A Forested Piece of Mike’s Mind…By request, my column this month is portions of the TREES sermon from August 1st.Elif Shafak, the brilliant Turkish/British author, in a perspective-taking experiment wrote: Humans do not see trees. They walk by us every day. They sit and sleep, smoke and picnic and secretly kiss in our shade. They pluck […]
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A Maladjusted Piece of Mike’s Mind…My column this month is the conclusion of the sermon from June 18th.Krishnamurti famously said, “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” Which is another way of saying that being maladjusted is about the sanest, most spiritually mature thing we could do.I […]
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MercyOur Whole Souul Living Theme for July is Mercy, surely a precious and scarce commodity in 2021. For years, maybe since the beginning, politics and the news is dominated by quick judgement, false certainty, and the drumbeat of fearing strangers. Still, wisdom from the ages is clear; “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be […]
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LiberationLiberation is our Whole Souul Living Theme for June. Broadly speaking, Liberation can be political, physical, emotional, spiritual, or all of the above. Typically, liberation assumes a current or previous condition of being bounded or restricted, and things get interesting when we consider that it is possible to be unaware of our own bondage. Consider […]
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An Annual Piece of Mike’s Mind…We’ve made history this past year. For the first time since First Unitarian Denver has had a building, over a year has passed without a single public gathering in our space. I suppose this is also true for many other organizations, but I’m fond of this one. That doesn’t mean […]
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A Discerning Piece of Mike’s Mind…By request, my column this month is a portion of my sermon from April 18th:…Jem Bendell advocates for what he calls Deep Adaptation, capital “A”, and he lays out four principles as a framework that everyone can begin talking about, developing, and doing right now. The four principles are resilience, […]
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VocationVocation comes from from the Christian tradition and refers to an internal calling or summons to do holy work. A traditional and corollary assumption is that neary everybody has vocation whether they know it or not. Philosopher Sam Keen wrote: A society in which vocation and job are separated for most people gradually creates an […]
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CompassionLove has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Love and compassion for the world is to look out; yours are the feet with which Love is to go about doing good; and yours are the hands with which Love is to […]
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A Frustrated Piece of Mike’s Mind…By request, here are the words spoken during the pastoral prayer on Sunday, March 28th, in response to the shooting in Boulder…:Very aware that I have family members and a few friends who will passionately disagree, I don’t care. I don’t care if extensive mandatory background checks, mandatory wait times, […]
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A Reminiscent Piece of Mike’s Mind… Last month, February 22nd to be exact, was the 23rd anniversary of my ordination into the Unitarian Universalist ministry, a day for which I had spent the previous four years preparing. From deciding I wanted to be a minister, to applying to seminary, to graduating, psychiatric evaluations, chaplaincy training, an […]
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