Prior to becoming a Unitarian Universalist minister in 2012, I served as a pastor in Progressive Christian congregations for nine years. Since I am now starting my tenth year of service at the UU Congregation of Frederick, Maryland, it occurred to me recently that I have now been a Unitarian Universalist minister slightly longer than […]

This past Monday was Labor Day. In addition to enjoying a three-day weekend, it is important to be mindful that Labor Day is about much more than a last bit of time off at the symbolic end of summer. The first Monday in September is also an invitation to remember and celebrate the labor movement’s […]

When I am researching a forthcoming blog post, I typically draw on books that have been published quite recently. Books that are more than a few years old too often have statistics that are out of date, or cite “current events” that no longer feel relevant. But occasionally I make exceptions for books that I […]

In February 2020, I received an invitation to help lead a tour of Israel and Palestine through a company that has an explicit mission of using the travel to increase social justice, peace, and freedom. One of their primary tools for doing that is the practice of “dual narratives.” This approach means that at many […]

Growing up in a theologically conservative congregation in South Carolina, I was taught that there was only one right way to be religious, and conveniently, it was ours. All other paths—including many other Christian paths—were said to be dangerous and heretical. But the more I learned about the world, the more evident it became that […]

I’ve read quite a few books about climate change over the past year, but I want to share some highlights from one book in particular. It’s titled Climate Courage: How Tackling Climate Change Can Build Community, Transform the Economy, and Bridge the Political Divide in America by Andreas Karelas, who is the executive director of […]

If you hang out long enough with social justice activists, you’ll eventually hear the classic slogan “Another world is possible.” You can find it spray-painted as graffiti on subway walls, and emblazoned on t-shirts. You can spot it on lapel buttons. The phrase “Another world is possible” invites us to imagine what might be—to remember […]

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Dr. King was born in 1929, and if he were alive today, he would be celebrating his ninety-second birthday. I am always shocked to remember that he was only thirty-nine years old when he was assassinated. His prophetic activism for peace and justice ended tragically early. It is […]

Two years ago I wrote a post inspired by ecologist Peter Wolleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees. It’s one of those remarkable books that can significantly shift the way you experience the world. There is so much more happening with trees than is often apparent from our human point of view. In particular, there is […]

I have posted about reproductive justice once before—seven years ago, in 2013. At that time, the year 2011 had been the single worst year for abortion rights since Roe v. Wade, with 92 abortion restrictions passed in state legislatures. 2012 followed suit as the second-worst year for abortion rights since 1973 with 43 abortion-restricting provisions […]

Mary Oliver (1935 – 2019) has been called “America’s most beloved poet” by no less than The New Yorker, and she has long been a favorite in my own chosen tradition of Unitarian Universalism. In 2006, Oliver delivered the Ware Lecture at the annual UU General Assembly. She read many wonderful poems during that hourlong presentation, and […]

What happens next is a very human question. These days, so many of us are wondering: what’s next with this pandemic? What’s next for the economy? What’s next for our country? What’s next for those most vulnerable? What’s next for those I love most in the world? What’s next is also a question most of […]

At the congregation where I serve as minister, we recently had the opportunity to hear a sermon from a Buddhist monk named Bhante Sujatha titled “Suffering Is Optional.” A week after that Dharma talk, our world shifted in the D.C. Metro area (as it has around the country and the world) due to increased restrictions […]

Charles Darwin was born two hundred and eleven years ago this Wednesday, on February 12, 1809. And in recent years his birthday has been celebrated as International Darwin Day, an annual opportunity to celebrate the principles that guided his life: “perpetual curiosity, scientific thinking, and hunger for truth.”   As brilliant as Darwin was, a lot […]

The following are the top ten best books I’ve read since this time last year–in alphabetical order by the author’s last name because agonizing over a precise order would take all the fun out of remembering these books: How Change Happens: Why Some Social Movements Succeed While Others Don’t by Leslie Crutchfield (2018) American Dharma: Buddhism […]

In early August, the news spread around the world that Toni Morrison (1931-2019) had died. She was eighty-eight years old. To name only a few of her pathbreaking accomplishments, in 1988, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel Beloved, arguably her masterpiece. The next year, she joined the faculty at Princeton University, where she […]

What does (and doesn’t) work in building the better world we dream about? Why do some movements for social change succeed while others fizzle or even fail? For considering these questions, one of the most helpful resources I have found recently is the book How Change Happens by Leslie Crutchfield. She is the executive director of […]

On Sunday, we passed the mark of being one year away from the next U.S. presidential election, which will be held on November 3, 2020. In reflecting on the current state of our body politic, one of the most helpful resources I have found is Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt’s powerful and accessible book, published last […]

Here’s the thing about big words such as community, peace, liberty, and justice: they mean different things to different people. And I don’t mean to be flippant or insensitive when I say that there’s a lot of truth in the saying that, “One person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter.” So much depends on one’s […]

We are in the middle of the Jewish High Holy Days, which stretch from Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) on September to Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) on October 9. The ten days in total are also known collectively as the Days of Repentance or the Days of Awe. And the High Holy […]

At the end of many classes and events, there is an opportunity to complete an evaluation. The questions are usually standard and unremarkable: what you liked, what might’ve been better, etc. One exception to standard evaluation fare has stuck with me more than two decades later. My favorite undergraduate philosophy professor always included an unusual […]

Among anthropologists, there’s a classic story about a western missionary meeting an indigenous inhabitant of an island off the East coast of Australia. It was a bright, sunny day, and the missionary happened upon a man relaxing on the beach: MISSIONARY: Look at you! You’re just wasting your life way, lying around like that. MAN: […]

In the seventeenth century, the English politician Andrew Marvell (1621–1678) wrote of all we might accomplish if not for our human limitations: “Had we but world enough and time.” Or as Chaucer penned three centuries earlier: “Time flies, and for no man will it abide.” Turning the clock back even further to the first century […]

Charles Darwin was born two hundred and ten years ago today on February 12, 1809. And in recent years his birthday has been celebrated as International Darwin Day, an annual opportunity to celebrate the principles that guided his life: “perpetual curiosity, scientific thinking, and hunger for truth.”   One tragedy of the ongoing “Creation vs. Evolution” […]

Adam Winkler (1967-) is a professor of constitutional law at UCLA. I first encountered him through his fascinating book Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America. So I was intrigued when I discovered he published a second book on We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights. I’ve posted […]

On this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I am aware of two  significant—though also painful—anniversaries that feel important to name aloud.  This year is the 400th anniversary of the first enslaved Africans arriving in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. This year is also the 100th Anniversary of the Red Summer of 1919, when there was a […]

One of the most interesting contemporary religion scholars I have found is Jeffrey Kripal, a tenured professor at Rice University in Houston, Texas. I discovered his work about five years ago, and have followed his career with interest since then. Last year he published a book with the unusual title Secret Body: Erotic and Esoteric Currents […]

A few months ago I finally had the chance to visit the National Museum of African American History & Culture in D.C. Tickets are free, but they remain in short supply. I have heard many people say that they are waiting to go until the lines to go down. I’m not sure if the lines […]

The late Alan Westin (1929 – 2013) was a Professor of Public Law & Government at Columbia University. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he wrote two major books on privacy, and it is no coincidence that both book titles include the word free: Privacy and Freedom (1967) and Databanks in a Free Society […]

On the other side of Election Day, many systems of oppression remain in place, but there are also signs of movement and progress: “At least 100 women won House races, with 35 women newly elected to the House and 65 female incumbents. That bests the previous record of 85 representatives….” “Sharice Davids and Deb Haaland […]

On the eve of the U.S. midterm elections, it is important to be honest, clear, and direct about the unprecedented level at which our current president has regularly, openly, and unapologetically shown “disdain for basic constitutional norms” (Mounk 2). There is not time for an exhaustive list, but here is one distillation: Over the course […]

Nathan Walker’s fascinating and provocative book Cultivating Empathy: The Worth and Dignity of Every Person — Without Exception defines Liberal Fundamentalism as “when we who take pride in being open-minded close our minds—when we become what we set out against” (84). The classical liberal tradition does treasure open-mindedness, but at an even more foundational level, […]

Have you seen the film The Greatest Showman? The movie is quite good in many ways–especially the soundtrack–although it is not particularly historically accurate. Since it stars Hugh Jackson and Zac Efron, I like to think of it as “What if Wolverine and that kid from High School Musical started a circus!” One of the reasons […]

The Genderbread Person is a playful but serious graphic attempt to visualize the four broad spectrums of gender identity, gender expression, biological sex, and sexual attraction. One of the most important aspects of this chart is that the four different attributes are on non-intersecting lines. In other words, where an individual identifies on one line […]

The Genderbread Person is a playful but serious graphic attempt to visualize the four broad spectrums of gender identity, gender expression, biological sex, and sexual attraction. One of the most important aspects of this chart is that the four different attributes are on non-intersecting lines. In other words, where an individual identifies on one line […]

Dr. Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston, who has spent nearly two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy. If you are looking for a quick introduction, her two TED Talks are amazing. Over the past few years, she has written three bestselling books: The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, […]

Dr. Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston, who has spent nearly two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy. If you are looking for a quick introduction, her two TED Talks are amazing. Over the past few years, she has written three bestselling books: The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, […]

In response to the word Kabbalah, many people have a vague notion that it  relates to a mysterious branch of the Jewish tradition. Others may add that it involves reading arcane texts. If you dig deeper, three additional themes include: That what we humans sometimes refer to with the letters G-d is infinite—and the Kabbalah […]

In response to the word Kabbalah, many people have a vague notion that it  relates to a mysterious branch of the Jewish tradition. Others may add that it involves reading arcane texts. If you dig deeper, three additional themes include: That what we humans sometimes refer to with the letters G-d is infinite—and the Kabbalah […]

What is a billion? What is a trillion? If you have an intuitive grasp of math, you may have a fairly good sense of what those numbers mean. For the rest of us, including myself, the scale of numbers at this level can be difficult to comprehend. Another way of talking about a billion is […]

Donald Hoffman is a professor of Cognitive Science at the University of  California, Irvine. A few years ago,The Atlantic magazine interview with him titled, “The Case Against Reality,” explored the astounding fact of human consciousness: that our species is awake and aware of our surroundings. I invite you to read just one paragraph from that […]

The first time I remember reflecting on the meaning of utopia was when I was assigned to read Thomas More’s classic sixteenth-century book with that title. In More’s conception, utopia was spelled with the Greek prefix “οὐ” (“not”). That prefix was attached to the root word τόπος (“place”)—which together meant “no place.” I remember thinking, […]

Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) is best known as the author of the 1868 novel Little Women. The second of four daughters born to Abigail and Bronson Alcott, she was born on November 29, 1832, which also happened to be her father’s 33rd birthday. Bronson was a brilliant and innovative educational reformer—although he had a tragic flaw […]

The number of human beings on this planet has septupled (increased sevenfold) in a mere two centuries, from approximately 1 billion people alive in 1800 to more than 7.6 billion people today. Although there are indications that world population may peak at approximately 10 billion, should we accept 10 billion people as the “new normal?” […]

A few weeks ago, I blogged about Artificial Intelligence in the near future in a post titled “Immigrants Aren’t Coming for Your  Job, Robots Are.” Next week, I’ll be writing on “Malthus, Earth Day, & Global Population” to wrestle with the implications that the number of human beings here on planet Earth has septupled (increased […]