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 →
Tag Archives: Fear
Soldiers and War Memorials
This Sunday, I preached a “sermon-in-dialog” with Roy Wedge, a member of the UU Fellowship of Midland, a Vietnam era Air Force Veteran, and a singer/songwriter. Below is the final section of that sermon, written and preached by myself, telling the story of the last time I visited the National … Read more →
Osama bin Laden and Unrealistic Hopes
These last few days, I have been on a trip to attend a U.S. Army Chaplains training conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. I have been in hotels, airports, and restaurants in my military uniform, sometimes with other Army Chaplains, but often on my own. For these several days, I have had … Read more →
What Turned a Conservative into a Liberal?
I regularly have conversations with conservatives, both political and religious conservatives. Sometimes that is through my work as an Army Chaplain, sometimes through my work as a liberal minister in a fairly conservative town, and sometimes it is through people from my past who seek me out to ask me … Read more →
Gun Control, Militias, and the Second Amendment
I have chosen never to carry or use a firearm ever again. I made that choice not because of a fundamentalist attitude toward guns, but rather because I am entirely too good with them. I reached a place in my faith journey where I realized that I would rather die … Read more →
Shocked that our Nation is Shocked
Last Saturday, when our nation learned of the tragic shooting in Tucson Arizona of 20 people, including the killing of Federal Judge John Roll and the wounding of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, I was in a Board Retreat with my congregation’s Board of Trustees. None of us learned of the shooting … 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 →
A Taste of Being a Leper
Those who are my “friends” on Facebook already know this, but on Thursday I was diagnosed with H1N1, or the “Swine Flu”. For me, it has been, well… it has been the flu… and a pretty mild flu at that. I have had some deep chest congestion (but not nasal), … Read more →
What is Really Behind these Town Halls… and a Retraction
“Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to much suffering.” — Yoda I want to thank all of the public and private responses to the more than slightly tongue-in-cheek article I put up a few days ago calling for Code Pink to go after those disrupting town … Read more →
Why Janeane Garofalo is Dangerously Wrong
, Any time I hear someone begin to refer to whole groups of individuals as “these people” or “those people”, my brain immediately begins to shout that there is some kind of dangerous prejudice being promoted. I found it amazingly ironic that when Janeane Garofalo launched into her prejudiced diatribe … Read more →
Rejectionist Theology
If I had to describe my own faith journey over the last fifteen years in one sentence, it might be that I moved from understanding my faith only in terms of what I was against, to building a faith based upon what I am for. For years, whenever someone would … Read more →
Now I’m Really Concerned
It might come as a surprise to some of you now, or who know me now, but for years I was an avid listener and dare I say fan of right wing talk radio. In my office and workshop I nearly forced my crew to listen to Rush, G Gordon, … Read more →
Hurricane Rita and Cowboy Church
In September of 2005, my wife and I were evacuating from our Island home on Galveston Island, Texas, ahead of Hurricane Rita. It was a frightening set of days, in which we were in the midst of the nightmare of all traffic jams, in which we traveled only 100 … Read more →