So, if thoughts and prayers (of petition or intercession) cannot produce any salvific change when uttered to an imagined divine – who for anyone with eyes to see, or ears to hear is too deaf, indifferent or impotent to intercede — then with whom can we bargain, or utter any plea for help?

America is not a gun. We're a lot better than that. We prove it every day by loving our neighbors (even ones we don't particularly like), campaigning for sensible gun laws, taking care of people in need in our communities.

Maybe everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed & strange. But only when everything hurts May everything change.

We can no longer deny that the seeds of racism and hatred are growing at a pace which threatens to choke our long-ago dreams of a multicultural paradise.

For all of you grieving the loss of someone you love — whether this loss occurred last week, last year, or decades ago — I hope you find some comfort in these words, too. I hope you have the courage to tell the truth about your loved one: the good, the bad, and the complex. And that you don’t break faith with the full spectrum of your feeling, from mourning to dancing.

Ginsburg leaves a titanic influence on the law, a legacy unmatched by any other jurists. As a feisty octogenarian on the Supreme Court bench, Ginsburg earned the moniker Notorious R.B.G.- a play off the deceased rapper Notorious B.I.G.

All Lives Matter, but have you seen what my people are going through?

I’ve been spending a lot of time with psalm 123 lately. The church I attend had a session on the theology of mental illness and this psalm speaks directly to the mindset behind the stigma that so many, like me, with serious mental illness confront.

I’ve been waiting for over thirty years for this to happen, and I often wondered why it didn’t before now. I’m referring to the death of George Floyd and the resulting demonstrations and riots.

We write together and in one voice, with urgency, as people of faith and as religious and spiritual leaders that represent the diverse faith traditions of United States of America. We are Baha’i, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Humanist, Indigenous, Jain, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Taoist, Unitarian Universalist, Zoroastrian, and many others.

There are no two sides. It's not just a couple of clouds shrouding the sun. And the fire is not in the sky, it's in the land. Sometimes containing that fire is the wrong move. Sometimes you need to let it burn through you, the sadness, the anger, the 'Is this really still happening ... STILL ... still?"

In response to the killing of George Floyd, the latest victim of racist violence against persons of color in the United States, Melanie DeMore, vocal activist and friend of URI, wrote on Facebook, “I feel the pain of loss deep in my bones. Another innocent lost…blatant brutality.” And then she sang the words of an African-American Gullah lullaby, “Somebody’s baby just killed someone else’s baby, leaving somebody’s baby, cryin’. When will it all end?”

I can remember when it first happened — when my dungeon shook and my chains fell off. I had recently gone through a horrible experience and felt there was nowhere to turn, no one who could give voice to my ache, my pain, and my rage.

Like many of you I have watched a wept as over and over again, young black men and women have their breath taken from them as they are murdered in the streets, in their yards, on their porches, and in their beds by the very ones who are sworn to protect and serve them.

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul said, "Everything is lawful, but not everything is beneficial." This was toward the end of a letter in which he had urged the members of the church in Corinth to follow a higher law -- to submit to the law of love. Later in the same letter, he said, "Don't look for your own advantage, but look out for one another."

I hold in my consciousness two previously unimaginable opposites; on the one hand the possible even likely extinction of humanity and on the other, the potential for our unimaginable birth of a new embodied divine humanity, the mutation realized and resplendent.

May 1 is the international workers’ holiday but this year, in light of the pandemic, more consideration needs to be given to the very nature of the economy beyond the traditional rivalry between owners and laborers.

Sermon Video with Bishop Yvette A. Flunder, City of Refuge UCC on March 8, 2020.

Two United Church of Christ pastors are part of a group of black faith leaders calling on the Trump administration to provide better testing, treatment and health care for people of color during the coronavirus pandemic.

Traditional Christianity has missed the point of the Easter story.  The miracle on Easter wasn’t that Jesus was physically or spiritually raised to sit at God’s right hand until he could one day return to judge humanity.  The miracle was his followers recognizing that they could continue to proclaim the message of God’s Reign on this earth even once Jesus had been crucified.

This part of American history “is not taught in schools,” said Jolynne Locust Woodcock of the Oglala Lakota, Cherokee, and Northern Cheyenne Nations and another member of the Four Winds community. Nor do people discuss “what happened, who died, [or] at whose expense this country exists. It’s not acknowledged that we’re still alive, that we are a living, breathing, heartfelt bunch of people.”

Let's take care of one another. Let's share our resources whether that is money or toilet paper. Let's inject humor into our conversation and encourage one another. This crisis will be over one day, and when it is, let's have carried on in a way that we can be proud of.

    It was almost five years ago now, and I can still see her smile. It was a beautiful smile; a smile

The world will now be faced with a time of moral testing as Covid 19 spreads from pole to pole. The early response of hoarding toilet paper and hand sanitizer is not an encouraging sign predicting whether our better angels will be revealed or our fearful, selfish demons.

In the desperate final days of Bonhoeffer's life, he wrote from prison about the futility of trying to talk to stupid people about facts, as many of his neighbors and fellow church folk simply rolled along with the Nazi movement. M. Scott Peck defined evil as a kind of "militant ignorance," a refusal to deal with the known facts of reality.

“Black lives matter” is not just wisdom for protesting “issues” of law enforcement. It should be a mantra for all of life.

Though most western religious traditions seem to promise some kind of afterlife, what if, as Martin Hägglund articulately argued, our limited mortal life is all there is? Our days, being limited in number, become more valuable, and our work becomes more meaningful. Without eternity, preserving the earth becomes more imperative. Though many spiritual teachers give assurances they cannot support with evidence, this sermon deals with morality in a matter-of-fact manner.

If we pay attention, the Christmas story is a mirror held up for us to see that we live in a country where the government locks thousands of migrant children into dog cages, sexually abusing some, torturing others, and allowing many to die while the church is largely compliant and silent. And we seriously wonder if this government might actually win election approval from poor church goers in a few months. Merry Christmas?

For years, rumors dogged superstar Whitney Houston as being a closeted lesbian. Now in a moving memoir, “A Song for You: My Life with Whitney Houston,” by Robyn Crawford depicts their friendship and love story.

In 2017 five-year-old Julia traveled with her mother, Guadalupe, from Honduras to the United States. Her harrowing journey took her through Mexico in the cargo section of a tractor trailer. Then she was separated from her mother, who was held hostage by smugglers.