Divorce
“Healing does not mean going back to the way things were before, but rather allowing what is now to move us closer to God.”
—Ram Dass
Just as much as marriage, divorce or separation can be a holy choice. When divorce is grounded in deep reflection and care, it can be an expression of love and commitment to life. The covenant of committed partnership is an important one, to be honored and respected. However, ’till death do us part,’ is not a vow to cling to, if the relationship itself is causing death.
A belief in continuing revelation in our search for truth and meaning says that, when new information becomes clear to us, honoring that information is a spiritual path to be followed.
A Pattern So Vast
Podcast: Download (13.7MB)
Subscribe: More
I still use the copy of The Joy of Cooking I got for Christmas in 1969. This now-fragile cookbook has memories stained into many of its pages (especially the peanut-butter cookie page).
I’ve always loved how the “Fish” chapter ends. The authors give many dozens of fish recipes, arranged alphabetically by fish—from fried catfish, scalloped cod and marinated herring through casseroled octopus, glazed salmon, broiled swordfish, and so on. Then the final fish recipe, on page 362, just says: “Whale. Last, but vast.”
Finding Our Place in the World
Podcast: Download (8.5MB)
Subscribe: More
It was the third summer of my seminary training, and I was completing the required “Clinical Pastoral Education” by serving as a student chaplain in a women’s prison near Tacoma, Washington.
There were a half-dozen of us seminarians there, each from a different faith tradition; I was the only Unitarian Universalist.
The stories we tell…
Podcast: Download (2.2MB)
Subscribe: More
…of heaven and hell are not about how we die, but about how we live.
Two summers ago, [two of my children,] Woolie and Zach were badly burned when the gasoline my cousin George was using to ignite a pile of backyard brush essentially exploded in their faces. Being burned in a fire is one of the classic images of hell, and it’s a pretty powerful one. Being burned hurts a lot.
From Your Minister
REsources for Living
Podcast: Download (4.5MB)
Subscribe: More
.jpg)
I’ve been thinking about the Days of Turning, the ten days between Rosh Hashana (September 28th this year) and Yom Kippur. Rosh Hashana is the Jewish New Year, and like any New Year celebration it marks the opening of new possibilities, of the chance that we and the world around us will be better than last year.
Indian Boy Love Song #1
The Impossible and the Laughable
Podcast: Download (13.4MB)
Subscribe: More
.jpg)
It was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women who told the disciples [of the resurrection], but these words appeared to the disciples as nonsense, and they would not believe them. —Luke 24:10-11 Read more →
Prayer 101
Podcast: Download (10.6MB)
Subscribe: More
It is eleven o’clock in the evening. The children are in bed. I am sitting on the couch in my living room attempting to read. My eyes have tracked one page three times without connecting. My mind is wandering. Read more →
Finding Healing Through the Mail
Podcast: Download (4.0MB)
Subscribe: More
Many UUs don’t realize that the CLF ministers to over 350 incarcerated members through its Prison Ministry Letter Writing Program. Rev. Patty Franz matches incarcerated members of the CLF with freeworld UUs for the exchange of friendly letters. Members of my own family don’t understand why I do this. “If a person has done something terrible then they deserve to suffer, so why bother?” Why indeed?
