Elwyn Brooks White, better known as E. B. White, may be best known as the author of Charlotte’sWeb and Stuart Little, or, by people of a certain age, the co-author of a little volume often called Strunk & White or, more accurately The Elements of Style. (Some people shudder at the memory of it; others delight in its clarity and decisiveness. Most are […]
It was 7:00 am on August 7th, 44 year’s ago. A young man, one week shy of his 25th birthday, stood with one foot on the edge of a building, and the other foot on a steel cable ¾ of an inch in diameter. The man was French wire walker Philippe Petit; the building was the south […]
Opening Words: As a people—a people of faith—that say we are committed to justice, compassion, and equity. As a faith that says we are committed to the inherent worth and dignity of all people. As a faith that says we are committed to respect for the interdependent web of all life—we have a critical role […]
Opening Words: It is common in a great many Unitarian Universalist congregations for the settled preacher to offer what’s often called a “Question Box Sermon” – congregants write questions on index cards, which are then collected and which the preacher does her best to answer. I first encountered this practice in our congregation in Yarmouth, […]
In the late 80s, early 90s, Sam, Diane, and, of course, Norm, were household names. They were part of the TV “family” that gathered in a fictional Boston bar, and whose various ups and downs and absurdities formed the content of each episode. The heart of the show, though, was the idea of a place, “where everybody […]
Opening Words: The German wildlife photographer Norbert Rosing has a particular affinity for polar bears. His work has been featured in National Geographic, and in 2006 he published, The World of the Polar Bear, which follows a family of bears over the course of a year in words and pictures. You may have heard the story I’m about to […]
Opening Words: The abbot of a provincial monastery was in something of a tizzy, because the abbot of his school’s main temple was coming for a visit, and he wanted everything to be just perfect. He had set his students to polishing every bit of wood, and brass, and gold, and to seek out every single […]
Once there was a man, walking along in the countryside, when he chanced upon a woman hard at work doing something which seemed kind of strange. By the time the man got there, she had already stretched out two long ropes in parallel, staking the ends on either side. Now she was in the process of laying […]
I want to tell you something absolutely amazing this morning. Or, to be more precise, I want to tell you aboutsomething absolutely amazing. You might think that I’m going to tell you about the youth who will be bridging in a moment – and you’re right, I could, they are amazing, and the journey that has brought them to this […]
In April of 1865, at the end of the Civil War, Union troops entered the city of Charleston, S.C. A great many of the white residents of Charleston had left the city in advance of the soldiers, but the Black citizens remained, welcoming the troops to the city where it had all begun four years earlier. Among […]
