We often talk about life as a journey, and we talk about the freedom to decide which road to take, as in Robert Frost’s well-known and well-worn lines about the road not taken. The poem begins, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long […]

While the purpose of this pulpit is to ‘to seek the truth in love,’ as our affirmation says, the bottom line of every sermon must include something about hope…some kind of hope. Hope is the ability to look at difficult aspects of life, to look at the truth about life, and to see some possibility […]

The opening line from Dickens A Tale of Two Cities is usually quoted only in partyou’ll recognize it, but I’ll include the rest of the sentence; and he did write it all as a single opening sentence: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, […]

We marvel at the miracle of the babe-in-the-manger story, and marvel we must, because it touches something deep within us; it stirs the spirit and wakes the soul. It’s beyond rational thought; beyond, but not apart from rational thought. It touches something tender and sweet, without that tenderness, what are we; without that tenderness, who […]

Minister’s comments to children (of all ages) on Hanukkah Many Jewish holidays commemorate events invested with a combination of history and religion. Hanukkah commemorates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after its desecration by foreign forces. The word Hanukkah literally means “dedication.” The temple or synagogue is a Jewish house worship. So the rededication […]

Opening Words We begin with words from Miller Williams who reminds us about that aspect of life we call compassion, which some suggest is a synonym for God, or for the aspect of God about which we actually know something, or as much as we need to know in this life: Miller Williams wrote: Have […]

Canvass Sunday Resistance There’s a story about a mother who was trying to get her son out of bed one Sunday morning. She said, “Come on, get up, it’s time to go to church.” “I don’t want to go there today. This is canvass Sunday, it’s all about money, money, money. I hate it. Give […]

First Reading Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian; and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of […]

The naturalist, John Burroughs, wrote this: The laws of life and death are as they should be. The laws of matter and force are as they should be; and if death ends my consciousness, still is death good. I have had life on those terms, and somewhere, somehow, the course of nature is justified. I […]

There’s a famous Hasidic story about the rabbi who disappeared every Shabat Eve ‘to commune with God in the forest,’ or so his congregation thought. Once they assigned a cantor to follow the rabbi on his Shabat Eve trip into the forest to observe his holy encounter. Deeper and deeper into the forest the rabbi […]