There are four primary directions of protest that I see enacted in American Society. For purposes of this article, I am separating them so that they can be seen, knowing that in the real world they are often bound up together in any discrete action or moment. Several of these … Read more →
Category Archives: Articles
On the Contract-to-Call Process
This is the second in a series of articles that I am bringing to Celestial Lands over the first few months of this New Year, exploring several aspects of the interrelation between professional ministry, congregations, and the current UUA search process. Future articles will include an exploration of the different … Read more →
Hire a Contract Minister or Call a Settled Minister?
This is the first in a series of articles that I am planning to bring to Celestial Lands over the first few months of this New Year, exploring several aspects of the interrelation between professional ministry, congregations, and the current search process. Future articles will include an exploration of the … Read more →
Time Management vs. Energy Management
Through my academic, professional (non-ministry), and military careers, I have always had to pay particular attention to managing my time. Partly this is because of my own tendencies towards wanting to do as much as possible as soon as possible (something that friends and colleagues have chided me about for … Read more →
Creating the “End Times” in Religion and in Politics
Today, I read an email from the leader of a right-wing Patriot group, known as “Oath Keepers” that the group was planning to “go operational”. I’ve paid attention to “Oath Keepers” for some time, because of their interpretation of the Oath of a Federal Officer that I have also taken… the … Read more →
My Hobby
Do you know someone who has a passionate love of fishing? Or perhaps golf? Maybe amateur motorcycle racing? Or sailing? You know the kind of person I mean… the person who has a “hobby” that they are so passionate about that it encompasses much of their soul? The fisherman who … Read more →
Reading List for “Theology in Science Fiction” Religious Education Class
After much deliberation, I have outlined my chosen texts for a year long Unitarian Universalist Religious Education Class in Theology in Science Fiction. I have no current plans to offer this class anywhere, but have been dreaming of teaching it for many years. Someday, it will happen. Until that time, … Read more →
War Changes Us All
(Part 1 of Sermon “Trauma and Transformation” with the Rev. Jan Christian at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Ventura on Sunday, November 11th, 2012) When I came home from Bosnia, a VA psychologist gave me two books to read… books that have since become part of what I think of … Read more →
The Consequences of Omniscience and Omnipotence
When I was at the U.S. Army Chaplain’s School at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina, there was a day in class that we were responding to hypothetical counseling situations. One of the scenarios presented to us was that of a young woman who came to us for counseling after having been … Read more →
Free Speech, Responsibility, and Religious Violence
Freedom is one of the most misunderstood concepts in the United States, and perhaps in the world. Be it Religious Freedom, or Freedom of Speech, or the Freedom of the Press, the Freedom of Association, or any of the common conceptions of freedom that we experience in the United States, … Read more →
President Obama is Not a Liberal Socialist… I Am
I promised myself that I would not move into my “occasional political musings” this election season until after the conventions were over. Well, the speeches in Charlotte and Tampa are done, and now I feel that there are some things that I have to say… President Obama is not a … Read more →
The Transition of Ordination
It has now been over 2 years since I was ordained as a Unitarian Universalist Minister, and each of those years I have spent in more than full time ministry as a minister in our congregations, as well as a reserve military chaplain. Prior to that was a little over … Read more →
Observations About Humanity… From Driving a Smart Car
A few months ago, the van that I have driven for these last several years decided it was tired and was not going to go anywhere anymore, and so my wife and I began researching and shopping for a new-to-us car. Now, I have bought many cars over the years, … Read more →
Is This Really Where We Are? — A Psalm of Lament
Oh Lord, Is this really where we are? A man once said, “I believe, but help my unbelief”. I’m not sure I ever understood, until I myself had to cry out to you, Is this really where we are, oh Lord. Are we really as far from the Kingdom of … Read more →
American Exceptionalism and American Irrelevance
One of the genre’s of Science Fiction that I love is what is called “near future Sci-Fi”. These are stories set to occur in the next 200 years or so. What I love about them is that they “forecast” out not into some far off fantastic future, but into the … Read more →
Truth: The Greatest Adaptive Problem of Humanity
In the last few months, I have been wrestling with one particular set of theological and epistemological questions… and I’m not done with them yet. That has been part of the reason for the fall-off of writing here at Celestial Lands. Unsure of where I was flowing around the issue, … Read more →
Prejudice is Part of Human Nature
We human beings have many times many different prejudices. I’m not trying to make a value statement in saying that, just naming something that I believe is an inherent aspect of human nature. We are deeply prejudiced beings. It is impossible that this not be the case. I have never … Read more →
To Write or Not to Write… A Systemic Theology Book
One of the aspects of a Clinical Pastoral Education Residency that was most valuable to me was spending a year with ministers from other religious traditions, being required to have deep discussions about theology, about pastoral care, and about our life experiences. It not only helped me to broaden my … Read more →
What Would a UU Religious Order Look Like?
One of the first essays I ever wrote in seminary, and the first essay I ever had published, was on the need for Unitarian Universalism to develop integrated spiritual practices that can be shared and engaged by large groups of Unitarian Universalists. In that essay, I make the case that … Read more →
I’m Sick Unto Death of Hearing about Protecting the Religious Liberty of Military Chaplains
I remember something that my Drill Sergeant said to me, my first day of Basic Training some 20 years ago, when I was an 18 year old private at Ft. Leonard Wood Missouri. We were all in one of our first formations, and he asked us if any of us … Read more →
The Center of a Liberal Faith Movement
What it means to be a Unitarian Universalist has been on my heart this last week. Not surprisingly, considering that many UU’s are currently thinking about similar things in reaction to the recent white paper from Rev. Peter Morales titled “Congregations and Beyond”. I know there is a lot behind … Read more →
Our Responsibility to those Beyond Our Walls
Break not that circle of enabling love, Where people grow, forgiven and forgiving, Break not that circle, make it wider still, Till it includes, embraces all the living. –Hymn 323, Singing the Living Tradition Recently, the conversation has begun again about what makes a Unitarian Universalist. Are you only a … Read more →
War, Young Kids, and a Professional Military
Last week, a video surfaced on the internet that shows several young U.S. Marines urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. Immediately, there were calls for an investigation. World leaders talked of their disgust. U.S. Military leaders promised that they would get to the bottom of the … Read more →
Kickoff
I love politics. I love politics the way other people love football. I watch 24 hour news channels in political seasons the way other people watch ESPN. The minor of my Bachelor’s degree is in Political Science (Major in History), and I would describe my knowledge of practical politics by … Read more →
Without Change, Something Sleeps Inside Us… Ministry in the Transitions
My life has been one of change. Change both within and without. That reality affects my preaching, it affects how I build relationships, it affects how I look at the universe. As I have been reflecting on this past year, I have been struck by how much change was within … Read more →
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 … Read more →
Captain Travis Patriquin and the Awakening of Iraq
This is a repost of an Article I put on Celestial Lands every year on December 6th. It was 5 years ago today that my friend Travis was killed in the Anbar province of Iraq. This year, the book on his life was published (see below) I wear his memory … Read more →
UU Military Chaplains and the Cross
Unitarian Universalists are almost always surprised when they see me wearing the Christian Cross on my Army Chaplain uniform. Perhaps they should not be, given the Christian ancestry of our two founding denominations, but they are. Reactions have ranged from mild curiosity to outrage to some deep pastoral need. On … Read more →
The Real Meaning of the Thanksgiving Story
On this day, Thanksgiving Day, I think we are remembering the wrong message. I think our society has taken the wrong meaning from the mythologized story of starving pilgrims, a coming hard winter, and Native Americans who shared. We give thanks to God, or to some sense of the Universe … Read more →
So… What Comes After the Revolution?
It is far easier for us humans to know what we are against than it is for us to know what we are for. Learned responses and internal morality can tell us if we are “against” something that we experience in our lives. We can know that we do not … Read more →
How Can You “Come Home” When You Are Homeless? — 2011 Veteran’s Day Reflection
When I reflect on the few years after “coming home” from Bosnia, the years before some friends and a veteran counselor helped me to “get my head back on straight”, I realize that I had more than my share of luck. I was lucky to be in a university that … Read more →
Religion and the Four Great Fears
My dear friend, Chaplain the Rev. Seanan Holland visited us this weekend, and as usual he and I got into one of our hours-long rolling discussions about Life, the Universe, and Everything. This time in particular, we were rolling around the origin and nature of religion, the fundamental flaw in … Read more →
Individuality and the American Dream
I’ve been thinking this past week about a class I took during my undergraduate degree, called “Political Thought in American Film”. It was class in my minor that combined two things I love, politics and movies… how could I resist? Specifically, I’ve been thinking about two films we watched in … Read more →
Is the Constitutionality of Military Chaplaincy in Danger?
This week, I received an email from an organization I track, known as the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. It is an organization that advocates both legally and in the media, for the protection of the Free Exercise of Religion in the military, often with more passion than restraint. Yet, over … Read more →
The Election that Really Matters
There is an election that I have been following for several years, one that is of vital importance for the future of America, and for the World. No, it is not the Republican Nomination for the President of the United States, nor is it Parliamentary Elections in Europe, nor is … Read more →
Introspection and the “Set Apart” Life of Ministry
There are times where the internal shifts necessary to be in a life of ministry in our liberal faith tradition are more obvious than others. As Unitarian Universalist ministers, we often emphasize a radical leveling in our ministries, and many UU ministers react against the classical understanding that ministers should … Read more →
The Role of Faith for the Military Chaplain
In the fall of 2011 I was honored to attend the first ever OutServe Leadership Conference. This was the first time for this organization of LGB persons actively serving in the military to gather publicly, since such public gatherings and recognition was made possible by the repeal of Don’t Ask, … Read more →
Then You Win: Institutionalization and the Occupy Wall Street Protests
Over the last few weeks, I’ve had some hesitancy to write about my thoughts on the “Occupy Wall Street” protests, and the reaction to them that is happening in the more conservative ends of our country. The reason for my hesitancy is that this is a place where my theoretical … Read more →
It’s Always an Oligarchy
In the last few months, I have heard the word Oligarchy being bandied around on the edges of American political circles. In the Tea-Party wing, they are using it as a new word for “Hollywood Elite” and “Liberal Media”. On the semi-far left it is being used to refer to … Read more →
Bearing Witness or Smug Paternalism?
Recently, there has been some chatter in UU Ministerial and Lay-Leadership circles around the upcoming plans for the Unitarian Universalist Association “Justice GA” in Phoenix Arizona, focusing on how it is planned for those who attend to do far more learning and bearing witness on the issue of immigration, than … Read more →
Why I’m Not Celebrating the Repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
It may not be something that is in the minds of most of the public, but today, September 20th, has been a date on my mind for these last two months. It is a day long hoped for, long worked for, and dreamed of by many. It is a day … Read more →
Ministry is Big, so Have Faith
I want to give thanks to my colleague Christian Schmidt for being one of two inspirations for this post, through a question he posed to me in a comment on my article on our denomination’s feelings about supporting ministries. It is a topic that I have thought about engaging many … Read more →
Our Feelings on Supporting Ministries
Over the past few months, I’ve been surprised by some of the reactions from colleagues and former colleagues about my decision to accept an Assistant Minister position. Those reactions have covered a broad range of concern and emotion… all of which was heartfelt. I do not want this article to … Read more →
The Fluidity of Identity and the Created Self
There are many amazing aspects about the process of meeting a new church. Of course there are the challenges of moving into a system that is already well established, of becoming subject to traditions and power-lines that are long established, and to engage congregational dynamics as they flow and shift. … Read more →
The Honor of Being on “Smiley and West”
This weekend I will be on a short segment of the Public Radio International program “Smiley and West” with Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornel West. It was recorded today, to be aired this weekend. It was an honor to have a letter I sent to the program selected for the … Read more →
To Live Like Jesus
Last week and this week, I have been attending some military chaplaincy training in San Antonio Texas, as a part of my continuing education as both a UU Minister and an Army Reserve Chaplain. The first week was a wonderful course, put on by the Rev. Dr. Chrys Parker and … Read more →
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 … Read more →
I’m a Liberal and I’m a Patriot who Loves God… Deal with It!
I think this topic is becoming a regular 4th of July weekend tradition of mine, mainly because I have had it with the idea that unless someone is a Fox News watching, gun toting Tea-Party Republican they are not a “Real American”. Beyond the fact that such definitions of “Real … Read more →
General Assembly Day 5: Passionate Arguments for Our Faith’s Center
I want to say on Celestial Lands what I said in person to many people about the overall “theme” for this General Assembly. In my most humble opinion, the overall theme was not the 50th Anniversary of the UUA. It was not where we will be as a religion in … Read more →