It is the season of the long dark. From time out of mind, religious communities have found reason to gather and to light candles against the dark in this season. We moderns know the truth of the seasonal cycles. Some of us can even explain them coherently. The religious impulse to hold the dark at bay still calls us into the warmth and the light of community. We reflect on the spiritual theme of “Listening” this month. The long dark is a time of greater quiet, of more silence but it is also a time of listening. Perhaps this year…

I was in seminary, in the early 1990’s, when progressives began seriously questioning “Columbus Day” and the narrative of Manifest Destiny. That early response to the American Indian Movement was an attempt to correct the American story. To remind you, Columbus never set foot in what is now the United States. He stumbled on Cuba and the islands of the Caribbean when he misjudged the location of China by half a world. Not a discoverer, it would be more accurate to say that his mistake began the European theft of an entire continent and the genocide of millions of its…

Wednesday morning, early, I passed a congregant at the gym. “Are you buoyed, Bill? Are you buoyed, at least a little?” Another friend used that term later in the morning: “I’m feeling buoyed.” Buoyed. Held up. Floating. Light of Spirit. Tuesday’s election offered many reasons to celebrate, especially here in Oregon: movement toward affordable housing, the protection of our ‘sanctuary’ status, the Portland Clean Energy Initiative, the progressive candidates elected. There were far more cheers than moans among the congregants that gathered at church Tuesday evening. Across the nation, it was not a tsunami, but some balancing of power may…

Halloween. All Saints Day. All Souls Day. This is the season when we humans have always sensed that the world of the spirit, or the spirits, is most closely aligned with our world. This is a time when the boundary between the living and the dead seems thinnest, most permeable. The Day of the Dead is celebrated tomorrow. Among us there are many beliefs about what happens when we die. Our liberal religious tradition makes no promises. I am content to let that mystery remain mystery. But even if we do not believe that we will ever come face to…

At church last Sunday, after the 9:15 service, a congregant approached me, with concern on her face. “Can the new assault on the trans community be true? Haven’t you seen the news?” I had not. She was referring to the unconscionable proposal to require that gender identity, for all governmental and legal purposes, be determined by genetic testing. Trans and gender fluid individuals would be, in significant ways, written out of existence, their lived experience overridden by whatever chromosomal configuration they received at birth. The news of this proposal (thankfully, not yet implemented) had been published Sunday morning, just before…

The Sweet gum tree outside my kitchen window is wearing its spectacular fall finery, a profusion of red and orange and yellow. It is a sure sign of the changing season, of the turning of the year. UU minister Robbie Walsh: “I have just returned from the northern woods and I bring alarming news. Something there is turning the leaves to red and gold…and it’s coming this way. Already here one can see signs. An unfamiliar coolness in the air. Sailboats brought in. Just this morning, a school bus went by. Take warning, friends. Every leaf in our fair town…

I am still reeling from the Kavanaugh appointment to our highest court. The rational part of my brain knows that this was simply the exercise of power. I am also clear that the best, in fact the only effective response, will be for those on the progressive side to take back power, or at least regain a balance of power. Deadlock would be so much preferable to the damage the last 18 months have brought. But I am still reeling. And we all need to be prepared to survive the onslaught of the mid-term elections…even those of us who try…

Thursday, 1:30PM Dear friends, I wrote this blog post less than 24 hours ago. Today, with events in Washington seeming to crowd out most other concerns, perhaps I should cobble together a quick response and trust that you will wait for greater depth from me in good time. But I think this is still a good message for us, even today…for us and for others. Some of you will be joining the protest at the Courthouse at 4 today. Others may chose to gather in the Channing Room from 5-6:30 for community and prayer. Take a deep breath. And another.…

I am writing from Washington, DC, where I am attending a meeting of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice(RCRC) on whose national board I serve. Within the hour, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hear testimony from both Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and one of his several accusers, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. You are all as aware of the importance of this Supreme Court appointment as am I. The politicization of our highest court and its shift to the right put much at risk, including perhaps our democracy itself. That statement risks being too dramatic, I know. Perhaps our institutions…

Integrity, our spiritual theme this month, can so easily be understood as the taking of principled stands, of holding fast to what we believe to be right even to the point of personal sacrifice. We tell the story of Michael Servetus, early rejecter of the Trinity and advocate for a version of Unitarianism, who choose to be burned at the stake rather than compromise his theological views. Few of us are asked for that kind of integrity on steroids. But there is real danger in allowing a commitment to what we believe is right to become an attitude of righteousness.…