• Availability for Ministry

    Availability for Ministry

    The exploration of my future has been my project after retiring from the First UU Society of Albany, New York in June. My wife Philomena and I had our celebration of retirement with a trip to see her brother in Ireland this past summer along with a week in Edinburgh and Inverness Scotland and a…

  • Three-Month Meditation Retreat at IMS, Barre, MA

    Three-Month Meditation Retreat at IMS, Barre, MA

    I’ll be at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA from September 12 to December 5 doing their yearly Three-month Meditation Retreat. If you really need to contact me for some very important reason, please contact my wife Philomena (on her cell phone). I hope to clear out my head, deepen my concentration and mindfulness…

  • Old Emails

    Old Emails

    I’ve collected a lot of files over the years, gigabytes of them. Over the years they have been backed up a number of times. Old of the collections that gets backed up a lot are emails. The email software I preferred was Eudora because it would open a window for each mailbox an email was…

  • Gone (poem)

    Gone (poem)

    I’ve been contemplating Shinzen Young’s method to court enlightenment by focusing on the passing away dimension of phenomena. We are usually focused on the arising of objects in consciousness as they easily capture our attention. Everything that arises in this world of impermanence eventually passes away. We tend to jump from one arising to the…

  • Lessons and Legacy

    Lessons and Legacy

    In the beginning of June before I retired, I read through my Annual Reports, starting back in 2000, all 24 of them.  I enjoyed this delightful trip down memory lane.  So many memorable events.  So many emotions remembering the people who have died or who are no longer part of the congregation, many of them…

  • Running for the UUA Board!

    Running for the UUA Board!

    I’m pleased to report that I have been nominated by the UUA Nominating Committee to run for the UUA Board. I hope you’ll consider voting for me. Here is a link to my campaign page!

  • Climate Change … and You … and Us

    Climate Change … and You … and Us

    Do you remember the movie An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore? It came out ten years ago. Do you remember how scary the predictions were? Things haven’t gotten better. I got my Science News Magazine last week and the lead article on this tenth anniversary was titled, “More Truths, Still Inconvenient.” None of the threats…

  • Liberation through Sacrifice

    Liberation through Sacrifice

    I wonder what really happened when Jesus entered Jerusalem. He can’t have had that many followers traveling with him from Galilee. He might have had some followers in Jerusalem but I’d expect their numbers to be small as he wasn’t a regular visitor or teacher there. For him to stage an impressive entrance into Jerusalem…

  • Reflections on Middle East: Not Making It Worse

    Reflections on Middle East: Not Making It Worse

    Recently I’ve been reading many expressions of fear and anxiety in the social media universe. I’ve read reports that Americans are more on edge than they have been since 9/11.  Although the media seems to have become desensitized to having a mass shooting at least once a day, the attack in San Bernardino has touched…