Posts belonging to Category Inspiration

Sermon: Let it Be a Dance!

This sermon was presented at the UU Church of Ventura, on January 15th, 2011.  As a child growing up in Hawaii, I danced the hula.  This was not an abnormal thing, growing up in Hawaii.  In fact, my first encounter with the hula was in a class at school, where in third grade we were [...]

My Seminary Graduation Gift: A Year with Honor Harrington

I was determined to give myself a gift at the end of 5 years of seminary, church internship, military chaplain basic training, hospital internship and hospice residency… and I did not know what I wanted.  Could I be craving a vacation on a beach in the Caribbean?  Well, always… but I doubt I will ever [...]

I Am an Appalachian-American

Yesterday, I was driving home from an ordination in Rockville Maryland, and I took a route that carried me through the Appalachian Mountains of Western Maryland, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania… and I felt at home. I felt at home in a way that is hard to describe. As I spent the night in a hotel [...]

We Give Thanks, For this Blessed Day

As is customary on Thanksgiving morning, I woke up thinking of all the things that I give thanks for. All the things in my life that I am grateful for… and I thought I would share a few of them. I give thanks for my wife, and for the fact that no matter how much [...]

Worship as Emotive Experience

This past Sunday, I became emotional in the pulpit… again. Ok, truth to be told, I’m always emotional in the pulpit. It’s part of why I never schedule anything for Sunday afternoon, because preaching a good UU sermon will wipe me out, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. I usually maintain enough reserves to make it through [...]

Why I’m still a Christian

If there is anything that makes some of my fellow Unitarian Universalists more uncomfortable than my military past and probably future, it is my willingness to call myself, both in public and from the pulpit, a Christian. I remember one day in particular that a parishioner in my internship congregation came up to me after [...]

A Call of Christmas Peace

It was Christmas, so I called home. That may not sound like much, but after the day I had just had, it was everything in the world to me. I had woken up that morning in my bunkbed made of plywood and 2×4′s, in a bombed out hotel room in Sarajevo, Bosnia. There was no [...]

Tragedy at Ft. Hood

I have intentionally not written anything about the recent mass shooting at Ft. Hood, committed by an Army Psychiatrist, because I did not want to jump to any conclusions. We still do not know enough to draw any conclusions save one… soldiers saved other soldier’s lives that day. I am humbled by the reports that [...]

The Nobel “Not Being Bush” Prize

In a surprising announcement (that perhaps should not have been so surprising) the Nobel Committee announced this morning that the 2009 Nobel Peace Price has been awarded to President Barrack Obama. They cited his efforts to reach out to the Islamic world, and his use of diplomacy rather than unilateralism in the United States’ foreign [...]

Photos of American Samoa

My wife and I were looking at the photos and video in the media of the devastation in American Samoa, following the tsunami.  My wife lived in American Samoa in a tent for months at a time, on archaeological digs.  Just as I did after hurricane Ike hit our former home in Galveston, TX… we [...]