Category: Staying Connected Blog

Before Times

I want to thank all of you who let me know that our service and my sermon last Sunday resonated with you. Living with the virus for a year felt like an important milestone to mark. We tried to make space for the complicated streams … read more.

The Art of Repair: Life Is What Makes Us

Kintsugi is a Japanese approach to pottery repair in which cracks are filled with golden lacquer, highlighting the shapes of the cracks with the valuable material. The flowing shape of the flaws adds to the beauty of the piece. 

The technique was developed accidentally when 15th-century shogun Ashikaga … read more.

In the Along

Wholeness is a challenging spiritual theme, in part because we are so ambivalent about it. Wholeness suggests finality. “To do list” complete. Check.  

Most of us are such goal-directed folks that living without a destination is a disorienting experience. 

Gwendolyn Brooks describes, poetically, a different understanding of the … read more.

Centering

We enter Black History Month 2021 after a year which saw, among many other things, the Movement for Black Lives manifested in the largest and most diverse demonstrations for equity in our nation’s history. More and more Americans affirm the need to dismantle the Culture … read more.

What’s Theology Got to Do With It?

I have heard from many of you how much you appreciated Rev. Connie Simon’s sermon, From the Inside Out, last Sunday. A book group of elders that has been meeting for more than 50 years with whom I met wanted to talk about it. A group of racial justice activists … read more.

Unity

The first time I teared up during the Inauguration was when Lady Gaga sang the Star-Spangled Banner. Neither the singer nor the song normally bring me to tears. It was not grief, though there is much to grieve. Nor were they tears of anger, though I … read more.

The Ghosts Will Not Leave Us Alone

James Baldwin

Weary. That is how many of you have described yourselves to me in recent days. Not tired. We know how to deal with being tired. Rest is recommended, and respite. Recovery is predictable and expected. Weary is a feeling of being worn down. Over time. … read more.