Celestial Lands The Religious Crossroads of Politics, Power, and Theology

Category Archives: Humor

Staycation and Mr. Bean

This week is Candidating Week for the congregation that I am serving as an Interim Minister.  Now, by all indications Candidating Week has gone well, and the congregation will vote tomorrow on whether to call Jeff Liebmann as their new settled minister.  What will be with that will be… and Read more →

Decline, Denial, and an 8K Ruck March

This weekend was a military drill / Battle Assembly for me, and it taught me something… that I’m not as young as I once was. Nor am I as young as I would like to be. Nor am I as young as I like to think I am. I was Read more →

Leaving Chicago

As we left Chicago on Friday for the last time as “Chicagoans”, I saw the tension in my wife’s shoulders begin to drain away, tension that has been there for four years. From the smile on her face, I’m pretty sure she felt that tension draining away herself. It was Read more →

UU’s Element on the Periodic Table

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Apparently, scientists have created a new element, numbering 117 on the periodic table. While they are attempting to re-create the element in another lab, it has been given the name “Ununseptium”, with the symbol on the periodic table Read more →

On Being a Murphyist

I have spent the last five years in the occasional study of a religious system that I believe has always existed, but has never been academically defined (except perhaps in secret by some graduate engineering students). My interest in this religious system is that my wife is an adherent, and Read more →

The Child Within

As I was flipping through websites, I saw that Peacebang had put some wonderful childhood pictures of another minister up, as a reminder of the real human being underneath clerical garb… and I thought it a wonderful idea.  Not just for others to see, but to remind each of us Read more →

My Plan to Deal with those Disrupting Town Hall Meetings

For reasons I have written about here, I have decided to intellectually retract this article. I leave it up to highlight my own growth on the issue and to model honesty in blogging… but what I wrote here as somewhat tongue-in-cheek I now realize has ramifications I did not intend. Read more →

No Atheists in Foxholes?

I came across this article reference while reading a 1946 Master’s thesis on the effect War has on religious and moral beliefs, and I fell in love. The Power of this tendency to create myths has recently been demonstrated in the famous assurance that “there are no atheists in foxholes”. Read more →

Obama-Rama Mania Gone Way, Way Too Far

I know I live in Hyde Park (actually, I live on the border of Hyde Park and the neighborhood to the south of Woodlawn, but we work, shop, and go to class in Hyde Park). I know that less than 10 blocks from my apartment the secret service is sitting Read more →

GOP in Search of Leadership?

I have been following with a gleam and an avid eye the quest for leadership for the Republican Party… and I have found my choice. The party need not look any further than Jonathan Krohn, a 13 year old conservative from Atlanta. Boy’s got mad skills. Krohn spoke this week Read more →

No More Books, Please!

I am asking for your understanding. Perhaps I am speaking a prophetic voice for Seminarians in and beyond our Liberal Faith. I am writing to all so I can ask for this favor, this boon. Please stop giving me books you think I just have to read… please! I know Read more →

There is Help… There is Hope

“I have found myself unable to sleep, waking up at three o’clock in the morning in a cold sweat, with nightmares of oil platforms and hunting rifles, only to rush to my computer to check Pollster.com” — Anonymous Liberal “My boss is noticing my productivity is down, but I just Read more →