge to Dream"

A Prayer for Back to Church Written by Helen Cassara 11-14-21

Some of you may remember the old Joni Mitchell song, “Both Sides Now.” Simply lovely and very wistful lyrics. This week, we climbed a mountain (Mount Burdell) from both sides. One trail, from the Open Space Preserve side is rocky fire roads, mainly through open grassland, where cattle graze during part of the year. The […]

An editorial in Bloomberg  notes that Americans need to learn to live more like Europeans, wanting less and saving more.  "It's become the conventional wisdom that the U.S. economy is built on Americans' endless appetite to buy lots and lots of stuff. Household consumption makes up about 67% of GDP. When the economy falters, we're told spending is our patriotic duty... But suddenly, Americans can’t spend like they used to. Store shelves are emptying, and it can take months to find a car, refrigerator or sofa. If this continues, we may need to learn to do without — and, horrors, live more like the Europeans. That actually might not be a bad thing, because the U.S. economy could be healthier if it were less reliant on consumption.We'...

  Civilian pilot Eugene Burton Ely at the controls of his Curtis bi-plane. He had been flying for about six months. When a young, self-taught pilotnamed Eugene Burton Ely left the deckof the U.S. Navy cruiser USS Birmingham in a primitive stick, bailing wire, and canvas winged Curtis pusher biplane on November 14, 1910 he barely escaped with his life and his aircraft intact but raised the curtain on naval aviation . Ely, a 24 year-old Midwesterner from Iowa, may seem like an unlikely aviator.   But in those early days of aviation, he was not untypical of the kind of daydreaming tinkerers and speed enthusiasts who were drawn to the new opportunities in the sky. He was born in the farming community of Williamsburg, Iowaon October 21, 18...

Young people are abandoning religious institutions at an unprecedented rate. Some religions are trying to adapt. But others are focusing on advertising and packaging, when the problem is that fewer and fewer people want what they’re selling.

      It was on this day, the 14th of November, in 2003 that astronomers discovered 90377 Sedna. It’s a dwarf planet. “Dwarf planets” are one of a three-part categorization offered by Alan Stern, one of the premier scientists concerned with the matter. In his scheme there are “classic planets,” “dwarf planets,” and “satellite […]

When I have problems sleeping, I force myself to count slowly starting at 100, and working my way down. If thoughts of the day begin to creep in, I stop counting, take a deep breath and then go back to 100 to count down again Take a moment to count. Feel your body relax as … Continue reading Counting

Please join us on Sunday (7 November 2021) at 11:00 AM for “Settled Up. Settled In. Settled Down. But Not Settling” by Rev. Barbara Jarrell. Our service will be livestreamed on Facebook Live here. And . . .  this will be our second consecutive in-person worship service in the sanctuary since March 2020. We have some … Continue reading "In-Person and Online All-Ages Worship (14 November 2021)"

Please join us on Sunday (14 November 2021) at 9:00 AM for our adult religious education class via Zoom. We are discussing episodes of the podcast Learning How to See with Rev. Brian McLaren, Father Richard Rohr, and Rev. Jacqui Lewis. They are discussing the 13 kinds of bias that Rev. Barbara mentioned recently in … Continue reading "Online Adult Religious Education — 14 November 2021"

Families — we hear you and realize how done you are with Zoom. First, thanks to everyone who made last weekend’s Trunk or Treat celebration such a fun time for our children and everyone else. We will continue to watch the local COVID numbers.  We feel encouraged by the cooling weather and the possibility of … Continue reading "Children and Youth Religious Education Updates"

Please join us next Wednesday (17 November 2021) at 12 noon for our weekly Zoom lunch. Bring your lunch and meet up with your All Souls friends, have lunch, and just catch up.

"Part of the healing that Chiron forces on the internal is the acknowledgement of human frailty and the acceptance that sometimes things just happen. No one is invincible. No one is irreplaceable." Continue reading Column: Chiron and Healing from Pain at The Wild Hunt.

After being away for a day, I have a new realization to share in my hunt for Marie Madeleine. Because, after 1802 or so, priests started recording names using the father’s Innu name like a surname, it occurred to me to look for Marie Madeleine Katshisheskueit as Marie Madeleine Tshinushiu, using her father Antoine Tshinushiu’s […]

UUSC and our partners believe a path to citizenship in this Congress is still achievable. Here, we answer your questions about the legislative roadmap to victory.

I'm starting to accumulate blurbs and reviews for my new book, Wisdom of Our Hands, from various colleagues in a variety of sectors. Pete Moorhouse is an educator and artist in the UK and also the author of the book shown, Learning Through Woodwork.   Is it rudely self-promoting for me to share what he and others have said? Which is: "Not hard to be positive!... Wisdom of Our Hands is an exceptional book CONGRATULATIONS!!" Review/ blurb: "This is a book full of wisdom clearly built upon a lifetime’s experience of working with wood and sharing this generously with students of all ages. Like his woodwork this book is beautifully crafted. The book shares a secret - the wonder of working with the hands is within our grasp - it is a call t...

During a lull in the post-attack chaos in Paris a stunned survivor surveys the carnage. Note— Six years ago on unlucky Friday the 13th the terrorist attack on Paris nightspots teeming with attractive young people including those getting down to a loud American death metal band both shocked the world and set off a controversy over the relative worth of some victims vs. those from swarthier or more remote parts of the world and internet bickering over the propriety of selective grief.  On the next Sunday I scribbled a poem before church services which I read to semi-stunned silence.  This is the post I put up reflecting on the terror, telling that story, and, of course, the poem. Coordinated ISIS shootings and bomb blasts left 130 peop...

      I’ve been reflecting a lot on the arc of the spiritual path. It has numerous aspects. There is the principal thread, the cord that pulls us into the depths. But along with it are numerous points about ourselves, strengths, weaknesses. All the things that make us, that stand in the way for […]

My family is the center of my universe. How I define family is up to me and differs at any point in time. Who are the people who nurture you and call you back to your center?

Please join us on Saturday (13 November 2021) from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM for our monthly building and grounds work day. Join us as we get our church home — inside and out — as we continue to reopen.

The seventy-fifth anniversary of the organization of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto is in 2022. So I’ve been working on the history of the congregation Sources for this timeline: Rae Bell’s timeline for the 60th anniversary of the congregation; Annual Reports from 2009-2020; documents in the UUCPA archives; personal reminiscences; denominational sources. Timeline, … Continue reading "Timeline of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto"

By Dina Gilio-Whitaker | The Red Power movement was just one aspect of the social revolution that swept across the American social landscape in the 1960s and ’70s, paralleling other ethnic nationalisms, women’s liberation, the antiwar movement, and the emergence of a new, rebellious, and predominantly white middle-class counterculture. Disenchanted with the conservative values of their parents’ generation and witnessing the increasing degradation of the environment, countercultural youth looked to other cultures for answers to existential questions they perceived as unavailable in mainstream American society.

Please join us on Saturday (13 November 2021) at 10:30 AM for our weekly meditation group with Larry Androes. This is a sitting Buddhist meditation including a brief introduction to mindfulness meditation, 20 minutes of sitting, and followed by a weekly teaching. The group is free and open to all. For more information, contact Larry … Continue reading "Meditation with Larry Androes (13 November 2021)"

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, we have begun to broadcast a livestream video of our Sunday morning worship services. This worship video will be available live and in recorded formats. For our livestream video of our worship services, we are using Facebook Live.  One does not have to log into Facebook … Continue reading "31 October 2021 Worship Livestreaming Video"

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, we have begun to broadcast a livestream video of our Sunday morning worship services. This worship video will be available live and in recorded formats. For our livestream video of our worship services, we are using Facebook Live.  One does not have to log into Facebook … Continue reading "24 October 2021 Worship Livestreaming Video"

A timeline that give institutional chronology of the Unity Society and the Unitarian Church of Palo Alto — and also introduces you to some of the interesting Unitarians who lived in Palo Alto from 1891 to 1950. The links mostly go to Wikipedia or other online encyclopedia pages, or to local history websites. 1891-1894 — … Continue reading "Timeline of Palo Alto Unitarians, 1891-1950"

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, we have begun to broadcast a livestream video of our Sunday morning worship services. This worship video will be available live and in recorded formats. For our livestream video of our worship services, we are using Facebook Live.  One does not have to log into Facebook … Continue reading "17 October 2021 Worship Livestreaming Video"

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, we have begun to broadcast a livestream video of our Sunday morning worship services. This worship video will be available live and in recorded formats. For our livestream video of our worship services, we are using Facebook Live.  One does not have to log into Facebook … Continue reading "10 October 2021 Worship Livestreaming Video"

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, we have begun to broadcast a livestream video of our Sunday morning worship services. This worship video will be available live and in recorded formats. For our livestream video of our worship services, we are using Facebook Live.  One does not have to log into Facebook … Continue reading "3 October 2021 Worship Livestreaming Video"

"It took me a very long time to realize the kind of worship that feels most real to me is living into the energy of my gods. To me, this feels a little like a deliberate practice and a little like the forces that make pets look like their owners." Continue reading Column: Imitatio Dei at The Wild Hunt.

A short “thought for the day” first offered to the Cambridge Unitarian Church on 12th November 2021 as part of the Sunday Service of Mindful Meditation  (Click on this link to hear a recorded version of the following piece) —o0o— In his journals, the theologian Søren Kierkegaard wrote: “The matter is quite simple. The bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly” (quoted in Provocations: The spiritual writings of Kierkegaard, Plough Publishing ,   20...

Liz Williams reports and reflects on her town of Gloucester, formerly known as the Roman town of Glevum. Continue reading The Romans remain at The Wild Hunt.

Last night I went to a 10th anniversary celebration and talk at Crystal Bridges Museum held by Alice Walton, museum founder, Rod Bigelow, museum director and Moshe Safdie, architect. Only original members of the museum were invited. The event reminded me of having met Alice Walton and the original museum director Bob Workman years ago just as construction of the museum had been launched.  I was exhibiting my work at a craft show in downtown Bentonville. I was set up with my work in a building owned by friends Tom and Becky McCoy and Alice came by to see my work. I asked her whether she planned to have crafts in her museum of fine American art, and I suggested the work of John Townsend, Newport, RI cabinet maker that renown art critic Ro...

“I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over.   Out on the edge you see all kind of things you can’t see from the center.” —Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut was born on Armistice Day, November 11, 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana. He would go on to become a veteran of another warand the experience shaped him as a human being—one of the great iconoclasts of his time, and a confirmed pacifist. His death on April 11, 2007 at the age of 84 was, as he predicted, not an emphatic period at the end of a long life, but a mere semi-colon (he despised semi-colons.)   He died of a brain injury sustained after slipping and falling in his Manhattanapartment several days earlier.   It was the kind of comic, anti-heroic departur...

            James Luther Adams is one of the most important figures to appear within Unitarian Universalism in the Twentieth century. I mean to note his birthday every year as it rolls around. Sadly, I’m not as consistent as I would like. What is now many years ago when Jan & I first […]

I am working on mindfulness as centering. Consciously noticing my thoughts, accepting them without judgment, and letting them go peacefully helps me re-center when I feel distracted. Spend a few moments practicing mindfulness today, focusing intently on what is before you and doing it with intention.

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, we have begun to broadcast a livestream video of our Sunday morning worship services. This worship video will be available live and in recorded formats. For our livestream video of our worship services, we are using Facebook Live.  One does not have to log into Facebook … Continue reading "26 September 2021 Worship Livestreaming Video"

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, we have begun to broadcast a livestream video of our Sunday morning worship services. This worship video will be available live and in recorded formats. For our livestream video of our worship services, we are using Facebook Live.  One does not have to log into Facebook … Continue reading "19 September 2021 Worship Livestreaming Video"

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, we have begun to broadcast a livestream video of our Sunday morning worship services. This worship video will be available live and in recorded formats. For our livestream video of our worship services, we are using Facebook Live.  One does not have to log into Facebook … Continue reading "12 September 2021 Worship Livestreaming Video"

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, we have begun to broadcast a livestream video of our Sunday morning worship services. This worship video will be available live and in recorded formats. For our livestream video of our worship services, we are using Facebook Live.  One does not have to log into Facebook … Continue reading "5 September 2021 Worship Livestreaming Video"

In the search for my matrilineal ancestor Marie Madeleine, I am feeling the need to summarize where I’ve come to so far. If you’ve been following along, you know that I’ve been searching through hundreds of images of records from the Postes du Roi on the north coast of the St. Lawrence River in Quebec. […]

 OK, I'm actually not writing this from Glasgow, but from back home in Cardiff, after returning from Glasgow a few days ago.I spent a long weekend in Glasgow, in the middle of the period of the COP26 conference. I went to Glasgow because I felt I had to, I needed to, and I was able to. Of course not everyone has the privilege of time and money and freedom from other responsibilities to do

  This year for Veterans Day instead of my usual post on the history and meaning of the observation the World War I Armistice on November 11, 1918 I thought I would resurrect an old chestnut that I first read as a Chalice Lighting to open services at the old Congregational Unitarian Congregation in Woodstock, Illinois about 2000.   I read it subsequently when the congregation movedand was renamed the Tree of Life UU Congregation in McHenry.   It was included in my 2004 Skinner House collection, We Build Temples in the Heart. It was based on the memories of a boy from Cheyenne in the 1950s.   Reviewing it now, I am struck that the World War II is fast fading away.   In not too many years the last of them will gone, just as I remember...

    Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle was born into a Huguenot family on this day, the 11th of November, in 1898 in Gut Externbrock, in Westphalia. He experienced the horrors of trench warfare during the Great War. By the time he was twenty-one he had become a Catholic and entered the Jesuit Order. Ten years later he was […]

Healthy doubts keep us honest and humble. Unnecessary doubts hinder us from having the deep experiences we need and want. Trust the voice you know.

I seek those things that realign my mind, body and spirit. What is it that aligns your mind, body, and spirit? How do you know when there is alignment there? What does that feel like?

DanaLee Simon We already have everything we need within us to meet the life that is before us. Continue reading "The Work That's Ours to Do"

By Pamela D. Toler | Cathy Williams (more or less 1844–1892) was the first African American woman known to have served in the United States Army—a two-year stint in which she passed as a man. Born a slave near Independence, Missouri, she was a “house girl” on the Johnson plantation in Cole County, near the Missouri capital of Jefferson City, when the Civil War began. After General Nathaniel Lyons’s troops captured Jefferson City, which had become a rebel stronghold, the Eighth Indiana Volunteer Infantry claimed Williams and other escaped or displaced slaves as “contrabands.” She traveled with the regiment for the rest of the war, working as a laundress.

The sale of Taino artifacts and cultural items by Christie's draws protests and public outcry. Continue reading Indigenous Taino protest artifacts sold by Christie’s at The Wild Hunt.

Pagan groups demand more from the COP26 summit including immediate, sustainable, and equitable action on the climate crisis. Continue reading Pagans expect COP26 to do more at The Wild Hunt.

Sunday, November 14, 10:30 a.m. “Safe Spaces and Soft Places to Land” A Hybrid Multigenerational Service with lay preacher Nancy Rogers.  “I love Safe Space; I love talking about it, I love co-creating it, I love partaking of it. We can craft healing Safe Space intentionally — such as we do in our dazzling and beautiful   [ … ] The post Sunday, November 14 ~ Safe Spaces and Soft Places to Land ~ 10:30 a.m. appeared first on Unitarian Church of Marlborough and Hudson.

When we launched the Side With Love Action Center this summer, we imagined it as a place where UUs and other people of faith and conscience could easily find the resources they needed to dive deeply and faithfully into the campaigns that were important to them and their communities. The Action Center is a way to unify our shared labor and ministry based on a vision of creating a beloved community, grounded in our UU faith.   This week, we celebrate the hundreds of Unitarian Universalists who have joined the Action Center to learn, grow, and act in service to building beloved community. In just 2 months, we have hosted 27 events with 2000 participants and welcomed over 100 new people to out organizing.  Learn more about how you can gro...

A real dodo, Senator Ted Cruz is furious with Big Bird for getting his Fauci Ouchy.  Guess which one laid an egg. Big Bird is in trouble .   Again.   It seems that in a recent Sesame Street segment  he was vaccinated for the Coronavirus even though real six -year-olds —his perennial age—are not yet approved to get it.   But that minor anomaly was not what caused Texas Senator and buffoon Ted Cruz’s head to explode .   It was that the large ambling avian got the shot at all— proof , he claimed, that the PBS staple was just a propaganda shill of the Biden administration and a tool for brainwashing toddlers and their mommies .   He smelled a whiff of conspiracy in the air.   On cue the whole Repugnant messaging machine sprin...

DanaLee Simon We already have everything we need within us to meet the life that is before us. Continue reading "The Work That's Ours to Do"

        It was on this day, the 10th of November, in 1793, that the revolutionary French Convention proclaimed the investiture of a goddess of reason. She was the central figure for a new state sponsored cult designed to replace Catholic Christianity. The deity’s image was installed on the high altar of the […]

I practice what adrienne maree brown calls “holding change,” which allows people who hold my beliefs, ideals and values to gather around and feed and nurture me emotionally and spiritually. Who are the people holding and supporting you through change?

By Pamela D. Toler | Cathy Williams (more or less 1844–1892) was the first African American woman known to have served in the United States Army—a two-year stint in which she passed as a man. Born a slave near Independence, Missouri, she was a “house girl” on the Johnson plantation in Cole County, near the Missouri capital of Jefferson City, when the Civil War began. After General Nathaniel Lyons’s troops captured Jefferson City, which had become a rebel stronghold, the Eighth Indiana Volunteer Infantry claimed Williams and other escaped or displaced slaves as “contrabands.” She traveled with the regiment for the rest of the war, working as a laundress.

Dear UUSS~ What is time? Chronos time and Kairos time. Time warps. Time machines. Hammer time. Moving our clocks back an hour this past weekend back to ‘standard’ time is a curious ritual; just as it is in the spring when we move them ahead an ... read more . The post Co-Ministers’ Colloquy – Nov. 9th appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

Upcoming RE Classes: K-6 Experiences with the Web of Life: These nature lovers will meet again Sunday morning, 11/21, from 9:30-10:15. Here’s their “assignment” from this past Sunday’s class. Please have your child complete the assignment so they can most fully engage in class. Find insects in your special place ... read more . The post RE This Week – Nov. 9th appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

Green Sanctuary is partnering with the Anti-Racism Team for a discussion on the film, ‘The Condor and The Eagle.’ The film is available via free streaming every 15 minutes through November, as part of the UU Ministry For The Earth campaign for climate justice. Watch on ... read more . The post The Condor & The Eagle, Film & Discussion appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

Night Theater author Vikram Paralkar is from India, and is an oncologist at U Penn. One review: “A one-sitting read for a dark night.” A different genre for this discussion group to explore. If you need a book, let Kat Wolfram know and she will get ... read more . The post Night Theater by Vikram Paralkar, the BIPOC Book Group Read for December appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

This morning I went to add a padlock and hinges to the cash box on the kid's pay what you want shop. I found the box cleared of all student made merchandise and even some of our shop fixtures were gone.  Not suspecting theft, I opened the cash box and found money inside. The students counted 8 dollars, seventy six pennies and 50 pesos in Mexican currency. We're counting the first day of business as a success. And in wood shop today the students made more products to sell. make, fix and create...

 A few photos from this weekend’s COP26 Coalition march in Cambridge All taken with a Fuji X100V Just click on a photo to enlarge

A few photos taken over the last week in Cambridge, Fen Ditton and on Grantchester Meadows All photos taken with a Fuji X100V. All straight out of the camera jpegs Just click on a photo to enlarge    Christ’s Pieces, Cambridge Christ’s Pieces, Cambridge Christ’s Pieces, Cambridge Christ’s Pieces, Cambridge Christ’s Pieces, Cambridge (Unitarian Church in the middle background) Midsummer Common in the last rays of the setting sun River Cam by the Fort St. George Bridge From Ditton Meadows Grantchester Meadows Grantchester Meadows Grantchester Meadows Grantchester Meadows Grantchester Meadows Grantchester Meadows Grantchester Parish Church Grantchester Parish Church Grantchester Parish Church Grantchester Parish Church Grantches...

From the Chinese Zen Masters, Bodhidharma on the twofold entrance to the Tao. (1) Translated by D. T. Suzuki From the Manual of Zen Buddhism, page 73 and on There are many ways to enter the Path, but briefly speaking they are of two sorts only. The one is “Entrance by Reason” and the other “Entrance […]

A year before the strike dockworkers loading and unloading goods--mostly bales of cotton--on a New Orleans wharf.   New Orleans was always an anomaly in the South, hell it was unique in all the United States for many reasons.   It was a cosmopolitan cityruled by the French or Spanish for most of its historyand had a part of the US for only 89 years in 1892.   Many of its inhabitants were Creole, a term which originally had simply meant Europeans born in the New World, but in New Orleans had also come to infer those of mixed racial heritage.   The city was long the home not only of slaves, but of a large, and sometimes quite prosperous, Free Black population.   Free Blacks, slaves and their descendants mixed with the European popula...

Divination is one skill for navigating the future. Don’t overuse it to the point you neglect other important skills. As the old saying goes, when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem start to look like a nail.

I am learning how to de-center myself, as a white person, so that more voices are heard. How do you center those with less power than you?

During the worst of the covid pandemic when all our classes were being taught online, I made a box to allow teaching materials to be passed back and forth between home and school.  We've repurposed that box as a temporary pay what you want shop for students to sell things they've made in woodshop and gain some insight into the world of small business.  Today the kids moved inventory into the box. You can drive by and shop. It is unmanned but open 24 hours. At night you'll need to bring a flashlight. The kids are very excited about this project and I hope you'll join in to make it a success.  Select objects you want and put money in the box.  The Pay what you want shop is mounted to the railing in front of the Clear Spring School offi...

In this week's Pagan Community Notes, Veteran's Day remembrances at Circle Sanctuary, Oak Flat altar vandalized, and more news. Continue reading Pagan Community Notes: Week of November 8, 2021 at The Wild Hunt.

This week, we remember Betty Morrow and her amazing contributions as an activist for justice. Betty passed gently from this world on November 2, 2020 at the age of 94. The following is excerpted from Chacraseca: Raising Nicaragua Families Out of Poverty, originally published in February of 2018. All Souls has been involved with Nicaragua since the early 1990s after member Betty Morrow traveled there on a medical trip. There she saw, firsthand, the extreme poverty, the lack of education opportunities, and lack of work for women who often are the heads of households. Betty returned to Tulsa with an […] The post Betty Morrow’s Microcredit Banking Legacy appeared first on BeyondBelief.

A Soviet era propaganda image glorifying the October Revolution. November 7 and 8 represent one of the most important events of the 20th Century and arguably a fulcrum point history—before things were this way, after quite another.  That presents a significant challenge for a blogger who trades in history.  On one hand the October or Bolshevik Revolution on November 7, 1917—October 25 under the old Orthodox calendar is too big toignore.  On the other the tale is so epic and complex that a wordy son-of-a-bitch like me with a tendency to digress and go off on tangents to explain every detail couldn’t confine myself to a manageable post. That a problem because Americans in general know damned little about what happened beyond that ...

When I want to re-center I often try to find a quiet place, so that I can have space to separate what are my thoughts, and what are the thoughts of others. How do you feel in a quiet space? Can you find a moment of quiet today?

New research from Pew shows that most surveyed societies do not see strong religious conflicts, but the United States, France, and South Korea show the highest percentages of such conflict. Continue reading Pew research says U.S., France, and Korea most divided over religion at The Wild Hunt.

Welcome back, Rev. John! As we celebrate a belated Ingathering, our minister celebrates his return from sabbatical with a story about big ambitions, humility, and rediscovering what is necessary.

My weight went up almost 2 pounds this week. Shocking in some ways, but totally predictable in others. We went down to Monterey Bay this week for a mini-vacation. We did a lot of good hiking, and covered 23 miles in 3 days. We also ate out every night (which was delicious and worth it!) […]

Rex Nelson is one of Arkansas most highly respected journalists. There is a great editorial in today's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, resulting from the day Rex and I spent in Eureka Springs, with me having the honor of serving as his guide to the Clear Spring School and our Eureka Springs School of the Arts. The article can be found here:  https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2021/nov/07/city-of-the-arts/ Next week's paper will likely have a column about the Clear Spring School. Watch for it. Make, fix and create...

    Recently I read of a Mexican approach to death with its three stages. I looked it up. It goes: 1) we die. 2) we’re buried, and 3) we’re forgotten. However, the version I read added in a wrinkle, 1) we realize we will die, 2) we die, 3) we are forgotten. I suspect […]

                         Elijah P. Lovejoy shortly before his death. He was by almost all accounts, a difficult man to like.  Opinionated to the point of bigotry on innumerable subjects.  A totally humorless religious zealotconsumed with the conviction of his own righteousness—and the sinfulness of just about anyone who did not agree with him on everything, down to the comma placement.  But such men—and women—often are what is needed to begin moving the fulcrum of history.  When Elijah P. Lovejoy was cut down in a hail of bullets defendinghis precious printing press from an Alton, Illinois mob on November 7, 1837 he became the first important martyr of abolitionism and helped galvanize the infant movement. Lovejo...

The true value of a relationship is the relationship itself, not any material benefits it may bring. These are nine things that my ancestors tell me when I’m standing in front of my ancestor shrine or otherwise communing with them.

Prayer beads serve as reminders of prayer and help keep track of prayers. What reminds you to center yourself throughout the day?

Please join us on Sunday (7 November 2021) at 11:00 AM for “What Does it Mean to Be Together?” by Rev. Barbara Jarrell. Our service will be livestreamed on Facebook Live here. And . . .  we will be also meeting in the sanctuary for the first time since March 2020. We have some special rules … Continue reading "In-Person and Online All-Ages Worship (7 November 2021)"

Please join us on Sunday (7 November 2021) at 11:00 AM for “What Does it Mean to Be Together?” by Rev. Barbara Jarrell. Our service will be livestreamed on Facebook Live here. And . . .  we will be also meeting in the sanctuary for the first time since March 2020. We have some special rules … Continue reading "Online All-Ages Worship (7 November 2021)"

Please join us on Sunday (7 November 2021) at 9:00 AM for our adult religious education class via Zoom. We are discussing episodes of the podcast Learning How to See with Rev. Brian McLaren, Father Richard Rohr, and Rev. Jacqui Lewis. They are discussing the 13 kinds of bias that Rev. Barbara mentioned recently in … Continue reading "Online Adult Religious Education — 7 November 2021"

Families — we hear you and realize how done you are with Zoom. First, thanks to everyone who made last weekend’s Trunk or Treat celebration such a fun time for our children and everyone else. We will continue to watch the local COVID numbers.  We feel encouraged by the cooling weather and the possibility of … Continue reading "Children and Youth Religious Education Updates"

During the pandemic, we have chosen the Northwest Louisiana Food Bank as our give-away-the-plate recipient a couple of times already. With unemployment and other COVID-related relief benefits running out and the holidays fast approaching, we don’t want to see anyone go hungry in our area. And the Northwest Louisiana Food Bank supplies our two other … Continue reading "Food Bank of Northwest Louisiana — November 2021 Give-Away-The-Plate Recipient"