Dear Friends, Last Tuesday Randi Tarczali was walking her dog, had a heart attack and died.  She was only 46 and she left two children, Jen (15) and Max (11) as well as her husband, Peter.

Dear Friends Let me show you some snap shots of my summer, beginning with the wonderful week Lory and I spent at Chris and Harvey Place’s condo in Mammoth Lake, California.

Dear Friends, Since I donated my time to the Unitarian Fellowship at Chautauqua I feel like I was a minister-on-loan for a week. I was an emissary from Westport, preaching at their Sunday service and offering a series of five lectures, from Monday to Friday.

Dear Friends, I’ve walked a two-mile loop along Compo beach almost every day this year—the routine has become a discipline.  It serves me well, not only for the exercise, but the contemplation time.

Dear Friends, Last summer I gave a lecture in the Hall of Philosophy at the Chautauqua Institute as part of a series on ethics.  The talk, which I called, Humor as a Moral Imperative, suggested that a well-developed sense of humor is a serious ethical responsibility.

Dear Friends, Bob Perry, our Youth Advisor for the past eleven years, has made a tremendous contribution to the high school youth group.  During those years a lot has happened in his life—he and Candice were married, he completed graduate education to prepare to teach, he got a job at Eagle Hill School where he’s […]

Dear Friends, At our staff meeting last week we mapped out the year—we call it calendarizing.

Dear Friends, Benedict XVI is our new Pope.

Dear Friends, A friend responded to last Sunday’s sermon by sending some sentences penned by Thomas Merton, catholic monk and poet.  Speaking of his epiphany, Merton wrote: “Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire can reach, the core […]

Dear Friends, In the dedication of his play, Man and Superman, G. B. Shaw wrote: “This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap…  The only real tragedy in life is […]