Finding new words to express ancient wisdom is an essential part of progressive Christianity. Not only does such an effort put the fundamental ideas into modern language, but the very act of searching for the new words is part of coming to understand what you believe and how you want to share it with others.

“Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they do not belong to you.” (Khalil Gibran)

Autumn feels different depending on which cycle you respond to most strongly. Underneath, we are all still tied to the land, metaphorical farmers if not literal ones.

The struggle for justice is never-ending, and it belongs to all of us. Joining forces in a fight for justice is often the most reliable common ground we have with people of very different creeds and cultures.

Every time we lose someone we love, someone who inspired us and now has left us to carry on without them, someone whose presence was a part of our daily happiness, we must re-map our world.

Faith communities can be a “safe place for uncomfortable conversations.”

Guidance comes to us in so many ways. But in our modern world of scientific, left-brain analytic information, it takes a deliberate effort to rediscover the ancient ways of wisdom guidance.

It’s fair to say the world changed for most of us on September 11, 2001. So each year, as that date rolls around again, we are given an opportunity to remember and reflect and recommit ourselves to a world where the children of Abraham can live side by side in peace.

Many progressive Christian communities have stopped saying the traditional creeds together, because they no longer represent what the congregants believe to be true.

One common response to the question “What religion are you?” is to simply say: ”I don’t follow any religion. I’m a seeker.”

  Healing prayers and rituals are among the oldest traditions of humankind.  Even today, many congregations offer special healing services, often reclaiming the ancient practices of anointing and laying on of hands.  We are only beginning to …

  Saying grace before a meal offers us all a chance to pause for a moment of gratitude in our busy days.  Grace can be as simple as a silent blessing or as participative as going around …

In finding the version of the Lord’s Prayer that works for you or your church, there are many possibilities. You

Perhaps no prayer is more beloved of Christians everywhere than the Lord’s Prayer, sometimes called the Prayer of Jesus. While many of us still use the words as found in Matthew 6:9-13, it is an irresistible urge to recreate this most fundamental of prayers in modern language.

“In the beginning was the Word…” Words are both our means of communication and the source of most of our misunderstandings. Whether you are a rational scholar or a metaphorical poet, words are the common currency.

  Compassion is the cornerstone of every faith tradition.  The movement out of yourself, to the point of being concerned with the sufferings of another, is the beginning of the movement toward God.  As the Dalai Lama …

  We celebrate the Fourth of July and we say God Bless America and we struggle to guide our nation to act responsibly towards its citizens and towards the other nations of the world.   But remembering …

  “Every religion gives its prescription for bringing sacred into daily life. The Native Americans have as one of their most noble ideals that we learn to walk on the Earth in a sacred manner. Yet vast …

  We take time each year to honor and appreciate the fathers in our lives.  Just as we have expanded our metaphors for God beyond the traditional “God the Father” so we have broadened our understanding of …

  Midsummer… summer solstice… longest day of the year… our celebration of the earth, abundance and light at this time of year has ancient origins in many cultures’ spirituality.  We reaffirm our connection to the earth and …

Weddings have become in many cases amazingly elaborate productions.

“In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness.” Gandhi

In this season of graduations, we celebrate the learning that continues on past school…

  Once something we took for granted, created in our towns or schools or churches, community is becoming increasingly precious.  Social media give us new forms of community but without the in-person element.  My computer has yet …

If you ask your mother for one fried egg for breakfast and she
gives you two fried eggs and you eat both of them, who is
better at arithmetic, you or your mother?

“Diversity is inevitable. Pluralism is an achievement.” We sometimes use these words — diversity and pluralism — as if they meant the same thing.

How strange and wonderful is our home, our earth, with its swirling vaporous atmosphere, its flowing and frozen liquids, its trembling plants, its creeping, crawling, climbing creatures

There are places in the world that hold a special energy. You can feel it when you go there.

Some of the best advice I ever got from my spiritual director was to read Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi. “This will change how you think about Jesus,” she said.

You can’t get to Easter without going through Good Friday.

Poetry and religion seem to go together: two approaches to the challenge of trying to capture the ineffable in words.

New music telling the ancient story can bring that story alive in our own time.

We’ve heard the story of Holy Week so many times that we’ve come to think there couldn’t possibly be another way to tell it.

“Preaching, teaching and healing” is the usual description of Jesus’ ministry.

Whatever your own stance is on interpreting the Bible, there’s no denying its place as a foundational source of literary references in our culture.

“God is a verb” — one of those phrases that occurs independently to different people and then keeps showing up.