For 12 years, I studied the one major thing that has created everything artificial around us, the thing that has created buildings, books, musical instruments, even the US Constitution and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. That thing is the human hand under the control of the human brain. During those 12...

A few days ago it was National Coming Out Day and I got to reflecting. I’ve read that there are 5 or 6 levels of coming out. They range from coming out to yourself, to your friends, then to your family, all the way through to coming out publicly. For me, it was a process that started when I was 19 y...

As an act of service, I used to take care of the lawn and gardens at my church. When I agreed to do this, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. They said they had a lawnmower which was good, because I sold mine years ago. I went down into the church basement and found their mower: an old ha...

“The more you are focused on time—past and future—the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.” –Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment I want to share a story. When I was 24 years old and living in New York City, I had a nervous breakdown. Life wa...

I bought my bus ticket over a month ago because I knew I have to go to this second People’s Climate March. I remember the day that the first one occurred. I was giving a workshop in California on ‘what’s your carbon footprint?’ I was telling my older audience how we all have to live a...

I’m on the bus. We left the Franklin Unitarian Society at 11pm. It was a few crazy hours figuring out what to bring: hat, sunscreen, food, water, rescue remedies. I’m wearing the T-shirt I got last time I was in Washington when the Pope visited. I had to decide who I would be marching with:...

We have gathered at 3rd and Madison with other spiritual and religious groups—the keepers of the faith — near the middle of the people marching. I’m very impressed how this march has been organized. There are people holding pennants for each religion: Catholic, Jewish, Quaker, Islam, Mennonite...

In her essay, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”, Peggy McIntosh says, “I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance to my group.” She says whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are tau...