In Jewish tradition, your mother determines whether you are Jewish…if your mother is Jewish, you are Jewish. The point: our mothers determine so much about ourselves, which is where William Ross Wallace got the idea for his famous poem, or at least the famous line from a relatively obscure poem from which I got my […]
Awakening the Moral Sense – May 6, 2012
Henry Wordsworth Longfellow’s little poem has deep theological implications. You know the poem: There was a little girl Who had a little curl Right in the middle of her forehead; And when she was good, She was very, very good But when she was bad she was horrid. Why was she good – when she […]
Getting On in Years – April 29, 2012
Two weeks ago Larry Waterbury lit a candle after attending his grandson’s wedding. He said, “You know you’re getting old when you attend your grandson’s wedding, and realize that it’s his second marriage.” “A child of your child makes you grand; a child of your grandson makes you great!” Of course there’s a difference between […]
Civility – Where are the Models? – April 22, 2012
Henry David Thoreau, who often had tongue in cheek, quipped: “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” We look at the world through our own unique set of eyes. There are lots of types of eyes — beyond blue, brown and hazel. There are cynical eyes; suspicious eyes; loving eyes; naive and […]
In Praise of Sunrise – April 8, 2012 – Easter
Opening Words: The Gospel of Mark tells it this way: “And very early on the first day of the week they went to the tomb when the sun had risen. And they were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?” Looking up, they saw […]
Commitment to the Children – April 1, 2012
Virginia Satir wrote a book she called, “PEOPLE MAKING.” It’s about parenting and it’s about families and the importance of how we talk to one another, how we listen to one another, how we forgive one another, and how we continue to learn how to be in loving relationship with one another, not only in […]
The Heart of our Faith – March 18, 2012
In his wonderful novel, The Chosen, Chaim Potok has a Hasidic Rabbi, Reb Saunders, talk about his very intelligent son, Reuven, expressing his concern and his worry, like all parents worry. At one point he has the rabbi look up and talk directly to God, saying, “Master of the Universe, what have you done to me? […]
Lighten Up – March 11, 2012
Life is serious business. Take the matter of being born. It isn’t easy for any of the principal characters in the drama. Then there’s the ongoing struggle to grow up – learning to walk, and falling down again and again without throwing in the proverbial towel and crawling through life. The challenge of learning to […]
Touched by a Poem – March 4, 2012
Click here to listen to this sermon. We humans are a complicated lot – and we are learning more and more just how complicated we are. We have this thing we call ‘consciousness,’ awareness, or a degree of enlightenment, if you will. In a recent book titled Strangers to Ourselves, Timothy Wilson, who studies human consciousness, […]
Buddha: the Man, the Myth and the Message – February 19, 2012
Last week we looked at Jesus; the man, the myth, and the message. We know very little about the actual man, the historical Jesus; we know a lot about the myth, which is often presented as history, and the message is simple – be nice. Today we’ll look at the same three aspects of the […]
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