Archive for December, 2008
Monday, December 29th, 2008
Bombing Gaza: what does this heal?
The latest events from the Middle East are heartbreaking.
That hundreds of people have died in Gaza as a result of the bombing from the Israeli government is one more dark reminder of the aphorism “non-violence doesn’t always work–but violence never does.” Do the Israeli powers that be really believe they can create security with massive […]
Comments Off - Posted in From Belief Systems To Relief Systems by Robert "Voluptuous" Thompson
Wednesday, December 24th, 2008
Happy Holy Day
Last year I published a post here titled, “It’s Tough Being A Jew At Christmas”. It was inspired by two of my daughters complaining to me about this fact. I guess this year things may have changed since I have yet to hear from them, but then again, it is not quite Christmas yet….
Sundown on Sunday […]
Comments Off - Posted in All of Our Voices (Posts from Contributors) by Rev. Teri Sandler
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008
Christ Climbed Down
50 years ago the Beat Generation poet, Lawrence Ferlinghetti wrote this poem, Christ Climbed Down.
A protest against the creeping materialism of the 1950’s, this poem is astonishingly relevant for Christmas, 2008.
CHRIST climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no rootless Christmas trees
hung with candycanes and breakable stars
Christ climbed down
from His bare […]
Comments Off - Posted in Dark Night of the Soul by Robert "Voluptuous" Thompson
Monday, December 15th, 2008
Propositions
Thirty years ago this past October I ventured over to San Francisco from my Jesuit community in West Oakland to pose as a liberal supporter of the beleaguered gay community as they were fighting the nefarious Proposition 6, which, if passed, would have required all gay persons be dismissed from their jobs teaching in California […]
2 Comments » - Posted in Dark Night of the Soul by Bill Glenn
Thursday, December 11th, 2008
Expensive Walls
The mind searches for superlatives when one stands on China’s Great Wall. Some of its sections were constructed two millennia ago. The wall we know today–all 4,000 miles of it–was completed before the colonists came to America. More than 3 million prisoners and peasants built it, and a million died doing so. The bricks reportedly […]
Comments Off - Posted in From Belief Systems To Relief Systems by James Huffman
Sunday, December 7th, 2008
Ah-h-h!
Chris and I attended a Eucharist in Bisbee, AZ where he lives. It was held at St. John’s Episcopal Church and it was one of those occasions when the liturgy actually was a gathering of the people of God to give thanks to God. Sometimes we forget that the word eucharist means thanksgiving, and we […]
Comments Off - Posted in From Belief Systems To Relief Systems by Patricia Moore
Friday, December 5th, 2008
Some Fallout After The Fall
As noted in a previous post, I fell down about half a flight of stairs in my townhouse last July. The immediate consequence was a concussion and fractured collarbone. I am mostly healed from the physical effects of the fall but there appear to be some long term and possibly permanent changes in my life […]
Comments Off - Posted in All of Our Voices (Posts from Contributors) by Rev. Teri Sandler
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008
Turning the poison of religion into medicine
Like many Protestant churches, The Lake Street Church of Evanston celebrates the first Sunday in October as World Communion Sunday. For more than a decade, we have celebrated this Sunday with an interfaith service comprised of eight different religious traditions. We gather with Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Indigenous, Jews and Muslims to celebrate not only […]