Some backstory: At the beginning of the financial crisis in 2007-08, the ministers of the Rocky Mountain Conference of the UCC gathered for their fall retreat. Conference leadership took an hour to alert us that at least two Conference staff were losing jobs because contributions from congregations (which fund the Conference) had been slashed. In …
The Denver Botanic Gardens does an art installation every year in late spring or early summer. One year it was Chapunga – the work of a number of Zimbabwean sculptors. Another year were the bronzes of Allan Houser. Henry Moore’s large and amazing pieces were featured in 2012. This year, the installation that is creating …
When I was visiting my father recently, we uncovered a box full of cards and letters I had exchanged with my mother in the two years after her cancer diagnosis and before her death. It was an unbelievable treasure trove that brought smiles and tears and a strange sense of awe in the re-reading. In …
As we have journeyed, we have been following a trail of petroglyphs across northern New Mexico, admiring the stunning quality of some, puzzling over others. We are fascinated by what wisdom they may have been communicating, what news they may have been sharing. We have pondered whether they are religious or spiritual illustrations (since there …
As we come to the end of one season (the spring quarter) and prepare to enter a new one, long practice invites us to release the old energy and acknowledge the lessons learned. It is an opportunity to empty ourselves in gratitude for all we have received, pouring back into the universe the blessings that …
This year, because independently cycling calendars do occasionally coincide, the Jewish and Christian faith communities have the relatively unusual synchronicity of Passover falling in the week before Easter (at the time it fell prior to Jesus’ actual death), and both the Eastern and the Western branches of the Christian Church celebrating Easter on the same …
Paying attention takes mental and psychological energy. It is much easier to make habitual choices. In fact, we humans are internally wired to put things in categories and to apply old lessons to new situations so that we don’t need to stop and think – which can be a dangerous activity when one is being …