I'm inviting folks to engage with 14 of the questions that Jesus asked his followers during his ministry.  From Ash Wednesday, 2/22, through Easter

Even and especially in these difficult times, the Lenten journey can be an encouraging, enlightening path to hope, resilience, and new life.

Most years, sometime during the season of Lent, Jewish people observe Passover. I knew a little bit about it, but I learned a lot more at a friend’s son’s Bar Mitzva last week. The weekend of this Bar Mitzva included the Sabbath of the red heifer. I listened transfixed as the Rabbi spoke about it.

Now, I know Jesus taught his disciples to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them. And following Jesus is something I take super-seriously. But I’m angry and worried, and pretty much everyone in the United States is. It isn’t easy to follow those particular instructions.

40 days & 40 nights: A Journey of Prayer and Contemplation

So why did I find this Lent so difficult? Loving our enemies is tough because it doesn’t mean overcoming disagreement; it means loving one another, protecting one another, caring for one another in spite of disagreement.

"What does it mean to be a Progressive Christian? Listen to ProgressiveChristianity.org Co-Executive Director Rev. Dr. Caleb J. Lines examine the 8 Points of Progressive Christianity throughout Lent, continuing with Points 3 & 4."

You can “walk” these stations by practicing one station per day, from March 20 through Good Friday, April 2 – or at any other time or manner during Lent (Ash Wednesday, February 17, until Easter Sunday, April 4).  

According to the Torah, on the Sabbath you can pick up an apple that naturally falls from a tree onto the ground, but you can’t pick it from the tree.  Mindful Christian meditative prayer practice is very similar.  In it, we take time to see things as they are, without interfering with them or trying to fix or change them.

During this precious Holiday Season for all religions and all people everything seems so much better when a candle is burning. It represents to me that God is Coming to help ascend into our higher nature, a nature that we all possess virtue of God creating us in his or her image.

Compassionate, Intelligent, Inter-Spiritual, Non-Dogmatic

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In A Joyful Path, Year Two, we focus on some of the main tenets of Progressive Christianity and Spirituality, giving our children the foundation they need to walk the path of Jesus in today's world. It has stories and affirmations written to help children clarify their own personal beliefs while staying open to the wisdom of other traditions.

I am indebted to Amy-Jill Levine's book "Short Stories by Jesus" and Bernard Brandon Scott's book "Hear Then the Parable" for challenging me to look beyond the Christian bias of interpreting Jesus' parables through the lens of the repentance and forgiveness and attempting to hear this story in ways more in keeping with Judaism.

This is public theology. As precious Patrons, I’m inviting you in to my theological process. Beginning on Ash Wednesday (March 6) and concluding on Good Friday (April 19), each week I will publish a photo and brief reflection on each of Christ’s 7 Last Words on the Cross.

In a late night session on February 7, 2017, during Jeff Session’s confirmation hearing for U.S. Attorney General, just weeks after the inauguration of President Donald Trump, the United States Senate voted to silence Senator Elizabeth Warren after she read comments made decades earlier by Edward Kennedy and Coretta Scott King that criticized the civil rights record of Senator Sessions. Warren was censured because Senate Rule XIX prohibits ascribing "to another senator or to other senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a senator." To silence her, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell led a party-line vote that forced Senator Warren to take her seat and refrain from speaking. McConnell later said “Senator Warren was giving a lengthy speech. She had appeared to violate the rule. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”

Today marks the first Sunday of Lent, a time of self-reflection and lament. It is often considered a season of darkness. Something I am all too familiar with. The season of Lent reminds me of walking a labyrinth. A labyrinth is a path that requires you to go in and come out the same way in which you entered. It is a journey towards the center, then back out again, into the world to which you came. You cannot skip the part you did not like, or go around a difficult feeling, you must return the exact way you entered. But, even though the path does not change, you have, and in this we find new life.

  During one of the airless afternoons I spent in St. Rita Sunday school, our teacher gave us the exercise of drawing the

The season of Lent is traditionally understood to be a time for reflection, contrition, and consideration of the sacrifice Jesus undertook for our sins. It has been, as you know, traditionally recognized for the forty days leading up to Easter. Preceded by Shrove Tuesday, upon which Christians are to prepare to confess their sins, Lent is entered into as a holy season of penitence.

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.

As a survivor of anorexia, abuse, and depression, I can say that I have let the overwhelming pressures of filling media/society's expectations of "how a woman should be" overwhelm and silence my inner voices - without even realizing I was doing it. Until... I just couldn't breathe anymore. As I live more days on this planet now, I can say with full confidence that there are no standards or rules worth crushing our soul bones to fit into. Life gets better when we just... let it out.

But no one knows me no one ever will if I don’t say something, if I just lie still Would I be that monster, scare them all away If I let the-em hear what I have to say I can’t keep quiet, no oh oh oh oh oh oh

In the larger scheme of life, I believe that the great challenge of western culture is to connect with our souls, our inner being, the “still small voice” that urges us to be this or do that. In the busyness and challenges of life it is easy to push aside that inner light and get on with the demands of work, family, and all the responsibilities life brings. The temptation is to live on the surface of life and neglect its depths.

Lent has come again (quite early this year!), and we should use it to start developing some of our atrophied spiritual muscles, like practicing solidarity. At its best, Lent is an opportunity to take up a spiritual practice, as opposed to superficially avoiding sweets. Learning how to listen for the sake of building solidarity is an essential practice for progressive Christians. Doing so is necessary if we are to break out of the mold we so often find ourselves caught in when it comes to relating to the suffering of others.

Earlier this year the Prime Minister of Israel addressed a joint session of Congress. Last week, Pope Francis did the same. Many believed the former had a political ax to grind, and the latter a pastoral message with political points to preach. For many modern day Christians, Francis embodies many of the teachings and much of the life-style of the Galilean sage. Unless one believes in the highly speculative Second Coming, Jesus will likely never be invited by the Speaker of the House of Representatives to follow Benjamin and Francis, addressing our political leaders. But if we were to draw from the earliest available records of his theological – if not political – perspective, what might Jesus have to say to our elected government officials? Read more.

Like so many African American women, myself included, Sandra Bland’s death, resulting from police brutality is not new news. The national attention it’s receiving is, however. The reality of unarmed African American women being beaten, profiled, sexually violated and murdered by law enforcement officials with alarming regularity is too often ignored – especially with the focus of police brutality on African- American males.

Three Muslim organizations have raised over $100,000 to rebuild black churches in the South. "We hope this campaign encouraged non-Black Muslims to support the BlackLivesMatter Movement and remain committed to ending anti-Black racism in America," Sarsour said to HuffPost. "We have a [lot] of work to do. This is just the beginning."

The 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, an African-American teenager in Florida, and the subsequent acquittal of his killer, brought public attention to controversial "Stand Your Ground" laws. The verdict, as much as the killing, sent shock waves through the African-American community, recalling a history of similar deaths, and the long struggle for justice. On the Sunday morning following the verdict, black preachers around the country addressed the question, "Where is the justice of God? What are we to hope for?" This book is an attempt to take seriously social and theological questions raised by this and similar stories, and to answer black church people's questions of justice and faith in response to the call of God.

I have been watching and listening to conversations about this issue, and it has taken me a while to organize my thoughts, but I think it’s time I weighed in, as a Southern White male. So here are a few thoughts: To those who point out that this was never officially the flag of the Confederacy, and rather was the battle flag of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, I say that this is a specious detail. There is no symbol more widely associated with the Confederacy than the rebel flag, and that is why South Carolina chose to fly it fifty years ago.