In a parody of the story of Caesar’s birth, Jesus of Nazareth was heralded by angels, and born of a virgin.  We can still hope for direct action against oppressive Empire and for distributive justice-compassion; against a greed world and for a share world; against zero-sum gaming of every system devised by humanity, and for a radical abandonment of self-interest.

Four altars will be established at the cardinal directions. Room is set in a quartered circle, with four pathways and a center open space. In the center will be a Central Candle. A hooded figure enters, riding a hobby horse (a broom horse). The Hobby Horse goes to each of the four altars and invokes the directions, beginning with the North: Tune played with recorder and/or violin: Abbot Bromley’s Horn Dance. As the hobby horse arrives at each altar, the tune stops while the spirit is invoked, then starts up again until the hobby horse arrives at the next altar . . . etc.

For millennia the world has been driven by the differences between the great patriarchal religions. Western civilization–or Christendom, as it was once called–received its values and its confidence from a belief in God, the Father, and Jesus, his only son. But what if this conviction were founded on an error?

Pentecost is perhaps the first festival appropriated from an ancient tradition to serve the purposes of the new Christian Way.

If we are honest, this parable of the wedding guests is perplexing and almost beyond understanding. It weaves here and there, turning expectations upside down and just when you think “I’ve got it!” – no you haven’t because it twists again.

What impudence of these two upstart fishermen to demand anything of God! These two brothers went to Jesus, not so much with a question or a petition or a prayer, but they went with a demand: “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”

If you put aside what you think you know about Jesus and approach the Gospels as though for the first time, something remarkable happens: Jesus emerges as a teacher of the transformation of consciousness. Cynthia Bourgeault is a masterful guide to Jesus’s vision and to the traditional contemplative practices you can use to experience the heart of his teachings for yourself.

What is seldom noticed by traditional Christians is that consignment to hell is not the payback for “sin”; it is the consequence of not believing that Jesus was the one Anointed by God to return the world to God’s covenantal rule.  If you don’t believe Jesus was the one – according to Matthew – you won’t follow Jesus’ teachings, and when the transformation comes, you will be found in the company of the goats.

The process the early followers of Jesus went through that resulted in the Church of Jesus Christ is fairly long, fairly obscure, and full of pitfalls for those who seek to recreate it.

Gandhi teaches us an important lesson about what to pray for.

Whatever form prayer takes for us, we are in need of its medication.

Good is God…All the time!
I will say it again, Good is God…All the time!
Did you hear something different?

If you are the light of the world, do you attract people to yourself or do you illuminate others?

“I’m worth as much as you,”    while true, Yearns upward much as Eve’s son Cain;    and vainforever proves such self-promotion.

A Story Poem for Proper 16, connecting the question, “Who do You Say that I am?” with Romans 12. 

A Drama for Proper 16.  Shiphrah and Puah
Engaging, humorous, a dialogue between the two midwives in Exodus 1.

This article is a reflective piece about a retreat I led (with a colleague) called “A Time Apart: Creating Sabbaths in Your Life”.  It deals with the intersection of art and oases and how we used a painting by Picasso to discover and elicit the rhythms of our lives.

Paul’s interpretation of who Jesus was probably never crossed paths with the later gospel writers.  Or, if it did, most of his theology was misunderstood.