For Christ's Sake, Keep Going: Fifth and final in our fall series: "What Matters Most Now: Life, Love, and Liberty in these Uncertain Times"

Here’s the fifth and final sermon in my series, "For Christ's Sake, Keep Going." Fifth and final in our fall series: "What Matters Most Now: Life, Love, and Liberty in these Uncertain Times."

I’m not ignoring the crises crashing in upon us. They certainly threaten our wellbeing, personally and communally. At the same time, we’re being summoned by God to engage this urgent moral reckoning as a nation.

It often feels like an uphill battle, a long, long journey toward where we want to go. It's easy to lose hope, run out of steam, bury your head. Today's service will not only inspire you to keep going, but guide you toward inner resources to keep the fire burning.

The series focuses on the universal feelings and experiences that unite all human beings. Charlie MacKesy’s book, "The Boy, The Mole, the Fox, and the Horse," does this beautifully, especially the way he brings together the four characters (boy=curiosity, mole=enthusiasm, fox=suffering, horse=wisdom). We will pair five of Charlie’s best sayings and joins them to biblical wisdom says to help ground us in these uncertain times.

This sermon was based on Proverbs 13.12 and a saying from Charlie MacKesy’s book: “We have a long way to go,” sighed the boy. “Yes, but look how far we’ve come,” said the horse.

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Christianity is never escapist. Christ’s way in the world is a deep plunge into the fullness of life here and now. It’s a way of life that doesn’t deny or side-step the great challenges human beings have faced in the past or those we’re facing in these uncertain days. We walk this way for Christ’s sake—that is, we walk this way in order to bring about the kind of world God desires, where beauty and goodness and justice thrive and so does every thing on this vast and wonderful, yet troubled world. . .

Nourish Our Inner Lives: Second in the Series, "What Matters Most Now: Life, Love, Liberty in these Uncertain Days"

Here’s the second sermon in my fall sermon series: "What Matters Most Now: Life, Love, and Liberty in these Uncertain Times."

We’re facing a number of crises crashing in upon us. They threaten our wellbeing, personally and communally. We feel these threats in our bodies, minds, and souls. At the same time, we’re being summoned by God to engage this urgent moral reckoning as a nation.

The series aims to draw on ancient wisdom, freshly imagined, to help people recover habits and patterns for living in these times.

The series focuses on the universal feelings and experiences that unite all human beings. Charlie MacKesy’s book, "The Boy, The Mole, the Fox, and the Horse," does this beautifully, especially the way he brings together the four characters (boy=curiosity, mole=enthusiasm, fox=suffering, horse=wisdom). We will pair five of Charlie’s best sayings and joins them to biblical wisdom says to help ground us in these uncertain times.

This sermon was based on Proverbs 17.3 and a saying from Charlie MacKesy’s book, in which the boy says to the mole: “Isn’t it odd. We can only see our outsides, but nearly everything happens on the inside.”

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What are we going to do now?

Each week another worry. Each week another brick in the wall between Americans. Each week another weight drops on our shoulders.

We don’t all experience these crises the same way. There are those for whom the recent death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg isn’t a tragedy but an opportunity. There are those for whom the failure of the grand jury to indict Louisville cops in the death of Breonna Taylor isn’t a travesty of justice. There are those for whom the US Postal Service slowdowns, the voter suppression, and fact that America leads the world in COVID tragedies isn’t alarming. But for a majority of Americans today, all this is deeply troubling. It feels like our world is unraveling, our democracy is crumbling . . .

Adjust Your Routines: First in the Series, "What Matters Most Now: Life, Love, and Liberty in these Uncertain Days"

Here’s the first sermon in my fall sermon series: "What Matters Most Now: Life, Love, and Liberty in these Uncertain Times."

We’re facing a number of crises crashing in upon us. They threaten our wellbeing, personally and communally. We feel these threats in our bodies, minds, and souls. At the same time, we’re being summoned by God to engage this urgent moral reckoning as a nation.

The series aims to draw on ancient wisdom, freshly imagined, to help people recover habits and patterns for living in these times.

The series focuses on the universal feelings and experiences that unite all human beings. Charlie MacKesy’s book, "The Boy, The Mole, the Fox, and the Horse," does this beautifully, especially the way he brings together the four characters (boy=curiosity, mole=enthusiasm, fox=suffering, horse=wisdom). We will pair five of Charlie’s best sayings and joins them to biblical wisdom says to help ground us in these uncertain times.

This sermon was based on Proverbs 24.30-34 and a saying from Charlie MacKesy’s book, in which the mole says to the boy: “I wonder if there’s a school of unlearning” . . .

Is there a better way forward? A vision for human flourishing in apocalyptic times

What do we do now, when all things seem to be falling apart? What do we do when anger and suspicion, hostility and hatred tear at the fabric of our humanity? Are we doomed to this endless cycle of violence and corruption and environmental degradation? Are we powerless if we choose to walk a different path?

In this sermon, based on Saint Paul’s writings (Romans 13.8-13) and the vision of Teilard de Chardin, I explore the nature of love as more than a good feeling. From inside the mystic vision of the power of love we can find a new way forward into a new humanity and a more sustainable and benevolent presence on the Earth . . .

A new (visual) reading of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

From Maria Popova: “Two generations after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, composer Max Richter honors its legacy and reimagines its spirit for a world more diverse and equitable than even the document’s idealistic creators imagined. (I have noted elsewhere that even the farthest seers can’t bend their gaze beyond their era’s horizon of possibility; but the horizon shifts with each incremental revolution as the human mind peers outward to take in nature, then turns inward to question its own givens.) 

“In a stunning piece titled “All Human Beings,” part of his record Voices — a soulful sonic landscape of thought and feeling, powerfully transportive yet grounding, a decade in the making — Richter builds a sonic bower of piano, violin, soprano, and choir around a 1949 recording of Eleanor Roosevelt reading the UDHR. It begins with Roosevelt’s voice, then passes the generational and cultural baton to Kiki Layne, who continues reading in English before morphing into a crowdsourced choral reading in multiple languages by human beings all over the world.”