It is our hope that our time together nourished your spirits and inspired your work as the change agents, healers and light workers that you are.

We had our Synod Assembly yearly meeting with the bishop of all clergy and lay leaders and I am aware of how exhausted the clergy are right now. (And I am sure… all other helping professions.) So here is a blessing for my colleagues.

"Leaning In: A Prayer of Intention" is a sung prayer of intercession that aims to break down the distinction between the typical "us"

  Click below for Video of Sermon     Prelude Singing Bell and Call to Worship: L: Our lives feel all disjointed as

As our images of God expand, we must move beyond praying to an elsewhere god. All of life is lived in the midst of Divinity. The life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth point to the reality that Divinity is LOVE. All life is lived in the midst of Love. Prayer is seeking connection to Divinity/Love. Prayer changes us, changing us, changes creation, and so prayer changes the ONE in whom we live, and breathe, and have our being.

I am indebted to Jim Kast-Keat, a pioneering preacher who inspired me to open this sermon with the video below. I am also indebted to Bishop John Shelby Spong for teaching me more that I can articulate with words. His excellent book The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic opened the Gospel According to John in ways that have helped me to see aspects of the Divine to which I was once blind. Much of the sermon consists of extensive quotes from chapter 9 of Jack’s book.

Offering our “thoughts and prayers” in a crisis can be an expression of sincere empathy but when you are capable of doing more and all you do is offer your thoughts and prayers then we quickly realize that such words are reflective of hollow hypocrisy. Prayer can be very helpful to our spiritual journey but as the African proverb teaches, “when you pray, move your feet.” We pray to change the one who prays so that we will do all that we can to meaningfully respond to the many crises we see happening all around us.

If you find yourself, where I have been so many times, wondering, questioning, doubting, do not be afraid to go into the darkness and gestate. In the womb-like love of our Creator re-birth happens over and over and over again. Whether it’s El Shaddai, the Breasted ONE, El Shekinah, God the all powerful, God Beyond Knowing, God the MYSTERY that Allures, Jesus who walks with us, and talks with us, along life’s narrow ways, LOVER of us ALL, God Almighty, the ONE who IS, Was, and EVER more shall be, LOVE, Beloved, and LOVE itself, all our terms of endearment pale in comparison to the reality that is BEYOND words. May the ONE who continues to beckon us with the steadfast dedication of a lover, continue inspire passion in you. NOW and ALWAYS, Amen.

n this St. Patrick's Day it is fitting to receive a blessing from a grand Irishman whose writing reaches into my soul. Followers of this blog know that John O'Donohue is one of my favourite sages. I am indebted to a follower of the blog for sending me this podcast of Krista Tripett's interview of John O'Donohue recorded shortly before his death in 2008. O'Donohue's words continue to open my soul.

We're celebrating 10 years this summer, and this stunning new video has us all sorts of sentimental. We are overwhelmed with gratitude for this family and can't wait to reunite with you on August 11th-14th for the best Beloved yet.

We offer this timepiece on a day that ushers in a new era for all protectors and people alike. An era that will need music to act as the thread between front lines and front doors. Stay in the prayer. We stand with you. For all our relations.

This week I speak with Sir Lloyd Geering, New Zealand theologian and pioneering Christian post-theist. In 1967, Geering was charged with heresy by the Presbyterian Church in New Zealand. He successfully withstood this challenge and has continued writing and speaking about religion and holy texts as a human constructions and words like "God" and "faith" as referents of human self-understanding and growth. He is the author of many books and articles, a few of which can be found in the links below.

In May 2017, people from all over the world will gather in Portland, Oregon to share knowledge and wisdom, learn from each other, celebrate, be inspired, and find the tools needed to create and enliven local movements within our communities. Together we will explore sacred oneness, Christ consciousness, eco-spirituality, social justice and the way of universal and personal transformation that honors the Divine in all.

This album best captures the timeless serenity of the solo Native American flute. R. Carlos Nakai's music speaks to the spirit with a simplicity that transcends place and time. Includes original compositions, traditional Athabascan and Omaha melodies.

Xavier Rudd and The United Nations perform @ LEAF Spring 2015. Since the very beginning, Xavier Rudd's ability to connect with people has been his most powerful gift. The more he has toured the world, the more hearts he has touched and the more of the world he has put back into his music.

Thanksgiving is a time for counting blessings. Sometimes, when we look back into the past we see hard times, or lean times, and we tend to wax poetic about how great life was even though we didn’t have much money.

Let me tell you a classic Thanksgiving story created by the brilliant Garrison Keillor, which takes place on the outskirts of Lake Wobegon, where “All the women are smart. The men are good looking. And the children are above average.”

(My office hosted a group of Tibetan monks, who made a mandala in our Fishbowl Room at the USC Office of Religious Life. I watched them create it over the course of a week, and then watched as they ritually destroyed it in an elaborate ceremony. As I watched them sweep their creation away, I wept for mother, who had died the week before. After 88 years of creating her life, it was swept away like the sand of the mandala.)

How many times have we circled this fire, a prayer upon our lips? How many times have we gone to the water's edge to give thanks for these gifts? And we will rise again, we will rise again. My people will rise again, We'll rise. So many times I've looked out across the ocean, wondered what is it all for?

For me and for the many who no longer hold those stories as sacred, the cost is simply too high. The potential for posthumous reward or damnation has too often drained life of its beauty, wealth, diversity, and joy and the norms of civil society that are reinforced are often not in the best interests of humanity or, at least, significant swaths of it. So we need a way forward.

“Music can transport us, lift us to the place where we gently let go and open completely to receive and remember the divine heart that lives within each one of us, that truly lives in all beings. I have seen, felt and been utterly transformed by the power of sound and music to heal; it is a gift to us from the Source of Love – it is total, pure Grace.”

Gifted with a broad, soaring vocal range and crystalline tone Peia’s voice pierces the heart with bell like clarity. She sings with depth and beauty, moving audiences to tears and inviting listeners to reconnect with one’s own purpose and the heart of the Earth.

This song is a call to action that I hope inspires dialog and contributes in a small way to much needed change in our country today.

Live recording of Climbing PoeTree's "Awakening" poem featuring Leah Song on vocals and Biko Casini on Ngoni.

Gladly we address our burdens Through the mystery of prayer, Lovingly support each other In the privilege of care.

Star Creek Entertainment recording artist Luanne Hunt offers this new rendition of a song that John Denver wrote but never recorded. According to Denver's autobiography, "Take Me Home," he wrote the tune in Santa Fe, NM about three years before his untimely death in a small plane crash over the coast of California.

This honors the beauty & strength of mothers, from which we all come ...filmed at a traditional aboriginal birthing pool in Australia~ women visited this Ti Tree lake during labor and birthed here, cleansed and purified by the natural Ti Tree oils in the water.

Celebrate our life together, giving birth in many ways; Father-Mother Love is with us, leading to a better day. Equal partners ‘round the table, family groups of every kind show us how to nurture kindness, new creation’s joy to find.

Clearing lifetimes of Karma through my heart a portal of healing draws us into love beyond our fears of separation

As the old year passes we look back, reflect: times of joy and promise, times we’d best forget.