Chats with Larry is a podcast of phone call conversations of Rabbi Brian with his best buddy, Larry Keene, a retired minister and sociology professor.

Serendipity is my favorite word and speaks volumes to me about life as I have come to understand it. Serendipity is defined as, “The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.”

The timeless and universal aspects of life are known as beauty, truth, and goodness. They are endowed properties of all beings, some more than others. In mortals, they are sprinkled in just enough quantity to preserve and leaven the whole, but not nearly enough to straighten the irregular timbers of humanity wholesale.

The inaugural poem of Amanda Gorman – at 22, the youngest inaugural poet laureate in U.S. history – lifted our spirits as it dazzled our imagination.  Indeed, as her lofty words filled the air at our nation’s capitol, hope was given a new face. 

The one thing I never imagined was that fascism could come to the United States. Unfortunately, the myth of American exceptionalism has been totally discredited. Fascism came close to coming to our shores during the last four years. Let’s hope that we as a society can take the steps necessary to see that such a threat never happens again.

In this new year – just when we thought things couldn’t get any worse — something dark and revelatory already happened on that day. Thousands of insurrectionists stormed the Capitol; wielding clubs, and bats, and – in one instance – a Bible.

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).  

The words of Amanda Gorman, Poet Laureate, from her moving poem during the inauguration of Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris as President and Vice-President of the United States of America.

We live in a rapidly evolving world. Even technologists have trouble keeping up with technology. Perceptions of God are virtually static— but divided — pro—con — agnostic —indifferent.

There is a unified field in the cosmos that holds everything together, and every discipline is a portal to it. Science calls it a field of fundamental forces and elementary particles. Religion calls it God and accepts it by faith as an impenetrable mystery.

If creation is in crisis, then our spirituality must directly engage this creation and articulate a spiritual framework that will allow us to relate to both the world and the crisis we face that is both life-giving and healthy.

What Jesus Means to Muslims, Faith Leaders Promote Vaccine Use and other articles from RNS in December 2020.

Even as young people eschew religion, some are forming unexpected bonds with sisters of faith through a shared commitment to social justice.

Out of the mouths of babes comes either curiosity and wonder or doubt and defiance. On either extreme the truth that emerges is always a question: “Why?”

A couple of hurdles to deriving the greatest possible meaning from the Bible are orthodox literalism (everything in the Bible must have happened just because it is in the Bible) and secular denial (since hardly anything in the Bible really happened, the book is of no value).

The Rev. Dr. Jeffrey E. Frantz was a minister in the United Church of Christ for more than forty years. In writing about God, the great mystery that challenges all persons of faith, in The God You Didn’t Know You Could Believe In, Frantz was speaking to his congregation. He knew just the right topics to cover and the right questions to answer for any layperson seeking to bring depth to his or her faith.

The awesome insight I wanted to share with you was “that the human brain has many times more connections than stars in our galaxy” [p126]. That’s an “aha” from the inside out, or rather, way, way beyond!

I have two points to make today. The first is very practical and the second is deeply philosophical.