The news is bad here in Washington, DC — from the traumatizing executive order two days ago to the plane crash and pretty much everything in between. Like me, you might be feeling the sadness and stress of the day. And so, I’m sharing about my walk along the Potomac and a poem from this morning. I hope you’ll take a few minutes and listen.
Every story must have a beginning and an end. The better stories also have a cohering middle, theme, or context that holds their beginning and end together. The same holds true for a life story
Notes From The Study of The Progressive Professor
Human attitude toward land is two-sided. We always want more, that’s one side, but once we get it, we don’t take very good care of it. That’s the second. Beginning with the wanting more, the search for good land and what it can provide has always been a driving force in human history.
For African Americans, the disparities within the healthcare system contribute disproportionately to the high number of HIV/AIDS, directly affecting the quality of life and its spread.
For a Time of Rupture, Distress & Rising Fascism
There is a grief ritual that I can heartily recommend at this time of profound distress and dread and even doom. But also potential grace.
When JD Vance denounces childless cat ladies, he represents the heart of fundamentalism, all those white Christian nationalists who define a man by the size of his gun collection and a woman by the number of her offspring. Jesus is/would be horrified.
A decade of planning a coup has taught the greedy, super-rich, and powerful that the immigration card trumps everything. They’re coming for your job, taking aim at your family, your home, your religion, your country, and you need a strongman to protect you. Trump uses this fear all the time.
What if the shooter whose bullet grazed Donald Trump's ear had no motive but the urge to have fun?
This is where we are, and it makes me very, very angry. The Jesus fabricated by evangelical politicians and billionaires is everywhere, an “awesome god” who really, really loves America and free enterprise. But this is not the real Jesus.
How have we come to this? Is the American social conscience so malleable and impressionable that we so easily turn from believers in democracy to proponents of dictatorship?
Paul Levy is one of our greatest evolutionary mystics and someone whom I believe understands deeply and precisely our current extreme situation.
The wars in Ukraine and Gaza, along with the suffering of international immigrants, are reflecting a deadly clash of values within Christianity in the United States.
Baffled though we may be, we Americans want to believe that in drafting the Constitution, the “Founding Fathers” exhibited unparalleled wisdom in creating the bedrock of our society, our law, and our democracy.
In the academic comfort of a library study alcove, I look out over the central green at Dartmouth College, where one week ago storm, troopers in full riot gear armed with batons moved across this space in the eerie hours of post-dusk darkness, forcefully breaking up a small, peaceful gathering of students and faculty supporters and tearing down a six tent encampment prohibited by college rules.
Christian nationalism that had led to the first world war, was now leading to the second. Almost all of the 60 million Germans in 1933 were Christians. The country was suffering in the aftermath of WWI, and it was ready for a new “Leader” who would restore the economy and national pride.
When he preached, he spontaneously broke into rhyme. Not just with his own words, but with the souls of his congregation, with the hearts of the people in the community he served.
The fact is that civil-minded folk outnumber the forces on the other side. There are just more of us than there are of them. The problem is that we have not recognized the current existential threat. We slide along the path we are on, pretending as though next year will be the same as this year. It will not.
The Writing of the Christian Gospels
For Our Friends the Animals
Rediscovering The Authentic Paul
Toward a Post-Biblical Christian Future
Abundant Lives
Who Am I?
Mystic Bible
Study Guide
Awakened: 52-Week Devotional
Revitalizing Christianity
Saving God from Religion
Values, Truth & Spiritual Danger
Joyful Path
