Over the course of my life I have been deemed a Methodist, a Buddhist, a Capitalist, a Socialist, a revisionist, a columnist, an antagonist, a racist, an economist, an ecologist, a sexist, an egotist, a pragmatist, and a moralist. (I have thankfully avoided fascist, misogynist, elitist, and communist.) My economic views on […]
The first Thursday of every month, at 7:00 AM (that’s in the morning, just to be clear) I host a Banned Book Club on Zoom for People’s United Methodist Church. We read books that have been banned for a wide variety of reasons, exploring the what and why of their censorship, […]
Barbara and I launched a new podcast this week – People’s Peace Talks – a resource for peacemaking, peacebuilding, and peacekeeping. This aligns with People’s United Methodist Church’s 2024 Theme, “Blessed Are the Peacemakers.” This is the church I am currently serving. In addition, I will be picking up blogging again as I […]
Quick show of hands. How many of you think the Christian church in the United States has lost credibility with a growing segment of our population? It is a rhetorical question. You would have to be blind, deaf, and oblivious not to notice that institutional religious orders have been in […]
Gun defenders who believe that it is a human right to have access to any and all weapons of destruction and devastation with no accountability are the problem, and there are a lot of them. How many gun deaths are we going to be witness to before we realize that […]
Shame – the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, ridiculous, etc., done by oneself or another. (dictionary.com). Us – we, the collective, those we include and accept, the opposite of them. (My own definitions) Racism is the most repressed and suppressed reality we have ever consistently […]
At the risk of being labeled “unAmerican” and “unpatriotic” I need to rant against the persistent, poisonous, and paternalistic messages – both explicit and subliminal – about US exceptionalism. Let me state up front: I am glad to be an American but wish I could be prouder in this age […]
What constitutes a lie? Okay, so it is not telling the truth. But how do we understand truth? Can something be true for you but not for me? Is there an absolute truth? (Go ahead, read millions of pages of philosophy from the past three millennia for the answer. I’ll […]
Terry Pratchett, in his holiday classic Hogfather, states, “Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.” We are living in a day where we encounter jaw-dropping incidents of apparent stupidity, misunderstanding, idiocy, and absurdity from people in incredible positions of power and influence. It is all too easy to dismiss these […]
Most of you know I am a word nerd, and I absolutely love tripping over an unknown word that absolutely nails a current condition. I have heard the word felicitous for years, but never was sure that I knew its real meaning. It means “well-suited for the occasion, as an […]
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