Advertisement
Observing Holy Week
The Rev. Cynthia Kane considers the annual rituals of Spring practiced in many religions and shares what Easter means for her.
[Each] year I see and feel the overwhelming promise that a better world is possible. One where the most righteous among us finally become the ones most listened to. Where the quality of love gains so much strength, it seems as real as anything we can touch. Where the warriors of the world are shaken to the core by something like compassion.
I also know, though, it is no good marking time at Easter basking in the promise of a better world unless it is something we are willing to build ourselves. (Captain Reverend Mother, March 18)
The Rev. Dr. Victoria Weinstein offers practical tips for ministers during Holy Week. (Beauty Tips for Ministers, March 23)
The Rev. Bill Sinkford’s faith has room for both science and mystery.
I do not locate the source of my faith in a death and the story of a rebirth long ago. But there is in the yearning for rebirth and the urgency for resurrection a truth I can believe in.
It is a mystery, this business of life and death. I think that is why we celebrate this season again and again. It is the human truth of the life that moves within us, even in the presence of death. Our task, somehow, is not to conquer death, but to be present to that mystery. (Rev. Sinkford’s Blog, March 24)
Believing what we must
The Rev. James Ford notes the feast day for Archbishop Oscar Romero and the questions raised by his life and maryrdom.
It was on this day in 1980, while celebrating mass, he paused and delivered a sermon on basic human rights, then returned to the altar, and while saying the words of institution, as he held up the chalice the archbishop was shot. He fell and the communion wine and his own blood mixed on the ground. There the archbishop died.
Not a bad moment for a little introspection.
I think the question, the real question for us all is how do we live in this world of suffering? (Monkey Mind, March 24)
The Rev. Dr. David Breeden explains the role integrity plays for many spiritual seekers.
When I listen to people who have become Unitarian Universalists or Humanists, who have come out of other systems of meaning-making, what I hear about is a search for integrity—for a match between mental beliefs and physical action.
For example, an older gentleman came to my office one day. He’d been born a Lutheran and had been a Lutheran all his life. His son had recently committed suicide. At his son’s funeral, when he heard the platitudes about how it was the will of god, and that god had a plan, and on and on, he realized that he simply didn’t believe any of it. (Quest for Meaning, March 24)
An article diminishing the place of scholarship in theological education enrages the Rev. Dr. Victoria Weinstein.
But given that so much of the turmoil in our public discourse and our institutions is founded in actual ignorance and misinformation, responsible practice of ministry requires the ordained religious leaders in this country to be academically trained, and rigorously so, to be equipped to teach and instruct and inform, not merely to converse or facilitate.
If we jettison the academic aspect of theological education in favor of softer skill sets, we abdicate our role as religious scholars who have the learning, the training and the authority to correct the willful misrepresentations of religious belief, perversion of doctrine for nefarious ends and social control, and, in America, co-opting of the Christian tradition to justify the machinations of empire rather than to dismantle them. (Beauty Tips for Ministers, March 21)
And more . . .
Bob Patrick reminds us to be kind.
It costs us very little to be kind. To be open. To make a warm and soft place for other human beings to land when they fall. It costs us very little. Some day, we, ourselves, will need that warm, soft place. Until then, the awe and wonder of opening ourselves to others so that they can share themselves is really almost incomparable. I think that when I open myself to another’s revelation, the whole universe opens to me. (Words of Wisdom, March 24)
Andrew Hidas begins a travelog about his journey through India.
I have made my way to India with my 17-year-old daughter and a traveling companion who knows the technical ins and outs of the Internet in order to help smooth the way for a Telemedicine project to be initiated in the low mountain town (3,000-foot elevation) of Nahan, which, if you kept going east up the mountain and could fly, would land you in a few hours in Nepal and the Himalayas. (Traversing, March 22)
The Rev. Dr. Cynthia Landrum celebrates a more financially accessible OWL training.
Followers of this blog may remember that we did a series of posts about how OWL training can be expensive and difficult for congregations. Well, the good news is that it has now gotten a little bit easier. The UUA is making OWL training for all ages available in Columbus prior to General Assembly, thus enabling folks already traveling to GA to minimize travel costs associated with OWL training. (The Lively Tradition, March 23)