Dear Friends, On January 24, Carlyn won second place in the Stamford Symphony Scholarship Competition. In addition to the self-confidence boost, it comes with a $7,00 scholarship to be used during her four years in college. She has become an accomplished cellist. Lory and I are very proud of her, of course.

Dear Friends, Last Sunday afternoon we participated in our annual interfaith service in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. It was a success by every measure. One of the highlights was our Youth Choir singing I can Make a Difference. Ed Thompson’s arrangement and conducting, and our Youth Choir’s voices and their strong sense of […]

Dear Friends, The first month, the month of January, is named after Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, the god of gates and doors.  He had two faces, one to look forward and the other to look back.  He was a highly respected god among the Romans.  His picture was engraved on the city gates […]

Dear Friends, “One Christmas was so much like another, in those years…I can never remember if it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.”

Dear Friends, Emerson’s essay, The Over-Soul, begins, “There is a difference between one and another hour of life, in their authority and subsequent effect. Our faith comes in moments…”

Dear Friends, I was somewhat hesitant to accept the invitation to participate in a clergy conference in Minneapolis last weekend.  It was sponsored by the Plymouth Center for Progressive Christian Faith.

Dear Friends, The memorial service for my friend and colleague, Dick Drinon, went nicely; he would have approved; he would have been touched, and maybe even a little surprised at the depth and variety of expressions of appreciation for the ways he touched so many lives.

Dear Friends, I met Dick Drinon at Ferry Beach in the summer of ’67.  The seed of our friendship was nourished in the depths – you know the depths I mean.  We shared our lives, beginning with our work with high school youth at the three-week summer programs at Ferry Beach.

Dear Friends, On September 7, 1851, Thoreau wrote in his journal, “Nothing is so much to be feared as fear.”  He might have read a line in a 16th century essay by the French philosopher, de Montaigne:  “The thing I fear most is fear.”  Franklin Roosevelt popularized the admonition in his First Inaugural Address, on […]

Dear Friends, Two weeks ago I talked from the pulpit about my Parkinson’s diagnosis – what I refer to as ‘my Parkinson’s sermon.’