It is commonly assumed that Jesus had 12 male disciples, the number being fashioned after the 12 tribes of Israel. Whether or not there were 12 tribes named after 12 men is a question for next week. The question for today is: did Jesus have women disciples, and who were they?

Oh yes, I meditate. I have genuflected and even made the sign of the cross on occasion.  But, I wonder, do these salutations assure me of clear Divinity or not? I would call these functionary activities some semblance of being one with Spirit!

I’ve been introducing scripture passages this way from the pulpit for decades.  At first I was a bit nervous about speaking my mind in such an unambiguous fashion.  But when I discovered that hardly any parishioners blinked, I lost my trepidation. 

This week many of us were moved by Brandt Jean, the brother of Botham Jean, when he told his brother’s killer, Amber Guyger, that he forgives her, and then came off the stand and hugged her in the courtroom.

Autumn Peltier already has years of advocacy behind her. She’s met the prime minister, she’s attended the Assembly of First Nations Annual General Assembly and she’s marched on the highway in the name of water protection. At just 13 years old, Peltier is now a nominee for the International Children’s Peace Prize.

A sustainability leadership professor from the University of Cumbria (UK), Jem Bendell tells us that, at the current pace of runaway global warming, we can no longer assume that humans will figure out a way to avert environmental and societal collapse within the next ten years.

Millennials are more likely than other generations to shift from identifying as affiliated with a religious tradition to unaffiliated, according to the Pew Research Center’s most recent U.S. Religious Landscape Survey.

the church is failing its men—especially young men. There are a many young men who are aimless, uncertain and who feel something is lacking. They are looking for meaning and purpose in life. They may not even know they are searching. Doesn’t this describe each of us at some point in our lives?

There’s no cookie-cutter answer to that question. There’s no one “secret sauce” to sprinkle on a church to bring it alive. But from each other, churches can discover ingredients for the recipes for vitality that will work for them. 

Dr. Joerg Rieger sits with Debo, David and Ann to delve into the differences between “malignant religion” and “life-giving religion.” What is the relationship Jesus had with materialism and to what extent is preaching the good news to the poor life-giving versus malignant?

The American flag, however, has not always been a fixture in American sanctuaries. When it was introduced, it came for reasons specific to historic moments.

I’ve mused to myself that my daily hikes are “God-walks”.  God holds an invisible leash attached to me, and I follow where God leads.   Understanding that I’m on a God-walk snaps me out of the small-“s” selfishness of thinking that my life is my own, that I make all my own decisions consciously, that I’m the master of my own fate and the captain of my own ship. 

Benedictine monk John Main has reminded me of something I first learned reading one of Gore Vidal’s historical novels. Reading to oneself became a thing only in recent centuries. “The spoken word is the essential medium for the communication of the gospel.”

“For the Love of Hussain (A.S.)” recounts the reflections and experiences of a Christian Pastor from America on the fifty-mile walk from Najaf to Karbala, Iraq for Arbaeen in October 2018.

For medical patients up against a dire prognosis, inmates locked in isolation, survivors of a natural disaster, college students facing an identity crisis and others in distress, the quiet profession of spiritual caregivers can provide an indispensable lifeline.

I think these kind of stories are like haikus or koans that are meant to shake us up with paradox and make us realize and/or remember that words are very limiting and they cannot convey the multidimensional complex reality we live in.

I had always thought of myself as tough, like one of the people who could survive almost anything. I have a time or two wondered if I could be as tough and strong as someone like Elie Wiesel was, while in a Nazi concentration camp. But more often than not, I’m not so sure.

We must have the freedom to seek the truth and follow where it leads us, or we will lose our democracy and lose our faith.  Good religion is a foundation for democracy, and democracy is a foundation for the flourishing of good religion.